In those days," he went on, "glass inkstands stood on the
desks of the bank I now am chief proprietor of; we have nothing but gold
ones now." The fellow's bombast lowered him in the esteem of the
passengers, who seemed indisposed to listen to him, and the latter part
of the journey he said little, being in fact regularly sent to Coventry
by us all. He afterwards amused himself much to our annoyance by
whistling airs and singing snatches of songs, which caused one of the
passengers, a lady, to leave the diligence at the next change of horses.
He was quite an adept at whistling the air of "Yankee doodle." This want
of deference to the sex, which I must say is an exception to the general
behaviour of men there and in other parts of the Union I visited, did
not fail to call forth animadversion; the remarks at one time being so
pointed, that I began to feel uneasy lest the pugnacious spirit might be
aroused in him, which leads so often in the south to serious encounters.
Our conveyance, which more resembled a waggon than, a stage-coach,
having by this time stopped at a large hotel at Macon, I alighted with
much pleasure, for the roughness of the road, the disagreeable loquacity
of the passenger I have described, and the recklessness of the driver,
made the journey excessively unpleasant.
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