By the time the cab had crawled through Upper Baker Street, and entered the Park Road, Fan had not only become quiet, but was at length sound asleep; her tiny snore alone telling that she lived.
On moved the vehicle through the dun darkness, magnified by the mist to twice its ordinary size, and going slow and silent as a hearse.
“Where?” asked the driver, slewing his body around, and speaking in through the side window.
“South Bank! You needn’t go inside the street. Set us down at the end of it, in the Park Road.”
“All right,” rejoined the Jarvey, though not thinking so. He thought it rather strange, that a gent with a lady in such queer condition should desire to be discharged in that street at such an hour, and especially on such a night!
Still it admitted of an explanation, which his experience enabled him to supply. The lady had stayed out a little too late. The gent wished her to get housed without making a noise; and it would not do for cab wheels to be heard drawing up by “the door.”
What mattered it to him, cabby, so long as the fare should be forthcoming, and the thing made “square”? He liked it all the better, as promising a perquisite.
In this he was not disappointed. At the corner designated, the gentleman got out, lifting his close muffled partner in his arms, and holding her upright upon the pavement.
With his spare hand he gave the driver a crown piece, which was more than double his fare.
After such largess, not wishing to appear impertinent, cabby climbed back to his box; readjusted the manifold drab cape around his shoulders; tightened his reins; touched the screw with his whip; and started back towards the Haymarket, in hopes of picking up another intoxicated fare.