4i8 THE COACHING AGE. 



He immediately went to tlie iun, and found the 

 coach just in the same condition as when it had 

 been drawn into the yard on the previous evening, 

 with the bag on the seat inside, and all its contents 

 exactly as he had left them. 



Afterwards' the banker unfortunately went out of 

 his mind, and it was probably owing to forget- 

 fulness arising from the malady with which he was 

 threatened that he left his bag in the coach, and 

 thought no more of it until some inquiry was made 

 of him respecting it. 



Another reason for my having a vivid recollection 

 of this event is that the coach was one by which 

 some of us used to travel to and from school. It 

 belonged to and was driven by a man whom I knew 

 well in the days when we used, as boys, to have 

 round-topped trunks covered with calf- skin and 

 with curious strips of leather running in various 

 directions, and (by way of ornament, I suppose) 

 thickly-set rows of nails after the style of a coffin 

 — except that the nails were bright and brass-headed 

 instead of black. 



In those days coaches were not so particularly or 

 strictly timed, as may be gathered from the fact that 

 when two or three of lis were going back to school 

 the proprietor would bring his coach up to our house, 

 which was out of his usual route, and there turn his 



