my breath.

Having at length put my affairs in order, I took my seat very early one
morning in the mail stage for--, giving it to be understood, among
my acquaintances, that business of the last importance required my
immediate personal attendance in that city.

The coach was crammed to repletion; but in the uncertain twilight the
features of my companions could not be distinguished. Without making
any effectual resistance, I suffered myself to be placed between two
gentlemen of colossal dimensions; while a third, of a size larger,
requesting pardon for the liberty he was about to take, threw himself
upon my body at full length, and falling asleep in an instant, drowned
all my guttural ejaculations for relief, in a snore which would have put
to blush the roarings of the bull of Phalaris. Happily the state of my
respiratory faculties rendered suffocation an accident entirely out of
the question.

As, however, the day broke more distinctly in our approach to the
outskirts of the city, my tormentor, arising and adjusting his
shirt-collar, thanked me in a very friendly manner for my civility.
Seeing that I remained motionless (all my limbs were dislocated and my
head twisted on one side), his apprehensions began to be excited; and
arousing the rest of the passengers, he communicated, in a very decided
manner, his opinion that a dead man had been palmed upon them during the
night for a living and responsible fellow-traveller; here giving me
a thump on the right eye, by way of demonstrating the truth of his
suggestion.

Hereupon all, one after another (there were nine in company), believed
it their duty to pull me by the ear. A young practising physician, too,
having applied a pocket-mirror to my mouth, and found me without breath,
the assertion of my persecutor was pronounced a true bill; and the whole
party expressed a determination to endure tamely no such impositions for
the future, and to proceed no farther with any such carcasses for the
present.

I was here, accordingly, thrown out at the sign of the "Crow" (by which
tavern the coach happened to be passing), without meeting with any
farther accident than the breaking of both my arms, under the left hind
wheel of the vehicle. I must besides do the driver the justice to state
that he did not forget to throw after me the largest of my trunks,
which, unfortunately falling on my head, fractured my skull in a manner
at once interesting and extraordinary.

The landlo