United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Do come with us, Penelope," she said, as we issued from the portico of the station and heard, instead of the usual cab-drivers' pandemonium, only the soft lapping of waves against the marble steps "Do come with us, Penelope, and let us enter 'dangerous and sweet-charmed Venice' together. It does, indeed, look a 'veritable sea-bird's nest."
It is as though in England the cab-drivers, railway porters and shop-boys were to spend evening after evening, month after month, looking on at a dramatized version of the Arcadia or The Faerie Queene.
Shortly after coming into the port our whole party landed, and we found ourselves at once in the midst of a crowd of cab-drivers, hotel-runnets, and coin missionaires, who assaulted us with a volley of French, Italian, and broken English, which beat pitilessly about our ears; for really it seemed as if all the dictionaries in the world had been torn to pieces, and blown around us by a hurricane.
Every one lifted his hat to Monica; the beggars, the cab-drivers, the barefooted policemen, and the social lights of Camaguay on the sidewalks in front of the cafes rose and bowed. "It is like walking with royalty!" exclaimed Everett. While at the hospital he talked to the Mother Superior his eyes followed Monica.
Lydia's eye regretfully followed the shiny broadcloth of his retreating back till it lost itself in the cloud of touts and cab-drivers hanging about the station; then she glanced across at Gannett and caught the same regret in his look. They were both sorry to be alone. "Par-ten-za!" shouted the guard.
It was drizzling in a beastly way, the street was full of carriages, numbers were being called, cab-drivers were insulting each other hoarsely, people dashing out to see if their carriages weren't coming everything in a whirl of drizzle and dark and yells, with the horses' hoofs on the pavement sounding like castanets.
There remained the chance of finding out and cross-examining all the cab-drivers who had taken up passengers by the late trains the night before. But that business could not be transacted at the moment, nor perhaps by an amateur. Maitland's time was limited indeed. He had been obliged to get out at Westbourne Park and prosecute his inquisition there.
He suggests, for instance, by way of preventing the frauds of cab-drivers on their masters and on the public, that all payments of fares should be made to appointed officers at the various cab-stations, and that no driver should take up a fare except at one of these stations.
Some of the other drivers nodded at him cheerfully, but more as if they were sorry he must exert himself than with any resentment at his success in getting the only tourists who had alighted from the train. As they moved away Uncle John said: "Observe the difference between the cab-drivers here and those at home.
All over Europe our watchword with the Russians, Turks, Egyptians, Arabs, French, Germans, and Italians was always "Do you speak English?" and in London it is Jimmie's crowning act of revenge to ask the railway guards and cab-drivers the same insulting question. Imagine asking London cabbies the question, "Do you speak English?" It puts him in a purple rage directly.
Word Of The Day