The fare
was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin
was a half-crown before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up.
This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty, with a long, thin face,
whose chin and drooping grey moustaches seemed in permanent repose on the
up-turned collar of his old blue overcoat. But the remarkable features
of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that
it seemed as though that face were a collection of bones without coherent
flesh, among which the eyes were sunk back so far that they had lost
their lustre. He sat quite motionless, gazing at the tail of his horse.
And, almost unconsciously, one added the rest of one's silver to that
half-crown. He took the coins without speaking; but, as we were turning
into the garden gate, we heard him say:
"Thank you; you've saved my life."
Not knowing, either of us, what to reply to such a curious speech, we
closed the gate again and came back to the cab.
"Are things so very bad?"
"They are," replied the cabman. "It's done with--is this job. We're not
wanted now." And, taking up his whip, he prepared to drive away.
"How long have they been as bad as this?"
The cabman dropped his hand again, as though glad to rest it, and
answered incoherently:
"Thirty-five year I've been drivin' a cab."
And, sunk again in contemplation of his horse's tail, he could only be
roused by many questions to express himself, having, as it seemed, no
knowledge of the habit.
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