I made him a bow and felt very much overawed. I was so ashamed to allude to a commonplace thing like my box, to a scholar and a master at Salem House, that we had gone some little distance from the yard before I had the hardihood to mention it. We turned back, on my humbly insinuating that it might be useful to me hereafter; and he told the clerk that the carrier had instructions to call for it at noon.

“If you please, sir,” I said, when we had accomplished about the same distance as before, “is it far?”

“It’s down by Blackheath,” he said.

“Is that far, sir?” I diffidently asked.

“It’s a good step,” he said. “We shall go by the stagecoach. It’s about six miles.”