THE SCRATCH TEAM. 345 



named Fred Guyer, who was a guard on the 

 ' Wellington,' a coach which ran from the Bull 

 and Mouth to Newcastle-on-Tyne. At the different 

 coaching-yards there was generally an odd man 

 or two about who would go on any little errands for 

 the guards or coachmen, and one of these was 

 employed by Guyer, who, having bought at York 

 what he was told was a wild fox, brought it up to 

 London, and sent it in a sack by the odd man at 

 the Bull and Mouth, to a man in Leadenhall Market, 

 to whom he sold it. The purchaser, however, had 

 not had it very long before he discovered that it was 

 evidently a tame fox, and he afterwards complained 

 that Guyer had sold him a tame instead of a wild 

 one. 



At another time Guyer bought two more foxes, 

 having told the purchaser that he could get two 

 more, which the man said he would buy. They 

 were to be brought up in sacks, tied under the 

 hind axle-tree of the coach ; but in the course of 

 the journey up, Guyer saw a fox running across a 

 field near the road, and called the attention of 

 the coachman and passengers to it, regretting at the 

 same time that there were not any hounds there that 

 they might see a run. It never occurred to Guyer that 

 this was one of his foxes ; but on arriving at the 

 BuU and Mouth he found only one, and it reminded 



