52
THE WRONG BOX
in your station would take a pleasure to read. But I am afraid you have not cultivated the art of observation; at least we have now driven together for some time, and I cannot remember that you have contributed a single fact. This is a very false principle, my good man. For instance, I do not know if you observed that (as you passed the hay-cart man) you took your left?'
'Of course I did,' cried the carrier, who was now getting belligerent; 'he'd have the law on me if I hadn't.'
'In France, now,' resumed the old man, 'and also, I believe, in the
United States of America, you would have taken the right.'
'I would not,' cried Mr. Chandler indignantly. 'I would have taken the left.'
'I observe again,' continued Mr. Finsbury, scorning to reply, 'that you mend the dilapidated parts of your harness with string. I have always protested against this carelessness and slovenliness of the English poor. In an essay that I once read before an appreciative audience———'
'It ain't string,' said the carrier sullenly, 'it's packthread.'
'I have always protested,' resumed the old man, 'that in their private and domestic life, as well as