248 THE ROAD. 



Dicky Costar's meaning his opponent lie 

 should eat it with much more satisfaction ; 

 and I verily believed him. 



With neither of these parties was I, or 

 the coach I drove, at all connected ; and 

 the London proprietor, horsing it all the 

 way to Oxford, he committed everything 

 to my management. I must confess that 

 I was, for the time, highly pleased with 

 the change I had made. It was summer 

 time, and the road, as far as Maidenhead 

 or Henley, was pleasant and populous. 

 Consequently, the retail trade* was abund- 

 ant therefore very profitable to the man 

 at the helm, as Jack would call the coach- 

 man. The company also was mostly of the 

 first order. We were patronised liberally 

 by some of the first houses of the Nobility 

 and Gentry, whose mansions and estates lay 

 in the counties of Oxford or Gloucester 

 particularly those of Somerset and Berke- 



* The term given by the fraternity to short passengers. 



