The Cambridge Road has, of course, many dead level stretches, and Walton was sometimes known to put the coach along a certain five miles in twenty minutes. Yet, according to the enthusiastic chronicler of these things, he was among the safest of coachmen--a testimony not supported by the fact that he twice upset the “Star” between Royston and Buntingford. His determination to keep his time was, we are told, superior to all mercenary considerations or regard for the “short pocket.” Thus, although he pulled up on one occasion when hailed on the road by a gentleman in a phaeton, saying he “might as well have this half-crown as not,” he drove off again because the passenger did not come instantly. He was, according to the admiring testimony of the time, a fixture on the box--nothing could throw him off. A scientific punisher of refractory horses, too; accompanying the corrective discipline of the whip with much grim humour. Passing through Buntingford one day, the chestnut near leader attempted to bolt into a public-house. “I didn’t know your friends lived _there_,” said Walton. “Come, come, now you are got into this coach you must give up low company,” and two slashing strokes of the whip followed. Walton, it was said, had the temper of an emperor and a tongue as fluent and free as that of a bargee. The story was told that he refused to pull up for a passenger who had lost his hat, and that the passenger thereupon pushed Walton’s off, compelling him to halt; but that tale was either untrue or the passenger unacquainted with Walton. It was not likely that any one who knew him would have taken such a liberty. We are not told what became of that impulsive passenger. [Illustration: IN TIME FOR THE COACH. _After C. Cooper Henderson_, 1848. ] The characteristics of coachmen had every opportunity of being well impressed upon box-seat passengers down the long monotonous miles, and their peculiarities have accordingly been well preserved in travellers’ recollections. One choice spirit, who drove the Leeds “Union” from the “George and Blue Boar” in Holborn to Eaton Socon, let his leaders down in Biggleswade street, so that they broke their knees. He observed that they had made a terrible “fore paw,” but whether that was conscious or unconscious humour remains uncertain.