here they could go and sit down and rest. I expect all the chair men
that work by the hour manage to get to this place with a view as soon
as they can.

After they had had a good rest we started off to go home by a different
route. Jone's man was a good strong fellow and always took the lead,
but my puller was a different kind of a steed, and sometimes I was left
pretty far behind. I had not paid much attention to the man at first,
only noticing that he was mighty slow; but going back a good deal of
the way was uphill, and then all his imperfections came out plain, and
I couldn't help studying him. If he had been a horse I should have said
he was spavined and foundered, with split frogs and tonsilitis; but as
he was a man, it struck me that he must have had several different
kinds of rheumatism and been sent to Buxton to have them cured, but not
taking the baths properly, or drinking the water at times when he ought
not to have done it, his rheumatisms had all run together and had
become fixed and immovable. How such a creaky person came to be a
bath-chair man I could not think, but it may be that he wanted to stay
in Buxton for the sake of the loose gas which could be had for nothing,
and that bath-chairing was all he could get to do.

I pitied the poor old fellow, who, if he had been a horse, would have
been no more than fourteen hands high, and as he went puffing along,
tugging and grunting as if I was a load of coal, I felt as if I
couldn't stand it another minute, and I called out to him to stop. It
did seem as if he would drop before he got me back to the hotel, and I
bounced out in no time, and then I walked in front of him and turned
around and looked at him. If it is possible for a human hack-horse to
have spavins in two joints in each leg, that man had them; and he
looked as if he couldn't remember what it was to have a good feed.

He seemed glad to rest, but didn't say anything, standing and looking
straight ahead of him like an old horse that has been stopped to let
him blow. He did look so dreadful feeble that I thought it would be a
mercy to take him to some member of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals and have him chloroformed. "Look here," said I, "you
are not fit to walk. Get into that bath-chair, and I'll pull you back
to your stand."

"Lady," said he, "I couldn't do that. If you dunno mind walking home,
and will pay me for the two hours all the same, I will be right
thankful for