The cabman smiled; and that smile between those two deep hollows was surely as strange as ever shone on a human face.

“You may say that,” he said.  “Well, what does it amount to?  Before I picked you up, I had one eighteen-penny fare to-day; and yesterday I took five shillings.  And I’ve got seven bob a day to pay for the cab, and that’s low, too.  There’s many and many a proprietor that’s broke and gone—­every bit as bad as us.  They let us down as easy as ever they can; you can’t get blood from a stone, can you?” Once again he smiled.  “I’m sorry for them, too, and I’m sorry for the horses, though they come out best of the three of us, I do believe.”

One of us muttered something about the Public.

The cabman turned his face and stared down through the darkness.

“The Public?” he said, and his voice had in it a faint surprise.  “Well, they all want the taxis.  It’s natural.  They get about faster in them, and time’s money.  I was seven hours before I picked you up.  And then you was lookin’ for a taxi.  Them as take us because they can’t get better, they’re not in a good temper, as a rule.  And there’s a few old ladies that’s frightened of the motors, but old ladies aren’t never very free with their money—­can’t afford to be, the most of them, I expect.”

“Everybody’s sorry for you; one would have thought that——­”

He interrupted quietly:  “Sorrow don’t buy bread . . . .  I never had nobody ask me about things before.”  And, slowly moving his long face from side to side, he added:  “Besides, what could people do?  They can’t be expected to support you; and if they started askin’ you questions they’d feel it very awkward.  They know that, I suspect.  Of course, there’s such a lot of us; the hansoms are pretty nigh as bad off as we are.  Well, we’re gettin’ fewer every day, that’s one thing.”

Not knowing whether or no to manifest sympathy with this extinction, we approached the horse.  It was a horse that “stood over” a good deal at the knee, and in the darkness seemed to have innumerable ribs.  And suddenly one of us said:  “Many people want to see nothing but taxis on the streets, if only for the sake of the horses.”

The cabman nodded.

“This old fellow,” he said, “never carried a deal of flesh.  His grub don’t put spirit into him nowadays; it’s not up to much in quality, but he gets enough of it.”

“And you don’t?”

The cabman again took up his whip.

“I don’t suppose,” he said without emotion, “any one could ever find another job for me now.  I’ve been at this too long.  It’ll be the workhouse, if it’s not the other thing.”

And hearing us mutter that it seemed cruel, he smiled for the third time.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s a bit ’ard on us, because we’ve done nothing to deserve it.  But things are like that, so far as I can see.  One thing comes pushin’ out another, and so you go on.  I’ve thought about it—­you get to thinkin’ and worryin’ about the rights o’ things, sittin’ up here all day.  No, I don’t see anything for it.  It’ll soon be the end of us now—­can’t last much longer.  And I don’t know that I’ll be sorry to have done with it.  It’s pretty well broke my spirit.”