‘This is the strangest sort of thing I ever had anything to do with,’

thought my uncle; ‘allow me to return you your hat, sir.’

The ill-looking gentleman received his three-cornered hat in silence,

looked at the hole in the middle with an inquiring air, and finally

stuck it on the top of his wig with a solemnity the effect of which was

a trifle impaired by his sneezing violently at the moment, and jerking

it off again.

‘All right!’ cried the guard with the lantern, mounting into his little

seat behind. Away they went. My uncle peeped out of the coach

window as they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other

mails, with coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers, complete,

were driving round and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five

miles an hour. My uncle burned with indignation, gentlemen. As a

commercial man, he felt that the mail-bags were not to be trifled with,

and he resolved to memorialise the Post Office on the subject, the very

instant he reached London.

At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady

who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled

closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting

opposite to her; the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side;

and both watching her intently. If she so much as rustled the folds of

her hood, he could hear the ill-looking man clap his hand upon his

sword, and could tell by the other's breathing (it was so dark he

couldn't see his face) that he was looking as big as if he were going to

devour her at a mouthful. This roused my uncle more and more, and

he resolved, come what might, to see the end of it. He had a great

admiration for bright eyes, and sweet faces, and pretty legs and feet;

in short, he was fond of the whole sex. It runs in our family,

gentleman - so am I.

'Many were the devices which my uncle practised, to attract the lady's

attention, or at all events, to engage the mysterious gentlemen in

conversation. They were all in vain; the gentlemen wouldn't talk, and

the lady didn't dare. He thrust his head out of the coach window at

intervals, and bawled out to know why they didn't go faster. But he

called till he was hoarse; nobody paid the least attention to him. He

leaned back in the coach, and thought of the beautiful face, and the

feet and legs. This answered better; it whiled away the time, and kept

him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he

found himself in such an odd situation. Not that this would have

worried him much, anyway - he was a mighty free and easy, roving,

devil-may-care sort of person, was my uncle, gentlemen.

All of a sudden the coach stopped. ‘Hollo!’ said my uncle, ‘what's in

the wind now?’

The Pickwick Papers