Mr. Baines considerately omitted to say that Mr. Nobbs’ attempts to blow the horn were somewhat of a failure. When, for the sake of Auld Lang Syne, he was asked to act as guard to the coach, he represented that he could not blow a horn owing to having lost several teeth. He was, however, persuaded to attempt it, and to practise beforehand. Unfortunately his efforts in going down that busy London artery—Cheapside—were futile, and the feeble sounds he managed to extract from the horn excited the derision of all the street urchins _en route_. Mr. Nobbs took his discomfiture in perfect good humour, and I feel sure will not be offended at this public allusion to the amusing incident. Another _contretemps_ on the same journey was the stoppage of the coach at the bottom of Cheapside by the police on account of the coachman—that well known jehu, Mr. John Manley Birch—trying to take the coach on the wrong side of a particular post. Sir Arthur Blackwood tried his persuasive powers, Mr. Algernon Turnor threatened pains and penalties for the interference with Her Majesty’s Royal Mail, but the policemen were inexorable. The position was getting rather ludicrous, and the immense traffic was being considerably impeded, when, in a twinkling, our resolute coachman saw his opportunity, and having for leaders two horses accustomed to run in a fire-engine and quick to get a start, drove past the astonished policemen—who were not prepared for such a dash—and away we sped amid the plaudits of the assembled crowd. At the Conversazione at the South Kensington Museum in 1890, in celebration of the Jubilee of Penny Postage, Mr. Nobbs, as one of the oldest officers in the Postal Service, had the honour of presenting to Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh a letter signed by old officers of the Post Office, who entered the service more than fifty years previously. Again, at a meeting which was held at the General Post Office to inaugurate the City Telegraph Messengers’ Institute, Mr. Nobbs in his brilliant scarlet coat put Postmen and Telegraph Messengers quite into the shade. He said at this meeting what a boon it would have been to him if Institutes, with night classes, had been formed in the days when he first donned Her Majesty’s uniform. If he could then have obtained the educational advantages now enjoyed by every Telegraph Boy employed in the City, he would not, after a period of fifty-five years of most faithful and zealous service have occupied at the last the comparatively subordinate position of a Mail Guard.