Unfortunately, one cannot always get one's own particular cabman--the favoured one of the civil tongue; and on more than one occasion I have been on the box with as surly a specimen of humanity as ever drove a horse. Now, decidedly the real way to enjoy a cab-ride--rather a difficult matter--is, providing the weather be fine, to mount beside the driver. You thus avoid musty smells, stifling symptoms, and that hideous noise of jangling windows, a sound harsh enough to jar the nerves of a bull. Yes; decidedly the best way to enjoy a cab-ride is to sink the bloated aristocrat, mount beside the driver, and fraternise. But my surly driver would not fraternise, for he was of the class known as crusty. He was a sort of moral hedgehog, and, but for his forming a study, I should decidedly have abdicated. "Ah! He's got his gruel," said my cynical friend as he drove past a fallen horse belonging to the General Omnibus Company. "There's another fall in the kump'ny's shares. Sarve 'em right. No bisniss to have such bad cattle." Now, the beast I sat behind was about as ill-favoured and lean-fleshed an animal as his master. Evidently given to wind-gall, spavin, and splint, he--the horse, not the driver--was to an unpractised eye decidedly a jibber; while even a female ear would have detected that he was a roarer. It was evident, though, that my friend could not detect the faults of his own steed, and therefore he lavished all his abuse upon the horses of his contemporaries, whether of cab or 'bus. But this driver seemed to have a spite against the world at large; seeming to ooze all over until he broke out into quite a satirical perspiration, while his lips acted as a safety-valve to let off an explosive compound most rapidly formed in his interior. He had a snarl for everything and everybody, and could he have run over some unfortunate crossing-sweeper, he would probably have been in ecstasies. Whenever opportunity offered he snarled often and cruelly at the misfortunes of his fellow-creatures. Where the scavengers had left the scraped-up mud beside the road--and where don't they?--he would drive right through, noisily and rapidly, forming a large mud firework--to the great increase of his after labour, certainly; but this seemed of no account; he was so amply recompensed by the intense gratification he enjoyed in besmirching as many passers-by as happened to be within range; while when he succeeded in producing a currant-dumpling appearance upon a footman's calves, he was almost apoplectic, and rumbled with delight. Woe to the wandering dog that came within reach of his whip! It would have been better for him had he ne'er been pupped, for here there was no mercy shown. As to the passing salutations of brother cabs, they, though apparently pungent, glanced off our friend's case-hardened composition, and the assailant would depart with a stinging sarcasm tingling and buzzing in his ears.