“Drive up West End Lane.”
“Right, sir.”
Presently the lid opens. We look up. Cabby's face, wreathed in smiles, beams down on us.
“I see what was coming all the way from Baker Street,” he savs. “I see the petrol was on fire.”
“Ah!”
“Yus,” he says. “Thought I should pick you up about 'ere.”
“Ah!”
“No good, motors,” he goes on, cheerfully. “My opinion is they'll go out as fast as they come in. Why, I hear lots o' the aristocracy are giving 'em up and goin' back to 'orses.”
“Hope they'll get better horses than this,” for we are crawling painfully up the tortuous reaches of West End Lane.
“Well, genelmen, it ain't because 'e's overworked. 'E ain't earned more than three bob to-night. That's jest what' e's earned. Three bob. It's the cold weather, you know. That's what it is. It's the cold weather as makes 'im duck his 'ead. Else 'e's a good 'orse. And 'e does go after all, even if 'e only goes slow. And that's what you can't say of that there motor-bus.”