COACHMEN. 3^3 



■wearer, but to the gratification of the coachman, 

 who got on just as well without the trace being 

 altered, seeing that it was not at all necessary in the 

 first instance, and was only ordered as a means of 

 paying off an instalment of an old score, although 

 I don't think this fact was communicated to the 

 wearer of the coat. 



If they happened to be travelling through a rather 

 hilly country, a few extra occasions of having the 

 drag put on unnecessarily might be made available, 

 The relative position of the mail guard and coach- 

 man was illustrative of the difficulty of serving two 

 masters. 



As I was a good deal amused by the story Mills 

 told me one day of an unprofitable journey he made, 

 I will repeat it as nearly as I can recollect, merely 

 premising that it took place some forty-five or fifty 

 years since, and in the days when pugilistic en- 

 counters were openly conducted, and the names, 

 weights, and colours of the combatants, together with 

 detailed accounts of the encounters, were duly re- 

 ported in the sporting papers. 



A fight between two noted men — one, I think, a 

 Londoner, and the other a Bristol man — was an- 

 nounced to come off somewhere on the borders of the 

 Forest of Dean, and Mills engaged an omnibus and 

 four horses to take a fabulous number of persons from 



21—2 



