“Don’t lose your breath, cabby,” cried a second, and a general laugh interrupted my speech.
“Cabby sees with his ears and hears with his eyes,” shrieked one of the wretched boys. There was a laugh again; I was perspiring with indignation.
“Take that up on the box,” cried my passenger in an insolent tone, thumping a heavy brass-nailed trunk down on my feet.
I was about to recommend greater caution when he handed me a couple of curtain-poles wrapped in paper and tied together with a cord.
“Take that too,” he commanded, “and see that it doesn’t slip down.”
So it was a provincial upholsterer who was treating me thus! In spite of that, there was nothing for it but to obey his orders. I set the curtain-poles up on end and put my left arm around them.
Now there was an uproar among the boys once more. “Cabby, hold the crow-bars tight!” cried one. “Cabby with the crow-bars!” yelled the boys, shrieking, bellowing, and whistling in a diabolical chorus.
“To the tavern ‘Green Tree’ in the Klosterstrasse!” cried the overbearing voice of the upholsterer. He got into the cab, and shut the door with a bang.
I seized the reins, the nag stood still, as if it were none of his concern.
“Go along with ye, you wretched beast! Hello there! Skip along!” I muttered between my teeth; the abominable quadruped persisted in stubborn indifference. I brought the whip down upon him “toward the front,” as Gustav had advised me, and, sure enough, suddenly the cab quivered, struck with the hoofs of the balking steed.