eccentric man - a fair oddity - if ye ken the expression.
Great trouble with his tenants, they tell me. I've driven

the fam'ly for years. I drove a cab at his father's waddin'.
What'll your name be? - I should ken your face. Baigrey, ye

say? There were Baigreys about Gilmerton; ye'll be one of
that lot? Then this'll be a friend's portmantie, like? Why?

Because the name upon it's Nucholson! Oh, if ye're in a
hurry, that's another job. Waverley Brig? Are ye for away?'

So the friendly toper prated and questioned and kept John's
heart in a flutter. But to this also, as to other evils

under the sun, there came a period; and the victim of
circumstances began at last to rumble toward the railway

terminus at Waverley Bridge. During the transit, he sat with
raised glasses in the frosty chill and mouldy fetor of his

chariot, and glanced out sidelong on the holiday face of
things, the shuttered shops, and the crowds along the

pavement, much as the rider in the Tyburn cart may have
observed the concourse gathering to his execution.

At the station his spirits rose again; another stage of his
escape was fortunately ended - he began to spy blue water.

He called a railway porter, and bade him carry the
portmanteau to the cloak-room: not that he had any notion of

delay; flight, instantflight was his design, no matter
whither; but he had determined to dismiss the cabman ere he

named, or even chose, his destination, thus possibly balking
the Judicial Error of another link. This was his cunning

aim, and now with one foot on the roadway, and one still on
the coach-step, he made haste to put the thing in practice,

and plunged his hand into his trousers pocket.
There was nothing there!

Oh yes; this time he was to blame. He should have
remembered, and when he deserted his blood-stained

pantaloons, he should not have deserted along with them his
purse. Make the most of his error, and then compare it with

the punishment! Conceive his new position, for I lack words
to picture it; conceive him condemned to return to that

house, from the very thought of which his soul revolted, and
once more to expose himself to capture on the very scene of

the misdeed: conceive him linked to the mouldy cab and the
familiar cabman. John cursed the cabman silently, and then

it occurred to him that he must stop the incarceration of his
portmanteau; that, at least, he must keep close at hand, and

he turned to recall the porter. But his reflections, brief
as they had appeared, must have occupied him longer than he

supposed, and there was the man already returning with the
receipt.

Well, that was settled; he had lost his portmanteau also; for
the sixpence with which he had paid the Murrayfield Toll was

one that had strayed alone into his waistcoat pocket, and
unless he once more successfully achieved the adventure of

the house of crime, his portmanteau lay in the cloakroom in
eternal pawn, for lack of a penny fee. And then he

remembered the porter, who stood suggestively attentive,
words of gratitudehanging on his lips.

John hunted right and left; he found a coin - prayed God that
it was a sovereign - drew it out, beheld a halfpenny, and

offered it to the porter.
The man's jaw dropped.

'It's only a halfpenny!' he said, startled out of railway
decency.

'I know that,' said John, piteously.
And here the porter recovered the dignity of man.

'Thank you, sir,' said he, and would have returned the base
gratuity. But John, too, would none of it; and as they

struggled, who must join in but the cabman?
'Hoots, Mr. Baigrey,' said he, 'you surely forget what day it

is!'
'I tell you I have no change!' cried John.

'Well,' said the driver, 'and what then? I would rather give
a man a shillin' on a day like this than put him off with a

derision like a bawbee. I'm surprised at the like of you,
Mr. Baigrey!'

'My name is not Baigrey!' broke out John, in mere childish
temper and distress.

'Ye told me it was yoursel',' said the cabman.
'I know I did; and what the devil right had you to ask?'

cried the unhappy one.
'Oh, very well,' said the driver. 'I know my place, if you

know yours - if you know yours!' he repeated, as one who
should imply grave doubt; and muttered inarticulate thunders,

in which the grand old name of gentleman was taken seemingly
in vain.

Oh to have been able to discharge this monster, whom John now
perceived, with tardy clear-sightedness, to have begun

betimes the festivities of Christmas! But far from any such
ray of consolation visiting the lost, he stood bare of help

and helpers, his portmanteau sequestered in one place, his
money deserted in another and guarded by a corpse; himself,

so sedulous of privacy, the cynosure of all men's eyes about
the station; and, as if these were not enough mischances, he

was now fallen in ill-blood with the beast to whom his
poverty had linked him! In ill-blood, as he reflected

dismally, with the witness who perhaps might hang or save
him! There was no time to be lost; he durst not linger any

longer in that public spot; and whether he had recourse to
dignity or conciliation, the remedy must be applied at once.

Some happily surviving element of manhood moved him to the
former.

'Let us have no more of this,' said he, his foot once more
upon the step. 'Go back to where we came from.'

He had avoided the name of any destination, for there was now
quite a little band of railway folk about the cab, and he

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
the cabman, since his horse was dumb, from choosing the

cross-road, and calling on his friend in passing? So it was
decided; and the charioteer, already somewhat mollified,

turned aside his horse to the right.
John, meanwhile, sat collapsed, his chin sunk upon his chest,