Strap mounted first into the wagon, but retired, dismayed, at a tremendous voice which issued from its depths, with the words, “Fire and fury! there shall no passengers come here.” These words came from Captain Weazel, one of the most singular characters to be found in Smollett’s pages. Joey, the wagoner, was not afraid of the captain, and called out, with a sneer: “Waunds, coptain, whay woan’t you soofer the poor wagoneer to make a penny? Coom, coom, young man, get oop, get oop; never moind the coptain.” “Blood and thunder! where’s my sword?” exclaimed the man of war, when the two eventually fell, rather than climbed, into the wagon’s dark recesses, and incidentally on to his stomach. “What’s the matter, my dear?” asked a female voice. “The matter?” replied the captain; “my guts are squeezed into a pancake by that Scotchman’s hump.” The “hump,” by the way, was poor Strap’s knapsack. “It is our own fault,” resumed the feminine voice; “we may thank ourselves for all the inconveniences we meet with. I thank God I never travelled so before. I am sure, if my lady or Sir John were to know where we are, they would not sleep this night for vexation. I wish to God we had written for the chariot; I know we shall never be forgiven.” “Come, come, my dear,” replied the captain, “it don’t signify fretting now; we shall laugh it over as a frolic; I hope you will not suffer in your health. I shall make my lord very merry with our adventures in the diligence.” [Picture: Travellers arriving at an Inn. After Rowlandson] The unsophisticated lads were greatly impressed by this talk. Not so the others. “Some people,” broke in another woman’s voice, “give themselves a great many needless airs; better folks than any here have travelled in wagons before now. Some of us have rode in coaches and chariots, with three footmen behind them, without making so much fuss about it. What then! we are now all on a footing; therefore let us be sociable and merry. What do you say, Isaac? Is not this a good motion, you doting rogue? Speak, old Cent. per cent.! What desperate debt are you thinking of? What mortgage are you planning? Well, Isaac, positively you shall never gain my favour till you turn over a new leaf, grow honest, and live like a gentleman. In the meantime, give me a kiss, you old fool.” The words, accompanied by hearty smack, enlivened the person to whom they were addressed to such a degree, that he cried, in a transport, though with a faltering voice: “Ah, you baggage! on my credit you are a waggish girl—he, he, he!” This laugh introduced a fit of coughing which almost suffocated the poor usurer—for such they afterwards found was the profession of their fellow-traveller.