338 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



the party could have time to do justice to it. 

 Our gentleman, therefore, often had the morti- 

 fication of paying both for the lady's dinner 

 and for his own, of which he had not tasted a 

 mouthful. He returned to the coach as hungry 

 as he had left it, and kept his gentility as warm 

 as it was possible to do on an empty stomach. A 

 very little of this Avas sufficient to wear the nap 

 off the politeness of a Chesterfield, and it must 

 not infrequently have happened that the person 

 who had been all courtliness at dinner became 

 selfishness incarnate at tea. 



Those who did not come up to the high 

 standard that Constable attained — and they Avere 

 in the majority — hurried out of the coach A\'ithout 

 the slightest consideration for any one else, and 

 flinging themselves into the inn, roared out for 



"dinner, d d quick"; or — older travellers 



and more Avary — filled their sjiirit flasks at the 

 bar, and made sure of having a meal of sorts by 

 demanding cold ham or beef, or any of those 

 dishes Avhicli the hostelries of that time possessed 

 in abundance. 



Many Avriters have attempted to describe those 

 coach-dinners, and one endeavoured to vividly 

 picture them by declaring that they reminded 

 him more of hounds feeding at a trough than 

 human beings ; but none have equalled the 

 anonymous account quoted here. 



" Eirst of all, you had, in Avinter, to be called 

 before daylight; then you had to proceed in a 

 rattling hackney-coach (your teeth rattling to 



