e scraggy little bipeds of the city push
variety, so they were suppressed.

"Well," yawned the joker, "I'm not going to roost on a stump all night.
I'm going to turn in."

"It'll be eighteenpence each," hinted the landlord. "You can settle now
if you like to save time."

We took the hint, and had another drink. I don't know how we "fixed it
up amongst ourselves," but we got settled down somehow. There was a lot
of mysterious whispering and scuffling round by the light of a couple of
dirty greasy bits of candle. Fortunately we dared not speak loud enough
to have a row, though most of us were by this time in the humour to pick
a quarrel with a long-lost brother.

The Joker got the best bed, as good-humoured, good-natured chaps
generally do, without seeming to try for it. The growler of the party
got the floor and chaff bags, as selfish men mostly do--without seeming
to try for it either. I took it out of one of the "sofas", or rather
that sofa took it out of me. It was short and narrow and down by the
head, with a leaning to one corner on the outside, and had more nails
and bits of gin-case than original sofa in it.

I had been asleep for three seconds, it seemed, when somebody shook me
by the shoulder and said:

"Take yer seats."

When I got out, the driver was on the box, and the others were getting
rum and milk inside themselves (and in bottles) before taking their
seats.

It was colder and darker than before, and the South Pole seemed nearer,
and pretty soon, but for the rum, we should have been in a worse fix
than before.

There was a spell of grumbling. Presently someone said:

"I don't believe them horses was lost at all. I was round behind the
stable before I went to bed, and seen horses there; and if they wasn't
them same horses there, I'll eat 'em raw!"

"Would yer?" said the driver, in a disinterested tone.

"I would," said the passenger. Then, with a sudden ferocity, "and you
too!"

The driver said nothing. It was an abstract question which didn't
interest him.

We saw that we were on delicate ground, and changed the subject for a
while. Then someone else said:

"I wonder where his missus was? I didn't see any signs of her about, or
any other woman about the place, and we was pretty well all over it."

"Must have kept her in the stable," suggested the Joker.

"No, she wasn't, for Scotty and that chap on the roof was there after
bags."

"She might have been in the loft," reflected the J