"Why don't you have enough cabs?" I asked angrily.

"There are plenty generally, sir," he answered more civilly, with
an apologetic air. "There would be to-night but for an accident."

Another accident! This expedition of mine seemed doomed to be the
sport of chance.

"Just before your train arrived," he continued, "a local came in.
As a rule, hardly anybody comes by it, but to-night a number of
men--oh, twenty or five-and-twenty, I should think--got out. I
collected their tickets myself, and they all came from the first
station on the line. Well, that's not so strange, for there's a
good beer-garden there. But, curiously enough, every one of them
hired a separate cab and drove off, laughing and shouting to one
another as they went. That's how it happens that there were only
one or two cabs left when your train came in, and they were
snapped up at once."

Taken alone, this occurrence was nothing; but I asked myself
whether the conspiracy that had robbed me of my servant had
deprived me of a vehicle also.

"What sort of men were they?" I asked.

"All sorts of men, sir," answered the station-master, "but most
of them were shabby-looking fellows. I wondered where some of
them had got the money for their ride."