She knew that I loved Elma and was also aware of the exciting events in Russia, Jack having told her of them during their long drives in hansoms when he went out with her to take the air.

HESPERUS Down in the street the last late hansoms go Still westward, but with backward eyes of red The harlot shuffles to her lonely bed; The tall policeman pauses but to throw A flash into the empty portico; Then he too passes, and his lonely tread Links all the long-drawn gas-lights on a thread And ties them to one planet swinging low.

But, every now and then, the long, low car would shoot forward through some gap in the traffic, grazing the hubs of bus-wheels, dodging hansoms, shaving sudden corners in an apparently reckless manner.

Of a sudden the decent quiet of King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs whose clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room.

A hansom deposited him at the entrance to the Albany just as the clock of St. James's Church chimed the hour.

Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover; The streets are full of lights and loves, Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves.

All was dry under the glass-roofed colonnades of the courtyard, but the rain rattled like kettledrums on that glass, and the centre of the courtyard was a pond in which a few hansoms were splashing about.

Huge trams swam past him like glass houses, and hansoms shot past the trams and automobiles past the hansoms; and phantom barges swirled down on the full ebb, threading holes in bridges as cotton threads a needle.

Huge trams swam past him like glass houses, and hansoms shot past the trams and automobiles past the hansoms; and phantom barges swirled down on the full ebb, threading holes in bridges as cotton threads a needle.

It almost hurt him to part with five cents to the conductor, and as he looked at the hansoms dashing by with lucky winners inside he groaned audibly.

In Holborn there is always a hansom to be got at short notice.

To a realist a hansom-cab driver is a man who makes twenty-five shillings a week, lives in a back street in Pimlico, has a wife who drinks and children who grow up with an alcoholic taint; the realist will compare his lot with other cab-drivers, and find what part of his life is the product of the cab-driving environment, and on that basis he will write his book.

To Stevenson and to the romanticist generally, a hansom cab-driver is a mystery behind whose apparent commonplaceness lie magic possibilities beyond all telling; not one but may be the agent of the Prince of Bohemia, ready to drive you off to some mad and magic adventure in a street which is just as commonplace to the outward eye as the cab-driver himself, but which implicates by its very deceitful commonness whole volumes of romance.

It was a gala night in Curzon Street, the lords were driving up in hansoms; shouts and oaths; some seated on the roofs with their legs swinging inside; the comics had arrived from the halls; there were ladies, many ladies; choruses were going merrily in the drawing-room; one man was attempting to kick the chandelier, another stood on his head on the sofa.

In fact, there seems to be some promise of its renaissance, and even yet, in the words of the ancient bard, despite the competition of taxis Like dragon-flies, The hansoms hover With jewelled eyes, To catch the lover.

The thing which surprises me is they should still employ animals of normal size; one would expect to see elephants and mammoths drawing the hansoms and carts!

Can the following selection be improved by reparagraphing? Outside in the darkness, gray with whirling snowflakes, he saw the wet lamps of cabs shining, and he darted along the line of hansoms and coupés in frantic search for his own.

Imagine for a little, the contented frame of mind that is bred in a man by the perpetual contemplation of a harbour full of steamers as a Piccadilly cab-rank of hansoms.

As soon as the meal was finished and the reckoning paid, we trooped out of Wine Office Court, and, insinuating ourselves through the line of empty hansoms that, in those days, crawled in a continuous procession on either side of Fleet Street, betook ourselves by way of Mitre Court to King's Bench Walk.

After dinner a general "clear" was made in the direction of halls and theatres, a few friends would drop in about twelve, and continue their drinking till three or four; but Saturday night was gala nightat half-past eleven the lords drove up in their hansoms, then a genius or two would arrive, and supper and singing went merrily until the chimney sweeps began to go by.

It was a gala night in Curzon Street, the lords were driving up in hansoms; some seated on the roofs with their legs swinging inside; the comics had arrived from the halls; there were ladies, many ladies; choruses were going merrily in the drawing-room; one man was attempting to kick the chandelier, another stood on his head on the sofa.

I missed then, as I miss now, the numberless hansoms of London plying in the streets for hire.

Now the authorities responsible for the paving are simply the best friends of the boot-making interest, just as in London the Hansoms collectively ought to receive a handsome Christmas hat-box from the hatters.

The clubs were at their busiest; men passed them in dress-suits and overcoats like themselves, and the street was full of hansoms, whence the faces of well-dressed women, enveloped in soft silks and furs, looked out.

There was a sparkle of flowers in the windows of the Park Lane houses, together with golden sunset touches on the glass; and pretty faces wrapt in lace or gauze looked out from the hansoms as they passed him by.