We are not told how much Horne and his friends lost in this onslaught upon Sherman’s preserves, but it must have been a very considerable sum. Horne ran in opposition to many proprietors, and was powerful enough to wear down any competitors except the three or four men whose businesses ranked with his own for size. Those proprietors who agreed to work with rather than against him, were therefore the better advised. When putting a new coach on a route, his practice was to offer a share in the business to others accustomed to work along it. If they refused, and elected to oppose him, he became dangerous. He never allowed competition; and as he had the longer purse, generally beat his rivals. A strictly businesslike proprietor would accordingly always welcome Horne as a partner; but it generally happened that men who had for years past run coaches on certain roads fell unconsciously into the habit of thinking and acting as though they held a prescriptive right to the whole of the traffic along them, and not only refused to ally themselves with any one providing additional coaches, but endeavoured to shut him out altogether. Thus Horne, although ready to work with any proprietor, was in bitter opposition on many roads. His was the Liverpool “Umpire,” a day coach; and his, too, the “Bedford Times,” so far as horsing it out of London was concerned. It was started about 1836, by Whitbread, the brewer, as a hobby, and ran from the “George and Blue Boar.” It is singular that it made the third Bedford coach running daily from that inn: Horne seems to have considered that Bedford could not have too many coaches. The others were the “Telegraph,” twice a day--8 a.m. and 2.45 p.m.--and the “Royal Telegraph” at 9 a.m. The “Times” started at 3 p.m., and went at 10½ miles an hour, including stops. This was a very smart and exclusive coach, built on the lines of the private drag, and ran to that monumental Bedford hotel, the “Swan.” The “Bedford Times” was further remarkable as one of the last-surviving of the coaches. It was not run off the road until 1848. Horne prided himself on his drastic ways, and was fond of recounting his master-strokes in crushing out rivals. The particular coup on which he loved to dwell was that of driving up to an inn belonging to a middle-ground partner of one of his enemies, and buying up all the horses overnight, so that in the morning, when his own coach bowled by, the rival concern was brought to an ignominious standstill. This story, if true, reflected no credit on either himself or the other party to the transaction, who certainly was liable to an action for breach of contract. There is, however, no doubt at all that Horne was the man to have gone to the extravagant length of indemnifying the vendor--perhaps better described as his accomplice--against any action-at-law. He simply would not brook business rivalry. [Illustration: THE “BEDFORD TIMES,” ONE OF THE LAST COACHES TO RUN, LEAVING THE “SWAN HOTEL,” BEDFORD.]