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!’
‘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.’
‘Bless me!’ exclaims the old man, ‘what improvements; and the roads!!!’
‘They are at perfection, sir,’ says the proprietor. ‘No horse walks a yard in this coach between London and Exeter--all trotting-ground now.’
‘A little _galloping_ ground, I fear,’ whispers the senior to himself. ‘But who has effected all this improvement in your paving?’
‘An American of the name of M’Adam,’ is the reply; ‘but coachmen call him the Colossus of Roads.’
‘And pray, my good sir, what sort of horses may you have over the next stage?’
‘Oh, sir, no more bo-kickers. It is hilly and severe ground and requires cattle strong and staid. You’ll see four as fine horses put to the coach at Staines as ever you saw in a nobleman’s carriage in your life.’
‘Then we shall have no more galloping--no more springing them as you term it?’
‘Not quite so fast over the next stage,’ replies the proprietor; ‘but he will make good play over some part of it; for example, when he gets three parts down a hill he lets them loose, and cheats them out of half the one they have to ascend from the bottom of it. In short, they are half-way up it before a horse touches his collar; and we _must_ take every advantage with such a fast coach as this, and one that loads so well, or we should never keep our time. We are now to a minute; in fact, the country people no longer look to the _sun_ when they want to set their clocks--they look only to the _Comet_.’