go with
them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to
what is to be done--which, however, is to the last degree improbable--the
majority of votes shall carry it'--an arrangement which only delays the
inevitable event--

'Three little nigger boys went the world to view,
The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.'

They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the
Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that
moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern
version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D.
push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D.
has purveyed poisoned wine.

The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try
him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from
home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then,
if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days
in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still
keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him
anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success.
In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest
friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much
respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been
intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is
to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with
nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us
walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And
he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest,
but insists upon walking _there_--perhaps along a dusty road, or over
turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation--say a mile out and
a mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a
speed which precludes conversation. This class of travelling companion
is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant.
My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out
marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the
community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his
pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with
us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had
hea