In the course of a few weeks of constant conversation with Herr Kirsch on the box of the carriage, George made great advance in the knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to hotel waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother and amused his guardian.

On gaining the opposite shore neither of the two attempted to remount; but, abandoning their horses, they set off at their best speed on foot; while the postilion by whom they had been accompanied had great difficulty, during the return of the boat, in securing the three animals who were thus suddenly committed to his sole charge.

The poet tells a story of the phlegm of a German postilion at this time, who was driving him post by a place where a skirmish of cavalry had happened, and who alighted and disappeared, leaving the carriage and the traveller alone in the cold (for the ground was covered with snow) for a considerable space of time.

"I called to my servants on horseback to stop the postilion of the other chariot; and I bid Sir Hargrave's coachman proceed at his peril.

In this caricature, of which thousands of copies were sown broadcast throughout Paris, the Emperor of Austria was to be seen sitting in an elegant open carriage; the Emperor Alexander sat on the coachman's box, the Regent of England as postilion on the lead-horse, and the King of Prussia stood up behind as a lackey.

The driver was stunned and the sick Carl had himself to revive the man, untie the baggage from the roof, unharness the horses, put everything in place again, and drive the postilion to the next station.

See how he ducks to the lady of the house, and simpers across the fire-place to his wife, who, by this time is giving a most spirited account of the state of the roads, and the civility of the postilions near the Borders.