'"And pray, my good sir, what sort of horses may you have over the next stage?" "Oh, sir, no more bo-kickers. It is hilly and severe ground, and requires cattle strong and staid. You'll see four as fine horses put to the coach at Staines as you ever saw in a nobleman's carriage in your life." "Then we shall have no more galloping--no more springing them as you term it?" "Not quite so fast over the next ground," replied the proprietor; "but he will make good play over some part of it: for example, when he gets three parts down a hill he lets them loose, and cheats them out of half the one they have to ascend from the bottom of it. In short, they are half-way up it before a horse touches his collar; and we _must_ take every advantage with such a fast coach as this, and one that loads so well, or we should never keep our time. We are now to a minute; in fact the country people no longer look at the _sun_ when they want to set their clocks--they look only to the _Comet_. But, depend upon it, you are quite safe; we have nothing but first-rate artists on this coach." "Artist! artist!" grumbles the old gentleman, "we had no such term as that." '"I should like to see this _artist_ change horses at the next stage," resumes our ancient; "for at the last it had the appearance of magic--'Presto, Jack, and begone!'" "By all means; you will be much gratified. It is done with a quickness and ease almost incredible to anyone who has only read or heard of it; not a buckle or a rein is touched twice, and still all is made secure; but use becomes second nature with us. Even in _my_ younger days it was always half an hour's work--sometimes more. There was--'Now, ladies and gentlemen, what would you like to take? There's plenty of time, while the horses are changing, for tea, coffee, or supper; and the coachman will wait for you--won't you, Mr. Smith?' Then Mr. Smith himself was in no hurry; he had a lamb about his coach for one butcher in the town, and perhaps half a calf for another, a barrel of oysters for the lawyer, and a basket of game for the parson, _all on his own account_. In short, the best wheel of the coach was his, and he could not be otherwise than accommodating."