Homeward bound, they plainly regarded it a great victory. Janie again insisted on first drop, but this time Sammy Quick had been unavailable for the game, easing my burden. But the Dunne sisters insisted they be next so I had to track right back across the city to Altona, then north, then west, finishing with Cherie in Templestowe.
    Parked in the shadows of the trees outside her parent’s home, she leaned across and kissed me warmly. I attempted an amorous response but she fought me off.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I do like you, but I don’t want to marry you. At least, I don’t think so.”
    I resolved that Cherie would never be last drop again.

The coach line Cobb and Co. was established in Victoria in 1853 by Freeman Cobb and three other Americans. Within a few years, the original owners had made a fortune and sold the business. Cobb and Co. changed hands several times before James Rutherford and several partners bought the coach line. Under Rutherford’s ownership, Cobb and Co. spread throughout New South Wales and Queensland. The last Cobb and Co. coach ran in Queensland in 1924. The decline of the company was a result of the rising use of motor vehicles.
    Will Lawton’s novel for boys When Cobb and Co. was King tells of a young bloke who drives for Cobb and co, and, irrelevantly, rides in the first Melbourne Cup. The book was made popular by being made into a radio serial in the 1950s.