COACH PROPRIETORS. 163 



get any breakfast at all before starting, you had to 

 wait until you reached Bagshot at eight o'clock, when 

 you were allowed the not superabundant period of 

 twenty minutes for the meal. 



I never did get up at what is sometimes called 

 ' the unearthly hour ' of three in the morning, 

 and should personally much prefer travelling all 

 night. I suppose the time spent in getting from 

 the extreme end of London to the west, and 

 picking up passengers on the way, rendered such an 

 early start necessary. The coach called at the Bull 

 and Mouth, and if at the same places as the night- 

 coach, the Fountain in Foster Lane, Cheapside, and 

 at one of the offices in Piccadilly, and was not timed 

 away from there till half-past five, just an hour after 

 leaving Aldgate ; but the ' Telegraph ' Manchester 

 •day-coach, although going twenty-one miles farther in 

 the day, did not leave the Bull and Mouth till five, 

 and the Peacock, Islington, at a quarter past five in 

 the morning. Quite early enough to turn, out on a 

 winter's morning certainly, and possibly go without 

 breakfast till Northampton was reached, at twenty 

 minutes to nine, when, as on the Exeter coach, twenty 

 minutes only were allowed you to eat as much as you 

 could, with tea or coffee too hot to drink during that 

 short time. 



The mails were more liberal in their allowance of 



11—2 



