The Champagne Standard

by Mrs. John Lane

The temporary power of a cabman is often concentrated in a moment of intense anguish for his fare when, if a four-wheeler, he rolls off his box, stares at the money dropped into a very dirty paw, makes a speech which ranges from reproach to vituperation, and follows you until a beneficent front door closes on your anguish. He has it in his power to take the bloom from the smartest toilette.

There is no one in the whole range of civilisation who has such a power to inflict humiliation on one as a cabman! He has that delicate perception that he knows just when his remarks will cut like a lash. He always grumbles on principle, and you would rather give him your whole fortune than have him make a spectacle of you before those other temporaries, the footmen. As if he didn't know it, and as if he didn't always choose the noblest of these as witnesses! You know that you have overpaid him, and so does he, but he follows you with running remarks, in the form of a soliloquy, which increase in virulence as you flee before him, and which produce that peculiar contortion of face in the well-bred footman, in which a grin battles with a countenance of stone.

Those awful footmen! I do believe that a cabby, in spite of his bad language, is sometimes the prey of softer emotions. One knows by observation that he often smokes a pipe, and from the way his chariot leans up against the pavement of the nearest saloon, out of which he comes with a frightfully red face and smacking his lips, one knows he is not a "bigoted" total abstainer. One even pictures him as retired to a mews, and in that peaceful retreat, with the family washing flapping over his head, enjoying respite from timid fares in the bosom of his family.

There is a monumental prejudice against four-wheelers. It is even growing. Once I used to frolic about in them, flitting from one afternoon tea to the other; now when I ask for one it is, if possible, secretly, and always apologetically. Why is it? They cost nearly the same as hansoms, but why are they so plebeian? Even a 'bus is not so low. Servants respect you more even if they know that you get into a 'bus out of their sight than if they witness your downfall into a four-wheeler. Kings have driven in hansoms, and Cabinet Ministers have been tipped out of them; but who ever heard of a King or a Cabinet Minister driving in a "growler"?

Of course, a 'bus is low, but you need not say you came in one, only you must be careful! The other day old Lady Toppingham called and grew quite eloquent on the levelling influences of 'buses; they might do for cooks and tradespeople, she said, but her principles were such that she really couldn't ride in one. All the time she was clutching a blue punched 'bus ticket on the top of her card-case with her relentless thumb. I agreed with her, and said that I also never could nor would, and no sooner had she gone than I was off to Whiteley's on top of a blue Kensington. Still, it is levelling, and you should always pick off the straws and never cling to the tickets.

However, the most ignoble conveyance is undoubtedly the "growler." To go in one to a smart afternoon reception requires courage. I shall never forget my last experience. It was an awful function, and both sides of the street were lined with private carriages, and a double row of footmen graced the porte cochère.

My four-wheeler was the only one in sight, and it was the forlornest of its kind. It shook like jelly and rattled like artillery. A burly being in sackcloth and dirt (instead of ashes) rolled off the box, and sixteen perfectly equipped footmen had their features set to a preparatory grin. I placed my foot on the dirtiest cab step in London, and from my white-gloved hand I dropped a liberal fare into a grimy paw. To the joy of the attendant footmen the owner of the paw said the most appalling things. I stopped the hurricane with another shilling, and flew up the steps and took refuge in extra haughtiness, and overdid it!

I was thankful when I was ushered into the drawing-room and cooled off in the icy stare of the other guests—some thirty women and two men.

Nothing betrayed that I was a "growler" lady as I took the limp hand of my hostess, who favoured me with a speechless smile. This she temporarily detached from a superior man in superior garments, such as, to do them justice, Englishmen only know how to wear. He was very perfect, and in one of his blank eyes he wore a glass.

I don't know his name, but I shall never forget him. He was evidently one of the lilies of the field who only know of four-wheelers by hearsay. Whether our hostess stopped smiling long enough to murmur an introduction I do not know, but we were quite lost among the furniture, and as much thrown on each other's society as if we were on a desert island. So when he uttered inquiringly something that sounded like "yum," I said desperately, knowing it could strike no answering chord, "I came in a four-wheeler; it requires a good deal of moral courage."