CHAPTER XX

What a rate have I gone on at, curvetting and frisking it away, two up and two down for four volumes[4.8] together, without looking once behind, or even on one side of me, to see whom I trod upon! --I’ll tread upon no one----quoth I to myself when I mounted ------I’ll take a good rattling gallop; but I’ll not hurt the poorest jackass upon the road. ----So off I set----up one lane------down another, through this turnpike----over that, as if the arch-jockey of jockeys had got behind me.

Now ride at this rate with what good intention and resolution you may----’tis a million to one you’ll do some one a mischief, if not yourself ------He’s flung--he’s off--he’s lost his hat--he’s down------he’ll break his neck----see! ----if he has not galloped full among the scaffolding of the undertaking criticks! ----he’ll knock his brains out against some of their posts--he’s bounced out! --look--he’s now riding like a mad-cap full tilt through a whole crowd of painters, fiddlers, poets, biographers, physicians, lawyers, logicians, players, schoolmen, churchmen, statesmen, soldiers, casuists, connoisseurs, prelates, popes, and engineers. --Don’t fear, said I --I’ll not hurt the poorest jack-ass upon the king’s highway. --But your horse throws dirt; see you’ve splash’d a bishop. ----I hope in God, ’twas only _Ernulphus_, said I. ------But you have squirted full in the faces of Mess. _Le Moyne_, _De Romigny_, and _De Marcilly_, doctors of the _Sorbonne_. ------That was last year, replied I. --But you have trod this moment upon a king. ----Kings have bad times on’t, said I, to be trod upon by such people as me.

You have done it, replied my accuser.

I deny it, quoth I, and so have got off, and here am I standing with my bridle in one hand, and with my cap in the other, to tell my story. ------And what is it? You shall hear in the next chapter.

[Footnote 4.8: According to the original Editions.]

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