“Best not!” cried a voice from the little crowd about the coach. And when the angry gentleman turned to see who spoke, “Best not!” cried another behind him. And he wheeled about again, so quickly that the crowd laughed. This raised his wrath to a white heat. He grew purple. “I shall have it taken down!” he said. “Guard, remove it!” “Don’t touch it,” growled the driver—one of a class noted in that day for independence and surly manners. “If the gent don’t choose to travel with it, let him stop here and be d—d!” “Do you know,” the insulted passenger cried, “that I am a Member of Parliament?” “I’m hanged if you are!” coachee retorted. “Nor won’t be again!” The crowd roared at this repartee. The guard was in despair. “Anyway, we must go on, sir,” he said. And he seized his horn. “Take your seats, gents! Take your seats!” he cried. “All for Reading! I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve to think of the coach.” “And the horses!” grumbled the driver. “Where’s the gent’s sense?” They all scrambled to their seats except the ex-member. He stood, bursting with rage and chagrin. But at the last moment, when he saw that the coach would really go without him, he swallowed his pride, plucked open the coach-door, and amid the loud jeers of the crowd, climbed in. The driver, with a chuckle, bade the helpers let go, and the coach swung cheerily away through the streets of Maidenhead, the merry notes of the horn and the rattle of the pole-chains drowning the cries of the gutter-boys. The little Frenchman turned round. “You vill have a refolution,” he said solemnly. “And the gentleman inside he vill lose his head.” The coachman, who had hitherto looked askance at Froggy, as if he disdained his neighbourhood, now squinted at him as if he could not quite make him out. “Think so?” he said gruffly. “Why, Mounseer?” “I have no doubt,” the Frenchman answered glibly. “The people vill have, and the nobles vill not give! Or they vill give a leetle—a leetle! And that is the worst of all. I have seen two refolutions!” he continued with energy. “The first when I was a child—it is forty years! My bonne held me up and I saw heads fall into the basket—heads as young and as lofly as the young Mees there! And why? Because the people would have, and the King, he give that which is the worst of all—a leetle! And the trouble began. And then the refolution of last year—it was worth to me all that I had! The people would have, and the Polignac, our Minister—who is the friend of your Vellington—he would not give at all! And the trouble began.” The driver squinted at him anew. “D’you mean to say,” he asked, “that you’ve seen heads cut off?” “I have seen the white necks, as white and as small as the Mees there; I have seen the blood spout from them; bah! like what you call pump! Ah, it was ogly, it was very ogly!”