n6 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



twenty of the regular working dragsmen into fits, and 

 as an amateur is only to be approached by two or three 

 of the chosen few whose names will live for ever in the 

 annals of the B. D. C. — Sir Henry Peyton and Mr. 

 Walker, for instance. What he may be with bad and 

 heavy cattle I will not pretend to say ; but, judging from 

 the manner in which his teams are put together (and he 

 has some awkward customers amongst them), I think 

 nothing could come much amiss to him. I sincerely hope 

 his side of the " Age " is doing well, and that every one 

 of the crowd assembled in Castle Square three times a 

 week to see him start may prove a passenger and a 

 friend to him all through the winter. 



1 In giving you the anecdote about the " Patriot," to 

 which I was witness on Pickett's " Union," in my last 

 communication, I omitted to notice his partner Egerton, 

 who drives the other side of this (now) excellent coach. 

 In point of manners, deportment, and conversation, he 

 ranks far above almost all dragsmen with whom I have 

 at any time travelled ; and if he pursues the same 

 obliging and unassuming mode of conducting himself (of 

 which there is little doubt), there is no fear that he will 

 be as popular on the road, and as much patronised by the 

 public, as old Hine himself; and this, let me tell him, is 

 not to be attained by everyone. He was for some time 

 at workout of the "Spread Eagle" yard, on Chaplin and 

 Snow's Worthing " Sovereign," and left when he quitted 

 that coach a good name behind him. No man, indeed, 

 is more highly spoken of amongst his associates, and it 

 was only the other day that William Snow was regretting 



