“Good-by, Arthur, dear, I shall never forget you,” cried Billie. “We shall meet again, some day.”
Arthur leaned out of the window farther.
“Good-by, dear Billie,” he called again, when some one pulled him roughly back on the seat, and the carriage disappeared in the darkness.
During this episode, Miss Campbell had called out the address to the coachman, who had flicked his horses sharply with his whip and they had started on. The hansom in which were Billie and Nancy was delayed a moment while the two girls said farewell to their steamer friend, who with a last wave of his hat was soon lost in the throng on the station platform. All this is very important, because of what happened later. In the meantime, the two girls settled back comfortably on the seat and clasped hands.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Billie?” cried Nancy, as the cab rolled along the slippery street. “It is London, really London.”
“And we are alone in London, too,” continued Billie. “Isn’t it like a play? Two young girls just arrived from another country suddenly find themselves alone, without friends or money, in a great city. It is night, and the rain is beating on the wet asphalt. In a great rumbling carriage crouch the two orphans, their hands clasped——”
“Wot h’address, Miss?” broke in a harsh voice.
The cab had stopped on a street corner and the coachman was leering at them through the trap door above.
“What address?” repeated Billie, bewildered.
“Certainly, Miss. Them was the words I used. Wot h’address? A’n’t it an ord’nary question for a cabbie to awsk his fare?”