20 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



Bath Road — who could pick a fly off his leader's right 

 eyelid with all the friendly dexterity discovered by Mr. 

 Vincent Crummies ; Jack Adams, the civil and obliging 

 pastor, who taught the young Etonians how to drive — 

 (how schoolboys must have enjoyed coaches, by the way ; 

 how the slow rate of travelling must have drawn out the 

 delicious luxury of departure from the seat of learning; 

 how postponed the horrid moment of arrival ; with what 

 pride the first driving lesson must have been taken on 

 so conspicuous a box ; with what unerring aim peas 

 must have been launched at equestrians on restive 

 horses, from how great a point of vantage !) — then, to 

 proceed with the catalogue of the coachmen, there was 

 the gallant Jack Everett, who upset his coach near 

 Marlborough, broke one of his own legs, and one also 

 belonging to a female passenger, but who, disdaining an 

 ignominious flight, allowed himself to be conveyed to 

 the nearest surgeon in the same barrow with his victim, 

 who was neither fair, fat, nor under fifty ; who, moreover, 

 after uttering the ever-memorable exclamation, " I have 

 often kissed a voun^ woman, and why shouldn't I kiss 

 an old one ? ' suited the tender action to the candid 

 word ; neither did shrieks issue from the barrow. 

 Lastly, of those whom I have space left me to mention, 

 Jack Stacey must not be forgotten ; one of four brothers 

 who worked on the Western roads — known, all of them, 

 for equal skill, courage, punctuality, and hats with brims 

 destitute of all curl ; but Jack notorious above them all 

 for having, for the first time on record, driven a Mail out 

 of Piccadilly with more than four passengers inside. 

 The deed, hateful alike to men and Mail inspectors, is 

 thus pleasantly told by Mr. Stanley Harris, in his 

 erudite and amusing work, T/ie CoacJiing Age : 



" One night the Bath Mail was full inside all the way 

 down, when a gentleman who was a regular customer 

 wanted to return home to Marlborough, and there was 

 no means of his getting there. Stacey held a council 

 with the book-keeper, observing that it wouldn't do to 



