i2o ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

 the Brighton road {concluded), 



' I have already spoken of the " Regulator," not so, how- 

 ever, of the office from which it starts. By some of the 

 dragsmen about Brighton it is called (and not inappropri- 

 ately) " The Beehive," being the place that gives birth to 

 the swarm of cheap concerns, and an elegant lot; take them 

 altogether, they certainly are ! As I do not profess to be 

 the historian of " pair-horse coaches,"" I shall waste but 

 few words on the " Royal Exchange" and " Hero ; " observ- 

 ing only that one of them (the first, I believe) was, and, 

 for aught I know to the contrary, still is, horsed out of 

 Brighton by a dealer of the name of Hayler, or Hamer — 

 no bad judge, it would appear, of the value of the old 

 saying "short accounts make long friends," for every 

 night after the coach comes in he draws the "blunt," or no 

 " flesh" is forthcoming the next morning. To the Adonis 

 of " The Beehive," old Tommy (on Mr. Stevenson's late 

 coach the " Coronet "), in his white castor, it would take a 

 far abler pen than mine to do justice. I shall make my 

 bow to him, therefore, with the remark, that I believe 

 him to be a very excellent judge of stock (would he not 

 be therefore better placed on the " Exchange ?") and that if 



