[The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link book
The Mystery of Edwin Drood

CHAPTER VI--PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER
8/15

Mr.Sapsea said more; he said there never should be.

And yet, marvellous to consider, it has come to pass, in these days, that Express Trains don't think Cloisterham worth stopping at, but yell and whirl through it on their larger errands, casting the dust off their wheels as a testimony against its insignificance.

Some remote fragment of Main Line to somewhere else, there was, which was going to ruin the Money Market if it failed, and Church and State if it succeeded, and (of course), the Constitution, whether or no; but even that had already so unsettled Cloisterham traffic, that the traffic, deserting the high road, came sneaking in from an unprecedented part of the country by a back stable-way, for many years labelled at the corner: 'Beware of the Dog.' To this ignominious avenue of approach, Mr.Crisparkle repaired, awaiting the arrival of a short, squat omnibus, with a disproportionate heap of luggage on the roof--like a little Elephant with infinitely too much Castle--which was then the daily service between Cloisterham and external mankind.

As this vehicle lumbered up, Mr.Crisparkle could hardly see anything else of it for a large outside passenger seated on the box, with his elbows squared, and his hands on his knees, compressing the driver into a most uncomfortably small compass, and glowering about him with a strongly-marked face.
'Is this Cloisterham ?' demanded the passenger, in a tremendous voice.
'It is,' replied the driver, rubbing himself as if he ached, after throwing the reins to the ostler.

'And I never was so glad to see it.' 'Tell your master to make his box-seat wider, then,' returned the passenger.


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