sprang from his box, and returned to us a bow, that would have done
credit to Mr. Turveydrop himself. Speaking apparently in the name of the
nation, he welcomed us to England, adding a regret that Her Majesty was
not at the moment in London.

We could not reply to him in kind. Nothing of this sort had been
anticipated by the book. We called him "coachman," at which he again
bowed to the pavement, and asked him if he would have the goodness to
drive us to the Westminster Bridge road.

He laid his hand upon his heart, and said the pleasure would be his.

Taking the third sentence in the chapter, George asked him what his fare
would be.

The question, as introducing a sordid element into the conversation,
seemed to hurt his feelings. He said he never took money from
distinguished strangers; he suggested a souvenir--a diamond scarf pin, a
gold snuffbox, some little trifle of that sort by which he could remember
us.

As a small crowd had collected, and as the joke was drifting rather too
far in the cabman's direction, we climbed in without further parley, and
were driven away amid cheers. We stopped the cab at a boot shop a little
past Astley's Theatre that looked the sort of place we wanted. It was
one of those overfed shops that the moment their shutters are taken down
in the morning disgorge their goods all round them. Boxes of boots stood
piled on the pavement or in the gutter opposite. Boots hung in festoons
about its doors and windows. Its sun-blind was as some grimy vine,
bearing bunches of black and brown boots. Inside, the shop was a bower