The friend told this story while they were changing horses, laughing very much when he had finished, as most people's friends do: and, as if it had only whetted his appetite for fun, at once looked out for another object on whom to exercise his turn for practical joking. The chaise, after moving very slowly for some yards, came to a dead stop behind some heavy waggons which obstructed the road. This stoppage chanced to occur directly opposite the principal inn, from one of the coffee-room windows of which, on the first floor, a gentleman was gazing into the street. He was a particularly tall, big man, wearing a military frock and immense mustachios, and eyeing the people below with an air of much dignity and grandeur. The jester's eyes no sooner fell upon this personage than he practised a variety of devices to attract his attention, such as coughing violently, sneezing, raising the window of the chaise and letting it fall again with a great noise, and tapping loudly at the door. At length he clapped his hands and accompanied the action with a shrill scream; upon which the big man looked down from his elevation with a glare of profound scorn, mingled with some surprise. Their eyes no sooner met, than the man in the chaise assumed a most savage and unearthly expression of countenance, which gave him all the appearance of an infuriated maniac. After grimacing in a manner sufficiently uncouth to attract the sole and undivided attention of the big man, he suddenly produced the pistol from his pocket, and, pretending to take a most accurate aim at the warrior's person, cocked it and placed his hand upon the trigger. The big man's face grew instantly blanched; he put his hands to his head, made a step, or rather stagger back, and instantly disappeared, having either fallen or thrown himself upon the floor. The friend put his pistol in his pocket without the most remote approach to a smile or the slightest change of countenance, and Grimaldi sank down to the bottom of the chaise nearly suffocated with laughter. At Gravesend they parted, the friend going on in the same chaise to Dover, and Grimaldi, after transacting the business which brought him from town, returning to play at the theatre at night; all recollection even of the "Dartford Blues" fading as he passed through the town in his way home, before the exploits of his merry friend, which afforded him matter for diversion until he reached London. FOOTNOTES: [24] In St. John Street Road. CHAPTER VII. 1798 to 1801.