sorry for them, too, and I'm sorry for the horses, though they come out
best of the three of us, I do believe."

One of us muttered something about the Public.

The cabman turned his face and stared down through the darkness.

"The Public?" he said, and his voice had in it a faint surprise. "Well,
they all want the taxis. It's natural. They get about faster in them,
and time's money. I was seven hours before I picked you up. And then you
was lookin' for a taxi. Them as take us because they can't get better,
they're not in a good temper, as a rule. And there's a few old ladies
that's frightened of the motors, but old ladies aren't never very free
with their money--can't afford to be, the most of them, I expect."

"Everybody's sorry for you; one would have thought that----"

He interrupted quietly: "Sorrow don't buy bread . . . . I never had
nobody ask me about things before." And, slowly moving his long face
from side to side, he added: "Besides, what could people do? They can't
be expected to support you; and if they started askin' you questions
they'd feel it very awkward. They know that, I suspect. Of course,
there's such a lot of us; the hansoms are pretty nigh as bad off as we
are. Well, we're gettin' fewer every day, that's one thing."

Not knowing whether or no to manifest sympathy with this extinction, we
approached the horse. It was a horse that "stood over" a good deal at
the knee, and in the darkness seemed to have innumerable ribs. And
suddenly one of us said: "Many people want to see nothing but taxis on
the streets, if only for the sake of the horses."