THE CORNISH MAIL 117 



for the West of England mails, and besought that the 

 Quicksilver royal mail-coach might follow the shorter 

 route of Ilminster taken by the Telegraph, and that 

 the bags might be sent forwards from Devonport 

 without the delay of a night. 



The Post-Office was nothing loath. The officials 

 threw themselves con amoi^e into the work of accelera- 

 tion. They and Lord Lichfield were in constant 

 communication. The first point was to determine the 

 shortest road to Exeter from Andover, which was a 

 coaching town of no mean consequence. Men yet 

 living in Andover recollect a coach passing through it 

 at every hour of the day and night. Some of the 

 famous inns still stand. The White Hart, in Bridge 

 Street, is yet as it was of old, and the Star, in the 

 High Street, to which the noted Telegraph ran, is 

 little altered. But the Catherine Wheel, at which the 

 still more noted Quicksilver changed horses, though it 

 remains in Bridge Street, has fallen — some may think 

 risen — from its former estate ; half is a coffee tavern, 

 the other half a reading-room. 



At Andover, in the old electioneering times, a 

 singular incident occurred. Sir F. B. Delaval's agent, 

 an attorney, conceived the notion of inviting the 

 officers of a regiment quartered in the town to a good 

 dinner at the George, in the name of the Mayor, and 

 at the same time he invited the Mayor and Aldermen 

 in the name of the officers. When the author of this 

 practical joke was discovered, as he was soon after 

 dinner, the Colonel, in wrathful reprisal, threw him 



