Every Cantab of the nineteenth century must remember our friend Smith
of the Blue Boar, Trinity Street, charioteer of that now _defunct_
vehicle and pair which used to ply between Cambridge, New-market, and
Bury St. Edmunds, and on account of its _celerity, and other marked
qualities_, was called "_The Slow and Dirty_" by Freshman, Soph,
Bachelor, and Big-wig, now metamorphosed into a handsome four-in-hand,
over which our friend Smith presides in a style worthy of _the Club
itself_! He had one day, in olden time, pulled up at Botsham, midway
between Newmarket and Cambridge, when there happened to be several
Cantabs on the road, who were refreshing their nags at the
"self-same" inn, the Swan, at which _the Slow and Dirty_ made its
daily halt. "Any passengers?" inquired Smith. "One inside," said a
Cambridge wag, standing by, whose eye was the moment caught by a young
ass feeding on the nettles in a neighbouring nook. Having put his
fellows up to the joke, Smith was invited in-doors and treated with a
glass of grog; meanwhile, my gentleman with the long ears was popped
inside the coach. Smith coming out, inquired after his passenger, whom
he supposed one of his friends, the Cantabs, and learnt he was housed.
"All right," said Smith, and off he drove, followed quickly by our wag
and party on horseback, who determined to be in at the _denouement_.
Smith had not made much way, when our inside passenger, not finding
himself _in clover_, popped his head out at one of the coach windows.
The spectacle attracted the notice of many _bipeds_ as they passed
along; Smith, however, notwithstanding their laughter, "kept the even
tenor of his way." At Barnwell the boys _huzzaed_ with more than their
usual greetings, but still Smith kept on, unconscious of the cause. He
no sooner made Jesus' Lane, than crowds began to follow in his wake,
and he dashed into the Blue-Boar yard with _a tail_ more numerous than
that upon the shoulders of which Dan O'Connell rode into the first
Reformed Parliament, Feargus included. Down went the reins, as the
ostlers came to the head of his smoking _prads_, and Smith was in a
moment at the coach door, with one hand instinctively upon the latch,
and the other raised to his hat, when the whole truth flashed upon his
astonished eyes, and Balaam was safely landed, amidst peals of
laughter, in which our friend Smith was not the least _uproarious_.
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