ad not heard. Stevie's breast heaved.

"Don't whip."

The man turned slowly his bloated and sodden face of many colours
bristling with white hairs. His little red eyes glistened with moisture.
His big lips had a violet tint. They remained closed. With the dirty
back of his whip-hand he rubbed the stubble sprouting on his enormous
chin.

"You mustn't," stammered out Stevie violently. "It hurts."

"Mustn't whip," queried the other in a thoughtful whisper, and
immediately whipped. He did this, not because his soul was cruel and his
heart evil, but because he had to earn his fare. And for a time the
walls of St Stephen's, with its towers and pinnacles, contemplated in
immobility and silence a cab that jingled. It rolled too, however. But
on the bridge there was a commotion. Stevie suddenly proceeded to get
down from the box. There were shouts on the pavement, people ran
forward, the driver pulled up, whispering curses of indignation and
astonishment. Winnie lowered the window, and put her head out, white as
a ghost. In the depths of the cab, her mother was exclaiming, in tones
of anguish: "Is that boy hurt? Is that boy hurt?"

Stevie was not hurt, he had not even fallen, but excitement as usual had
robbed him of the power of connected speech. He could do no more than
stammer at the window. "Too heavy. Too heavy." Winnie put out her hand
on to his shoulder.

"Stevie! Get up on the box directly, and don't try to get down again."

"No. No. Walk. Must walk."

In trying to state the nature of that necessity he stammered himself into
utter incoherence. No physical impossibility stood in the way of his
whim. Stevie could have managed easily to keep pace with the infirm,
dancing horse without getting out of breath. But his sister withheld her
consent decisively. "The idea! Whoever heard of such a thing! Run
after a cab!" Her mother, frightened and helpless in the depths of the
conveyance, entreated: "Oh, don't let him, Winnie. He'll get lost.
Don't let him."

"Certainly not. What next! Mr Verloc will be sorry to hear of this
nonsense, Stevie,--I can tell you. He won't be happy at all."

The idea of Mr Verloc's grief and unhappiness acting as usual powerfully
upon Stevie's fundamentally docile disposition, he abandoned all
resistance, and climbed up again on the box, with a face of despair.

The cabby turned at him his enormous and inflamed countenance
truculently. "Don't you go for try