de;--'werry much obliged to you indeed, sir.' Here the young
men in the omnibus laugh very heartily, and the old gentleman gets very
red in the face, and seems highly exasperated.

The stout gentleman in the white neckcloth, at the other end of the
vehicle, looks very prophetic, and says that something must shortly be
done with these fellows, or there's no saying where all this will end;
and the shabby-genteel man with the green bag, expresses his entire
concurrence in the opinion, as he has done regularly every morning for
the last six months.

A second omnibus now comes up, and stops immediately behind us. Another
old gentleman elevates his cane in the air, and runs with all his might
towards our omnibus; we watch his progress with great interest; the door
is opened to receive him, he suddenly disappears--he has been spirited
away by the opposition. Hereupon the driver of the opposition taunts our
people with his having 'regularly done 'em out of that old swell,' and
the voice of the 'old swell' is heard, vainly protesting against this
unlawful detention. We rattle off, the other omnibus rattles after us,
and every time we stop to take up a passenger, they stop to take him too;
sometimes we get him; sometimes they get him; but whoever don't get him,
say they ought to have had him, and the cads of the respective vehicles
abuse one another accordingly.

As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln's-inn-fields, Bedford-row, and
other legal haunts, we drop a great many of our original passengers, and
take up fresh ones, who meet with a very sulky reception. It is rather
remarkable, that the people already in an omnibus, always look at
newcomers, as if they entertained some undefined idea that they have no
business to come in at all. We are quite persuaded the little old man
has some notion of this kind, and that he considers their entry as a sort
of negative impertinence.

Conversation is now entirely dropped; each person gazes vacantly through
the window in front of him, and everybody thinks that his opposite
neighbour is staring at him. If one man gets out at Shoe-lane, and
another at the corner of Farringdon-street, the little old gentleman
grumbles, and suggests to the latter, that if he had got out at Shoe-lane
too, he would have saved them the delay of another stoppage; whereupon
the young men laugh again, and the old gentleman looks very solemn, and
says nothing more till he gets to the Bank, when he trots of