Road Games

Lord John Russell told us a good trick of Sheridan’s upon Richardson. Sheridan had been driving out three or four hours in a hackney coach, when, seeing Richardson pass, he hailed him and made him get in. He instantly contrived to introduce a topic upon which Richardson (who was the very soul of disputatiousness) always differed with him; and at last, affecting to be mortified at Richardson’s arguments, said, ‘You really are too bad, I cannot bear to listen to such things; I will not stay in the same coach with you.’ And accordingly got down and left him, Richardson hallooing out triumphantly, ‘Ah, you’re beat, you’re beat!’ Nor was it till the heat of his victory had a little cooled, that he found out he was left in the lurch to pay for Sheridan’s three hours’ coaching.

Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, 1853