 his customary coolness:
»much obliged to him. I'm agreeable.«
    Tom could have wished him to be a little more astonished, a little more
pleased, or in some form or other a little more interested in such a great
event. But he was perfectly self-possessed: and falling into his favourite
solace of whistling, took another turn at the grammar-school, as if nothing at
all had happened.
    Mr. Pecksniff's horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal, only
to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by some person
distinctly nominated for the time being to that high office by himself, the two
young men agreed to walk to Salisbury; and so, when the time came, they set off
on foot; which was, after all, a better mode of travelling than in the gig, as
the weather was very cold and very dry.
    Better! A rare strong, hearty, healthy walk - four statute miles an hour -
preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking, scraping, creaking,
villanous old gig? Why, the two things will not admit of comparison. It is an
insult to the walk, to set them side by side. Where is an instance of a gig
having ever circulated a man's blood, unless when, putting him in danger of his
neck, it awakened in his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a
tingling heat, much more peculiar than agreeable? When did a gig ever sharpen
anybody's wits and energies, unless it was when the horse bolted, and, crashing
madly down a steep hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his desperate
circumstances suggested to the only gentleman left inside, some novel and
unheard-of mode of dropping out behind? Better than the gig!
    The air was cold, Tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would it have
been more genial in the gig? The blacksmith's fire burned very bright, and
leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm; but would it have been less
tempting, looked at from the clammy cushions of a gig? The wind blew keenly,
nipping the features of the hardy wight who fought his way along; blinding him
with his own hair if he had enough of it, and wintry dust if he hadn't; stopping
his breath as though he had been soused in a cold bath; tearing aside his
wrappings-up, and whistling in the very marrow of his bones; but
