30
ENGLISH DRIVING.
parts of the crowd as I was driving off—" There 's a Yankee
for you !—ee's a rum-looking fellow, ha?—There's a Repu-
diator for you"—" [ '11 be bound—" &c, &c, &c.
I drove off from this scene with some satisfaction that I
had learned so important a fact at so little expense, and
steered my way very safely amidst the thousands of vehicles
of various sorts that I was passing and meeting, in which
time I was very pleasantly receiving a brief lecture on the
subject from my good-natured and very civil footman, who
was behind me ; in which (having silently learned in the
disaster we had just witnessed that I was from a foreign
country) he took especial pains to explain to me that " in
Hengland it's holays the abit to turn to the left." Just at
that moment I found myself in a fresh difficulty, and some
danger also, by one wheel of my chaise grinding against the
curbstone, and a huge omnibus in full press against us, and
driving us on to the pavement, where it had at that
moment stopped and fastened us, whilst discharging a
passenger. I demanded of the driver, a sullen-looking
fellow, half covered with an apron or boot which pro-
tected him from the weather in front, and something
like a feather-bed and bolsters tied around his neck and
chin, and half concealing his bloated face, what he meant by
reining in upon me in that way, and crowding me upon the
pavement? to which he grumly replied as he snapped his
whip, " I should like to know what business you have in
there?" "Never mind," said I, " I shall go ahead." "No
you woan't—ain't you old enough to know which side of a
carriage to pass ?" At that moment the conductor of the
omnibus cried out " All right !" which was echoed by a
policeman who had taken my horse by the bit. I was some-
what relieved, though a little surprised, at the verdict given
by the conductor and the policeman at the same instant,
that "all" (or both), as I at that moment understood it,
" were right." I sat still of course till the omnibus had left
us, nearly crushed, but luckily not damaged, when I said to
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