en in in my life!"
Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we retreated humbly,
and the driver looked in at us with a gentle grin. "And I thought he was
so soft, you know! Erema, may I swear at him?"

"On no account," I said. "Why, after all, it is only a shilling, and the
loss of time. And then, you can always reflect that you have discharged,
as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a vile system."

"Protesting is very well, when it pays," the Major answered, gloomily;
"but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes."

This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
him for eight-pence more. "Four parcels on the roof, Captain," he said,
looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning his extra
shilling. "Twopence each under new hact, you know. Scarcely thought a
hofficer would 'a tried evasion."

"You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a countryman!
I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license marked. Erema, pay
the thief; it is more than I can do."

"Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for scurrilous
language, as the hact directs. Ah, you do right to be driven to a pawn
shop."

Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, "Never tie up my
rattan again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to
stop on my own manor!"

"I pray you to disdain such low impudence," I said, for I could not bear
to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him into it.
"You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have heard you
say."

"Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could not
afford to pay the rogues. That makes me feel it so bitterly, so loftily,
and so righteously. To be treated like this, when I think of all my
labors for the benefit of the rascally human race! my Institute, my
Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and Christian Young Men's
something. There is no institution, after all, to be compared to the
tread-mill."

Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a little
sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black
door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while
I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true
peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And
thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely
sheathed with silk.

Maj