GUARDS AND THEIR FEES. 395 



It is difficult to say what a guard travelling a long 

 distance on a good road, such as from London to Liver- 

 pool or Manchester, would not earn in the course of a 

 year, being out three or four nights a week, together 

 with short fares, commissions for business, etc. 



Sometimes four commercial men would come up 

 together, taking the whole of the inside of the coach, 

 and playing whist in order to beguile the tedium of 

 the journey, getting the guard at divers intervals, as 

 occasion required and opportunity offered, to procure 

 them a bottle of sherry or other refreshment ; and for 

 the performance of this little attention he was of course 

 not forgotten at the end of the journey. On another 

 occasion a lady, two of whose sons were going up to 

 London, consigned them to the care of the guard, 

 with strict injunctions not to allow them to smoke. 

 The coach, however, had not gone far before he 

 found out that the youngsters were provided with an 

 ample supply of cigars, which they produced, and, 

 despite his remonstrances, proceeded to smoke ; so 

 ifinding his persuasive powers inadequate to the 

 occasion, he accepted their offer to partake of their 

 supply. They all smoked very comfortably together, 

 the soothing influence of the narcotic weed no doubt 

 quieting any qualms of conscience from which the 

 guard might otherwise have suffered. 



' I was driving down one night,' said a mail-coach- 



