One wonders if this unfortunate prelate was the same person as that Abbot of Reading mentioned by Fuller. The Abbot of that story was a man particularly fond of what have been gracefully termed the "pleasures of the table." His eyes, as the Psalmist puts it, "swelled out with fatness,"--and his stomach, too, for that matter. To him came one day a hungry stranger, fresh from the appetizing sport of hunting. He had lost his way, and craved the hospitality of the Abbey. That hospitality was extended to him, promptly enough, and he was seated at the Abbot's own table. It will readily be guessed that this hungry stranger was the King. He had wandered thus far, away from Windsor Forest and his attendants, and was genuinely famished. The Abbot, however, had no notion who he was; but he could see that this strayed huntsman was a very prince among good trencher-men, and envied him accordingly. "Well fare thy heart," said he, as he saw the roast beef disappearing; "I would give an hundred pounds could I feed so lustily on beef as you do. Alas! my weak and squeezie stomach will hardly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken." The King took the compliment and more beef, and, pledging his host, departed. Some weeks after, when the Abbot had quite forgotten all about the matter, he was sent for, clapped into the Tower, and kept, a miserable prisoner--not knowing what his offence might be, or what would befall him next--on bread and water. At length one day a sirloin of beef was placed before him, and he made such short work of it as to prove to the King, who was secretly watching him, that his treatment for "squeezie stomach" had succeeded admirably; so, springing out of the cupboard in which he had secreted himself, "My lord," says he, "deposit presently your hundred pounds in gold, or else you go not hence all the days of your life. I have been your physician to cure you, and here, as I deserve, I demand my fee for the same." The Abbot was enlightened. He, as Fuller says, "down with his dust, and, glad he escaped so, returned to Reading, as somewhat lighter in purse, so much more merry in heart, than when he came thence." Little remains at Reading to tell of the coaching age. Where are the "Bear," the "George," the "Crown"? Gone, with their jovial guests, into the limbo of forgotten things, almost as thoroughly as the civilization of Roman Calleva--the Silchester of modern times--situated at some distance down the road from Reading to Basingstoke, and whose relics may be seen gathered together in the Reading Museum. To that collection should be added a set of articles used in the everyday business of coaching. They would be just as curious to-day as those Roman potsherds of a thousand years ago. XXIV