I can call well to mind the time when I held the coachman of a certain Royal Mail, which made its appearance in our benighted village about breakfast-time, to have been one of the most eminent men of the day, and felt at least a foot taller when, as was his wont, he gave me, boy as I was, a friendly nod of recognition. As to seeing the horses changed, that was a scene I would not have missed on any account. How we all stood admiring as the panting steeds, which had galloped gloriously their stage, were led sweating away, and the fresh team, with cloths on, and their hoofs newly-cleaned, and everything about them bright and shiny, took the vacant places! What a pleasure it was to see them as they stood pawing the ground, impatient to be off! How glad we were when the coachman, as he climbed up into his lofty seat, and gathered up the reins in his capacious hand, gave the signal, ‘Let ’em go!’ How beautiful it was to us lads to see the coach bound off like a thing of life, while the guard blew a farewell flourish on his horn, and the horses settled down steadily to their work after a playful flourish or two! Woe is me! I, and other miserable sinners like unto me, come to town through tunnels, and over the tops of houses, or along cuttings in which one gets an unlovely view of the backs of dirty houses and slovenly yards, in a closely-packed railway carriage, where we can neither talk, nor hear, nor read, and grow nervous as the engine screams and shrieks on all occasions, while the railway porters close the doors with a bang sufficient to send one into a fit. Life in our railway age is hard for us all.