office, now only seven blocks distant.

Gallegher never knew how it began, but he was suddenly assaulted by
shouts on either side, his horse was thrown back on its haunches, and
he found two men in cabmen's livery hanging at its head, and patting
its sides, and calling it by name. And the other cabmen who have their
stand at the corner were swarming about the carriage, all of them
talking and swearing at once, and gesticulating wildly with their
whips.

They said they knew the cab was McGovern's, and they wanted to know
where he was, and why he wasn't on it; they wanted to know where
Gallegher had stolen it, and why he had been such a fool as to drive
it into the arms of its owner's friends; they said that it was about
time that a cab-driver could get off his box to take a drink without
having his cab run away with, and some of them called loudly for a
policeman to take the young thief in charge.

Gallegher felt as if he had been suddenly dragged into consciousness
out of a bad dream, and stood for a second like a half-awakened
somnambulist.

They had stopped the cab under an electric light, and its glare shone
coldly down upon the trampled snow and the faces of the men around
him.

Gallegher bent forward, and lashed savagely at the horse with his
whip.

"Let me go," he shouted, as he tugged impotently at the reins. "Let me