‘Just in time, your honour, here she comes--them there gray horses; where’s your luggage?’ But the turn-out is so different from those our Rip Van Winkle knew, that he says, ‘Don’t be in a hurry, that’s a gentleman’s carriage.’ ‘It ain’t, I tell you,’ replies the cad; ‘it’s the “Comet,” and you must be as quick as lightning.’ Whereupon, vehemently protesting, the ‘cad’ and a fellow ruffian shove him forcibly into the coach, despite his anxiety about his luggage. The old fellow, impressed by the smartness of the Jehu--a smartness to which coachmen had been entire strangers in his time--asks, ‘What gentleman is going to drive us!’ ‘He is no gentleman,’ replies the proprietor of the coach, who happens to be sitting at his side; ‘but he has been on the “Comet” ever since she started, and is a very steady young man.’ ‘Pardon my ignorance,’ says our ancient, ‘from the cleanliness of his person, the neatness of his apparel, and the language he made use of, I mistook him for some enthusiastic bachelor of arts, wishing to become a charioteer after the manner of the illustrious ancients.’ ‘You must have been long in foreign parts, sir,’ observes the proprietor. Presently they come to Hyde Park Corner. ‘What!’ exclaims Rip, ‘off the stones already?’ ‘You have never been on the stones,’ says a fellow-passenger; ‘no stones in London now, sir.’ The old gentleman is engaged upon digesting this information and does not perceive for some time that the coach is a swift one. When he discovers that fact, and mentions it, he is met with the rejoinder, ‘We never go fast over this stage.’ So they pass through Brentford. ‘Old Brentford still here?’ he exclaims; ‘a national disgrace!’ Then Hounslow, in five minutes under the hour. ‘Wonderful travelling, but much too fast to be safe. However, thank Heaven, we are arrived at a good-looking house; and now, waiter, I hope you have got breakf----’ Before the last syllable, however, of the word can be pronounced, the worthy old gentleman’s head strikes the back of the coach with a jerk, and the waiter, the inn, and indeed Hounslow itself, disappear in the twinkling of an eye. ‘My dear sir,’ exclaims he, in surprise, ‘you told me we were to change horses at Hounslow. Surely they are not so inhuman as to drive those poor animals another stage at this unmerciful rate!’ [Sidenote: _THE GALLOPING GROUND_] ‘Change horses, sir!’ says the proprietor; ‘why, we changed them while you were putting on your spectacles and looking at your watch. Only one minute allowed for it at Hounslow, and it is often done in fifty seconds by those nimble-fingered horse-keepers.’ Then the coach goes fast and faster on the way to Staines. ‘We always spring ’em over these six miles,’ says the proprietor, in reply to the old gentleman’s remark that he really does not like to go so fast. ‘Not a pebble as big as a nutmeg on the road, and so even that the equilibrium of a spirit-level could not be disturbed.’