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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1705039669
“Yes, I said that,” he answered slowly; “I was feelin’ a bit low. You can’t help it sometimes; it’s the thing comin’ on you, and no way out of it—that’s what gets over you. We try not to think about it, as a rule.”
1705039670
1705039671
And this time, with a “Thank you, kindly!” he touched his horse’s flank with the whip. Like a thing aroused from sleep the forgotten creature started and began to draw the cabman away from us. Very slowly they traveled down the road among the shadows of the trees broken by lamplight. Above us, white ships of cloud were sailing rapidly across the dark river of sky on the wind which smelled of change. And, after the cab was lost to sight, that wind still brought to us the dying sound of the slow wheels.
1705039672
1705039673
Notes
1705039674
1705039675
taxicab, a motor cab or car, fitted with a taximeter that registers the distance covered by the car and at the same time registers the fare.
1705039676
1705039677
Leicester Square and Piccadilly, the names, respectively, of a well-known street crossing and of a street in London.
1705039678
1705039679
hansoms, a kind of horse carriage named after its English inventor J. A. Hansom. A hansom has two wheels, while four-wheelers have four wheels.
1705039680
1705039681
curb, the edging of upright stones set along the margin of the street to separate the sidewalk from the roadbed.
1705039682
1705039683
sou’westerly, southwesterly. The wind blew from the southwest.
1705039684
1705039685
half-crown, an English coin worth two and a half shillings.
1705039686
1705039687
furrows, deep lines on the face.
1705039688
1705039689
coherent, attached or stuck together; sticking to the bones.
1705039690
1705039691
done with, finished.
1705039692
1705039693
incoherently, without agreement to the question asked; inconsistently.
1705039694
1705039695
Thirty-five year . The uneducated cab-driver uses year where his better educated cousin would use years .
1705039696
1705039697
I don’t blame nobody, meaning,I don’t blame anybody .
1705039698
1705039699
short of food, lacking in food; destitute of food; without food.
1705039700
1705039701
eighteenpenny, an adjective here, denoting a fare of eighteen pence or one and a half shillings.
1705039702
1705039703
bob, slang in England for a shilling. Bob is the plural as well as the singular form of the word.
1705039704
1705039705
broke, bankrupt, ruined, without money.
1705039706
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