At last, what
every one had called for was got, or declared
impossible to be got at that time, and we were persuaded
to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in
the red surtout looked again upon his watch, told us
that we had half an hour to spare, but he was sorry
to see so little merriment among us; that all fellow
travellers were for the time upon the level, and that
it was always his way to make himself one of the
company. "I remember," says he, "it was on just
such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble
and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble:
we called at a little house as it might be this; and
my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom
she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and
made so many merry answers to our questions, that
we were all ready to burst with laughter. At last the
good woman happening to overhear me whisper the
duke and call him by his title, was so surprised and
confounded, that we could scarcely get a word from
her; and the duke never met me from that day to
this, but he talks of the little house, and quarrels
with me for terrifying the landlady."
He had scarcely time to congratulate himself on
the veneration which this narrative must have
procured for him from the company, when one of the
ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part
of the table, began to remark, "the inconveniences
of travelling, and the difficulty which they who never
sat at home without a great number of attendants,
found in performing for themselves such offices as
the road required; but that people of quality often
travelled in disguise, and might be generally known
from the vulgar by their condescension to poor inn-
keepers, and the allowance which they made for any
defect in their entertainment; that for her part,
while people were civil and meant well, it was never
her custom to find fault, for one was not to expect
upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own
house.
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