What were rain and storm, thunder and lightning, compared with the chances that awaited me here?
-- wet through I should inevitably be, but then I had not yet contracted the horror of moisture my friend opposite laboured under.

"Ha! what is that?
is it possible he can be asleep; is it really a snore ?--Heaven grant that little snort be not what the medical people call a premonitory symptom--if so, he'll be in upon me now in no time.

Ah, there it is again; he must be asleep surely; now then is my time or never." With these words, muttered to myself, and a heart throbbing almost audibly at the risk of his awakening, I slowly let down the window of the coach, and stretching forth my hand, turned the handle cautiously and slowly; I next disengaged my legs, and by a long continuous effort of creeping--which I had learned perfectly once, when practising to go as a boa constrictor to a fancy ball--I withdrew myself from the seat and reached the step, when I muttered something very like a thanksgiving to Providence for my rescue.

With little difficulty I now climbed up beside the guard, whose astonishment at my appearance was indeed considerable--that any man should prefer the out, to the inside of a coach, in such a night, was rather remarkable; but that the person so doing should be totally unprovided with a box-coat, or other similar protection, argued something so strange, that I doubt not, if he were to decide upon the applicability of the statute of lunacy to a traveller in the mail, the palm would certainly have been awarded to me, and not to my late companion.

Well, on we rolled, and heavily as the rain poured down, so relieved did I feel at my change of position, that I soon fell fast asleep, and never awoke till the coach was driving up Patrick street.