82 THE COACHING ERA 



at the end of the journey he presented Bayzand with a 

 crown piece. 



The Mazeppa occasionally had another passenger 

 whose liberality in the matter of tips astonished both 

 guard and coachman. This eccentric gentleman carried 

 his money loose in his coat-tail pocket, and when he 

 tipped on leaving the coach, he put his hand into his 

 pockets and drew out a handful of coins without looking 

 at them. On one occasion the coachman received three 

 sovereigns and a sixpence, and the guard six sovereigns 

 a shilling and a sixpence. 



When things were lost during a coach journey pas- 

 sengers claimed compensation, and one day the horse- 

 keeper of the Bolt and Tun Inn informed Bayzand that 

 a gentleman from Cheltenham declared he had lost his 

 cloak when on the Mazeppa — a very fine cloak it was, 

 too, from the description given, "a rich camlet, lined 

 with real fur" and the value he put on it ^15, 15s. 



Bayzand always made a point of taking the numbers of 

 the hackney-coaches, and he distinftiy remembered the 

 gentleman in question had gone off in No. 666 and, 

 moreover, his cloak had gone with him, for the guard 

 recalled the fa(Sl that a tassel of it caught in the door as 

 it shut. 



When the gentleman appeared clamouring for the 

 return of his cloak, or £15, 15s. in lieu thereof, he was 

 escorted to the receiving office by Bayzand and the 

 bookkeeper. Sure enough there was the cloak, but 

 how different from the owner's description! — shabby 

 and threadbare and not worth 15s.! 



