m Providence to Boston in four hours and fifty minutes--if
any one wants to go faster he may send to Kentucky and charter a streak
of lightning!"

The fare on these coaches was three dollars for the trip between
Providence and Boston. This exorbitant sum was a sore annoyance to all
thrifty men, and indignantly did they rail and protest against it. At
last a union was formed, and a line of rival coaches was established, on
which the fare was to be two dollars and a half a trip. This caused
great dismay to the regular coach company, who at once reduced their
fare to two dollars. The rival line, not to be outdone, announced their
reduction to a dollar and a half. The regulars then widely advertised
that their fare would thenceforth be only one dollar. The rivals then
sold seats for the trip for fifty cents apiece; and in despair, after
jealously watching for weeks the crowded coaches of the new line, the
conquered old line mournfully announced that they would make trips every
day with their vehicle filled with the first applicants who chanced to
be on time at the starting-place, and that these lucky dogs would be
carried for nothing.

The new stage-coaches were now in their turn deserted, and the
proprietors pondered for a week trying to invent some way to still
further cut down the entirely vanished rates. They at last placarded the
taverns with announcements that they would not only carry their patrons
free of expense, but would give each traveller on their coaches a good
dinner at the end of his journey. The old coach-line was rich and at
once counter-advertised a free dinner and a good bottle of wine too, to
its patrons and there, for a time, the fierce controversy came to a
standstill, both lines having crowded trips each day.

Mr. Shaffer, who was a fashionable teacher of dancing and deportment in
Boston, and a well-known "man about town," a jolly good fellow, got upon
the Providence coach one Monday morning in Boston, had a gay ride to
Providence and a good dinner and bottle of wine at the end of the
journey, all at the expense of the coach company. On Tuesday he rode
more gayly still back to Boston, had his dinner and his wine, and was up
on Wednesday morning to mount the Providence coach for the third ride
and dinner and bottle. He returned to Boston on Thursday in the same
manner. On Friday the fame of his cheap fun was thoroughly noised all
over Boston, and he collected a crowd of gay young sparks who much
en