“Yes, but I don’t think you can get the bags on.”
“How many bags?”
“Three. These three,” and he kicked them with his toe, angrily.
The hansom-driver looked down from his Olympus. He was very red-faced, and a little bit humble.
“Them three? Oh yes! Easy! Easy! Get ’em on easy. Get them on easy, no trouble at all.” And he clambered down from his perch, and resolved into a little red-faced man, rather beery and hen-pecked looking. He stood gazing at the bags. On one was printed the name: “R. L. Somers.”
“R. L. Somers! All right, you get in, sir and madam. You get in. Where d’you want to go? Station?”
“No. Fifty-one Murdoch Street.”
“All right, all right, I’ll take you. Fairish long way, but we’ll be there under an hour.”
Mr Somers and his wife got into the cab. The cabby left the doors flung wide open, and piled the three bags there like a tower in front of his two fares. The hat-box was on top, almost touching the brown hairs of the horse’s tail, and perching gingerly.
“If you’ll keep a hand on that, now, to steady it,” said the cabby.