have a connection.
This 'ere chap was recommended to call on me, and I knows his game. I've
just got to get a good turn-out and drive down to the beach, call at
the pub and get a letter which will give me instructions where to meet
him. Then I picks up a flash gent with a little, innercent girl, and
they'll get into the cab. 'Straight home, cabby,' he'll cry, 'we've
missed the train.' That'll mean that I'm to go in the opposite direction
where there ain't no houses, and if I hear screamin' I never listens.
Then I get home about three; there's a big row, but I get a tenner for
the job.' 'Well, Dick,' says Joe, who is a good-hearted sort of chap,
'if I thought anything of that kind was going on in my cab, a hundred
wouldn't buy me, but I'd take the horse-whip to him.' 'Shure,' says I,
'I would put the blackguard in the sea, and drown him just.' 'Ha, ha,'
laughs Dick, 'it wouldn't do for us all to be so soft, else half of us
would starve. Now I'll just tell you chaps how I serve my customers. I
just go round to Wallace's and get the best turn-out he has, and I guess
we'll cut a dash.' Then he got in his cab and drove away. Neither me nor
Joe envied him his tenner. Next day Dick came up to the stand looking
terrible black. He cussed and swore, and looked as if he'd had a big
drop too much. 'Have a good time last night,' says I to him, civil
like. 'No, blast yer; go to--' he says. I never spoke no more, but after
a bit he comes up to me and says--'Terry, those beggars had me last
night; it was a put-up job.' 'Go on,' says I, 'the infernal scoundrels,
how did they do it?' He swore a terrible lot, and 'twixt his swears I
made out that he had hired a turn-out that cost him thirty bob, and
drove quietly to St. Kilda, smiling all the way. He waits till nearly
eleven, and refused two good fares, then goes to the Pier Hotel, and
asks if there is a letter for him. The barman hands him one, and he was
so pleased he called for drinks all round and spent about three bob that
way. Then he says good-night, goes to a lamp-post to read his letter,
which said something about swindlers being swindled, and policy being
the greatest honesty, or something like that. He was out till nearly
three, and never earned a bob. Joe had come up behind, and heard the
yarn, and we both let out a yell. Dick he swore awful, and jumped on his
cab and drove away. He got fined for being drunk on his cab that night.
And now it's all the joke on the ranks. 'Going S