Page:Black Beauty (1877).djvu/183

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THE SUNDAY CAB.
179

trouble yourself, Mr. Barker, any further, I will enquire somewhere else;" and he walked away.

"Well," says Jerry to me, "we can't help it, Jack, old boy, we must have our Sundays."

"Polly!" he shouted, "Polly! come here." She was there in a minute.

"What is it all about, Jerry?"

"Why, my dear, Mr. Briggs wants me to take Mrs. Briggs to church every Sunday morning. I say, I have only a six days' licence. He says get a seven days' licence, and I'll make it worth your while; and you know, Polly, they are very good customers to us. Mrs. B——— often goes out shopping for hours, or making calls, and then she pays down fair and honourable like a lady; there's no beating down, or making three hours into two hours and a half as some folks do; and it is easy work for the horses, not like tearing along to catch trains for people that are always a quarter of an hour too late; and if I don't oblige her in this matter, it is very likely we shall lose them altogether. What do you say, little woman?"

"I say, Jerry," says she, speaking very slowly, "I say, if Mrs. Briggs would give you a sovereign every Sunday morning, I would not have you a seven days' cabman again. We have known what it was to have no Sundays; and now we know what it is to call them our own. Thank God, you earn enough to keep us, though it is sometimes close work to pay for all the oats and hay, the licence, and the rent beside; but Harry will soon be earning something, and I would