COACHING COMPETITION 97 



behind me, and I asked her when at Netting Hill if she 

 felt at all alarmed, and she said not in the least, her only 

 fear was that her friends would not be at the Bell and 

 Crown, Holborn, to meet her. This turned out to be the 

 case, so I put her into a growler and sent her home. 

 Sir Henry Peyton — of four-in-hand renown — met James 

 Castle, the driver of the Blenheim in Oxford Street, 

 and said: 'Well, what's become of the Age and Royal 

 William; I thought they were to be in town before you 

 to-day?' 'Well,' he said, 'so they are, I should think, for 

 they passed me while I was changing horses at Gerrard's 

 Cross, and I have not seen them since, and if they have 

 not had a jolly good dinner before this time they have 

 been very idle.'" 



The famous Shrewsbury coach. The Wonder, con- 

 sidered the last word in coaching perfeftion, was the 

 darling of its proprietors, and the wonder and envy of all 

 other coach proprietors. In due time a presumptuous 

 rival, named the Nimrod, was put on the road to compete 

 with this coaching paragon. The proprietors of the 

 Wonder would not allow it to imperil its precious 

 reputation by engaging in such a vulgar performance 

 as racing, but the very idea of its being eclipsed by the 

 Nimrod was unthinkable. They sought a way out of the 

 difficulty by putting another coach called the Stag on 

 the road, whose avowed intention was to compete with, 

 and beat the presumptuous Nimrod. For a year these 

 two coaches raced daily at headlong speed, whilst the 

 Wonder continued its accustomed pace, and attained 

 such a reputation for accuracy that the people along the 

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