ly hedge. The wind had died; it was mist-warm.
1910

EVOLUTION

Coming out of the theatre, we found it utterly impossible to get a
taxicab; and, though it was raining slightly, walked through Leicester
Square in the hope of picking one up as it returned down Piccadilly.
Numbers of hansoms and four-wheelers passed, or stood by the curb,
hailing us feebly, or not even attempting to attract our attention, but
every taxi seemed to have its load. At Piccadilly Circus, losing
patience, we beckoned to a four-wheeler and resigned ourselves to a long,
slow journey. A sou'-westerly air blew through the open windows, and
there was in it the scent of change, that wet scent which visits even the
hearts of towns and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with
thought of the restless Force that forever cries: "On, on!" But
gradually the steady patter of the horse's hoofs, the rattling of the
windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that
when, at last, we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare
was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin
was a half-crown before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up.
This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty, with a long, thin face,
whose chin and drooping grey moustaches seemed in permanent repose on the
up-turned collar of his old blue overcoat. But the remarkable features
of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that
it seemed as though that face were a collection of bones without coherent
flesh, among which the eyes were sunk back so far that they had lost
their lustre. He sat quite motionless, gazing at the tail of his horse.
And, almost unconsciously, one added the rest of one's silver to that
half-crown. He took the coins without speaking; but, as we were turning
into the garden gate, we heard him say:

"Thank you; you've saved my life."

Not knowing, either of us, what to reply to such a curious speech, we
closed the gate again and came back to the cab.

"Are things so very bad?"

"They are," replied the cabman. "It's done with--is this job. We're not
wanted now." And, taking up his whip, he prepared to drive away.

"How long have they been as bad as this?"

The cabman dropped his hand again, as though glad to rest it, and
answered incoherently:

"Thirty-five year I've been drivin' a cab."

And, sunk again in contemplation of his horse's tail, he