Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front, boxed up in that solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a dickey. Him the robber now briefly accosted. "What have you got about you belonging to your master?" "Only his pills, your honour! which I forgot to put in the--" "Pills!--throw them down to me!" The valet tremblingly extricated from his side-pocket a little box, which he threw down and Lovett caught in his hand. He opened the box, counted the pills,--"One, two, four, twelve,--aha!" He reopened the carriage door. "Are these your pills, my lord?" The wondering peer, who had begun to resettle himself in the corner of his carriage, answered that they were. "My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever; you were a little delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your friend's face. Permit me to recommend you a prescription,--swallow off all these pills!" "My God!" cried the traveller, startled into earnestness; "what do you mean?--twelve of those pills would kill a man!" "Hear him!" said the robber, appealing to his comrades, who roared with laughter. "What, my lord, would you rebel against your doctor? Fie, fie! be persuaded." And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box towards the recoiling nose of the traveller. But though a man who could as well as any one make the best of a bad condition, the traveller was especially careful of his health; and so obstinate was he where that was concerned, that he would rather have submitted to the effectual operation of a bullet than incurred the chance operation of an extra pill. He therefore, with great indignation, as the box was still extended towards him, snatched it from the hand of the robber, and flinging it across the road, said with dignity,-- "Do your worst, rascals! But if you leave me alive, you shall repent the outrage you have offered to one of his Majesty's household!" Then, as if becoming sensible of the ridicule of affecting too much in his present situation, he added in an altered tone: "And now, for Heaven's sake, shut the door; and if you must kill somebody, there's my servant on the box,-- he's paid for it." This speech made the robbers laugh more than ever; and Lovett, who liked a joke even better than a purse, immediately closed the carriage door, saying,-- "Adieu, my lord; and let me give you a piece of advice: whenever you get out at a country inn, and stay half an hour while your horses are changing, take your pistols with you, or you may chance to have the charge drawn." With this admonition the robber withdrew; and seeing that the valet held out to him a long green purse, he said, gently shaking his head,-- "Rogues should not prey on each other, my good fellow. You rob your master; so do we. Let each keep what he has got." Long Ned and Tomlinson then backing their horses, the carriage was freed; and away started the post-boys at a pace which seemed to show less regard for life than the robbers themselves had evinced.