COACH PROPRIETORS. 123 



ping, the coachman would pull up at a small roadside 

 inn for some five or ten minutes; and on going indoors 

 you would find a cold joint and a loaf of bread, which 

 the coachman would at once inform you there was time 

 to have a cut at, and at the same time benefit his friend 

 the landlord. According to this mode of proceeding 

 it was the daily practice of one of Chaplin's coachmen 

 to stop at the Magpies, at Harlington corner on the 

 Bath Eoad, on his down journey, at about eleVen 

 o'clock, and occupy some ten minutes in getting 

 luncheon, which he always found ready. It so hap- 

 pened that Chaplin rode down on the coach one day, 

 when the usual routine was gone through, the coach- 

 man asking him if he would not take something. 

 Chaplin observed that there was not any knife and 

 fork on the table, when the coachman produced those 

 articles, which he always carried with him, and offered 

 them to him. As the coach was about starting again 

 after some ten or fifteen minutes, Chaplin, knowing 

 that such a time ought not to have been lost, there 

 being properly no stoppage at all at the Magpies, 

 quietly observed to the coachman that he supposed 

 the time would be made up out of his horses, as it 

 was clear from his being provided with his knife and 

 fork that the delay was a daily occurrence. The 

 coachman, named Trigg, did not continue in Chaplin's 

 employment. 



