My communicative vis-a-vis was feeding very heartily during this interesting conversation. He went on to speak of the Egyptian war and showed with his knife the exact position of General Gordon, and explained lucidly and to his own entire satisfaction how the venturesome Englishman could be rescued very easily, with a comparatively trifling expenditure of
BLOOD AND TREASURE.
This last was a favorite phrase, and he rolled it unctuously over his tongue when his beans ran out. But his vivacity was evidently on the wane, and he rose with a tinge of humility in his manner. He approached the landlord and whispered something. That individual, however, did not answer with a whisper, but said, with fair power of lungs, “Oh, that be d⸺d for a yarn. Fork over that quarter now, and no fooling.” I could just hear my late comrade begin a sentence with “But, my dear sir,” when the indignant restaurateur would break in, “My dear sir nothing; I want my money.” With this he relieved his debtor of his hat, expressing his determination to keep it till he got paid. The shabby genteel one had furnished a subject for one of these sketches, and thinking that was worth something, I paid his shot and charged it to The News. He immediately became dignified again, recovered his hat, treated the landlord with cold disdain, and thanked me with a jaunty air, as if to say, “Old boy, you have helped me out of a little fix; I’ll reciprocate some other time.”
Poor devil, I saw him three hours after in an early opening bar, looking very sleepy and fagged. He had probably been walking the streets ever since I left him, and had taken refuge here in hopes that some fresh stranger would ask him to take a drink of that liquid for which he had bartered every comfort in life, and for which he will soon barter life itself. I did not ask him why he had omitted to use his ingenious key.
CHAPTER III.
THE CABMAN’S CHATTER.
Knowing that a hackman knew as much of city life if not more, than any other one man out of 10,000, I climbed on the box of a hack and asked an old-timer to drive me around town.
“All right boss, get up here and I’ll drive you to the Queen’s taste.”
After some general conversation I drifted to the subject of what sights and sounds a hackman sees and hears after nightfall.
“I’ve seen too much of that to my own sorrow, as you know,” my companion said. “If I had seen less of it, instead of being another man’s servant, I would have had a carriage of my own. Not that there ain’t more money to be made at night than in the day time if a man holds a good sharp rein on himself. A fellow that keeps his eye on the main chance and knows how to keep a stiff upper lip will make dollars and dollars.”