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still kept an eye upon the court of justice, and laboured to
avoid concentric evidence. But here again the fatal jarvey
out-manoeuvred him.
'Back to the Ludge?' cried he, in shrill tones of protest.
'Drive on at once!' roared John, and slammed the door behind
him, so that the crazy chariot rocked and jingled.
Forth trundled the cab into the Christmas streets, the fare
within plunged in the blackness of a despair that neighboured
on unconsciousness, the driver on the box digesting his
rebuke and his customer's duplicity. I would not be thought
to put the pair in competition; John's case was out of all
parallel. But the cabman, too, is worth the sympathy of the
judicious; for he was a fellow of genuine kindliness and a
high sense of personal dignity incensed by drink; and his
advances had been cruelly and publicly rebuffed. As he
drove, therefore, he counted his wrongs, and thirsted for
sympathy and drink. Now, it chanced he had a friend, a
publican in Queensferry Street, from whom, in view of the
sacredness of the occasion, he thought he might extract a
dram. Queensferry Street lies something off the direct road
to Murrayfield. But then there is the hilly cross-road that
passes by the valley of the Leith and the Dean Cemetery; and
Queensferry Street is on the way to that. What was to hinder
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