Unfortunately, one cannot always get one's own particular cabman--the
favoured one of the civil tongue; and on more than one occasion I have
been on the box with as surly a specimen of humanity as ever drove a
horse. Now, decidedly the real way to enjoy a cab-ride--rather a
difficult matter--is, providing the weather be fine, to mount beside the
driver. You thus avoid musty smells, stifling symptoms, and that
hideous noise of jangling windows, a sound harsh enough to jar the
nerves of a bull. Yes; decidedly the best way to enjoy a cab-ride is to
sink the bloated aristocrat, mount beside the driver, and fraternise.
But my surly driver would not fraternise, for he was of the class known
as crusty. He was a sort of moral hedgehog, and, but for his forming a
study, I should decidedly have abdicated.
"Ah! He's got his gruel," said my cynical friend as he drove past a
fallen horse belonging to the General Omnibus Company. "There's another
fall in the kump'ny's shares. Sarve 'em right. No bisniss to have such
bad cattle."
Now, the beast I sat behind was about as ill-favoured and lean-fleshed
an animal as his master. Evidently given to wind-gall, spavin, and
splint, he--the horse, not the driver--was to an unpractised eye
decidedly a jibber; while even a female ear would have detected that he
was a roarer. It was evident, though, that my friend could not detect
the faults of his own steed, and therefore he lavished all his abuse
upon the horses of his contemporaries, whether of cab or 'bus.
But this driver seemed to have a spite against the world at large;
seeming to ooze all over until he broke out into quite a satirical
perspiration, while his lips acted as a safety-valve to let off an
explosive compound most rapidly formed in his interior. He had a snarl
for everything and everybody, and could he have run over some
unfortunate crossing-sweeper, he would probably have been in ecstasies.
Whenever opportunity offered he snarled often and cruelly at the
misfortunes of his fellow-creatures. Where the scavengers had left the
scraped-up mud beside the road--and where don't they?--he would drive
right through, noisily and rapidly, forming a large mud firework--to the
great increase of his after labour, certainly; but this seemed of no
account; he was so amply recompensed by the intense gratification he
enjoyed in besmirching as many passers-by as happened to be within
range; while when he succeeded in producing a currant-dumpling
appearance upon a footman's calves, he was almost apoplectic, and
rumbled with delight. Woe to the wandering dog that came within reach
of his whip! It would have been better for him had he ne'er been
pupped, for here there was no mercy shown. As to the passing
salutations of brother cabs, they, though apparently pungent, glanced
off our friend's case-hardened composition, and the assailant would
depart with a stinging sarcasm tingling and buzzing in his ears.
It was enough to make one ruminate upon the vast amount of the gall of
bitterness in the man's mind, and ask how much the cab-riding world had
to do with the sharpening of the thorns with which this modern Jehu
bristled--Jehu, indeed, for he drove most furiously--spiny, hooked,
venomous, lacerating, clinging, tearing points that would have at you
and be in your skin whether you would or no; for upon asking the fare
when about to alight, having previously formed the determination not to
dispute a sixpence, I was told "Two shillings," and then, tendering a
florin, was greeted with--
"Ho! wun o' them blessed pieces. Should ha' thought as a swell as
purfessed to be so interested in kebs would ha' been ashamed to horfer
less than 'arf a bull."
But there are amiable and advice-giving cabbies, who seem to take an
interest in the welfare of their customers.
I once agreed in times gone by to "conwoy" Mrs Scribe and her sister,
Miss Bellefille, as far as Richmond. 'Twas summer time, and our
imaginations were full of sparkling rivers, green eyots, silver swans,
and--well, yes, I'll own it, the carnal delights of a Star and Garter
dinner, with the following cigar. There was the rail, certainly, but in
preference thereto I hired one of her Majesty's carriages, VR 123,456.
Our buttons had not come up in those days, so I fetched the vehicle from
the stand, and rode back beside the driver. Upon reaching Miranda
Villas, I lightly leaped down and rang the bell. Wonderful to relate,
the ladies waited ready in the passage, and after handing them into the
cab, I again mounted to the box, for the purpose of smoking upon the way
down.
We were moving off when a voice was heard from the interior of the
cab--"George, I've left my handkerchief upon the dressing-table; ask
Harriet to fetch it down."
I arrested the driver, who seemed to be regarding me rather
superciliously, which I attributed to insignificance of appearance, when
he exclaimed:--
"Now, Jarge, fetch the missus's wipe, and look alive."
"Confound his impudence," I muttered, "he takes me for the attendant;"
and then, with what must have been a decidedly melodramatic,
tyrannical-baron-like scowl upon my brow, I resummoned the abigail, and
obtained the required piece of cambric.
The feeling of indignation had fled as I reseated myself, and during the
drive down I omitted the smoke, and suffered the driver to discourse
fancy free.
He had an agreeable voice, had this Cabby--husky and wheezy; and but for
an unpleasant habit of expectorating at the flies which settled upon the
shafts, he might have proved an agreeable companion. Curiosity,
however, seemed to be one of his failings, for addressing me in a mock
provincial style as "Jarge," and at the same time forcing his voice
somewhere down into the cavernous recesses beneath his waistcoat, he
began to catechise me after an approved method of his own.
"New hand?"--I nodded.
"Measured for your livery?"
"What?" I said.
"Measured for your harness--togs, you know?"
"Not yet," I replied mildly--a martyr to information.
"Nice time on it, you fellers has: plenty ter eat, plenty ter drink,
nothing ter do, and plenty o' niste gals in the house. Got any
guv'nor?"