despatched to the Philanthropist for the departure and arrival, in
good time for dinner, of Mr. Neville and Miss Helena; and stock for
soup became fragrant in the air of Minor Canon Corner.

In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr. Sapsea
said there never would be. 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.