Presently I found plenty of time for such reminiscences, for I was put away in an old stable and left there undisturbed a long, long time. At first, I enjoyed the rest and quiet; but I was of a social turn, and soon longed for the stirring life I had left. I had no friends but a few gray hens, who roosted on my pole, laid eggs in the musty straw on my floor, and came hopping gravely down my steps with important "cut, cut, ka da cuts!" when their duty was done. I respected these worthy fowls, and had many a gossip with them; but their views were very limited, and I soon tired of their domestic chat. Chanticleer was coachman now, as in the days of Partlet and the nuts; but he never drove out, only flew up to my roof when he crowed, and sat there, in his black and yellow suit, like a diligence-driver sounding his horn. Interesting broods of chickens were hatched inside, and took their first look at life from my dingy windows. I felt a grandfatherly fondness for the downy things, and liked to have them chirping and scratching about me, taking small flights from my steps, and giving funny little crows in imitation of their splendid papa. Sundry cats called often, for rats and mice haunted the stable, and these gray-coated huntsmen had many an exciting chase among my moth-eaten cushions, over the lofts, and round the grain-bags. "Here I shall end my days," I thought, and resigned myself to obscurity. But I was mistaken; for just as I was falling out of one long doze into another, a terrible commotion among the cats, hens, and mice woke me up, and I found myself trundling off to the paint-shop again. I emerged from that fragrant place in a new scarlet coat, trimmed with black and ornamented with a startling picture of a salmon-colored Mazeppa, airily dressed in chains and a blue sheet, hanging by one foot to the back of a coal-black steed with red nostrils and a tempestuous tail, who was wildly careering over a range of pea-green mountains on four impossible legs. It was much admired; but I preferred George Washington, like the loyal 'bus that I am. I found I was to live in the suburbs and carry people to and from the station of a new railway, which, with the town, seemed to have sprung up like mushrooms. Well, I bumped passengers about the half-finished streets; but I did not like it, for every thing had changed much during my retirement. Everybody seemed in a tearing hurry now,--the men to be rich, the women to be fine; the boys and girls couldn't wait to grow up, but flirted before they were in their teens; and the very babies scrambled out of their cradles as if each was bent on toddling farther and faster than its neighbor. My old head quite spun round at the whirl every thing was in, and my old wheels knew no rest, for the new coachman drove like Jehu.