rated the proverb that
"truth can be more cruel than caricature," if such a proverb existed.
Crawling behind an infirm horse, a metropolitan hackney carriage drew up
on wobbly wheels and with a maimed driver on the box. This last
peculiarity caused some embarrassment. Catching sight of a hooked iron
contrivance protruding from the left sleeve of the man's coat, Mrs
Verloc's mother lost suddenly the heroic courage of these days. She
really couldn't trust herself. "What do you think, Winnie?" She hung
back. The passionate expostulations of the big-faced cabman seemed to be
squeezed out of a blocked throat. Leaning over from his box, he
whispered with mysterious indignation. What was the matter now? Was it
possible to treat a man so? His enormous and unwashed countenance flamed
red in the muddy stretch of the street. Was it likely they would have
given him a licence, he inquired desperately, if--

The police constable of the locality quieted him by a friendly glance;
then addressing himself to the two women without marked consideration,
said:

"He's been driving a cab for twenty years. I never knew him to have an
accident."

"Accident!" shouted the driver in a scornful whisper.

The policeman's testimony settled it. The modest assemblage of seven
people, mostly under age, dispersed. Winnie followed her mother into the
cab. Stevie climbed on the box. His vacant mouth and distressed eyes
depicted the state of his mind in regard to the transactions which were
taking place. In the narrow streets the progress of the journey was made
sensible to those within by the near fronts of the houses gliding past
slowly and shakily, with a great rattle and jingling of glass, as if
about to collapse behind the cab; and the infirm horse, with the harness
hung over his sharp backbone flapping very loose about his thighs,
appeared to be dancing mincingly on his toes with infinite patience.
Later on, in the wider space of Whitehall, all visual evidences of motion
became imperceptible. The rattle and jingle of glass went on
indefinitely in front of the long Treasury building--and time itself
seemed to stand still.

At last Winnie observed: "This isn't a very good horse."

Her eyes gleamed in the shadow of the cab straight ahead, immovable. On
the box, Stevie shut his vacant mouth first, in order to ejaculate
earnestly: "Don't."

The driver, holding high the reins twisted around the hook, took no
notice. Perhaps he h