Diary fiction; England -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Men -- England -- Fiction; Middle class -- Fiction; Suburban life -- Fiction
When we arrived at “The Angel” the horse seemed tired out. Carrie got
out and ran into a doorway, and when I came to pay, to my absolute horror
I remembered I had no money, nor had Carrie. I explained to the cabman
how we were situated. Never in my life have I ever been so insulted; the
cabman, who was a rough bully and to my thinking not sober, called me
every name he could lay his tongue to, and positively seized me by the
beard, which he pulled till the tears came into my eyes. I took the
number of a policeman (who witnessed the assault) for not taking the man
in charge. The policeman said he couldn’t interfere, that he had seen no
assault, and that people should not ride in cabs without money.
We had to walk home in the pouring rain, nearly two miles, and when I got
in I put down the conversation I had with the cabman, word for word, as I
intend writing to the _Telegraph_ for the purpose of proposing that cabs
should be driven only by men under Government control, to prevent
civilians being subjected to the disgraceful insult and outrage that I
had had to endure.
APRIL 17.—No water in our cistern again. Sent for Putley, who said he
would soon remedy that, the cistern being zinc.
APRIL 18.—Water all right again in the cistern. Mrs. James, of Sutton,
called in the afternoon. She and Carrie draped the mantelpiece in the
drawing-room, and put little toy spiders, frogs and beetles all over it,
as Mrs. James says it’s quite the fashion. It was Mrs. James’
suggestion, and of course Carrie always does what Mrs. James suggests.
For my part, I preferred the mantelpiece as it was; but there, I’m a
plain man, and don’t pretend to be in the fashion.
APRIL 19.—Our next-door neighbour, Mr. Griffin, called, and in a rather
offensive tone accused me, or “someone,” of boring a hole in his cistern
and letting out his water to supply our cistern, which adjoined his. He
said he should have his repaired, and send us in the bill.
APRIL 20.—Cummings called, hobbling in with a stick, saying he had been
on his back for a week. It appears he was trying to shut his bedroom
door, which is situated just at the top of the staircase, and unknown to
him a piece of cork the dog had been playing with had got between the
door, and prevented it shutting; and in pulling the door hard, to give it
an extra slam, the handle came off in his hands, and he fell backwards
downstairs.
On hearing this, Lupin suddenly jumped up from the couch and rushed out
of the room sideways. Cummings looked very indignant, and remarked it
was very poor fun a man nearly breaking his back; and though I had my
suspicions that Lupin was laughing, I assured Cummings that he had only
run out to open the door to a friend he expected. Cummings said this was
the second time he had been laid up, and we had never sent to inquire. I
said I knew nothing about it. Cummings said: “It was mentioned in the
_Bicycle News_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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