It was dark for the greater part of the year before he reached the end of the journey, and, as his sight was not very good at night, he would sometimes say to his box passenger, "If you please, sir, will you tell me what is coming towards us." Perhaps the passenger after looking, would say "A cart," to which David would reply, "Then I was get out of his way;" but if the answer was "A gig," or "A carriage," he would say, "Then he was get out of my way," and would keep straight on. Dolgelly at that time contained a few boon companions, some of whom were rather given to practical joking. One morning there happened to be on the box seat one of these gentlemen, and when they had proceeded a few miles on the road, he pulled a pill-box out of his pocket and took some of the pills. Upon seeing this, David said to him, "If you please, sir, what have you got there?" He replied, "Only a few pills, which I find very beneficial after a hard night." "Well, indeed," says David, "I had a rather heavy night; was you please give me some of them?" "All right," says he, "hold out your hand," when he poured several pills into it; and upon David asking how many he was to take, he said, "Take them all," which he did; and the sequel was, that he drove his coach to Machynlleth, but another man brought it back in the evening. For two summers, when I was driving the Aberystwith and Kington "Cambrian," I had Ben Haslam as guard, who was also something of a character, and quite one of the old coachmen. He had driven for many years out of London on different coaches, and, like a good many others, had followed the receding tide, and had got down to Herefordshire, where coaches lingered for several years, and then on to Wales, where, at that time, railways had not penetrated. He was full of anecdotes connected with the road, and towards autumn, when the down loads were usually very light, I would sometimes get him to sit by me on the box that he might enliven the way with some of them. He had one story which amused me, of the only really crusty coachman I ever heard of. They were, as a rule, very cheery, genial spirits, and, indeed, had not much cause to be otherwise. There were few pleasanter lives. They were generally made a great deal of, indeed, perhaps rather too much so at times, although, as a body, they bore their honours becomingly. Between the patronage they received from the gentlemen and the deference shown them by the horse-keepers and others, it is hardly to be wondered at if sometimes their heads were a little turned, and they became rather too big for their boots. There was a story told of one, who was rather cheeky, giving great offence to a parson, who was his box passenger, by saying that he was not going to drive the next day, but should send his curate. They were, however, not very unfrequently taken down a peg by a lick from the rough side of a crusty proprietor's tongue; but on the whole, they were, as Tony Weller said, "priviledged indiwiduals."