[A Walk from London to John O’Groat’s by Elihu Burritt]@TWC D-Link book
A Walk from London to John O’Groat’s

CHAPTER I
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Indeed, in putting up his great beast to its best speed, he "hides his whip in the manger," according to a proverb older than steam power.

He wears no gloves in the coldest weather; not always a coat, and never a decent one, at his work.

He blows no cheery music out of a brass bugle as he approaches a town, but pricks the loins of the fiery beast, and makes him scream with a sound between a human whistle and an alligator's croak.

He never pulls up abreast of the station-house door, in the fashion of the old coach driver, to show off himself and his leaders, but runs on several rods ahead of his passengers and spectators, as if to be clear of them and their comments, good or bad.

At the end of the journey, be it at midnight or day-break, not a man nor a woman he has driven safely at the rate of forty miles an hour thinks or cares what becomes of him, or separates him in thought from the great iron monster he mounts.


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