Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/119

It was a very pleasant journey to Mr. Verdant Green. When they had got some distance on the road, the coachman gave up the reins to his box-seat passenger, who, from the workmanlike way in which he drove, showed that his sobriquet "Four-in-hand" Fosbrooke had been deservedly earned. When Mr. Fosbrooke had been put down at his destination, Verdant took his place on the box-seat, without, however, (as Mr. Bouncer had suggested), making any proposition to the coachman to allow him to "tool the tits," or "handle the 'ribbons;" which was quite as well, as the professional Jehu would have promptly, and, perhaps, curtly, refused his request. But Verdant made himself agreeable by supplying the coachman with cigars, and attending to his wants of "six of gin, hot," at the various inns where they stopped to change horses. Of course, Verdant smoked his weed as became an Oxford man and a box-seat passenger; and, although he could now perform this feat without a recurrence of those disagreeable sensations that he had experienced at his first wine-party at Mr. Smalls', yet it must be confessed that, on the present occasion, he somewhat exceeded his quantity even of the mildest Havannahs, and was not sorry when the coach pulled up at the cross-roads, where his father's carriage was in waiting to take him to the Manor Green. Having tipped the coachman, who had delighted him by observing that he "was a young gent as had much himproved hisself since he tooled him up to the 'Varsity with his guvnor," and having seen to the transference of his luggage (no longer encased in canvas after the manner of females) from the coach to the carriage, he saw the Warwickshire mail drive away along the dusty road towards Birmingham; and then, turning to the