“Drive on, Jarvey, or I’ll be late for my train! A shilling extra for time.”
If cabby’s arms sparred slowly before, they now work as though he were engaged in catching flies; and with their quickened action, aided by several cuts of a thick-thonged whip, the Rosinante goes rattling through the narrow defile of Heming’s Row, down King William Street, and across the Strand into the Charing Cross station.
Volume Two—Chapter Nineteen.
Journey Interrupted.
Captain Ryecroft takes a through ticket for Paris, without thought of breaking journey, and in due time reaches Boulogne. Glad to get out of the detestable packet, little better than a ferry-boat, which plies between Folkestone and the French seaport, he loses not a moment in scaling the equally detestable gang-ladder by which alone he can escape.
Having set foot upon French soil, represented by a rough cobble-stone pavement, he bethinks of passport and luggage—how he will get the former vised and the latter looked after with the least trouble to himself. It is not his first visit to France, nor is he unacquainted with that country’s customs; therefore knows that a “tip” to sergent de ville or douanier will clear away the obstructions in the shortest possible time—quicker if it be a handsome one. Peeling in his pockets for a florin or a half-crown, he is accosted by a voice familiar and of friendly tone.
“Captain Ryecroft!” it exclaims in a rich rolling brogue, as of Galway. “Is it yourself? By the powers of Moll Kelly, and it is.”
“Major Mahon!”