hey'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."

"Everybody's sorry for you; one would have thought that----"

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."

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."

The cabman nodded.

"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."

"And you don't?"

The cabman again took up his whip.

"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."

And hearing us mutter that it seemed cruel, he smiled for the third time.

"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."

"There was a fund got up."

"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