baste about
the place like the lahst coachman. O Misther Payterson, it would make
yer heart bleed to see the way the spalpeen cut up a-Saturday! But
Misther Todd discharged 'im the same avenin', widout a characther, bad
'cess to 'im, an' we 've had no coachman sence at all, at all. An' it 's
sorry I am"----

The lady's flow of eloquence was interrupted at this point by the
appearance of Mr. Todd himself, who had been informed of the men's
arrival. He asked some questions in regard to Wellington's
qualifications and former experience, and in view of his recent arrival
in the city was willing to accept Mr. Peterson's recommendation instead
of a reference. He said a few words about the nature of the work, and
stated his willingness to pay Wellington the wages formerly allowed Mr.
Peterson, thirty dollars a month and board and lodging.

This handsome offer was eagerly accepted, and it was agreed that
Wellington's term of service should begin immediately. Mr. Peterson,
being familiar with the work, and financially interested, conducted the
new coachman through the stables and showed him what he would have to
do. The silver-mounted harness, the variety of carriages, the names of
which he learned for the first time, the arrangements for feeding and
watering the horses,--these appointments of a rich man's stable
impressed Wellington very much, and he wondered that so much luxury
should be wasted on mere horses. The room assigned to him, in the second
story of the barn, was a finer apartment than he had ever slept in; and
the salary attached to the situation was greater than the combined
monthly earnings of himself and aunt Milly in their Southern home.
Surely, he thought, his lines had fallen in pleasant places.

Under the stimulus of new surroundings Wellington applied himself
diligently to work, and, with the occasional advice of Mr. Peterson,
soon mastered the details of his employment. He found the female
servants, with whom he took his meals, very amiable ladies. The cook,
Mrs. Katie Flannigan, was a widow. Her husband, a sailor, had been lost
at sea. She was a woman of many words, and when she was not lamenting
the late Flannigan's loss,--according to her story he had been a model
of all the virtues,--she would turn the batteries of her tongue against
the former coachman. This gentleman, as Wellington gathered from
frequent remarks dropped by Mrs. Flannigan, had paid her attentions
clearly susceptible of a serious cons