He just flung a curling ribbon of profanity
over his shoulder at the other driver and bounded onward like a
bat out of the Bad Place. That was the hour when my hair began
to turn perceptibly grayer. And yet, when by a succession of
miracles we had landed intact at my destination, the fiend seemed
to think he had done a praiseworthy and creditable thing. I only
wish he had been able to understand the things I called him--that
is all I wish!
It is by a succession of miracles that the members of his maniacal
craft usually do dodge death and destruction. The providence that
watches over the mentally deficient has them in its care, I guess;
and the same beneficent influence frequently avails to save those
who ride behind them and, to a lesser extent, those who walk ahead.
Once in a while a Paris cabman does have a lucky stroke and garner
in a foot traveler. In an instant a vast and surging crowd convenes.
In another instant the road is impassably blocked. Up rushes a
gendarme and worms his way through the press to the center. He
has a notebook in his hand. In this book he enters the gloating
cabman's name, his age, his address, and his wife's maiden name,
if any; and gets his views on the Dreyfus case; and finds out what
he thinks about the separation of church and state; and tells him
that if he keeps on the way he is headed he will be getting the
cross of the Legion of Honor pretty soon.
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