The traveller was an excellent and practised shot,--he was almost within arm's length of his intended victim,--his pistols were the envy of all his Irish friends.

He pulled the trigger,--the powder flashed in the pan; and the highwayman, not even changing countenance, drew forth a small ink-bottle, and placing a steel pen in it, handed it to the nobleman, saying, with incomparable sang froid: "Would you like, my lord, to try the other pistol?
If so, oblige me by a quick aim, as you must see the necessity of despatch.

If not, here is the back of a letter, on which you can write the draft." The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in anything save his circumstances; but he certainly felt a little discomposed and confused as he took the paper, and uttering some broken words, wrote the check.

The highwayman glanced over it, saw it was written according to form, and then with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut the door of the carriage.
Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front, boxed up in that solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a dickey.

Him the robber now briefly accosted.
"What have you got about you belonging to your master ?" "Only his pills, your honour! which I forgot to put in the--" "Pills!--throw them down to me!" The valet tremblingly extricated from his side-pocket a little box, which he threw down and Lovett caught in his hand.
He opened the box, counted the pills,--"One, two, four, twelve,--aha!" He reopened the carriage door.