farther side. In got the man in black and seated himself
nearest to me. 'All is right,' said I, as I shut the door, whereupon the
postillion cracked his whip, and the chaise drove out of the yard. Just
as I shut the door, however, and just as Mr. Platitude had recommenced
talking in jergo, at the top of his voice, the man in black turned his
face partly towards me, and gave me a wink with his left eye.

I did not see my friend the postillion till the next morning, when he
gave me an account of the adventures he had met with on his expedition.
It appeared that he had driven the man in black and the Reverend
Platitude across the country by roads and lanes which he had some
difficulty in threading. At length, when he had reached a part of the
country where he had never been before, the man in black pointed out to
him a house near the corner of a wood, to which he informed him they were
bound. The postillion said it was a strange-looking house, with a wall
round it; and, upon the whole, bore something of the look of a madhouse.
There was already a post-chaise at the gate, from which three individuals
had alighted--one of them the postillion said was a mean-looking
scoundrel, with a regular petty-larceny expression in his countenance.
He was dressed very much like the man in black, and the postillion said
that he could almost have taken his bible oath that they were both of the
same profession. The other two he said were parsons, he could swear
that, though he had never seen them before; there could be no mistake
about them. Church of England parsons the postillion swore they were,
with their black coats, white cravats, and airs, in which clumsiness and
conceit were most funnily blended--Church of England parsons of the
Platitude description, who had been in Italy, and seen the Pope, and
kissed his toe, and picked up a little broken Italian, and come home
greater fools than they went forth. It appeared that they were all
acquaintances of Mr. Platitude, for when the postillion had alighted and
let Mr. Platitude and his companion out of the chaise, Mr. Platitude
shook the whole three by the hand, conversed with his two brothers in a
little broken jergo, and addressed the petty-larceny looking individual
by the title of Reverend Doctor. In the midst of these greetings,
however, the postillion said the man in black came up to him, and
proceeded to settle with him for the chaise; he had shaken hands with
nobody, and had