1705039618
1705039619
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.
1705039620
1705039621
“I don’t blame the taxis, I don’t blame nobody. It’s come on us, that’s what it has. I left the wife this morning with nothing in the house. She was saying to me only yesterday
:‘What have you brought home the last four months? ‘ ‘Put it at six shillings a week, ‘ I said. ‘No, ‘ she said, ‘seven.’ Well, that’s right—she enters it all down in her book.”
1705039622
1705039623
“You are really going short of food?”
1705039624
1705039625
The cabman smiled; and that smile between those two deep hollows was surely as strange as ever shone on a human face.
1705039626
1705039627
“You may say that,” he said. “Well, what does it amount to? Before I picked you up, I had one eighteenpenny fare to-day; and yesterday I took five shillings. And I’ve got seven bob a day to pay for the cab, and that’s low, too. There’s many and many a proprietor that’s broke and gone—every bit as bad as us. They let us down as easy as ever they can; you can’t get blood from a stone, can you?” Once again he smiled. “I’m sorry for them, too, and I’m sorry for the horses, though they come out the best of the three of us, I do believe.”
1705039628
1705039629
One of us muttered something about the Public.
1705039630
1705039631
The cabman turned his face and stared down through the darkness.
1705039632
1705039633
“The Public?” he said, and his voice had in it a faint surprise. “Well, they all want the taxis. It’s natural. They get about faster in them, and time’s money. I was seven hours before I picked you up. And then you was lookin’ for a taxi. Them as take us because they can’t get better, they’re not in a good temper, as a rule. And there’s a few old ladies that’s frightened of the motors, but old ladies aren’t never very free with their money—can’t afford to be, the most of them, I expect.”
1705039634
1705039635
“Everybody’s sorry for you; one would have thought that—”
1705039636
1705039637
He interrupted quietly: “Sorrow don’t buy bread… . I never had nobody ask me about things before.” And, slowly moving his long face from side to side, he added: “Besides, what could people do? They can’t be expected to support you; and if they started askin’ you questions they’d feel it very awkward. They know that, I suspect. Of course, there’s such a lot of us; the hansoms are pretty nigh as bad off as we are. Well, we’re gettin’ fewer every day, that’s one thing.”
1705039638
1705039639
Not knowing whether or no to manifest sympathy with this extinction, we approached the horse. It was a horse that “stood over” a good deal at the knee, and in the darkness seemed to have innumerable ribs. And suddenly one of us said: “Many people want to see nothing but taxis on the streets, if only for the sake of the horses.”
1705039640
1705039641
The cabman nodded.
1705039642
1705039643
“This old fellow,” he said, “never carried a deal of flesh. His grub don’t put spirit into him nowadays; it’s not up to much in quality, but he gets enough of it.”
1705039644
1705039645
“And you don’t.”
1705039646
1705039647
The cabman again took up his whip.
1705039648
1705039649
“I don’t suppose,” he said without emotion, “any one could ever find another job for me now. I’ve been at this too long. It’ll be the workhouse, if it’s not the other thing.”
1705039650
1705039651
And hearing us mutter that it seemed cruel, he smiled for the third time.
1705039652
1705039653
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s a bit ‘ard on us, because we’ve done nothing to deserve it. But things are like that, so far as I can see. One thing comes pushin’ out another, and so you go on. I’ve thought about it—you get to thinkin’ and worryin’ about the rights o’ things, sittin’ up here all day. No, I don’t see anything for it. It’ll soon be the end of us now—can’t last much longer. And I don’t know that I’ll be sorry to have done with it. It’s pretty well broke my spirit.”
1705039654
1705039655
“There was a fund got up.”
1705039656
1705039657
“Yes, it helped a few of us to learn the motor drivin’; but what’s the good of that to me, at my time of life? Sixty, that’s my age; I’m not the only one—there’s hundreds like me. We’re not fit for it, that’s the fact; we haven’t got the nerve now. It’d want a mint of money to help us . And what you say’s the truth—people want to see the end of us. They want the taxis—our day’s over. I’m not complaining; you asked me about it yourself.”
1705039658
1705039659
And for the third time he raised his whip.
1705039660
1705039661
“Tell me what you would have done if you had been given your fare and just sixpence over?”
1705039662
1705039663
The cabman stared downward, as though puzzled by that question.
1705039664
1705039665
“Done? Why, nothing. What could I have done?”
1705039666
1705039667
“But you said that it had saved your life.”
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