256 OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



all discussion and interchange of compliments, whereat, not 

 having crushing repartees ready at hand, Your Representa- 

 tive generally gets worsted, after having been held up to the 

 execration of a dirty crowd as a penurious aristocrat grinding 

 down the honest working man, or having been chaffed out 

 of his life by the unscrupulous driver in front of the open 

 windows of his (Your Representative's) Club. 



The Cabman has an advantage, in badinage, over his res- 

 pectable fare, similar to that possessed by the French over 

 the English Dramatists in writing for the stage, that is, they 

 have such a field, and such scope ; they can say anything 

 and everything, while the virtuous fare is gagged by his res- 

 pectabihty as tightly as is a criminal on his trial by the 

 English law. Brilliancy is lost on a cabman ; he wanks at 

 your sky-rocket of wit, which goes far above his head, and 

 is down upon you with his bomb-shell. 



Therefore, Sir, I pay, as the stage Yankee speaks, through 

 the nose. But what do I get in return for this ? Thanks ? 

 Rarely. What have I previously got for it? Nothing: ex- 

 cept twenty minutes worth of worry, nervousness, danger, 

 jolting, anger, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. 



Were all Cabs good in every respect, the lives of vehicle- 

 patronising Londoners would be lengthened by many years. 



Sir, emphatically, our London Cabs, taking them all round 

 (Heaven forbid I should have to do so !), are what Ha?nlet 

 said the player's " faces " were, in Act iii., Sc. 2, where Mr. 

 Lucianus enters to go through his part, and is most rudely 

 interrupted by his highly educated audience. (Shakspeare 

 evidently meant this as a satire on some of the swells of his 



