leave of us at peep of day. His departure gave occasion for the first indication that our companions were gifted with the power of speech. Their words were few, and these only had reference to the “spirited” propensities of the gentleman who had just vacated his seat. On this there could be no difference of opinion, and consequently no argument――so that we soon relapsed into the appearance at least of sleep, which we maintained with great perseverance till a brilliant sun shining through the ice-covered windows called forth a remark on the fineness of the morning. This, to our surprise, for we thought ourselves _incog._, was followed by a remark of recognition from the third gentleman who had entered the coach at the “Bull and Mouth,” and who, alluding to quick travelling, recalled to our mind some feats of this sort in which we had been engaged in the course of a twenty years’ connection with the Press. The ice once broken, conversation commenced, with apparent satisfaction to us all, the venerable gentleman on my right joining, and contributing as well as exacting his proportion of information on all manner of topics――public men and public measures, and the public Press, forming prominent subjects of remark, upon all of which our friend on the right seemed agreeably conversant. We soon discovered that our opposite neighbour was going to Leeds, to and from which town he was a frequent traveller; but respecting the other we could form no opinion. Regarding ourselves our secret had been divulged, and we stood forward the confessed “representative of _Bell’s Life in London_.” Sporting of various descriptions opened new sources of gossip, and here we found “the unknown” as much at home as ourselves. It came out, in fact, that he had been a breeder of racehorses, and a patron of the Turf for pleasure, but not for profit――that he had been steward at Newmarket, and that, in fact, he knew all the leading Turfites of the age, and was familiar with all the recent important events on the Turf. All this led us to surmise that he was “somebody,” but who, we confess, we did not attempt to speculate. We found him a most pleasant associate, and with that we were content. Upon the subject of our own trip to Doncaster we were silent, for we considered that was “nothing to nobody.” The Ring as connected with our British sports was but slightly alluded to――and against the objections that were made arising out of the late fatal issue of the combat between Swift and Brighton Bill, we argued it was a casualty purely the result of an accident, which might have occurred on any other athletic competition in which no personal animosity existed, and wound up by saying that there was one unanswerable argument even to the opponents of prizefighting, that as by them the principals were invariably considered worthless and deserving of punishment, in becoming the instrument of punishing each other, they were only fulfilling the ends of justice, without the