"Well, I'm blest if I do," grumbled the driver. "And it's past my tea-time. Doncher know where yer live?"
"Years ago I had rooms in Stafford's Inn," began the Poet. "Then the Cabinet Committee…"
The cabman descended from his box for a heart to heart conversation.
"Now you look 'ere," he said. "I got a boy at 'ome the livin' image of you…"
"But how nice!" interrupted the Poet, wondering apprehensively whether an invitation was on its way to him.
The cabman sniffed.
"Not quite righ in 'is 'ead 'e ain't. THEREfore I don't want to be 'arsh with yer. Jump inside, let me drive yer ter Stafford's Inn, pay me me legal fare and a bob ter drink yer 'ealth—and we'll say no more abaht it. If yer don't—" He made a threatening gesture towards the Poet's precariously strapped trunks—"I'll throw the blinkin' lot on ter the pivement, and yer can carry 'em 'ome on yer 'ead. See?"
"I couldn't, you know," objected the Poet gently.
"Jump inside," repeated the cabman.
One hope was as forlorn as another, and the Poet was too sick with hunger to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler rumbled its way to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler rumbled its way to Stafford's Inn; in time and by force of habit the Poet was mounting the bare, creaking, wooden stairs; in time he found himself fitting his unsurrendered latch key into his abandoned lock.