Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/105

 JET. 25.] TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 81

absolutely inaccessible to questions, did at length satisfy an army of starving cabmen that I did not want a hack, cab, or anything of that sort as yet. It was the only demand the city made on us ; as if a wheeled vehicle of some sort were the sum and summit of a reasonable man s wants. &quot; Having tried the water,&quot; they seemed to say, &quot; will you not return to the pleasant se curities of land carriage ? Else why your boat s prow turned toward the shore at last?&quot; They are a sad-looking set of fellows, not permitted to come on board, and I pitied them. They had been expecting me, it would seem, and did really wish that I should take a cab ; though they did not seem rich enough to supply me with one.

It was a confused jumble of heads and soiled coats, dangling from flesh-colored faces, all swaying to and fro, as by a sort of undertow, while each whipstick, true as the needle to the pole, still preserved that level and direction in which its proprietor had dismissed his forlorn interrogatory. They took sight from them, the lash being wound up thereon, to prevent your attention from wandering, or to make it concen tre upon its object by the spiral line. They be gan at first, perhaps, with the modest, but rather confident inquiry, &quot;Want a cab, sir?&quot; but as their despair increased, it took the affirmative tone, as the disheartened and irresolute are apt