ABSTRACT
“Nothing could have been more pleasant or more fortunate!” exclaimed a wiry-haired, green-spectacled man, with a snub nose, and very dilapidated teeth, as he labored to make himself thoroughly comfortable in one of the first-class carriages on the Great Western Railway; and who, while speaking, tucked in the rug which he had spread over his knees with a minute and jealous care, that proved his perfect appreciation of his own personal value. “To think that you should have chosen this very day, and this very train; you, who so seldom venture beyond the Bills of Mortality. And here we are too, likely to have the carriage to ourselves; for we shall start within two minutes, and the rush seems pretty nearly over.”
