Though I have given precedence to the Pavement Artist, the Taxi-Man was really the first friend the Weatherhouse brought them. It was he who began it all by dropping in at twelve and demanding a sossidge, and it was he who spread their fame and hospitality over all the kerbs and street-corners in the city. After his second visit he said, “Now I’ve discovered you young people, I’ll make you known. Not that I expect the public to be grateful for it. It never is to us discoverers.” “Have you always been a discoverer?” asked Ginger. “Ever since I left Epsom as a boy, missy.” “How long ago was that?” she asked. The Taxi-Man pursed up his lips, stroked his beard, and shook his head. He was an ancient and magnificent gentleman, with a beard like old Sindbad’s, eyes as blue as any follower’s of the sea, and a cherry nose. “I wouldn’t like to tell you, missy. You wouldn’t believe me.” “She can believe anything out of reason,” said Gypsy proudly. “That’s exactly what my age is,” said the Taxi-Man, “and we’ll leave it at that. But I don’t mind admitting that I was the First Hansom-Cabman in England, and shall be the Last Taxi-Driver.” “And what have you discovered besides us?” asked Gypsy. “London, mister,” said the Taxi-Man. “Are you really the discoverer of London?” cried Ginger. “That’s me, missy. A fiery boy I was, all for adventure, and Epsom was too slow for me except on Derby Day. So one fine morning I rode away on the Derby Winner, a beautiful skewbald called Snow-Flame. Out of a circus he’d come, and down the course he went doing the Polka as sweet as though he smelt sawdust. The rest were nowhere. When he got to the Winning Post he jumped clean over it and then laid down and died. Beautiful it was. Even the bookies hadn’t a dry eye between them. But stables was no place for Snow-Flame, nor subbubs for me. We met in a lane next day, me trundling an orange-box on wheels, for I’d been sent wooding, and him frisking his tail and nibbling bread-and-cheese off the hawthorns. He was feeling bucked with himself, d’ye see, because he’d unlatched his stable door with his own nose and jumped a seven-foot wall afterwards. So when we met he first stood on his head, and next came right end up and stood me on mine. After that he put me into the orange-box and backed between the shafts and curled his head under his off foreleg and winked at me. So I hitched him with a rope and off he went; the next thing I knew to remember, we’d discovered London.” “What was it like then?” asked Ginger. The Taxi-Man looked at her reflectively. “It were a queer place,” he said. “Golden pavements, as I dessay you’ve heard, till the County Council had them took up at the rate-payers’ expense; and any amount of green men and red lions running about on ’em--oh, any amount. There was a white bear in Hampstead too, in them days.” “There still is,” said Gypsy.