Another 'bus conductor puzzled me by shouting "_Simmery-Ex, Simmery-Ex, Simmery-Ex_," until the expression was translated into "St. Mary's Axe," the locality alluded to. These conductors are generally sharp, quick-witted, and adepts at "chaff" and blackguardism, and it is good advice to the uninitiated to beware "chaffing" them, as in nine cases out of ten the cad gets the best of it.
The Hansom cabs are the best and most convenient vehicles that can possibly be used for short excursions about the city. A shilling will carry you a smart fifteen minutes' ride, the legal price being sixpence a mile, but nobody ever expects to give a cabman any less than a shilling for ever so short a ride. Eighteen pence is readily accepted for a three mile trip, and it costs no more for two persons than one. There being nothing between the passenger and the horse but the dasher, as the driver is perched up behind, an unobstructed view is had as you whirl rapidly through the crowded streets; and the cheapness of the conveyance, added to its adaptability for the purpose that it is used, makes an American acknowledge that in this matter the English are far in advance of us, and also to wonder why these convenient vehicles have not displaced the great, cumbersome, two-horse carriages which even a single individual is compelled to take in an American city if he is in a hurry to go to the railway station or to execute a commission, and which cost nearly as much for a trip of a mile as would engage a Hansom in London for half a day.
There has been much said in the London papers about the impositions of the cab-drivers; but I must do them the justice to say I saw little or none of it: making myself acquainted with the legal rate, I found it generally accepted without hesitation. If I was in doubt about the distance, instead of adopting the English plan of keeping the extra sixpence, I gave it, and so cheaply saved disputes.
Coming out from the theatres, you find privileged porters, who have the right of calling cabs for those who want them, besides numerous unprivileged ones; boys, who will dart out to where the cabs are,--they are not allowed to stand in front of the theatre,--and fetch you one in an instant. The driver never leaves his seat, but your messenger opens the cab, and shuts you in, shouts your direction to the driver, and touches his cap, grateful for the penny or two pence that you reward him with.