But to return to coaches proper again: one called the "Dart" used to run between Oxford and London, driven by a coachman who was commonly known by the name of "Black Will;" and one fine morning the box seat was occupied by an Oxford Don, who thought he would enjoy the air on his journey. After they had gone a short distance he addressed our friend Black Will, saying, "Are you the coachman they call Black Will?" His answer was, "Blackguards call me Black Will, but gentlemen call me Mr. Walters." It is needless to say that this shut up the Don for the remainder of the journey. Dick Dicas drove the "Cambrian" between Llangollen and Dolgelly for several years, and one day it so happened that among the outside passengers there was a ventriloquist. As they drove along the road a man was seen walking leisurely across a field in the direction of the coach, when the ventriloquist threw his voice so as to make it appear that he was calling to it to stop. Of course, Dick pulled up, thinking he had got another passenger; but as he did not quicken his pace, he began to get impatient, for he was not a Job under any circumstances, and called out to him to "Come on," and "Do you suppose I can wait here all day for you?" At last, as he approached nearer, he said, "What do you want with me?" when friend Dick answered, "Why, you called me to stop." "I did nothing of the sort," replied the man in the field. "I tell you you did," said Dick, waxing warmer. "Well, I'm not coming with you, anyhow," said the leisurely man; whereupon there was nothing left for Dick to do but to drive on, not in the best of tempers, as may be supposed. Whether he ever knew of the trick played upon him I do not remember to have heard, but if he did find it out in time, I suspect he made it hot for the ventriloquist. At one time Cambridge could boast of a clever poet as a coachman. Tom Cross was his name, and he drove the Lynn coach from the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross. He wrote "The Conflagration of Rome," and "Paul before Nero," and some wags among the undergraduates said the idea was given him by the fat from the bacon he was frying in the garret igniting. But be that as it may, they were very clever compositions. I fancy it was this man who published the first book on coaching which has appeared in print. CHAPTER XVIII. MONOTONY.