Pace, however, at last, is a relative thing, and eight or nine miles an hour on one road may be really as fast as twelve or thirteen on another. I can safely say that, though I have driven some fast coaches in my time, I never had a day of harder work to keep time than in doing eighty miles in ten hours. What with one weak team in the early part of the journey, hilly roads, a heavy load, and frequent delays for changing passengers and luggage, the last stage of nine miles had to be covered in forty-two minutes to bring us in to time and catch the train. Before finally bidding adieu to the subject of driving, it may perhaps be allowed me to say a few words about harness and the fitting of it. Of course it hardly needs saying that a coachman _ought_ to be familiar with every strap and buckle of it, though this intimate knowledge may be dispensed with by those who only drive their own teams, and are always waited on by one or two good and experienced servants. Indeed, from what I witnessed in Hyde Park several years ago, I have had my suspicions whether these same servants are not sometimes utilised on early mornings in training the teams, and putting them straight for the masters' driving in the afternoon. I once saw a drag brought round to the right at the Magazine without the gentleman in charge of the box touching the off-side reins with his right hand at all; and I fail to see how this could have been accomplished unless the horses were as well trained to it as circus steeds.