The Deacon's Masterpiece (DW)
and we are left sitting motionless in the middle of Edgware Road, with the clock over the shuttered shop opposite pointing to quarter to two.
It is the spirit of Jest inside the breast of the motor bus asserting himself. He disapproves of the passengers having all the fun. Is he not a humorist too? May he not be merry in the dawn of this May morning?
We take our fate like Englishmen, bravely, even merrily.
The cabmen laugh recklessly. This is their moment. This is worth living for. Their enemy is revealed in his true colours, a base betrayer of the innocent wayfarer; their profession is justified. What though it is two or three miles to Cricklewood, what though it is two in the morning! Who cares?
Only the gentleman with the big bag in the corner.
“'Ow am I to git 'ome to Cricklewood?” he asks the conductor with tears in his voice.
The conductor gives it up. He goes round to help the driver. They busy themselves in the bowels of the machinery, they turn handles, they work pumps, they probe here and thump there.
They come out perspiring but merry. It's all in the day's work. They have the cheerful philosophy of people who meddle with things that move—cab drivers, bus-drivers, engine-drivers.
If, when looking well won't move thee.