"Would you know her again if you saw her?" asked Barrant eagerly.
"Not if you was to sware me on the Howly Trinity."
"Did this young woman travel up with you by this wagonette last night?"
Mr. Crows couldn't say for that. There were six insides, that was all _he_ knew. He disremembered anything about them.
"Surely you notice the passengers you carry?"
Mr. Crows, with the air of one propounding an insoluble riddle, asked his fare why should he take notice of his passengers? He weren't paid for that--no, not he. What's more, the night was a dark one. He knew there was six insides because six fares was put through the winder, but whether they was put through by men or ma'adens or widder wommen was moren he cud say.
He again called on the Trinity to attest his ignorance.
"Their shellens is nuthin' to me"--the reference was to the passengers. "They wouldn't pay for the harse's feed. I work for the Duchy, I do, which is almost the same as being in Guvverment, ain't it? I remember yew, thow--because yew gave me ten shellens for driving yew to the Central hotel last night." Mr. Crows cast a quick glance at his fare to see how he took this artful reminder of his munificence. "But as for their bobs--" He spat into the night in order to express his contempt for the insignificance of such small sums.
There was a tap at the window behind him. He unfastened the pane, and a spectral hand came through with a coin. Mr. Crows took it, the hand disappeared, to be replaced by another, more dirty than spectral, with a coin in the outstretched palm, like its predecessor.
"You see," said Mr. Crows, when he had collected six shillings in this manner. "What's the need for to look at them? I've learnt them to hand in their fares this way. Saves time and talk for nothing. Why should I look at a lot of fat old wommen? I ain't paid for that. It's quite enough to let them set in my cab, wearing out my cushions with their great fat bodies, without looking at them." He eyed Barrant with some sternness.
"But this was not a fat old woman," said Barrant. "She was a pretty young girl."
"Ma'ad or widder, it's all the same to me," returned the misogynist. "Some holds with the sex and finds them soothing, but I was never took up with them myself. I prefers beer. Every man to his taste."