“What ho, Bill, old cock! Lost your ruddy cab, old sporty? Lor! we haven’t half laughed to think of you having to use your bacon and eggs to get here. I reckon you didn’t half swear.”
“Who are you getting at, you blinking set of mugs? Who’s lost his ruddy cab?” demanded Bill.
“That’s not the driver,” Sylvia said.
“I thought it couldn’t be Bill,” said the theorist quickly. “As soon as I heard she never noticed that lump behind his ear, I thought it wasn’t Bill.”
“Here, less of it, you and your lumps behind the ear,” said Bill, aggressively. “You’ll have a blurry lump behin’ your own blurry ear, Fred Organ, before you knows where you are.”
Sylvia could not refrain from observing the famous lump with a good deal of curiosity, and she wondered how any one could ever have supposed it might be unnoticed. She would have described it as more like a beet root than a potato, she thought.
A long discussion about the future of the driverless cab ensued; finally it was decided that Joe the tout should lead it to the police station if it were not claimed by daylight. The company then turned to the discussion of the future of the abandoned fares. Sylvia had by this time evolved an elaborate tale of running away from a stepfather whose conduct to Arthur, herself, and Maria had been extremely brutal.
“Knocked the cat about, did he?” said the theorist, whose name was Fred Organ. “I never could abide people as ill-treated dumb animals.”
Sylvia went on to explain that they had intended to throw themselves on the mercy of an aunt who lived at Dover, and with that intention had been bound for Waterloo when they lost their driver. When she was told that they were going to the wrong station for Dover, she began to express fears of the reception her aunt might accord them. Did any one present know where they could find lodgings, for which, of course, they would pay, because their mother had provided them with the necessary money.
“That’s a mother all over,” said Fred Organ, with enthusiastic sentiment. “Ain’t it, boys? Ah, I wish I hadn’t lost my poor old mother.”