"Gentlemen, I appeal to _you_," confidently said Gammon, turning in an agony to Mr. Yahoo and Mr. Fitz-Snooks. "As for _me_, sir," replied the former, coolly, at the same time knocking off the ashes from his cigar;--"since you ask my opinion, I confess I rather like the idea--ha! ha! 'Twill produce a _sensation_; that's something in this dull life!--Eh, Snooks?" "Ay--a--I confess I was a little shocked at first, but I think I'm getting over it now," lisped Mr. Fitz-Snooks, adjusting his shirt-collar, and then sipping a little of his brandy and water. "I look upon it, now, as an excellent joke; egad, it beats Chitterfield hollow, though _he_, too, has done a trick or two lately." "Did you purchase it as a joke, Mr. Titmouse?" inquired Gammon, with forced calmness, nearly choked with suppressed fury. "Why--a--'pon my life"--said Titmouse, with a desperate effort to appear at his ease--"if you ask _me_--wonder you don't see it! Of course I did!--Those that don't like it may ride, you know, in the other--can't they? Eh?" "We shall be hooted at, laughed at, wherever we go," said Mr. Gammon, vehemently. "Exactly--that's the _novelty_ I like," said Mr. Yahoo, looking, as he spoke, at Mr. Gammon with a smile of ineffable insolence. Mr. Gammon made him no reply, but fixed an eye upon him, under which he became plainly rather uneasy. He felt outdone. Talk of SCORN!--the eye of Gammon, settled at that instant upon Mr. Yahoo, was its complete and perfect representative; and from that moment the wretch Yahoo felt something like _fear_ of the eye of man, or of _submission_ to it. When, moreover, he beheld the manner in which Titmouse obeyed Gammon's somewhat peremptory request to accompany him out of the room for a moment, he resolved, if possible, to make a friend of Gammon. That gentleman failed, on being alone with Titmouse, in shaking his resolution to travel in the splendid vehicle standing at the door. Titmouse said that he had bought and paid for the carriage; it suited his taste--and where was the harm of gratifying it? Besides, it was already packed--all was prepared for starting. Gammon thereupon gave it up; and, swallowing down his rage as well, and as quickly as he could, endeavored to reconcile himself to this galling and most unexpected predicament. It seemed that Miss Quirk, however really anxious to go down to Yatton--to do anything, in short, calculated to commit Mr. Titmouse to her--was quite staggered on discovering, and shocked at seeing, the kind of persons who were to be their travelling companions. As for Mr. Yahoo, she recoiled from him with horror at the very first glance. What decent female, indeed, would not have done so? She had retired to a bedchamber, soon after entering the Cabbage-Stalk; and, seeing her two unexpected fellow-travellers, presently sent a chambermaid to request her papa to come to her.