Great as had been the grocer’s astonishment at the horses and carts that he had seen stirring about the streets, his amazement knew no bounds when the first Paris diligence came rolling into town with six horses, spreading over the streets as they swung about in all directions—­covered with bells, sheep-skins, worsted balls, and foxes’ brushes, driven by one solitary postilion on the off wheeler.  “My vig,” cried he, “here’s Wombwell’s wild-beast show!  What the deuce are they doing in France?  I’ve not heard of them since last Bartlemy-fair, when I took my brother Joe’s children to see them feed.  But stop—­this is full of men!  My eyes, so it is!  It’s what young Dutch Sam would call a male coach, because there are no females about it.  Well, I declare, I am almost sorry I did not bring Mrs. J——.  Wot would they think to see such a concern in Cheapside?  Why, it holds half a township—­a perfect willage on wheels.  My eyes, wot a curiosity!  Well, I never thought to live to see such a sight as this!—­wish it was going our way that I might have a ride in it.  Hope ours will be as big.”  Shortly after theirs did arrive, and Mr. Jorrocks was like a perfect child with delight.  It was not a male coach, however, for in the different compartments were five or six ladies.  “Oh, wot elegant creatures,” cried he, eyeing them; “I could ride to Jerusalem with them without being tired; wot a thing it is to be a bachelor!”

The Conducteur—­with the usual frogged, tagged, embroidered jacket, and fur-bound cap—­having hoisted their luggage on high, the passengers who had turned out of their respective compartments to stretch their legs after their cramping from Calais, proceeded to resume their places.  There were only two seats vacant in the interior, or, as Mr. Jorrocks called it, the “middle house,” consequently the Yorkshireman and he crossed legs.  The other four passengers had corner-seats, things much coveted by French travellers.  On Mr. Stubbs’s right sat an immense Englishman, enveloped in a dark blue camlet cloak, fastened with bronze lionhead clasps, a red neckcloth, and a shabby, napless, broad-brimmed, brown hat.  His face was large, round, and red, without an atom of expression, and his little pig eyes twinkled over a sort of a mark that denoted where his nose should have been; in short, his head was more like a barber’s wig block than anything else, and his outline would have formed a model of the dome of St. Paul’s.  On the Yorkshireman’s left was a chattering young red-trousered dragoon, in a frock-coat and flat foraging cap with a flying tassel.  Mr. Jorrocks was more fortunate than his friend, and rubbed sides with two women; one was English, either an upper nursery-maid or an under governess, but who might be safely trusted to travel by herself.  She was dressed in a black beaver bonnet lined with scarlet silk, a nankeen pelisse with a blue ribbon, and pea-green boots, and she carried a sort of small fish-basket on her knee, with a “plain