AN UNPLEASANT FIX. 275 



strange place, wet through, and at the moment un- 

 friended; and I confess that for an instant I was a 

 prey to the bitterest feeling of anger. A jeer from 

 the crowd behind me, however, soon brought me to 

 a better temper ; so, buttoning my great- coat to the 

 chin, to secure the breast-pocket of my inner coat, in 

 which was my money, I desisted from a vain stare 

 at the lights of the receding packet, and faced right 

 about, confronting the crowd, and very willing to 

 get any head I could under my left arm. 



In this humour I strode right at them, but they 

 opened right and left to let me pass — I suppose, with 

 a lively recollection of the " mountain " under the 

 villainous cabman's eye — and, to my delight, I found 

 the cab that had brought me not yet gone away. 

 Having hailed him, as I was proceeding to the car- 

 riage, a good-looking young Englishman came up 

 and said, " he had witnessed my payment of the 

 extorted money to the policeman, and would be use- 

 ful to me if he could." So, with thanks, I took 

 down his address. The next person who put him-» 

 self in my way was the touter, who had stood in- 

 terpreter between me and those villains. He told 

 me it was a regular system of fraud, and that the 

 cabman whom I had struck was the fighting bully 

 invariably put forward on these occasions, and pro- 



T 2 



