So I whipped him on the neck, but, lo and behold, he did not seem to approve of such treatment. He threw his head back, shook his ears as much as to say, “Have the goodness to desist from such foolishness!” And when I paid no attention to his objections, he suddenly lifted his hinder part and “thump” went his hoofs against the cab, making me shake and tremble upon my box. Now Gustav came walking up to me slowly. “Give it to me,” he said, taking the whip out of my hand; “I’ll have a talk with him.” The way Gustav “talked to him” seemed to make a decided impression upon the steed, for before I knew it he started in a canter, so that I was obliged to seize the reins convulsively in both hands. “My hat,” I shrieked, for I felt that the cocked hat was parting company with my head in a graceful curve. It was not until I was out on the street that I succeeded in quieting the excited nag. “Dear me, this--is--a--malicious beast!” I called out breathless to Gustav, who was running after us with the hat and whip. “He’s only a bit ticklish,” he replied consolingly. I replaced the cocked hat upon the spot assigned to it. Gustav turned to go. I passed along the quiet streets with my vehicle on the way to the Schlesische Bahnhof. I now had time to examine my steed more closely. He was white, with a tinge of yellow, corresponding to the colour a white beard assumes if its owner frequently moistens it with beer. [Illustration: “THE WAY GUSTAV ‘TALKED TO HIM’ SEEMED TO MAKE A DECIDED IMPRESSION UPON THE STEED.”] So we reached the Schlesische Bahnhof, where I joined the row of waiting cabs. I had now reached my first station, and I sat upon my box with attentive ears, so that no word of the conversation of my new colleagues should escape me. For the present there was little hope of accomplishing my purpose, for the only thing I heard was a grand snoring-chorus--the assembled drivers were making up for their interrupted morning’s sleep. I tried to reason myself into the belief that the situation was very original and interesting, but the thought of my orphaned bed at home, and its discarded warmth and softness, would not be banished, and all at once the consciousness that I was cold and hungry and bored beyond endurance was borne in upon me with unrelenting sternness. A vender of small sausages appeared upon the scene, and, although under ordinary circumstances the possibility of horse-meat would have caused me to abstain, I hastily came down from my box and purchased a pair of his charges. “Can you give me some paper,” I said, “to wrap them up in?” The sausage-man looked at me in surprise. “Bless my buttons,” he said,--“paper?”