the postilion started the horses forward, and the
ponderous vehicle began to move down the archway, the clattering of the
horses' hoofs and the lumbering noise of the wheels sounding very loud
in consequence of the echoes and reverberations produced by the sides
and vaulting of the archway. As soon as the diligence reached the street
the postilion began to crack his whip to the right and left in the most
loud and vehement manner, and the coach went thundering on through the
narrow streets of the town, driving every thing from before it as if it
were a railway train going express.

[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE AT THE OFFICE.]

"Uncle George," exclaimed Rollo, "they have forgotten the conductor!"

Rollo was, in fact, quite concerned for a few minutes lest the conductor
should have been left behind. He knew where this official's proper seat
was; namely, at the left end of the banquette--that is, at the right
hand, as seen in the engraving; and as he was not there, and as he knew
that all the other seats were full, he presumed, of course, that he had
been left behind. He was relieved of these fears, however, very soon;
for, to his great astonishment, he suddenly perceived the head of the
conductor coming up the side of the coach, followed gradually by the
rest of his body as he climbed up to his place. Rollo wondered how he
could manage to get on and climb up, especially as the coach was at this
time thundering along a descending portion of the street with a speed
and uproar that was terrific.

Rollo, though at first very much astonished at this performance of the
conductor, afterwards ceased to wonder at it; for he found that the
conductor could ascend and descend to and from his seat at any time
without any difficulty, even while the horses were going at the top of
their speed. If the snapper of the coachman's whip got caught in the
harness so that he could not liberate it, as it often did on the road,
the conductor would climb down, run forward to the horses, set the
snapper free, fall back to the coach, catch hold of the side and climb
up, the coachman cracking his whip as soon as it was freed, and urging
on his horses to a gallop, without troubling himself at all to consider
how the conductor was to get up again.

But to return to the story. When Rollo found that the conductor was safe
he amused himself by looking to the right and left into the windows of
the houses at the second story. His seat was so high that he