296 THE COACHING AGE. 



driving a coach between Newbury and Bristol. They 

 were very pleasant men to travel with, there being 

 nothing in the slightest degree low or slangy about 

 them. Jack's countenance, when he was recounting 

 anything at all funny, was inexpressibly comical. 



He once related to me the following circumstance 

 in connection with one of his earliest applications to 

 be put on a coach ; I must premise, however, that 

 the story unavoidably loses half its zest for want of 

 the narrator's countenance. 



He applied to Costar and Waddell, the large coach" 

 proprietors at Oxford, for a situation; but from the 

 remark that old Costar made, I assume that his ap- 

 pearance was not quite of the ' down-the-road ' order, 

 and led Costar to doubt whether it would be advis- 

 able to employ him. 



Costar remarked to some one who was with him 

 that he ' didn't like the curl in the brim of the young 

 man's hat.' Jack did not hear the remark at the 

 time, but by some means it afterwards reached his 

 ears, when, as he said in telling the story to me, ' I 

 soon had the curl out of the brim of my hat.' 



To say we had a hearty laugh over it is perhaps 

 quite unnecessary ; he did not, however, , work for 

 Costar and Waddell. The story, I presume, he com- 

 municated to his brothers, who most . likely .took the 

 hint ; for certainly when I became acquainted with 



