"Come, none of that, sir!" I reply. "I meant as to legs, simply as to legs."

And to return to my subject. The decidedly manly look of the young lady's legs, taken in conjunction with her dress, her style altogether and the peculiar nature of the caresses exchanged between her and the Countess, all these little incidents put together, I repeat, produced strong suspicions in my mind as to the sex of our young passenger.

But I need not have troubled myself to have entertained any suspicions at all. At any rate, they soon became certainties. For presently, I took upon myself to ask Robert the coachman where he was driving? And why was he driving so horribly slow?

To my first enquiry he replied that he was going to drive along St. John's Wood-Road, and in the second place he affirmed that he was too compassionate a disposition to vex two handsome creatures that had never done him harm.

I stared at him, for I presumed he referred to the handsome pair of chestnut horses. But when he followed up his remark by gravely saying that it did not matter at what pace he drove for there was "nobody in the carriage," I thought at first he must be mad or drunk, but on turning my head round, the whole truth flashed upon me at once!

Sure enough, the carriage was supposed to be empty, for all the blinds were closed!

"Don't you know the peephole," said my friend John. "Our coachbuilder made it on purpose to please me, or I ought to say, Lord Pomeroy. He put me up to it and sometimes rides on the box with me and says it's far more pleasure to see his wife fucked by a fine young fellow than to have the trouble to do it himself."

"You don't mean that," I replied.

"Yes, no humbug between ourselves! Old Pom only cares for page-boys, lady's-maids, or some other man's wife or daughters. 'Nothing like breaking the Ten Commandments' is his favourite saying. You'll find that hole in the roof. A little bit slides back just behind you."