d'ye hear? woa! I'm blest if I ever did see sich a 'oss as you
are, Ratty, 'ang me if I did. If a chap could drive you without
swearing, he must be a downright artch-angel. Holt still, will yer?
Look at that now!"

A jig here at the reins, and Ratty went forward; a lash from the whip,
and the horse, a wall-eyed, attenuated beast, with a rat-tail, went
backwards, ending by backing the hansom cab, in whose shafts he played
at clay mill, going round and round in a perfect slough of a new unmade
road, cut into ruts by builders' carts.

"Now, look'ee here," said the driver, our friend of the Pall Mall
accident; "on'y one on us can be master, yer know. If you'll on'y say
as yer can drive, and will drive, why, I'll run in the sharps, and
there's an end on't. Hold still, will yer? Yer might be decent
to-day."

The horse suddenly stood still--bogged, with the slushy mud over his
fetlocks, and the cab wheels half-way down to the nave.

"Thenky," said the driver, standing up on his perch; "much obliged. I'm
blessed!" he muttered. "Buddy may well say as mine's allus the dirtiest
keb as comes inter the yard, as well as the shabbiest. 'Struth, what a
place! Now, then, get on, will yer?"

The horse gave his Roman-profiled head a shake, and remained motionless.

"Just like yer," said the cabman. "When I want yer to go, yer stop; and
when I don't want yer to go, off yer do go, all of a shy, and knocks
'alf a dozen people into the mud, and gets yer driver nearly took up for
reckless driving, as the bobbies calls it. Come, get on."

Another shake of the head, but the four legs seemed planted as if they
were to grow.

"Well, there's one thing, Ratty," said the driver, "we're about square,
mate; for if ever I've give yer too much of the whip, yer've had it
outer me with obstinacy. Look at this now, just when yer oughter be on
yer best manners, seeing as I've come about the mischief as yer did; and
then, to make it wus, yer takes advantage of yer poor master's weakness,
and goes a-leading of him inter temptation sore as can't be bore, and
pulls up close aside of a public."

For the spot at which the horse had stopped was at the opening of one of
those new suburban streets run up by speculative builders--a street of
six and seven-roomed houses, with a flaring tavern at the corner; and
the houses, starting from the commencement of the street, in every stage
from finished and inhabited, through finished and uninhabited,