I tell ye I took a dead man for a fare once, and drove about with him
nigh half the night. Oh, you needn't look shocked, sir, for this
wasn't the cab--no, nor the last one I had neither."

"How did it happen?" I asked, feeling glad, in spite of his
assurance, that Matilda had not heard of the episode.

"Well, it's an old story now," said the driver, putting a small piece
of very black tobacco into the corner of his mouth. "I daresay it's
twenty odd years since it happened, but it's not the kind o' thing as
slips out of a man's memory. It was very late one night, and I was
working my hardest to pick up something good, for I'd made a poor
day's work of it. The theatres had all come out, and though I kept
up and down the Strand till nigh one o'clock, I got nothing but one
eighteenpenny job. I was thinking of giving it up and going home,
when it struck me that I might as well make a bit of a circuit, and
see if I couldn't drop across something. Pretty soon I gave a
gentleman a lift as far as the Oxford Road, and then I drove through
St. John's Wood on my way home. By that time it would be about
half-past one, and the streets were quite quiet and deserted, for the
night was cloudy and it was beginning to rain. I was putting on the
pace as well as my tired beast would go, for we both wanted to get
back to our suppers, when I heard a woman's voice hail me out of a
side street. I turned back, and there in about the darkest part of
the road was standing two ladies--real ladies, mind you, for it
would take a deal of darkness before I would mistake one for the
other. One was elderly and stoutish; the other was young, and had a
veil over her face. Between them there was a man in evening dress,
whom they were supporting on each side, while his back was propped up
against a lamp-post. He seemed beyond taking care of himself