The trade going on was fast and furious. Cabbies went out and Cabbies came in; joint after joint was devoured, and the naked bones lay on the steaming pewter desert like those of the vulture-torn camel in far Araby. Cabby was certainly here at his best the bow was unstrung, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. He seemed rather Indian Red Indian in his eating; laying in a good store, as though doubtful when time or money would again be propitious for a hearty meal; while jokes flew about many at the expense of unwary fares and swells, for whom, as a rule, Cabby seemed to entertain a profound contempt.
We were not there long, but the topics of the day were settled again and again in the most satisfactory of ways, though probably not in accordance with the ideas of our statesmen. Mr Sothern was pitied; and gin, rum, whisky, and brandy declared the only table spirits. Fenianism was stigmatised as rowdy; Jamaica turned inside out; and the Parliamentary campaign mapped down. We noted what we could while finishing our toke; but we were upon enemies ground; and who knows the fate of spies discovered amid the freemasonry of Cabland. We thought of all this, and did not so much as point a pencil within the sacred precincts; but we recollected what we could not much, though, for after dinner the digestive organs form a combination against those devoted to thinking. We came, however, to the conclusion that Cabby loves good living bodily, if not morally; and we fear that he possesses the amiable weakness that exists to so large an extent amongst the London poor namely, that of living well to-day, and letting to-morrow take care of itself. To-morrow may be a bad day, and then he goes not to his club; but contents himself with a small German upon his box; or a kidney-pie at the corner; or lower still, perhaps, he may have but a mealy potato from a can, or a pennorth of peas-pudding on a scrap of a newspaper, the aroma of whose
ink imparts no improved flavour. But so it is throughout the world, Earths creatures remembering that on the blackest day there is another side to the cloud, and that sooner or later the sun will shine again for rich and poor alike.
Cabby says lucks sure to turn sometime; so he munches his potato on or in his cab; goes tic for a screw of tobacco, for which he seldom finds the screw on too tightly, and then smokes and waits patiently for a fare. When he is down on his luck, and has nothing else to live upon, he exists upon Hope; and she deals as gently with the rough-clothed, battle-scarred veteran of the streets as with the Hon Charley Fitzgauntlet of the Blues, when Fortune frowns and he has gambled away half his patrimony at the Derby. But if Cabby makes himself comfortable at times, surely he is not much to be blamed, for this world is not peopled with abstemious Dr Franklins, and when Cabby has the money in his pocket, and smells a good dinner, who can blame him that he eats, pays, and then waits for the next? Perhaps it comes punctually, perhaps it does not; still he waits, as Trotty Veck did, for his jobs; the bells cried, Job coming soon, Toby; and it always did come sooner or later. And so, like Tobys, Cabbys job comes sooner or later, and then he does as wiser men do eats, drinks, and is merry, quaffing amber draughts from the pearly pewters foam draughts that make glad his heart, and sometimes unsteady his hand. But cab-horses are not given to run away we have sometimes wished they were that is, if they would keep in the right direction. Still it is very rarely that Cabby meets with a mishap through careless driving. Accidents he does have, tis true; but, considered in relation to the thousands of miles traversed, their paucity is wonderful.
But theyre a shocking set, my dear; lazy, good-for-nothing creatures cheating, story-telling fellows. Whatever you do, take the mans number before you enter his cab.
So says Mrs British Matron. But this is not all true. Cabby can cheat, lie, and be good for nothing; but he has his honest phase; and, poor fellow, he has a hard time of it.
The wind whistles down the street on a dark night; the rain or sleet drives in cutting clouds round the corners; and Dives son and daughter, to return from dinner or party, send for a cab. The first Cabby has been sitting for a couple of hours fareless upon his box, and as his half-frozen Rosinante is drawn up at the door of the well-lit house, Cabby stiffly descends, and begins to dance upon the pavement, and beat warmth into his breast after the popular mode of Two thieves whopping a rascal.
All this while there is a round of good-byeing, and dearing, shawling, wrapping, and goloshing; and then the thoughtful head of the house hopes that the cabman is a member of the Bonded Brotherhood of Bottle Scorners, and thinks Thomas had better take a hand candlestick and look at the mans number.
The hand candlestick goes out, and so does the candle; for directly the white-stockinged legs of Thomas are outside the hall door the light is extinct, and the bearer fares like poor Mr Winkle on the windy night at Bath, for he is banged out of the house.