the tender opened, and some one hurried off to where a couple of lights were shining; and I could hear horses stamping; and then—it all didn’t take a minute—there was the trampling of hoofs and the rolling of wheels, and the man who stopped me from getting down was gone.

“Get up,” I says to Ben, as we run into the station; “it warn’t a ghost:” but Ben seemed anything but sure on that point. While, as we finished our journey that night, I put that and that together, and made out as this chap, who must have been a plucky fellow, got from the next carriage on to the tender while we were crawling through the fog just outside London; and all to prevent stopping at Richford, where, no doubt, somebody had telegraphed for him to be taken; while, though the message would perhaps be repeated to Moreton, it was not sure to be so, and his dodge of stopping short where a conveyance was in waiting made that all right.

I drove the up-mail next day to town; but that was my last on the Great Central, for, when summoned before the Board, it was pay off, and go; and that, too, without a character.

Chapter Eight.

Preparing for Christmas.

“You want to go to sleep? Well you shall directly, but I want to say just a word about next week and Christmas-Day.”

“Well say away,” I said very drowsily.

“Well, dear,” said Mrs Scribe, “You see mamma’s coming.”

“Sorry to hear it,” I said in an undertone.

“For shame,” said Mrs S. “How can you talk in that way, when you know what interest she takes in you, and how she praises all you write. No, now, it isn’t gammon, as you so politely call it. Well, and if she did say you always introduced ‘the wife,’ or ‘the missus,’ so often, what then? You would not have her flatter you, and say what she didn’t mean, would you now, dear?”

I couldn’t help it, for the wind was easterly and I was very tired, so I only said, “Bother!” But there, I dare not commit to paper all that was said to me upon the subject. A word or two will suffice upon a matter familiar to every Benedict.

“Ah, sir,” said Mrs S, “you did not say ‘bother’ after that walk when we gathered cowslips, and I gave you leave to speak to mamma. What did you say then?”

“Too long ago to recollect,” I said.

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