There Was A Man In A High Hat And Red Coat, Who Was Blowing A
Horn As The Thing Came
Around the corner, and just as I was looking
into the coach and thinking we'd have it all to ourselves,
For there
was nobody in it, he put a ladder up against the top, and says he,
touching his hat, "There's a seat for you, madam, right next the
coachman, and one just behind for the gentleman. 'Tain't often that, on
a fine morning like this, such seats as them is left vacant on account
of a sudden case of croup in a baronet's family."
I looked at the ladder and I looked at that top front seat, and I tell
you, madam, I trembled in every pore, but I remembered then that all
the respectable seats was on top, and the farther front the nobbier,
and as there was a young woman sitting already on the box-seat, I made
up my mind that if she could sit there I could, and that I wasn't
going to let Jone or anybody else see that I was frightened by style
and fashion, though confronted by it so sudden and unexpected. So up
that ladder I went quick enough, having had practice in hay-mows, and
sat myself down between the young woman and the coachman, and when Jone
had tucked himself in behind me the horner blew his horn and away we
went.
[Illustration: "I looked at the ladder and at the top front seat"]
I tell you, madam, that box-seat was a queer box for me.
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