ho had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the
way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like
a boa-constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time;
after which, he actually brought a rash out upon himself with boiled
beef.

We had started from Yarmouth at three o'clock in the afternoon, and we
were due in London about eight next morning. It was Mid-summer weather,
and the evening was very pleasant. When we passed through a village, I
pictured to myself what the insides of the houses were like, and what
the inhabitants were about; and when boys came running after us, and
got up behind and swung there for a little way, I wondered whether their
fathers were alive, and whether they Were happy at home. I had plenty to
think of, therefore, besides my mind running continually on the kind
of place I was going to--which was an awful speculation. Sometimes, I
remember, I resigned myself to thoughts of home and Peggotty; and to
endeavouring, in a confused blind way, to recall how I had felt, and
what sort of boy I used to be, before I bit Mr. Murdstone: which I
couldn't satisfy myself about by any means, I seemed to have bitten him
in such a remote antiquity.

The night was not so pleasant as the evening, for it got chilly; and
being put between two gentlemen (the rough-faced one and another) to
prevent my tumbling off the coach, I was nearly smothered by their
falling asleep, and completely blocking me up. They squeezed me so hard
sometimes, that I could not help crying out, 'Oh! If you please!'--which
they didn't like at all, because it woke them. Opposite me was an
elderly lady in a great fur cloak, who looked in the dark more like a
haystack than a lady, she was wrapped up to such a degree. This lady had
a basket with her, and she hadn't known what to do with it, for a long
time, until she found that on account of my legs being short, it could
go underneath me. It cramped and hurt me so, that it made me perfectly
miserable; but if I moved in the least, and made a glass that was in the
basket rattle against something else (as it was sure to do), she gave
me the cruellest poke with her foot, and said, 'Come, don't YOU fidget.
YOUR bones are young enough, I'm sure!'

At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier.
The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had
found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be
conc