“A very simple one, Sir,” returned the other.
[Pg 143]
 “The facts are briefly these: my maternal uncle had lately returned from India with an immense fortune, a handsome portion of which was my own in expectance, on no worse authority than his own promise. He was a widower with an only daughter, with whom, and himself, I one evening found myself in the carriage, on our way to a dinner-party given by a nobleman, then intimately connected with East Indian affairs. We were very late: and my uncle, the Nabob, who rode backward, was extremely fidgety, insisting that we were going beyond our destination. Every other minute he was thrusting his head out of the front window to dispute with the coachman, who in truth, was a little less sober, and more obstinate, than became him. And so we went onwards, till my uncle’s temper, always irritable, was worked up almost to combustion. In such moods he was rather apt to give vent to serio-comic ebullitions; and my ill-fortune has gifted me with risible muscles of exquisite sensibility. I was in the very midst of an ill-smothered laugh, when my fair cousin, giving me a sudden push, and then clasping her hands, exclaimed that we were going past the house. I instantly jumped up and made for the check-string, but with no more effect than if I had pulled at anything else. Gracious Heaven! I had better have pulled the string of a shower-bath, full of scalding hot water, to pour itself on my devoted head!—By that one infernal pull, Sir, I pulled myself out of half a plum!”
“A sad pull, indeed, Sir!” said the florid plump man in black. “But—humph—begging your pardon, Sir, I cannot really derive any such deduction from the premises.”
 
“A SPLIT WITH DUCROW.”
“A moment’s patience, Sir,” continued the unfortunate coach-stopper.
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