The gentleman who fulfilled the canons of this time could rarely hope to get any dinner for himself. On the later coaches, time was so strictly kept that the coachmen were off to the minute; and the landlords, who, of course, knew that, were generally suspected of delaying the appearance of the food so long that not one of the party could have time to do justice to it. Our gentleman, therefore, often had the mortification of paying both for the lady’s dinner and for his own, of which he had not tasted a mouthful. He returned to the coach as hungry as he had left it, and kept his gentility as warm as it was possible to do on an empty stomach. A very little of this was sufficient to wear the nap off the politeness of a Chesterfield, and it must not infrequently have happened that the person who had been all courtliness at dinner became selfishness incarnate at tea. Those who did not come up to the high standard that Constable attained--and they were in the majority--hurried out of the coach without the slightest consideration for any one else, and flinging themselves into the inn, roared out for “dinner, d----d quick”; or--older travellers and more wary--filled their spirit flasks at the bar, and made sure of having a meal of sorts by demanding cold ham or beef, or any of those dishes which the hostelries of that time possessed in abundance. Many writers have attempted to describe those coach-dinners, and one endeavoured to vividly picture them by declaring that they reminded him more of hounds feeding at a trough than human beings; but none have equalled the anonymous account quoted here. “First of all, you had, in winter, to be called before daylight; then you had to proceed in a rattling hackney-coach (your teeth rattling to match with the cold) to the office from which the ‘Wonder,’ ‘Telegraph,’ ‘Regulator,’ ‘Highflyer,’ or ‘Independent’ started; then you were hurried over your meals, as the following account will show:-- “‘Twenty minutes allowed here, gentlemen, for dinner,’ exclaims the coachman, as we drive up to the ‘Bull’ at Smallborough. “What a scene of confusion ensued! Bells rang, ostlers halloed, waiters ran, or rather broke into that shambling shuffle whose secret seems to be known only to those who ‘stand and wait’--at least, no other creature practises it. “‘Please to alight, ladies and gentlemen,’ exclaims the landlord, addressing the four insides; while the ostler, bringing a somewhat crazy ladder, makes a similar request to the eleven outsides.