deeper from the road. The cabman calmly gave me the most elaborate
details of the gesture, the words, the complex but consistent
course of action which I had adopted since that remarkable
occasion when I had hailed him outside Euston Station. How did I
know (my sceptical friends would say) that I had not hailed him
outside Euston. I was firm about my assertion; he was quite equally
firm about his. He was obviously quite as honest a man as I, and a
member of a much more respectable profession. In that moment
the universe and the stars swung just a hair's breadth from
their balance, and the foundations of the earth were moved.
But for the same reason that I believe in Democracy, for the same
reason that I believe in free will, for the same reason that I
believe in fixed character of virtue, the reason that could
only be expressed by saying that I do not choose to be a lunatic,
I continued to believe that this honest cabman was wrong,
and I repeated to him that I had really taken him at the corner
of Leicester-square. He began with the same evident and
ponderous sincerity, "You hailed me outside Euston Station,
and you said----"

And at this moment there came over his features a kind
of frightful transfiguration of living astonishment,
as if he had been lit up like a lamp from the inside.
"Why, I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon.
I beg your pardon. You took me from Leicester-square. I remember now.
I beg your pardon." And with that this astonishing man let out
his whip with a sharp crack at his horse and went trundling away.
The whole of which interview, before the banner of St. George I swear,
is strictly true.