“Whereupon the old man mounted the box, and took the reins.  He had no whip; but when he wanted to start, he shook the hour-glass, and off they went.  Then Melchior saw that the road where they were driving was very broad, and so filled with vehicles of all kinds that he could not see the hedges.  The noise and crowd and dust were very great; and to Melchior all seemed delightfully exciting.  There was every sort of conveyance, from the grandest coach to the humblest donkey-cart; and they seemed to have enough to do to escape being run over.  Among all the gay people there were many whom he knew; and a very nice thing it seemed to be to drive among all the grandees, and to show his handsome face at the window, and bow and smile to his acquaintance.  Then it appeared to be the fashion to wrap oneself in a tiger-skin rug, and to look at life through an opera-glass, and old Time had kindly put one of each into the coach.

“But here again Melchior was much troubled by his brothers and sisters.  Just at the moment when he was wishing to look most fashionable and elegant, one or other of them would pull away the rug, or drop the glass, or quarrel, or romp, or do something that spoilt the effect.  In fact, one and all, they ‘just spoilt everything;’ and the more he scolded, the worse they became.  The ‘minx’ shook her curls, and flirted through the window with a handsome but ill-tempered looking man on a fine horse, who praised her ‘golden locks,’ as he called them; and, oddly enough, when Melchior said the man was a lout, and that the locks in question were corkscrewy carrot shavings, she only seemed to like the man and his compliments the more.  Meanwhile, the untidy brother pored over his book, or if he came to the window, it was only to ridicule the fine ladies and gentlemen, so Melchior sent him to Coventry.  Then Hop-o’-my-Thumb had taken to make signs and exchange jokes with some disreputable-looking youths in a dog-cart; and when his brother would have put him to ’sit still like a gentleman’ at the bottom of the coach, he seemed positively to prefer his low companions; and the rest were little better.

“Poor Melchior!  Surely there never was a clearer case of a young gentleman’s comfort destroyed, solely by other people’s perverse determination to be happy in their own way instead of in his.  Surely, no young gentleman ever knew better that if his brothers and sisters would yield to his wishes, they would not quarrel; or ever more completely overlooked the fact, that if he had yielded more to theirs the same happy result might have been attained.  At last he lost patience, and pulling the check-string, bade Godfather Time drive as fast as he could.

“‘For,’ said he, ’there will never be any peace while there are so many of us in the coach; if a fellow had the rug and glass, and, indeed, the coach to himself, he might drive and bow and talk with the best of them; but as it is, one might as well go about in a wild-beast caravan.’