The invalid in the Bath mail soared a pitch above the trainer, and did not sleep so sound, because he had ‘more figures and more fantasies.’ We talked the hours away merrily. He had faith in surgery, for he had had three ribs set right, that had been broken in a _turn-up_ at Belcher’s, but thought physicians old women, for they had no antidote in their catalogue for brandy. An indigestion is an excellent common-place for two people that never met before. By way of ingratiating myself, I told him the story of my doctor, who, on my earnestly representing to him that I thought his regimen had done me harm, assured me that the whole pharmacopœia contained nothing comparable to the prescription he had given me; and, as a proof of its undoubted efficacy, said, that, ‘he had had one gentleman with my complaint under his hands for the last fifteen years.’ This anecdote made my companion shake the rough sides of his three great coats with boisterous laughter; and Turtle, starting out of his sleep, swore he knew how the fight would go, for he had had a dream about it. Sure enough the rascal told us how the three first rounds went off, but ‘his dream,’ like others, ‘denoted a foregone conclusion.’ He knew his men. The moon now rose in silver state, and I ventured, with some hesitation, to point out this object of placid beauty, with the blue serene beyond, to the man of science, to which his ear he ‘seriously inclined,’ the more as it gave promise _d’un beau jour_ for the morrow, and showed the ring undrenched by envious showers, arrayed in sunny smiles. Just then, all going on well, I thought on my friend Toms, whom I had left behind, and said innocently, ‘There was a blockhead of a fellow I left in town, who said there was no possibility of getting down by the mail, and talked of going by a caravan from Belcher’s at two in the morning, after he had written some letters.’ ‘Why,’ said he of the lapels, ‘I should not wonder if that was the very person we saw running about like mad from one coach-door to another, and asking if any one had seen a friend of his, a gentlemen going to the fight, whom he had missed stupidly enough by staying to write a note.’ ‘Pray, Sir,’ said my fellow-traveller, ‘had he a plaid-cloak on?’—‘Why, no,’ said I, ‘not at the time I left him, but he very well might afterwards, for he offered to lend me one.’ The plaid-cloak and the letter decided the thing. Joe, sure enough, was in the Bristol mail, which preceded us by about fifty yards. This was droll enough. We had now but a few miles to our place of destination, and the first thing I did on alighting at Newbury, both coaches stopping at the same time, was to call out, ‘Pray, is there a gentleman in that mail of the name of Toms?’ ‘No,’ said Joe, borrowing something of the vein of Gilpin, ‘for I have just got out.’ ‘Well!’ says he, ‘this is lucky; but you don’t know how vexed I was to miss you; for,’ added he, lowering his voice, ‘do you