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ACROSS green fields, and breaking through blooming hedges, toiled six draggled detectives, about five miles out of London. The optimist of the party had at first proposed that they should follow the balloon across South England in hansom-cabs.
Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening horses driven by ancient, glistening cabbies, felt for elbow-space in the throng of motor-vehicles. And on all sides the badinage of the streets, the eternal wordy conflict of London's mariners of traffic, rose in cheerful, insulting abundance.
"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, Or set limed twigs for crabs; I sometimes search the grassy knolls For wheels of Hansom-cabs. I heard him then, for I had just Completed my design To keep the Menai bridge from rust By boiling it in wine. I thanked him much for telling me The way he got his wealth, But chiefly for his wish that he Might drink my noble health.
This basket is not unlike in shape to those wicker-work covers which in pre-taxi days were placed by London hotel porters over the wheels of hansom-cabs to protect ladies' dresses in getting in or out of them. When a back-handed stroke is necessary, the player grasps his right wrist with his left hand, using his wicker-encased right hand as a racquet.
It was now almost daylight, and two hansom-cabs had stopped before the portico, and several persons who were coming up the steps were chattering away like wakened linnets. One voice was saying: "Mr. Drake proposes that we should all go to the theatre, and if we can get a late pass I should like it above everything." It was Glory, and a fretful voice answered her: "Very well, if you say so.
For many their days are numbered, and it may be useful to describe them before, like four-wheelers and hansom-cabs, they have quite vanished away. No class of buildings has suffered more than the old town halls of our country boroughs. Many of these towns have become decayed and all their ancient glories have departed.
Magsie often drove about in hansom-cabs they were one of her delights; and more than once of late she had come to meet Warren at some hospital, or even to pick him up at the club. But this was the first time that she had done so without prearrangement. She leaned out of the cab, a picture of youth and beauty, and waved a white glove. How did she know he was in here? she echoed his question.
And even as he spoke, a final crash and roar of terror announced that the great grey elephant had broken out of the gates of the Zoological Gardens, and was careening down Albany Street like a new and swift sort of omnibus. "Great Lord!" cried Bull, "I never knew an elephant could go so fast. Well, it must be hansom-cabs again if we are to keep him in sight."
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