Black Beauty

Railway?’ said the young man. ‘I fear it is of great importance
that I should not lose the twelve o’clock train.’
    ‘You can’t lose a train,’
said Jeremiah, ‘it’s too big.’
    ‘If you could get me there
in time, I will gladly pay you extra.’
    ‘I’ll do my very best,’
said Jeremiah Barker, heartily, ‘if you think you are well enough, sir.’
    ‘Now, then, Jack, my boy,’
said Jeremiah Barker, ‘spin along; we’ll show them how we can get over the
ground.’
    On Jeremiah Barker’s return
to the rank, there was a good deal of laughing, highland dancing and chaffing
at him for driving hard to the train.
    ‘Gammon!’ said one. (He
meant Mammon, the ignorant bastard.)
    ‘If you ever do get rich,’
said Governor Gray, looking over his shoulder across the top of his cab,
‘you’ll deserve it, Jerry. As for you, Larry, you’ll die poor, you spend too
much in whipcord.’
    ‘Well,’ said Larry, ‘what
is a fellow to do if his horse won’t go without it?’
     
    No good luck had Larry
    He couldn’t afford to marry
    He longed for a busty bride
    Alas, his fortune was at low tide
    The nearest he could get to a busty girl
    Was screwing a local barmaid called Pearl
    Her father caught them screwing on the grass
    So he gave Larry a kick in the arse.

36

THE SUNDAY CAB
     
    He was regretting not working on day seven
    Even tho’ the rule had been made in heaven
    Turning down Mrs Muir’s cash
    Was a decision oh, very, very rash
    He and his family were starving, to refill the larder
    He’d have to work a lot bloody harder.
     
    One morning, as Jeremiah
Barker had just put me into the shafts and was fastening the traces, a
gentleman walked into the yard. ‘Your servant, sir,’ said Jeremiah Barker.
    ‘What about my servant, Mr
Barker?’ said the gentleman. ‘I should be glad to make some arrangements with
you for taking Mrs Briggs regularly to church.’
    ‘Thank you, sir,’ said
Jerry, ‘but I have only taken out a six day licence, and therefore, I could not
take a fare on Sunday.’
    ‘Oh!’ said the other, and
did a backward somersault. ‘I did not know yours was a six day cab; but of
course it would be very easy to alter your licence. I would see that you did
not lose by it; the fact is, Mrs Briggs very much prefers you to drive her. Of
course,’ said Mr Briggs, ‘I should have thought you would not have minded such
a short distance for the horse, and only once a day.’
    ‘Yes, sir, that is true,
and I am grateful for all favours, and anything I could do to oblige you, or
the lady, I should be proud and happy to do.’ He was now prostrate on the
ground, placing Mr Briggs’ boot on his head. ‘But I cannot give up Sundays,
sir.’
    ‘Very well,’ said Mr
Briggs, ‘fuck you, and your horse.’
    ‘Well,’ says Jeremiah
Barker to me, ‘we can’t help it, Jack, old boy, we must have our Sundays.’
    ‘Polly!’ he shouted. ‘Come
here this minute.’
    She was there that minute.
    ‘What is it all about,
dear?’
    ‘Why, my dear, Mr Briggs
wants me to drive on a Sunday.’
    ‘I say, Jerry,’ she said,
speaking very slowly, ‘I say, if Mrs Briggs would give you a sovereign every
Sunday morning, I would not have you a seven day cabman again. We have known
what it was to have no Sundays; and now, 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 besides, and we only have oats for dinner.’
    Three weeks had passed
away, but Mr Briggs didn’t. What a bloody fool Jeremiah’s wife was, to
encourage him not to drive on a Sunday. For the last week they had been having
hay for dinner.
     
    Oh, terrible only having hay for dinner
    That’s why they were all getting thinner
    By not driving on the seventh day
    He was losing money, they say
    Not only losing money, they state
    But also rapidly losing weight
    He on his own
    Barely weighed five stone
    To prevent him being blown off the box
    In his boots, they had to put rocks.
     
    But Polly would always cheer
him up and say:
     
    ‘Do your best,
    And leave the rest,
    ’Twill all come right,
    Some day or night.’
     
    ‘What a lot of bollocks,’
he thought, as he put more rocks in his boot.
    It soon became known that
Jerry had lost his best customer, and for what reason; most of the men said he
was a fool, but two or three took his part. Where they took his part, or which
part, is unknown.
     
    Jeremiah Barker had promised on Sunday not to