‘So you would run away from me?’ said I.  ’Come, come, that’s not English.’

‘Beg pardon, master:  no offence meant,’ he said, touching his hat.

‘And none taken!’ cried I.  ’All I desire is a little gaiety by the way.’

I understood him to say he didn’t ‘take with gaiety.’

‘Then I will try you with something else,’ said I.  ’Oh, I can be all things to all men, like the apostle!  I dare to say I have travelled with heavier fellows than you in my time, and done famously well with them.  Are you going home?’

‘Yes, I’m a goin’ home, I am,’ he said.

‘A very fortunate circumstance for me!’ said I.  ’At this rate we shall see a good deal of each other, going the same way; and, now I come to think of it, why should you not give me a cast?  There is room beside you on the bench.’

With a sudden snatch, he carried the cart two yards into the roadway.  The horses plunged and came to a stop.  ‘No, you don’t!’ he said, menacing me with the whip.  ‘None o’ that with me.’

‘None of what?’ said I.  ’I asked you for a lift, but I have no idea of taking one by force.’

’Well, I’ve got to take care of the cart and ‘orses, I have,’ says he.  ‘I don’t take up with no runagate vagabones, you see, else.’

‘I ought to thank you for your touching confidence,’ said I, approaching carelessly nearer as I spoke.  ’But I admit the road is solitary hereabouts, and no doubt an accident soon happens.  Little fear of anything of the kind with you!  I like you for it, like your prudence, like that pastoral shyness of disposition.  But why not put it out of my power to hurt?  Why not open the door and bestow me here in the box, or whatever you please to call it?’ And I laid my hand demonstratively on the body of the cart.

He had been timorous before; but at this, he seemed to lose the power of speech a moment, and stared at me in a perfect enthusiasm of fear.

‘Why not?’ I continued.  ’The idea is good.  I should be safe in there if I were the monster Williams himself.  The great thing is to have me under lock and key.  For it does lock; it is locked now,’ said I, trying the door.  ’A propos, what have you for a cargo?  It must be precious.’

He found not a word to answer.

Rat-tat-tat, I went upon the door like a well-drilled footman.

‘Any one at home?’ I said, and stooped to listen.

There came out of the interior a stifled sneeze, the first of an uncontrollable paroxysm; another followed immediately on the heels of it; and then the driver turned with an oath, laid the lash upon the horses with so much energy that they found their heels again, and the whole equipage fled down the road at a gallop.