ning!"
"It's a fieldmale this time," said the ostler boy.
"She's a followin' _him_" said old Tootles. "Usually the other way
about."
"What's she got in her 'and?"
"Looks like a 'igh 'at."
"What a bloomin' lark it is! Three to one on old George," said the
ostler boy. "Nexst!"
Minnie went by in a perfect roar of applause. She did not like it but
she felt that she was doing her duty, and whirled on down Haverstock
Hill and Camden Town High Street with her eyes ever intent on the
animated back view of old George, who was driving her vagrant husband
so incomprehensibly away from her.
The man in the foremost cab sat crouched in the corner, his arms
tightly folded, and the little tube that contained such vast
possibilities of destruction gripped in his hand. His mood was a
singular mixture of fear and exultation. Chiefly he was afraid of
being caught before he could accomplish his purpose, but behind this
was a vaguer but larger fear of the awfulness of his crime. But his
exultation far exceeded his fear. No Anarchist before him had ever
approached this conception of his. Ravachol, Vaillant, all those
distinguished persons whose fame he had envied dwindled into
insignificance beside him. He had only to make sure of the water
supply, and break the little tube into a reservoir. How brilliantly
he had planned it, forged the letter of introduction and got into the
laboratory, and how brilliantly he had seized his opportunity! The
world should hear of him at last. All those people who had sneered at
him, neglected him, preferred other people to him, found his company
undesirable, should consider him at last. Death, death, death! They
had always treated him as a man of no importance. All the world had
been in a conspiracy to keep him under. He would teach them yet what
it is to isolate a man. What was this familiar street? Great Saint
Andrew's Street, of course! How fared the chase? He craned out of the
cab. The Bacteriologist was scarcely fifty yards behind. That was bad.
He would be caught and stopped yet. He felt in his pocket for money,
and found half-a-sovereign. This he thrust up through the trap in the
top of the cab into the man's face. "More," he shouted, "if only we
get away."
The money was snatched out of his hand. "Right you are," said the
cabman, and the trap slammed, and the lash lay along the glistening
side of the horse. The cab swayed, and the Anarchist, half-standing
under the trap, put the hand
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