e legend, "I. Chandler,
carrier." In the infamously prosaic mind of Mr. Finsbury, certain
streaks of poetry survived and were still efficient; they had carried
him to Asia Minor as a giddy youth of forty, and now, in the first hours
of his recovered freedom, they suggested to him the idea of continuing
his flight in Mr. Chandler's cart. It would be cheap; properly broached,
it might even cost nothing, and, after years of mittens and hygienic
flannel, his heart leaped out to meet the notion of exposure.

Mr. Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so old a gentleman, so
strangely clothed, and begging for a lift on so retired a roadside. But
he was a good-natured man, glad to do a service, and so he took the
stranger up; and he had his own idea of civility, and so he asked no
questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good enough for Mr. Chandler; but
the cart had scarcely begun to move forward ere he found himself
involved in a one-sided conversation.

"I can see," began Mr. Finsbury, "by the mixture of parcels and boxes
that are contained in your cart, each marked with its individual label,
and by the good Flemish mare you drive, that you occupy the post of
carrier in that great English system of transport which, with all its
defects, is the pride of our country."

"Yes, sir," returned Mr. Chandler vaguely, for he hardly knew what to
reply; "them parcels posts has done us carriers a world of harm."

"I am not a prejudiced man," continued Joseph Finsbury. "As a young man
I travelled much. Nothing was too small or too obscure for me to
acquire. At sea I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots
employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. At Naples, I
would learn the art of making macaroni; at Nice, the principles of
making candied fruit. I never went to the opera without first buying the
book of the piece, and making myself acquainted with the principal airs
by picking them out on the piano with one finger."

"You must have seen a deal, sir," remarked the carrier, touching up his
horse; "I wish I could have had your advantages."

"Do you know how often the word whip occurs in the Old Testament?"
continued the old gentleman. "One hundred and (if I remember exactly)
forty-seven times."

"Do it indeed, sir?" said Mr. Chandler. "I never should have thought
it."

"The Bible contains three million five hundred and one thousand two
hundred and forty-nine letters. Of verses I believe there are upwar