He answered in every point,—a monster he was,—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why should _that_ delight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had _I_ to exult in his misfortune? I did _not_ exult; I delighted in no man’s punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom I had known in the South for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop over _Al Sirat_,—that famous bridge of Mahomet across the bottomless gulf,—backing himself against the Prophet and twenty such fellows. I used to call him _Cyclops mastigophorus_, Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader’s head; upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclops _diphrélates_ (Cyclops the charioteer). I, and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. And also take this remark from me, as a _gage d’amitié_, that no word ever was or _can_ be pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his discernment), that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye. _That_ made him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was (surely it could not be envy!) he always courted my conversation, in which art I certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit.