ur error, on
the morning of your departure. You left strict orders, overnight, to be
called at half-past four, and you have done nothing all night but doze
for five minutes at a time, and start up suddenly from a terrific dream
of a large church-clock with the small hand running round, with
astonishing rapidity, to every figure on the dial-plate. At last,
completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a refreshing sleep--your
thoughts grow confused--the stage-coaches, which have been 'going off'
before your eyes all night, become less and less distinct, until they go
off altogether; one moment you are driving with all the skill and
smartness of an experienced whip--the next you are exhibiting _a la_
Ducrow, on the off-leader; anon you are closely muffled up, inside, and
have just recognised in the person of the guard an old schoolfellow,
whose funeral, even in your dream, you remember to have attended eighteen
years ago. At last you fall into a state of complete oblivion, from
which you are aroused, as if into a new state of existence, by a singular
illusion. You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, or why, or when, or
wherefore, you don't take the trouble to inquire; but there you are,
pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other
apprentice in the back shop, how he is hammering!--rap, rap, rap--what an
industrious fellow he must be! you have heard him at work for half an
hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time. Rap,
rap, rap, again--he's talking now--what's that he said? Five o'clock!
You make a violent exertion, and start up in bed. The vision is at once
dispelled; the trunk-maker's shop is your own bedroom, and the other
apprentice your shivering servant, who has been vainly endeavouring to
wake you for the last quarter of an hour, at the imminent risk of
breaking either his own knuckles or the panels of the door.

You proceed to dress yourself, with all possible dispatch. The flaring
flat candle with the long snuff, gives light enough to show that the
things you want, are not where they ought to be, and you undergo a
trifling delay in consequence of having carefully packed up one of your
boots in your over-anxiety of the preceding night. You soon complete
your toilet, however, for you are not particular on such an occasion, and
you shaved yesterday evening; so mounting your Petersham great-coat, and
green travelling shawl, and grasping your carpet-bag in your