"Perhaps they'll fix electric lights on top of the 'buses before long," the passenger said consolingly.
"Hope they won't, guv'nor," the conductor answered hurriedly. "Shouldn't get any more two-shilling pieces for pennies if they did."
Ticket-inspectors are known to all Londoners, but few people are aware that the omnibus companies have also private inspectors, whose duty it is to ride about in their omnibuses, as ordinary passengers, for the purpose of noting and reporting anything that affects their interests adversely. These people, who are called "spots" and "wrong'uns" by the 'busmen, are not beloved by conductors and coachmen, for the simple reason that they never know when they have one on their omnibus. The man in evening dress who enters the omnibus in the Strand after the theatres have closed may be one; so too, may be the man with a bag of workman's tools who rides up to town by the first omnibus. The daintily dressed young lady who enters at Peter Robinson's or William Whiteley's may, from her seat in the corner, be regarding the conductor with an interest which is not born of admiration, and the palpably retired officer who gets in at Piccadilly may be earning a
