men on the stand,
the moment you raise your eyes from the ground. Then there is your own
pantomime in reply--quite a little ballet. Four cabs immediately leave
the stand, for your especial accommodation; and the evolutions of the
animals who draw them, are beautiful in the extreme, as they grate the
wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport playfully in the
kennel. You single out a particular cab, and dart swiftly towards it.
One bound, and you are on the first step; turn your body lightly round to
the right, and you are on the second; bend gracefully beneath the reins,
working round to the left at the same time, and you are in the cab.
There is no difficulty in finding a seat: the apron knocks you
comfortably into it at once, and off you go.

The getting out of a cab is, perhaps, rather more complicated in its
theory, and a shade more difficult in its execution. We have studied the
subject a great deal, and we think the best way is, to throw yourself
out, and trust to chance for alighting on your feet. If you make the
driver alight first, and then throw yourself upon him, you will find that
he breaks your fall materially. In the event of your contemplating an
offer of eightpence, on no account make the tender, or show the money,
until you are safely on the pavement. It is very bad policy attempting
to save the fourpence. You are very much in the power of a cabman, and
he considers it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful damage. Any
instruction, however, in the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly
unnecessary if you are going any distance, because the probability is,
that you will be shot lightly out before you have completed the third
mile.

We are not aware of any instance on record in which a cab-horse has
performed three consecutive miles without going down once. What of that?
It is all excitement. And in these days of derangement of the nervous
system and universal lassitude, people are content to pay handsomely for
excitement; where can it be procured at a cheaper rate?

But to return to the red cab; it was omnipresent. You had but to walk
down Holborn, or Fleet-street, or any of the principal thoroughfares in
which there is a great deal of traffic, and judge for yourself. You had
hardly turned into the street, when you saw a trunk or two, lying on the
ground: an uprooted post, a hat-box, a portmanteau, and a carpet-bag,
strewed about in a very picturesque manner: a horse in a cab st