We Leaped Out Of The Coach, However,
Without Sustaining Any Personal Damage, Except The Fright; Nor
Was Any Hurt Done To The Vehicle.
But the horses were terribly
bruised, and almost strangled, before they could be disengaged.
Exasperated at the villany of the hostler, I resolved to make a
complaint to the uffiziale or magistrate of the place. I found
him wrapped in an old, greasy, ragged, great-coat, sitting in a
wretched apartment, without either glass, paper, or boards in the
windows; and there was no sort of furniture but a couple of
broken chairs and a miserable truckle-bed. He looked pale, and
meagre, and had more the air of a half-starved prisoner than of a
magistrate. Having heard my complaint, he came forth into a kind
of outward room or bellfrey, and rung a great bell with his own
hand. In consequence of this signal, the postmaster came up
stairs, and I suppose he was the first man in the place, for the
uffiziale stood before him cap-in-hand, and with great marks of
humble respect repeated the complaint I had made. This man
assured me, with an air of conscious importance, that he himself
had ordered the hostler to supply me with those very horses,
which were the best in his stable; and that the misfortune which
happened was owing to the misconduct of the fore-postilion, who
did not keep the fore-horses to a proper speed proportioned to
the mettle of the other two.
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