mediate hours for the purpose of doing his business.
Thus two clear days could be saved.

Still carrying out his scheme, Bianconi, in the following year (1816),
put on a car from Clonmel to Waterford. Before that time there was no
car accommodation between Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, about half-way
to Waterford; but there was an accommodation by boat between Carrick
and Waterford. The distance between the two latter places was, by
road, twelve miles, and by the river Suir twenty-four miles. Tom
Morrissey's boat plied two days a week; it carried from eight to ten
passengers at 6 1/2d. of the then currency; it did the voyage in from
four to five hours, and besides had to wait for the tide to float it up
and down the river. When Bianconi's car was put on, it did the
distance daily and regularly in two hours, at a fare of two shillings.

The people soon got accustomed to the convenience of the cars. They
also learned from them the uses of punctuality and the value of time.
They liked the open-air travelling and the sidelong motion. The new
cars were also safe and well-appointed. They were drawn by good horses
and driven by good coachmen. Jaunting-car travelling had before been
rather unsafe. The country cars were of a ramshackle order, and the
drivers were often reckless. "Will I pay the pike, or drive at it,
plaise your honour?" said a driver to his passenger on approaching a
turnpike-gate. Sam Lover used to tell a story of a car-driver, who,
after driving his passenger up-hill and down-hill, along a very bad
road, asked him for something extra at the end of his journey.

"Faith," said the driver, "its not putting me off with this ye'd be, if
ye knew but all." The gentleman gave him another shilling. "And now
what do you mean by saying, 'if ye knew but all?'" "That I druv yer
honor the last three miles widout a linch-pin!"

Bianconi, to make sure of the soundness and safety of his cars, set up
a workshop to build them for himself. He could thus depend upon their
soundness, down even to the linch-pin itself. He kept on his carving
and gilding shop until his car business had increased so much that it
required the whole of his time and attention; and then he gave it up.
In fact, when he was able to run a car from Clonmel to Waterford--a
distance of thirty-two miles--at a fare of three-and-sixpence, his
eventual triumph was secure.

He made Waterford one of the centres of his operations, as he had
already ma