H4 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



London at ten o'clock. Were I asked, however, to find 

 out the loose screw, I should say that, in the first place, 

 coming out of private stables in London, instead of a 

 regular public yard, such as the " Cross Keys," " Spread 

 Eagle," " Bolt-in-Tun," etc. etc., militates very greatly 

 against every coach that adopts the plan ; as there 

 cannot be half the power either to form or to hold a 

 "connection" well together; and chance custom, let the 

 friends of the proprietor or coachman be ever so nume- 

 rous, genteel, or zealous, will go but a short way towards 

 paying the expenses for any great length of time. 

 Secondly, the perpetual changing and turning back of 

 the coachmen on the road must have annoyed the pas- 

 sengers not a little ; and it has, moreover, been the means 

 of Sheward's losing one of the very best waggoners out 

 of Brighton — young Cook, who was at last so disgusted 

 at being thus shifted and bandied about, "between Hell 

 and Hackney," that he cut the concern, and has taken, 

 I have reason to believe, by no means a small number of 

 the " Magnet's " old friends to the " Regulator," on 

 which he is now at work. 



1 Sheward has played his cards very ill in throwing 

 his trumps out of his hand ; for Cook is not only a first- 

 rate coachman, but one of the pleasantest fellows to travel 

 with one can easily meet, and therefore a most dangerous 

 customer on a cheap opposition, that starts half an-hour 

 earlier, and runs to the same end of " the village." 

 Neither am I by any means singular in the opinion that 

 had Sheward stuck to this one coach, without having 

 anything to do with the " Age," it would have been better 



