ntic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the
accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a
pupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in
his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty, (though, observe, not his
discernment,) that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excuse
his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. _That_
made him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was, (surely
it could not be envy?) he always courted my conversation, in which art I
certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at our
meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended
northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he
volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at
Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station,
for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant
readiness for the calls of his lawsuit.

Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely, we've been waiting long enough.
Oh, this procrastinating mail, and oh this procrastinating post-office!
Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from _me_? Some people have
called _me_ procrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was in
time for _them_. But can _they_ lay their hands on their hearts, and say
that they were in time for me? I, during my life, have often had to wait
for the post-office; the post-office never waited a minute for me. What are
they about? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of
foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by the
packet service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. For an _extra_ hour,
it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure
wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all
baser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going at this moment. But
at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard. Manchester, good bye;
we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office; which,
however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of
complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly is
an advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst the
next eight or nine. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour; and at
first I detect no changes in the energy or in t