158 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



you enter another public-house, as I think you have 

 already been into enough of them for any refreshment 

 you ought to require." I do not know whether the 

 coachman, whose rent roll of one estate was certainly 

 equal to many half-crowns per hour, afterwards earned 

 the gratuity. I have frequently had to decline tips. 1 

 But one wet day I took from a distinguished senator, 

 whose party numbered ten outsides, what I took to be a 

 shilling. I thought that, knowing who I was, he offered 

 it for chaff; but when I took off my soaked upper 

 Benjamin soon afterwards, and emptied my pockets, it 

 turned out to be a sovereign. 



'An old lady once beckoned me to the door while 

 " first change out" at Balham, and said, " Coachman, we 

 have come very nicely out of London, and at a pretty 

 pace ; but through Clapham your horses did not work 

 evenly together. ■ Oh, you see I know all about stage- 

 coach riding ! " I was obliged to answer, touching my 

 hat, " You are quite right, ma'am ; they did work a little 

 awkward." There was not time, nor indeed would it 

 have done, to try to explain to the dear old party that it 

 was the tramway that was to blame. This tramway is a 

 great nuisance to coaching ; it is impossible to get a 

 coach to run evenly over it, particularly where it is laid 

 down on the side of a hill or on asphalte. Your coach 

 sways and slides about, and the sensation of an inside 

 passenger is very much as if the four horses were taking it 

 in turn to draw the coach. This was the old lady's idea, 

 no doubt, for in her last experience of stage coaching, 



1 What a mistake ! every little helps. 



