One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me something more than his outside.  That was the driver of the hotel omnibus:  a mean enough looking little man, as well as I can remember; but with a spark of something human in his soul.  He had heard of our little journey, and came to me at once in envious sympathy.  How he longed to travel! he told me.  How he longed to be somewhere else, and see the round world before he went into the grave!  ‘Here I am,’ said he.  ’I drive to the station.  Well.  And then I drive back again to the hotel.  And so on every day and all the week round.  My God, is that life?’ I could not say I thought it was—­for him.  He pressed me to tell him where I had been, and where I hoped to go; and as he listened, I declare the fellow sighed.  Might not this have been a brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake?  But it is an evil age for the gypsily inclined among men.  He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory.

I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for the Grand Cerf?  Not very likely, I believe; for I think he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed through, and perhaps our passage determined him for good.  Better a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new horizon.  I think I hear you say that it is a respectable position to drive an omnibus?  Very well.  What right has he who likes it not, to keep those who would like it dearly out of this respectable position?  Suppose a dish were not to my taste, and you told me that it was a favourite amongst the rest of the company, what should I conclude from that?  Not to finish the dish against my stomach, I suppose.

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it does not rise superior to all considerations.  I would not for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of taste; but I think I will go as far as this:  that if a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and superfluously useless, although it were as respectable as the Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself, and all concerned.

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED

TO QUARTES

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water’s edge.  The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes.  Poor cage-bird!  Do I not remember the time when I myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry its complement of freemen into the night, and read the names of distant places on the time-bills with indescribable longings?