In the whole catalogue of those whiffling vexations which come puffing across a man’s canvass, there is not one of a more teasing and tormenting nature, than this particular one which I am going to describe⸺and for which (unless you travel with an avance-courier, which numbers do in order to prevent it)⸺there is no help: and it is this.
That be you in never so kindly a propensity to sleep⸺though you are passing perhaps through the finest country—upon the best roads, and in the easiest carriage for doing it in the world⸺nay, was you sure you could sleep fifty miles straight forwards, without once opening your eyes—nay, what is more, was you as demonstratively satisfied as you can be of any truth in Euclid , that you should upon all accounts be full as well asleep as awake⸺nay, perhaps better⸺Yet the incessant returns of paying for the horses at every stage,⸺with the necessity thereupon of putting your hand into your pocket, and counting out from thence three livres fifteen sous (sous by sous), puts an end to so much of the project, that you cannot execute above six miles of it (or supposing it is a post and a half, that is but nine)⸺were it to save your soul from destruction.
—I’ll be even with ’em, quoth I, for I’ll put the precise sum into a piece of paper, and hold it ready in my hand all the way: “Now I shall have nothing to do,” said I (composing myself to rest), “but to drop this gently into the postboy’s hat, and not say a word.”⸺Then there wants two sous more to drink⸺or there is a twelve sous piece of Louis XIV which will not pass—or a livre and some odd liards to be brought over from the last stage, which Monsieur had forgot; which altercations (as a man cannot dispute very well asleep) rouse him: still is sweet sleep retrievable; and still might the flesh weigh down the spirit, and recover