writing to Miss James to join him when he
got to a safe place of refuge, rather than
encumber himself with the young lady before
he was well out of reach of the far-stretching
arm of the law. This seemed infinitely the
most natural course of conduct. Still, there
was the runner travelling towards Wales—
and not certainly without a special motive.
I put the handbills in my pocket, and
listened for any hints which might creep out
in his talk; but he perversely kept silent.
The more my excitable neighbour tried to
dispute with him, the more contemptuously
he refused to talk. I began to feel vehemently
impatient for our arrival at Shrewsbury; for
there only could I hope to discover something
more of my formidable fellow-traveller's
plans.

The coach stopped for dinner; and some of
our passengers left us, the excitable man with
the handbills among the number. I got down,
and stood on the doorstep of the inn,
pretending to be looking about me, but in reality
watching the movements of the runner.
Rather to my surprise, I saw him go to the
door of the coach, and speak to one of the
inside passengers. After a short conversation,
of which I could not hear one word, the
runner left the coach door and entered the
inn, called for a glass of brandy and water,
and took it out to his friend, who had not left
the vehicle. The friend bent forward to
receive it at the window. I caught a glimpse
of his face, and felt my knees tremble under
me—it was Screw himself!

Screw, pale and haggard-looking, evidently
not yet recovered from the effect of my grip
on his throat! Screw, in attendance on the
runner, travelling inside the coach in the
character of an invalid. He must be going
this journey to help the Bow Street officers to
identify some one of our scattered gang of
whom they were in pursuit. It could not be
the doctor—the runner could discover him
without assistance from anybody. Why might
it not be me?

I began to think whether it would be best
to trust boldly in my disguise, and my lucky
position outside the coach, or whether I
should abandon my fellow passengers
immediately. It was not easy to settle at once
which course was the safest—so I tried the
effect of looking at my two alternatives from
another point of view. Should I risk everything,
and go on resolutely to Crickgelly, on
the chance of discovering that Laura and
Miss James were one and the same person—
or should I give up on the spot the only
prospect of finding my lost mistress, and
direct my attention entirely to the business
of looking after my own safety? As this
latter alternative practically resolved itself
into the simple question of whether I should
act like a man who was in love, or like a man
who was not, my natural instincts settled
the difficulty in no time. I boldly imitated
the example of my fellow-passengers, and
went in to dinner, determined to go on afterwards
to Crickgelly, though all Bow Street
should be following at my heels.

WAITER!

WHEN did it first occur to him to be a
waiter ? Was it ambition, accident, an adverse
fate that made him one ? Was he born a
waiter, or did he achieve waiterhood, or was-
it thrust upon him ? " Who first seduced him
to the foul revolt? " Did he, straying one day,
a child, into the great room of the London
Tavern, and seeing the tables laid for a
public dinner, fold his little arms and cry:
"And I, too, am a waiter! " even as the
Italian exclaimed: "Ed anchè io son
pittore! " How the deuce did he come to be
a waiter?

John never brings me a tooth-pick; Thomas
never whispers to me (with as much secrecy
and grave mystery as if he were communicating
the last on dit about the Paris Con-
ference), the degree of cut—prime, or rather
low, which the veal or pork is in; Alphonse
never asks me with a suavity—worthy of the
ancien régime—whether I will take cream to
my coffee; William never cries, " Yessr! "—
Charles, " Coming; " James never shrieks
down the speaking-tube that communicates
with the kitchen, without a flood of queries
pouring in upon me. I am naturally inquisitive,
and the waiter is to me such a mystery
that I always feel inclined to ask him to sit
down opposite to me;when I have paid my
reckoning, and talk to me. I should like to
draw the waiter out, to learn his past history
—to know his secrets, if he has any,—to
gather his statistics—to know what he thinks
of me, and of the other customers. But how
can I do this, and what time has the waiter
to converse with me, when the old gentleman
in the next box is clamouring for his whiskey,
and the red-headed man in the Gordon plaid
has called for a welsh rabbit in so loud a tone
that his next move seems not unlike to be that
of rushing to my table and dragging the waiter
away from me by the hair of his head?

A chapter might be written upon the
impatient men who are irascible and hard upon
waiters. I like to be gentle with them. If
they do not bring what I want on the instant,
they are at least books to me which I can
read and meditate upon; and the only
punishment I ever inflict on a neglectful or
uncivil waiter is to ask him for a cigar-light,
make him a low bow, and showing him
twopence, inform him that I intend to present it
to the waiter at the Hen and Chickens
Hotel at Birmingham, whither I am bound by
the night mail, instead of to him. He feels
this severely. He would, were he malicious,
unwait upon me; but he can't; my dinner
is gone and past; so all he can do is to
overcharge the next customer, which is no
business of mine, or to retire to his pantry and
repent, which is better. But I know men,—