Every time my venerable friend on the coach-box extends his
twig with a few yards of twine at the end of it, which he denominates "a
whupp," the suddenness of the accelerated motion makes his great, round
head flop from the centre of his short, thick neck, and come with such
violence on the unstuffed back, that his hat is sent down upon the
bridge of his nose with a vehemence which might well nigh carry it away.
Do you say that man is capable of taking a _pleasure_ ride? Before he
has been bumped three miles, every pull of wind will be jerked out of
his body, and by the time he has arrived at Roslin, he will be a dead
man. If that man prospers in the world, he commits suicide the moment he
sets up his carriage.
We go to a ball. Mercy upon us! is this what you call dancing? A man of
thirty years of age, and with legs as thick as a gate-post, stands up in
the middle of the room, and gapes, and fumbles with his gloves, looking
all the time as if he were burying his grandmother. At a given signal,
the unwieldy animal puts himself in motion; he throws out his arms,
crouches up his shoulders, and, without moving a muscle of his face,
kicks out his legs, to the manifest risk of the bystanders, and goes
back to the place puffing and blowing like an otter, after a half-hour's
burst.
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