Thomas Fagg, of the “Bell and Crown,” Holborn--an inn better known to later generations of Londoners as “Ridler’s Hotel”--was a small proprietor, but he had in addition a very lucrative business as a coach-maker at Hartley Row, near Basingstoke. The “Louth” and “Lynn” mails, however, were partly his, and _Cary’s Itinerary_ for 1821 gives a list of twenty-six stage-coaches going from his door to all parts of the country. As “Ridler’s” the house was a very select “family hotel,” but in this it only carried on the traditions of Fagg’s time, when he had some most distinguished guests. Standing midway between the West End and the City, the “Bell and Crown” thus possessed certain advantages, and received much patronage both from commercial magnates and Society people. Among his patrons he numbered the “Iron Duke,” for whom he had an almost religious reverence, and indeed proposed to change the name of his house to the “Wellington,” in honour of him; only reconsidering the project when the Duke told him--as he commonly did the many extravagant hero-worshippers whose attentions were a daily nuisance--not to be “a d----d fool.” Fagg, however, was no fool, but a very shrewd person indeed. A coachman, applying to him for a place on one of his coaches, was put through a strict examination as to his qualifications, when it appeared that he was (according to his own account) not only a first-rate and steady “artist,” but had never capsized a coach in the whole course of his career--“he didn’t know what a hupset meant.” “Oh! go away,” retorted the justly incensed Fagg; “you are no man for me. _My_ coaches are always upsetting, and with _your_ want of experience, how the devil should you know how to get one on her legs again?” Mrs. Mountain also had her own coach-factory. She was no less energetic than that very lively and masterful person, Mrs. Ann Nelson, but in a smaller way of business. Sarah Ann Mountain’s house was that “Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill, immortalised by Dickens in _Nicholas Nickleby_. She had succeeded to the business in 1818, on the death of her husband, and instead of giving up, decided to carry on, aided by Peter, her son. Thirty coaches left her inn daily, among them the first of the Birmingham “Tally-Ho’s,” a fast day coach, established in 1823, and historically interesting as the prime cause of the furious racing that characterised the St. Albans and Coventry route to Birmingham from this date until 1838. Mrs. Mountain’s coach-factory was at the rear of her premises on Snow Hill. There she built the conveyances used by herself and partners, charging them at the rather high rate of 3½d. a mile for their use.