information, and taken a good look at the man, he felt that he was safe from being detected in his fraud. Whenever the “spot” rode in his omnibus, he paid in more than he received, relying upon getting back the extra money, and a good bit more, on the journeys when the “spot” was not present. Why he did not remain satisfied with simply paying in the exact amount he took on every occasion that the “spot” rode in his omnibus is a question that occurs to every one who hears the story. In all probability he considered himself a very smart fellow, and it is the fate of people possessed of an exaggerated idea of their own cleverness to make some silly blunder which proves that, after all, they are but fools. In the forties and fifties several well-dressed women “spots” were employed by the omnibus proprietors, and when a conductor suspected any lady passenger of being one, he generally communicated his suspicion to the coachman, with the result that when she wished to alight, the coachman would pull up in the muddiest part of the road, so that she would be compelled to get her boots and skirt dirty. More often than not it was a perfectly innocent lady whom the conductor left stranded in the centre of a crowded, muddy street. These mistakes are still very common. Conductors are always on the look out for “spots,” and every day hundreds of innocent passengers are suspected of being private inspectors because they happen, perhaps unconsciously, to watch the conductor punching tickets or to glance at his badge number. Although private inspectors are, naturally enough, very strongly disliked by ’busmen, they are a great protection to them. There are always a few cantankerous, cross-grained people riding in omnibuses somewhere in London who abuse conductors with scarcely any reason, and threaten, when they have aggravated them into retort, to report them for impertinence. And sometimes they do report the man, but if a “spot” happens to be in the omnibus he sends to his employers a full account of all that occurred. He does not forget to mention the provocation the conductor received, a point which people who write letters of complaint have a curious knack of overlooking. Sometimes conductors get very strange people in their omnibuses. One night, a year or two ago, a “Favorite” started from Victoria Station with three inside passengers, two of whom were women. Suddenly the woman sitting by the door pointed at the one at the other end of the omnibus and exclaimed dramatically:-- “That woman has stolen my purse.” “She hasn’t been near you,” the conductor declared; but the woman repeated the accusation in a louder tone. The accused woman remained very calm, and it was not until the charge against her began to get monotonous through repetition that she told the conductor to stop the omnibus and call a policeman. The conductor did so. “That woman has stolen my purse,” the passenger at the door shouted when the policeman arrived.