Diary in America, Series Two | Page 4

dispatched the bar-keeper for him, and Mr E sent word he would be down immediately.
"What is he about?" said the driver impatiently to the bar-keeper when he came down again.
"Cleaning his teeth."
"Cleaning his teeth!" roared the driver, indignantly; "by the --," and away went the horses at a gallop, leaving Mr E behind.
The other passengers remonstrated, but without avail; they told him that Mr E was charged with government despatches--he didn't care; at last, one of them offered him a dollar if he would go back. They had proceeded more than a mile before the offer was made; the man immediately wheeled his horses round, and returned to the inn.
The Rev Mr Reid gives an anecdote very characteristic of American stage-coach travelling, and proving how little the convenience of the public is cared for.
"When we stopped at Lowell to change horses, a female wished to secure a place onward. We were already, as the phrase is, more than full; we had nine persons, and two children, which are made to go for nothing, except in the way-bill. Our saucy driver opened the door, and addressing two men, who, with us, would have been outside passengers--`now, I say, I want one of you to ride with me, and let a lady have your seat.' The men felt they were addressed by a superior, but kept their places. `Come, I say,' he continued, `you shall have a good buffalo and umbrel, and nothing will hurt you.' Still they kept their places, and refused him. His lordship was offended, and ready to lay hands on one of them; but, checking himself, exclaimed, `Well, if I can't get you out, hang it if I'll take you on till one of you gets out.' And there we stood for some time; and he gained his point at last, and in civiller terms, by persuading the persons on the middle seat to receive the lady; so that we had now twelve inside."
I once myself was in a stage-coach, and found that the window glasses had been taken out; I mentioned this to the driver, as it rained in very fast--"Well, now," replied he, "I reckon you'd better ax the proprietors; my business is to drive the coach." And that was all the comfort I could procure. As for speaking to them about stopping, or driving slow, it is considered as an unwarrantable interference.
I recollect an Englishman at New York telling me, that when in the Eastern States, he had expressed a wish to go a little faster--"Oh," said the driver, "you do, do you; well, wait a moment, and I'll go faster than you like." The fellow drove very slow where the road was good; but as soon as he came to a bad piece, he put his horses to the gallop, and, as my friend said, they were so tossed and tumbled about, that they hardly knew where they were. "Is that fast enough, Mister," said the driver, leering in at the couch window.
As for stopping, they will stop to talk to any one on the road about the price of the markets, the news, or any thing else; and the same accommodation is cheerfully given to any passenger who has any business to transact on the way. The Americans are accustomed to it, and the passengers never raise any objections. There is a spirit of accommodation, arising from their natural good temper (note 2).
I was once in a coach when the driver pulled up, and entered a small house on the road side; after he had been there some time, as it was not an inn, I expressed my wonder what he was about. "I guess I can tell you," said a man who was standing by the coach, and overheard me; "there's a pretty girl in that house, and he's doing a bit of courting, I expect." Such was the fact: the passengers laughed, and waited for him very patiently. He remained about three-quarters of an hour, and then came out. The time was no doubt to him very short; but to us it appeared rather tedious.
Mrs Jamieson, in her last work, says: "One dark night, I remember, as the sleet and rain were falling fast, and our Extra was slowly dragged by wretched brutes of horses through what seemed to me `Sloughs of Despond,' some package ill stowed on the roof, which in the American stages presents no resting-place for man or box, fell off. The driver alighted to fish it out of the mud. As there was some delay, a gentleman seated opposite to me put his head out of window to inquire the cause; to whom the driver's voice replied, in an angry tone, `I say, you mister, don't you sit jabbering there; but lend a hand to heave these