he asked no questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good enough for Mr Chandler; but the cart had scarcely begun to move forward ere he found himself involved in a one-sided conversation.
‘I can see,’ began Mr Finsbury, ‘by the mixture of parcels and boxes that are contained in your cart, each marked with its individual label, and by the good Flemish mare you drive, that you occupy the post of carrier in that great English system of transport which, with all its defects, is the pride of our country.’
‘Yes, sir,’ returned Mr Chandler vaguely, for he hardly knew what to reply; ‘them parcels posts has done us carriers a world of harm.’
‘I am not a prejudiced man,’ continued Joseph Finsbury. ‘As a young man I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the book of the piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal airs by picking them out on the piano with one finger.’
‘You must have seen a deal, sir,’ remarked the carrier, touching up his horse; ‘I wish I could have had your advantages.’
‘Do you know how often the word whip occurs in the Old Testament?’ continued the old gentleman. ‘One hundred and (if I remember exactly) forty-seven times.’
‘Do it indeed, sir?’ said Mr Chandler. ‘I never should have thought it.’
‘The Bible contains three million five hundred and one thousand two hundred and forty-nine letters. Of verses I believe there are upward of eighteen thousand. There have been many editions of the Bible; Wycliff was the first to introduce it into England about the year 1300. The “Paragraph Bible”, as it is called, is a well-known edition, and is so called because it is divided into paragraphs. The “Breeches Bible” is another well-known instance, and gets its name either because it was printed by one Breeches, or because the place of publication bore that name.’
The carrier remarked drily that he thought that was only natural, and
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