The red-whiskered, quick-tempered gentleman, who carried the shiny leather bag and the bundle of sticks—umbrella and fishing-rods tied together like the fasces of a Roman lictor—and who wore a cloak gracefully over his forty-shilling suit of heather tweed, “thoroughly well shrunk,” the gentleman who, at Morley’s Hotel, Trafalgar Square, and at twenty minutes before twelve, engaged a Hansom cabman, No. 9,009, and bade him drive “like anything” (but he said like something which I decline to mention) to the London Bridge Terminus of the South-Eastern Railway, has thrust his bundle of sticks, &c., through the little trap-door in the cabriolet’s roof, and has savagely ordered the driver to stop, or to drive him to Jericho, or to the deuce. But the high-towering Jehu of 9,009 cannot drive to the dominions of the deuce, even as did “Ben,” that famous Jarvey of the olden time, immortalised in the ballad of “Tamaroo.” He can drive neither to the right nor to the left, nor backwards nor forwards; for he is hemmed in, and blocked up, and jammed together in the middle of the Poultry; and just as a sarcastic saloon omnibus driver behind jeeringly bids him “keep moving,” accompanying the behest by the aggressive taunt of “gardner;” and just as the charioteer of the mail-cart in front affectionately recommends him not to be in a hurry, lest he should injure his precious health, Twelve o’Clock is proclaimed by the clock of St. Mildred’s, Poultry; and cabman 9,009 has lost his promised extra shilling for extra speed, and the red-whiskered gentleman has lost his temper, and the train into the bargain, and there will be weeping at Tunbridge Wells this afternoon, where a young lady, with long ringlets and a white muslin jacket, will mourn for her Theodore, and will not be comforted—till the next train arrives.