nd the driver began to get very husky about the throat at this
stage of the proceedings, and slackened his speed very noticeably as
we approached a large public-house, so that I felt constrained to
offer him another gin, which he graciously accepted. The ladies had
some wine, too, and I followed the example of my companion on the
box, so that we all started refreshed.

"The police and me's been mixed up a good deal," continued the
veteran resuming his reminiscences: "They took the best customer I
ever had away from me. I'd have made my fortin if they'd let him
carry on his little game a while longer."

Here, with the coquetry of one who knows that his words are of
interest, the driver began to look around him with an air of
abstraction and to comment upon the weather.

"Well, what about your customer and the police?" I asked.

"It's not much to tell," he said, coming back to his subject. "One
morning I was driving across Vauxhall Bridge when I was hailed by a
crooked old man with a pair of spectacles on, who was standing at
the Middlesex end, with a big leather bag in his hand. 'Drive anywhere
you like,' he said; 'only don't drive fast for I'm getting old, and
it shakes me to pieces.' He jumped in, and shut himself up, closing
the windows, and I trotted about with him for three hours, before he
let me know that he had had enough. When I stopped, out he hopped
with his big bag in his hand.

"'I say cabbie!' he said, after he had paid his fare.

"'Yes, sir,' said I, touching my hat.

"'You seem to be a decent sort of fellow, and you don't go in the
break-neck way of some of your kind. I don't mind giving you the
same job every day. The doctors recommend gentle exercise of the
sort, and you may as well drive me as another. Just pick me up at
the same place tomorrow.'

"Well, to make a long story short, I used to find the little man in
his place every morning, always with his black bag, and for nigh
on to four months never a day passed without his having his three
hours' drive and paying his fare like a man at the end of it. I
shifted into new quarters on the strength of it, and was able to buy
a new set of harness. I don't say as I altogether swallowed the
story of the doctors having recommended him on a hot day to go about
in a growler with both windows up. However, it's a bad thing in this
world to be too knowing, so though I own I felt a bit curious at
times, I never put myself out o' the way to fin