"Your Lordship has, I hope, found them good to Salisbury?"
"Ah! I believe so. Oh! to be sure, excellent to Salisbury. But how are they to London? We have had wet weather lately, I think!"
"No, my Lord. Here, the weather has been as dry as a bone."
"Or a cutlet!" muttered Mauleverer; and the host continued—
"As for the roads themselves, my Lord—so far as the roads are concerned, they are pretty good, my Lord! but I can't say as how there is not something about them that might be mended!"
"By no means improbable!—you mean the inns and the turnpikes?" rejoined Mauleverer.
"Your Lordship is pleased to be facetious;—no! I meant something worse than them!"
"What! the cooks?"
"No, my Lord,—the highwaymen!"
"The highwaymen!—indeed!" said Mauleverer anxiously; for he had with him a case of diamonds, which at that time were, on grand occasions, often the ornaments of a gentleman's dress,
