Tales Of The Trains

"'Devilish haughty,' thought I; 'should n't wonder if he was one of the great mill-owners here,--great swells they are, I hear.'

"'Ah! you read the "Times," I perceive,' said he, turning round, and fixing a steadfast and piercing look on me; 'you read the "Times,"--a rascally paper, an infamous paper, sir, a dishonest paper. Their opposition to the new poor law is a mere trick, and their support of the Peel party a contemptible change of principles.'

"Lord! how I wished I had taken up the 'Chronicle'! I would have paid a week's subscription to have been able to smuggle the 'Examiner' into my hand at that moment.

"'I 'm a Whig, sir,' said he; 'and neither ashamed nor afraid to make the avowal,--a Whig of the old Charles Fox school,--a Whig who understands how to combine the happiness of the people with the privileges of the aristocracy.'

"And as he spoke he knitted his brows, and frowned at me, as though I were Jack Cade bent upo