TWENTY MINUTES IN AN OMNIBUS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3118, 14 February 1879, Page 1

TWENTY MINUTES IN AN OMNIBUS.

BY A TWOPENNY-HALFPENHY TSAVBLLEB.

Two and sixpence a dozen is all it cpstg me for any number of pleasant little suburban excursions in the vehicles above mentioned—a vehicle for which, by the way, the ingenuity of nomenclature has only discovered one name, and that seems to be taken from a dead language! But what's in a name? Why* there's a great deal in a name—a great deal that haa no other existence-r^nd ; Skakspearey who was a man of considerable alf-rtrand information (though he might never have heard of unbreakable , tumbiers) knew this well enough.. . What Ut is, called a private carriage about as much secures privacy as the re4r coat of a postman enables him to walk the streets unobserved. But then a private carriage, is supposed to bring its owner a certain consequence, and one very certain consequence is prodigious expense, with perennial botheration. In fact, a private trap is a private snare, and in this remark the reader may perceive a great truth in the dissolute companionship of a small pun. Now, any omnibus provides me with all desirable; seclusion, and yet\ with a constant change of company; my driver doesn't get tipsy, and the proprietors I employ would never think of dislocating my bones (without giving me compensation in ready cash—and really advantages like these'are'nbt for the possessors of private carriages. * I seek in ttirri/ this breezy' heights of Hotham, the classic retirement of Simpson's road, the undulating woodlands of Kew and Hawthorn, or r the sea girt shores of Emerald hill. And as the eye never rests twice on the same waters of a river, so it falls not a second time on the same stream of humanity. Perhaps it may appear to the reader that this jogging about in a Melbourne omnibus promises very insufficient material for anything like a lively chapter of travel. But then there was a Frenchman who once made a whole volume out of Un Voyage Autour maChambre; It may be that this gentleman was, as Lord Beaconsfield phrased, a little " intoxicated with the exuberance of his own verbosity." However, it behoves me to bo careful not \o get similarly squiffy, and so to my story. A short time ago, on entering an omnibus just about to start, I found myself without anything to pay my fare except a pound note. The driver said he had no change, which I took to be sophisticated, but avoided controversy. What thought was in that driver's bosom, supposing thoughts to exist in bosoms, I could not determine. Perhaps he bad sees my paper collar and distrusted my paper money, or perchance he was too arithmetically lazy to care about counting up the .change. Be that as it may, I vas about to retire in a rueful and crumpled-up nieatal condition, when a lady, altogether unkaown to me, quietly held out a ticket. This was such a surprisingly kind and sensible thing to dp, that I could paly take the oftering with a sort of incoherent smile, anf gome inarticulate thankfulness, drop it in. the box. and let it slide. O woman i in «ur hdurs of ease, uncertain, eojr, and oecafcjonally hard to please; when pain and aa^aish wring the brow, what sweet relief loir Jife'i twopenny-halfpenny troubles may flow from your angelic ministrations. loit&s sort, I was dreamily pursuing a train of Jbe«utiful reflecfiens, when my benefactress rose to 'leave the omnibus. Now was my ti»« to speak my gratitude. I couli? wiU> jinjr propriety, repeat the po'/wlar formula ahout wanting words to exp rf«» my feelings, because a single word wou'W have sufficed, and therefore Isblemnly utU^r *<* my fm6no» syllabic " thanks." But;a« >£***«**• fortune would have it, a spasmodic^7 Po^* B man at my side had jbsfc happene>**» while retreating his legs; to gijre rme a spi: >i ßhtlJ kick m the shin, afld 8d lhVtobk'ra>* re* mark for a bit of nMppi&fc irony, and .pi'"* 1 ceeded to say something soothingand apolo-' getio. Opposite me was"amiddle-aged man with a fixed expression of amiability, as though he had been' a photographer's model, and got accustomed to sit still and look pleasant so frequently as hardly to know wlien ; he, did it; Presently a diffident young lady, with cotton gloves and pleasing features.and a lot of oranges in a paper sack, also joined the company. Now, no sooner did this interesting damsel extend a sixpence for tlie fare, than my neighbor the model, a gentleman of precipitate intelligence, took .the coin with his photographic smile, and dropped it in the bos. It cost me-some trouble to explain to the model that he had made a great uss of himself, without putting it offensirely, and that the lady had simply wanted change. However, I succeeded in making the man pretty, uncomfortable, while the young lady protested, almost with tears in her eyes, that it was not of the slightest consequence. Just at this juncture, a well-meaning gentleman poked his umbrella towards a notice about rectifying money mistakes, but he happened to point at a scale of charges for broken windows, which the young lady perused, of course with immense interest aud delight. And then I mused a while on the ethics of omnibus travelling, and how the best intentioned intcrmeddlings of mice and men gang aft agley, as Burns observed. In a minute or two, a brisklooking gentleman took his seat just withiujhe door, and at once passed up liis. threepenny bit. Now here was a golden, or rather a silver opportunity to make rectitude triumphant, and the happy mindedness of everybody. Seizing the coin as it came within my reach, I offered it to the blushing fair one in the gingham gloves to adjust her over-pay-ment. But, as most of the passengers were unacquainted with the previous episode, there was much natural astonishment at set-ing me, with plentiful gesticulation and rhetorical effusiveness, present a rather comely young damsel with a small sum of money. If any one ap.

peared more surprised than another, it was, as might have been expected, the recent possessor of the coin, who shook his head and almost did the same with his fist, and doubtless made use of some severely critical remarks' which the clatter of the vehicle prevented my hearing. And now the driver rang for his fare, and the photographic model got on his legs to explain matters through the pigeon-hole, smiling all the while photographically, and pointed to the girl, who fell to blushing as though she would never have another chance. The brisk gentleman then in his briskest manner jumped on his feet, and with a probable impression that there were two-lunatics in the omnibus who were jointly conspiring to defraud him of threepence. Then the passengers laughed, and the young lady took the money between the finger and thumb of her gamboge gloves, but became so agitated that she dropped her oranges, which at once broke loose and went gambolling all over the omnibus. At this point the driver pulled up, just as the brisk man gave a wail of despair-—at least, it was very like a wail—and I quitted the company, with a feeling of possessing a disposition to Quixotism, which it is undesirable to encourage.-?-Australasian.