But to return to the crusty coachman. His name was Spooner, and he drove out of Oxford, and, though often causing trouble with the passengers by his want of urbanity, he was too valuable a servant to get rid of. As was not so very unusual with him, he had been lately called to account for some want of civility to a passenger, whereupon he announced his determination never to speak to one of them again, and he kept his word, till one day, a gentleman who was going to travel by his coach, asked him some question, but after repeating it several times and eliciting no reply, turned to the proprietor, who was in the office, saying, "Your coachman is so surly, he won't answer a single question I put to him." The proprietor asked him what he meant by not answering the gentleman, to which he replied, "If I do speak to him he will only complain, like that other fool did the other day." On another occasion his whole coach was occupied by musicians, coming to play at a ball at Oxford, and, as he did not expect very good pay from them, he was not in the best of tempers. It happened that at the last change of horses before arriving at Oxford, a boy, who had been sent with a fresh horse, was returning by the coach, and, as every seat was occupied, he sat upon the footboard by the bandmaster's feet, and after they had gone a short distance, pulled a Jew's harp out of his pocket and began to play upon it. Upon this the bandmaster asked the boy to allow him to try what he could do with it, saying, "He could play a good many instruments, but had never tried a Jew's harp." The new instrument proved too much for him, whereupon old Spooner looked at him with scorn and contempt, and said, "You are a pretty sort of a man for a bandmaster, and cannot play a Jew's harp." He also narrated how, when the Great Western Railway was opened over only certain lengths, and coaches were employed over the other ground, some of those were conveyed certain distances on trucks, and the coachmen travelled in their respective coaches. Of course they did not overflow with affection for their rivals, and the way they tried to annoy them was by getting out of their coaches and applying the breaks to the wheels of the trucks. This reminds me of how very slow all those connected with coaches, as also those who took a warm interest in them, were to realize the fact that their occupation was fast leaving them, and that the railways would, before many years, have entirely superseded the old system of travelling. We were not, however, the only people who were somewhat sceptical on the subject, though with us, no doubt, the wish was father to the thought; but the _Times_ newspaper, whilst admitting the financial success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, warned investors against speculative imitation, saying, "Where there are good roads and convenient coaches, it would be a mistake to alter existing arrangements."