After this all concerned got into action with as little delay as possible. The old gentleman, descending from his perch, opened upon his opponent at a range of about three feet. Such phrases as “Ruffian!” “Bandit!” “Thug!” “Yahoo!” “Police!” “War on, too!” flew from him like hail. The driver, though obviously rattled by the complete unexpectedness of the attack, and further hampered by having swallowed the glowing stub of a cigarette, reacted (as they say in the official communiqué) with creditable promptness.
“Call yourself a gentleman?” he coughed. “’Ard-workin’ man like me!… Over milingtary age!… Carryin’ on as well as I can till the boys comes ’ome!… Disgrace, that’s what you are!… Got a job in the War Office, I’ll lay a tanner!… I’ll summons you for assault and damagin’ my keb!… The first copper I sees…”
And so on. Meanwhile the lady in the case, much to her own surprise, found herself propelled by four pairs of willing hands into the cab. This done, the door was shut upon her, and a soothing Scots-American chorus assured her through the window-glass that the entire matter would straightway be adjusted. (“Fixed” was the exact term employed.)
But now a new figure added itself to the tableau—a slightly nervous individual in blue, with silver buttons and flat peaked cap. He coughed in a deprecating fashion, and produced a notebook.
“That a cop?” enquired Ed Gillette of the Scot.
“No jist exactly. He’s a ‘Special.’ I doot he’ll no be a match for the taxi-man.”
But the Special Constable, though his lack of stolidity betrayed the amateur, had been well-drilled in his part.
“Now, then, now, then,” he demanded sternly, “what’s all this? Driver, what is your cab doing up against these railings? You are causing an obstruction.”
These questions were promptly answered by the old gentleman in a sustained passage, supported by a soprano obbligato from the interior of the taxi. The “Special” listened judicially, and finally held up his hand.
“That’ll do,” he intimated, and turned to the taxi-driver.