half an hour.

"And where do you think she IS going? to Paris to be sure: she has her
seat in what they call the coopy (though you're not near so cooped in it
as in our coaches. I've been to the office and seen one of 'em). She
has her place in the coopy, and the coopy holds THREE; so what does Sam
Pogson do?--he goes and takes the other two. Ain't I up to a thing or
two? Oh, no, not the least; but I shall have her to myself the whole of
the way.

"We shall be in the French metropolis the day after this reaches you:
please look out for a handsome lodging for me, and never mind the
expense. And I say, if you could, in her hearing, when you came down
to the coach, call me Captain Pogson, I wish you would--it sounds well
travelling, you know; and when she asked me if I was not an officer, I
couldn't say no. Adieu, then, my dear fellow, till Monday, and vive le
joy, as they say. The Baroness says I speak French charmingly, she talks
English as well as you or I.

"Your affectionate friend,

"S. Pogson."

This letter reached us duly, in our garrets, and we engaged such an
apartment for Mr. Pogson, as beseemed a gentleman of his rank in the
world and the army. At the appointed hour, too, we repaired to the
Diligence office, and there beheld the arrival of the machine which
contained him and his lovely Baroness.

Those who have much frequented the society of gentlemen of his
profession (and what more delightful?) must be aware, that, when all the
rest of mankind look hideous, dirty, peevish, wretched, after a forty
hours' coach-journey, a bagman appears as gay and spruce as when he
started; having within himself a thousand little conveniences for the
voyage, which common travellers neglect. Pogson had a little portable
toilet, of which he had not failed to take advantage, and with his long,
curling, flaxen hair, flowing under a seal-skin cap, with a gold tassel,
with a blue and gold satin handkerchief, a crimson velvet waistcoat,
a light green cut-away coat, a pair of barred brickdust-colored
pantaloons, and a neat mackintosh, presented, altogether, as elegant and
distingue an appearance as any one could desire. He had put on a clean
collar at breakfast, and a pair of white kids as he entered the barrier,
and looked, as he rushed into my arms, more like a man stepping out of a
band-box, than one descending from a vehicle that has just performed one
of the laziest, dullest, flattest, stalest, dirtiest journeys in Europ