The wretch's eyes twinkled again and he came yet
closer.
"I drove him to the Red Lion, corner of Dodd Street and Rudgely
Street. The house was shut up, but he was let in at the jug and
bottle door, like a man who was known to the landlord. That's as
much as I can tell you, and I'm certain I'm right. He was the
last fare I took up at night. The next morning master gave me the
sack--said I cribbed his corn and his fares. I wish I had."
I gathered from this that the crook-backed man had been a
cab-driver.
"Why don't you speak?" he asked, suspiciously. "Has she been
telling you a pack of lies about me? What did she say when she
came home?"
"What ought she to have said?"
"She ought to have said my fare was drunk, and she came in the
way as he was going to get into the cab. That's what she ought to
have said to begin with."
"But after?"
"Well, after, my fare, by way of larking with her, puts out his
leg for to trip her up, and she stumbles and catches at me for to
save herself, and tears off one of the limp ends of my rotten old
tie. 'What do you mean by that, you brute?' says she, turning
round as soon as she was steady on her legs, to my fare. Says my
fare to her: 'I means to teach you to keep a civil tongue in your
head.' And he ups with his fist, and--what's come to you, now?
What are you looking at me like that for? How do you think a man
of my size was to take her part against a man big enough to have
eaten me up? Look as much as you like, in my place you would have
done what I done--drew off when he shook his fist at you, and
swore he'd be the death of you if you didn't start your horse in
no time.
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