It had been raining steadily all day. It was still raining as I stood at the corner of a great London thoroughfare on that wretched November night. The gutter babbled, the pavement glistened, humanity was obliterated by silk and alpaca; but the night-wind was cool and fresh to me, after a day spent in a hot police court, heavy with the steam of indigo-dyed constables, of damp criminals, and their frowsy friends and foes. I was later than usual. That was why I stood hesitating, and turning over and over the few shillings in my pocket, painfully gathered by a long day’s labour as a young and struggling legal practitioner. I thought of my poor little sick wife, waiting so longingly for me in the dull lodgings miles away. I also considered the difficulty of earning two shillings, and the speed with which that sum disappeared when invested in cabs. I thought of the slowness and uncertainty of the ’bus, crowded inside and out; again of the anxious eyes watching the clock; and my mind was made up. I called a hansom from the rank just opposite to me, and jumped in, after giving my directions to so much of the driver as I could make out between his hat and his collar. I felt tired, hungry, and depressed, so that I was glad to drop off to sleep, and forget weariness and worry for a little while; and I remained unconscious of bad pavement and rattling rain, blurred glass and misty lights, until the stoppage of the cab roused me. Thinking that I had arrived at my journey’s end, and wondering why the glass was not raised, I smote lustily on the roof with my umbrella. But the voice of the driver came down to me through the trap in a confidential wheeze; and at the same time I saw that there was a great crowd ahead, and heard that there were shouts and confusion, and that my cab was one of a mass of vehicles all wedged together by some impassable obstacle. ‘P’liceman says, sir,’ explained cabby, ‘as there’s bin a gas main hexploded and blowed up the street, and nothin’ can’t get this way. There’s bin a many pussons hinjured, sir. I’ll have to go round the back streets.’ ‘All right,’ I replied. ‘Go ahead, then.’