The shop girl had espied an acquaintance in the crowd.  She gave tongue.

“Mordee!  Cummere!  Cummere quick!  Sumfin’ hap’nin’!” Maudie, accompanied by perhaps a dozen more of London’s millions, added herself to the audience.  These all belonged to the class which will gather round and watch silently while a motorist mends a tyre.  They are not impatient.  They do not call for rapid and continuous action.  A mere hole in the ground, which of all sights is perhaps the least vivid and dramatic, is enough to grip their attention for hours at a time.  They stared at George and George’s cab with unblinking gaze.  They did not know what would happen or when it would happen, but they intended to wait till something did happen.  It might be for years or it might be for ever, but they meant to be there when things began to occur.

Speculations became audible.

“Wot is it?  ’Naccident?”

“Nah!  Gent ’ad ’is pocket picked!”

“Two toffs ’ad a scrap!”

“Feller bilked the cabman!”

A sceptic made a cynical suggestion.

“They’re doin’ of it for the pictures.”

The idea gained instant popularity.

“Jear that?  It’s a fillum!”

“Wot o’, Charlie!”

“The kemerer’s ’idden in the keb.”

“Wot’ll they be up to next!”

A red-nosed spectator with a tray of collar-studs harnessed to his stomach started another school of thought.  He spoke with decision as one having authority.

“Nothin’ of the blinkin’ kind!  The fat ’un’s bin ‘avin’ one or two around the corner, and it’s gorn and got into ’is ’ead!”

The driver of the cab, who till now had been ostentatiously unaware that there was any sort of disturbance among the lower orders, suddenly became humanly inquisitive.

“What’s it all about?” he asked, swinging around and addressing George’s head.

“Exactly what I want to know,” said George.  He indicated the collar-stud merchant.  “The gentleman over there with the portable Woolworth-bargain-counter seems to me to have the best theory.”

The stout young man, whose peculiar behaviour had drawn all this flattering attention from the many-headed and who appeared considerably ruffled by the publicity, had been puffing noisily during the foregoing conversation.  Now, having recovered sufficient breath to resume the attack, he addressed himself to George once more.

“Damn you, sir, will you let me look inside that cab?”

“Leave me,” said George, “I would be alone.”

“There is a young lady in that cab.  I saw her get in, and I have been watching ever since, and she has not got out, so she is there now.”

George nodded approval of this close reasoning.

“Your argument seems to be without a flaw.  But what then?  We applaud the Man of Logic, but what of the Man of Action?  What are you going to do about it?”

“Get out of my way!”