I ’ad the chance.  ‘I’ll give ye thirty,’ says ’e; ‘wot’s ye name?’ ‘Jacob Trimble, sir,’ says I.  ‘An’ a most accursed name it is!  —­I’ll call you Parks,’ says ’e, ‘an’ when I ring let no one answer but yourself.  You can go, Parks—­an’, Parks—­get me another doctor.’  Well,” pursued the Postilion, seating himself near by, “we’d been there a couple o’ weeks, an’ though ‘e was better, an’ ’is face near well again, ’e still kept to ’is room, when, one day, a smart phaeton an’ blood ‘osses drives up, an’ out steps a fine gentleman—­one o’ them pale, sleepy sort.  I was a-standin’ in the yard, brushin’ my master’s coat—­a bottle-green wi’ silver buttons, each button ‘avin’ what they calls a monneygram stamped onto it.  ‘Ha, me man!’ says the sleepy gent, steppin’ up to me, ‘a fine coat—­doocid fashionable cut, curse me!—­your master’s?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ says I, brushin’ away.  ‘Silver buttons too!’ says the gent, ’let me see—­ah yes!—­a V, yes, to be sure—­’ave the goodness to step to your master an’ say as a gentleman begs to see ‘im.’  ‘Can’t be done, sir,’ says I; ‘me master ain’t seein’ nobody, bein’ in indifferent ‘ealth.’  ‘Nonsense!’ says the gentleman, yawnin’ an’ slippin’ a guinea into me ’and.  ’Just run, like a good feller, an’ tell ’im as I bear a message from George!’ ’From ‘oo?’ says I.  ‘From George,’ says the gent, smilin’ an’ yawnin’—­’just say from George.’  So, to come to the end of it, up I goes, an’ finds me master walkin’ up an’ down an’ aswearin’ to ’isself as usual.  ‘A gentleman to see you, sir,’ says I.  ‘Why, devil burn your miserable carcass!’ say ’e, ‘didn’t I tell you as I’d see nobody?’ ’Ay, but this ’ere gent’s a-sayin’ ’e ‘as a message from George, sir.’  My master raised both clenched fists above ’is ‘ead an’ swore—­ah! better than I’d heard for many a long day.  ’Ows’ever, downstairs ’e goes, cursin’ on every stair.  In a time ’e comes back.  ‘Parks,’ says ’e, ’do you remember that—­that place where we got lost—­in the storm, Parks?’ ‘Ah, sir,’ says I.  ‘Well, go there at once,’ says ‘e,’ an’,’—­well—­’e give me certain orders—­jumps into the phaeton wi’ the sleepy gentleman, an’ they drive off together—­an’ accordin’ to orders—­’ere I am.”

“A very interesting story!” said I.  “And so you are a groom now?”

“Ah!—­an’ you are a blacksmith, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if it don’t beat everything as ever I heard—­I’m a stiff ’un, that’s all!”

“What do you mean?”

“I means my droppin’ in on you, like this ’ere, just as if you wasn’t the one man in all England as I was ’opeful to drop in on.”

“And you find me very busy!” said I.

“Lord love me!” said the Postilion, combing his hair so very hard that it wrinkled his brow.  “I comes up from Tonbridge this ’ere very afternoon, an’, ‘avin’ drunk a pint over at ‘The Bull’ yonder, an’ axed questions as none o’ they chawbacons could give a answer to, I ‘ears the chink o’ your ‘ammer, an’ comin’ over ’ere, chance like, I finds—­you; I’ll be gormed if it ain’t a’most onnat’ral!”