“Why, you stupid son of a boot-top, we have been posting on all night like the devil, and all this time the coach has been ten miles behind us.”

“Well, we’ve cotch them any how,” said the urchin, as he disengaged himself from his wet saddle, and stood upon the ground; “and it is not my fault that the coach is not before us.”

With a satisfactory anathema upon all innkeepers, waiters, hostlers, and post-boys, with a codicil including coach-proprietors, I followed the smirking landlord into a well-lighted room, with a blazing fire, when having ordered supper, I soon regained my equanimity.

My rasher and poached eggs, all Naas could afford me, were speedily despatched, and as my last glass, from my one pint of sherry, was poured out, the long expected coach drew up.  A minute after the coachman entered to take his dram, followed by the guard; a more lamentable spectacle of condensed moisture cannot be conceived; the rain fell from the entire circumference of his broad-brimmed hat, like the ever-flowing drop from the edge of an antique fountain; his drab-coat had become a deep orange hue, while his huge figure loomed still larger, as he stood amid a nebula of damp, that would have made an atmosphere for the Georgium Sidus.

“Going on to-night, sir?” said he, addressing me; “severe weather, and no chance of its clearing, but of course you’re inside.”

“Why, there is very little doubt of that,” said I.  “Are you nearly full inside?”

“Only one, sir; but he seems a real queer chap; made fifty inquiries at the office if he could not have the whole inside to himself, and when he heard that one place had been taken—­your’s, I believe, sir—­he seemed like a scalded bear.”

“You don’t know his name then?”

“No, sir, he never gave a name at the office, and his only luggage is two brown paper parcels, without any ticket, and he has them inside; indeed he never lets them from him even for a second.”

Here the guard’s horn, announcing all ready, interrupted our colloquy, and prevented my learning any thing further of my fellow-traveller, whom, however, I at once set down in my own mind for some confounded old churl that made himself comfortable every where, without ever thinking of any one else’s convenience.

As I passed from the inn door to the coach, I once more congratulated myself that I was about to be housed from the terrific storm of wind and rain that railed about.

“Here’s the step, sir,” said the guard, “get in, sir, two minutes late already.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said I, as I half fell over the legs of my unseen companion.  “May I request leave to pass you?” While he made way for me for this purpose, I perceived that he stooped down towards the guard, and said something, who from his answer had evidently been questioned as to who I was.  “And how did he get here, if he took his place in Dublin?” asked the unknown.