Page:Kangaroo, 1923.pdf/14

4 Thus saying he pushed off the brakes and the taxi slowly curved round on the road to resume its previous stand.

The strange little bloke and his wife stood at the foot of the steps beside the bags, looking angry. And then a hansom-cab came clock-clocking slowly along the road, also going to draw up for the dinner hour at the quiet place opposite. But the driver spied the angry couple.

"Want a cab, sir?"

"Yes, but I don't think you can get the bags on."

"How many bags?"

"Three. These three," and he kicked them with his toe, angrily.

The hansom-driver looked down from his Olympus. He was very red-faced, and a little bit humble.

"Them three? Oh yes! Easy! Easy! Get 'em on easy. Get them on easy, no trouble at all." And he clambered down from his perch, and resolved into a little red-faced man, rather beery and hen-pecked looking. He stood gazing at the bags. On one was printed the name: "R. L. Somers."

"R. L. Somers! All right, you get in, sir and madam. You get in. Where d'you want to go? Station?"

"No. Fifty-one Murdoch Street."

"All right, all right, I'll take you. Fairish long way, but we'll be there under an hour."

Mr. Somers and his wife got into the cab. The cabby left the doors flung wide open, and piled the three bags there like a tower in front of his two fares. The hat-box was on top, almost touching the brown hairs of the horse's tail, and perching gingerly.

"If you'll keep a hand on that, now, to steady it," said the cabby.

"All right," said Somers.

The man climbed to his perch, and the hansom and the extraneous tower began to joggle away into the town. The group of workmen were still lying on the grass. But Somers did not care about them. He was safely jogging with his detested baggage to his destination.

"Aren't they vile!" said Harriet, his wife.

"It's God's Own Country, as they always tell you," said Somers. "The hansom-man was quite nice."

"But the taxi-drivers! And the man charged you eight