26o OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



push up the little peep-show trap above, and have a look at 

 the driver, to see that he'd got his head on all right. I 

 became nervous : I began to think that all this was some 

 horrid dream, and that I was in the hands of a goblin cab- 

 man driving a night-mare. 



We passed nothing ; we followed everything. I envied 

 people in four-wheelers and 'busses. I growled to myself; 

 I implored him through the trap, I urged him onward by 

 drawing his attention to the fact that a 'bus which had 

 stopped three times on the same route had always caught 

 us up, and passed us. The driver replied, " All right ! " to 

 me, and said " Tchk ! " to the headless horse, which re- 

 sponded to the very gentle touch of the whip (which the 

 man used as if it had been a fishing-rod, and he were drop- 

 ping a hook with ground-bait, very quietly, into a stream) by 

 jibbing, tossing its head, cantering, and then relapsing into 

 the old despondent trot. 



Sir, I paid that man one sixpence, at least, over and above 

 his fare. I made no remark. I was speechless with grati- 

 tude for my safety. Had the authorities been inclined to 

 permit it, I would have gone into the Albert Hall, and cele- 

 brated my safe arrival with a piece of sacred music (my own 

 composition) on the organ, which should have been after- 

 wards known, like the " Gottingen Te Deum,' as the Got- 

 back-again Te Dcicm. 



However, were I always to insist upon performing this on 

 the Albert Hall instrument whenever I had survived a drive 

 in a cab, I should be the most voluminous composer of this 

 or any other time, and the organ would soon be worn out. 



