"Time was I've zeed vifteen pair o' 'osses go out of this 'ere yard in vour-and-twenty hour; and now there be'ant vifteen, no, not ten, in vour-and-twenty days! There was the duik--not this 'un; he be'ant no gude; but this 'un's vather--why, when he'd come down the road, the cattle did be a-going, vour days an eend.

Here'd be the tooter and the young gen'lmen, and the governess and the young leddies, and then the servants--they'd be al'ays the grandest folk of all--and then the duik and the doochess--Lord love 'ee, zur; the money did fly in them days! But now--" and the feeling of scorn and contempt which the lame ostler was enabled by his native talent to throw into the word "now," was quite as eloquent against the power of steam as anything that has been spoken at dinners, or written in pamphlets by the keenest admirers of latter-day lights.
"Why, luke at this 'ere town," continued he of the sieve, "the grass be a-growing in the very streets;--that can't be no gude.

Why, luke 'ee here, zur; I do be a-standing at this 'ere gateway, just this way, hour arter hour, and my heyes is hopen mostly;--I zees who's a-coming and who's a-going.

Nobody's a-coming and nobody's a-going; that can't be no gude.

Luke at that there homnibus; why, darn me--" and now, in his eloquence at this peculiar point, my friend became more loud and powerful than ever--"why, darn me, if maister harns enough with that there bus to put hiron on them 'osses' feet, I'll--be--blowed!" And as he uttered this hypothetical denunciation on himself he spoke very slowly, bringing out every word as it were separately, and lowering himself at his knees at every sound, moving at the same time his right hand up and down.