“Have a cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “cab?” “carriage?” “cab?” Fifty voices, and fifty whips pointing, and twice fifty arms extended in a manner which seemed to me at least threatening. Oh! what could “a poor lone woman” do? I was stunned, frightened—it was very silly, and I knew it was, but that consciousness did not make me wiser. Trifles became matters of mighty import, now that I was alone, and should be obliged to look after every thing myself. I made a great effort, and at last got ashore, my baggage beside me.
“ ’Ve cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “have a cab?” Somebody was peremptory, and I might as well answer. I opened my mouth, but something choked back the sound.
“ ’Ve cab?” “carriage?” “cab?” It was like being amid a troop of yelling savages; I could bear it no longer, and I pronounced “yes!” with something between a shriek and a howl. On the instant, together went a half dozen bent heads with a tremendous thump; five recoiled—not speaking very gently—and left my trunk the prey of one, who was probably superior to the others in hardness of skull. I was very glad to escape that test of equality, at least. The man whisked my trunk lightly over his shoulder, took my carpet-bag in hand, and strode away. If I should lose sight of him! He went very fast, and my trembling limbs were nearly helpless. Then all the men looked alike; all had trunks on their shoulders, and carpet-bags in their hands, and all had very funny caps, and very red ears, so—if I should lose sight of him!—If he should carry off my trunk! was my next practice in the use of the mood subjunctive. (Lest it should be thought that ladies are subject to such fears, which everybody knows would be, like mine of the cabman, a wrongful suspicion, I must again remind the reader that this is only a dream.) If he should carry off my trunk! There was something alarming in the supposition; I was sufficiently fatigued and excited before; my limbs were trembling, my face burning, and my heart fluttering; I gave a bound forward and—fell headlong. I heard a coarse burst of laughter, and thought of all those red, bloated faces turned toward me; and then my dream became a kind of nightmare, and so ended or changed.
Next, I was before a large public building, around which a crowd of people had gathered, and I was trying to force my way in. Nobody moved. Some dreamer, whose remembrance of past things was assisted by good nature, said something about “a lady;” but the crowd, instead of parting and standing back, as in other times, at the talismanic word, laughed my Don Quixote in the face. How I got in I know not, but I was in, at last.
“Better ’ave staid on the outside!” said a burly individual near me, “there aint no seats to be had for love nor money.”
It was easy enough to be seen that nobody would owe a seat to courtesy. So I leaned against a pillar, and tried to forget that I had a body. It was no easy task, for here was an ache, and there a tremor, and there a faintness, which made me very sensible of not being all spirit. I seemed to be in a court-room, and a woman was speaking with great earnestness in behalf of her client, a dog-stealer. She was very red in the face, and very fierce in the eye; her voice, which was roused to its topmost pitch, had a shrill squeak to it, which grated on my nerves like the finger-nail upon dried plaster; and I could see the eyes of her “honorable colleague” intently regarding her dress, from which two or three hooks had bounded, apparently scared from their post by the vehemence of her eloquence. He was undoubtedly meditating a joke at her expense. One of the judges was a very pretty woman, who seemed to have just come in possession of a new bracelet; for she kept up a constant clasping and unclasping, and was evidently very well satisfied with the curve of her arm, whatever she might have thought of the lawyer’s speech. Another one observed the arm too—a neighbor on the bench, whom I suspected of being a susceptible sort of a widower—and I thought to myself that I should be very sorry to be a prisoner, looking for justice to those two pre-occupied judges. The jury were half men, half women. But I will not record my observations, lest it should be thought that I dreamed very perversely. Suffice it, that I again pitied the poor prisoner.
Oh! the difficulty of imagining oneself a spirit, with such fleshly reminders! Could I stand another moment? I looked as pleadingly as I could about me, but nobody moved. Getting out seemed impossible, for the passage was crowded. Oh! how I longed for “the good old days, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind”—not forgetting somebody to find me the best seat! It was no place to be in love with equality. I was (it was very wrong, I know, and I might not be so tempted when awake,) I was ready to sign myself Esau, jun.—barter my birthright of intellect, and power, and independence, in short, every thing we had gained by the Reform, for but the strong arm and protecting presence to take me through that crowd. Luckily, I lacked the means of making my madness practical, for not an arm offered itself, and not a face turned toward me for any better purpose than to favor me with a familiar stare—an expressive acknowledgment of equality, which had been one of the first features of the Reform.
“Rather tiresome standing,” observed the burly individual before mentioned, seeing me balance on my toes, and twist from side to side, and try by various other methods of equal importance to rid myself of my fatigue. “Rather tiresome standing,” and he changed his comfortable position for one of like comfort; and stretched his arms along the back of his seat with provoking complacency. I assented with a sigh.
“Missed it not coming earlier,” and he lolled back, resting his big head on his own shoulders. Wouldn’t I have liked to be Robin Goodfellow, to give him a pinch or two? There was no prospect of any body’s vacating a seat; my limbs ached, I gasped for breath, reeled, and clutched instinctively at the nearest object. It was the shaggy locks adorning the big head; and they shook like a lion’s mane, recalling me to my senses in time to evade the compliment of a doubled fist, which the bewildered and resentful owner seemed inclined to offer me.
“I wonder if anybody would carry me out if I should faint,” thought I; but I was not given to fainting, and I doubted whether I could do it with the proper grace, though to be sure, gracefulness was a matter of little moment, since (pardon! sleeping ears are dull, and my harsh word is from Dreamland) help one’s-self-fulness came into vogue. “What will become of me?”