place and still are never anxious to start," said Sedgwick.

Cabbie gave up trying to explain the majesty of the great Abbey to one so
utterly obtuse as Sedgwick seemed to be. He drove on in silence for half
an hour or forty minutes before he rallied enough to speak again. Then he
pointed to a structure and called down to Sedgwick that the place was
Newgate.

"What is there peculiar about Newgate?" asked Sedgwick.

"Why, it is the famous Newgate prison," said cabbie.

Sedgwick roused himself and asked, "What do they do in Newgate?"

"What do they do?" said cabbie, "what do they do? Why, they hang people
there sometimes."

"Get down, please, and ask them what they will charge to hang me," said
Sedgwick. He did not smile; he seemed in sober earnest.

Cabbie looked at him for an instant, then whipped up his horses and
hurried him to the hotel. Arriving there, he sprang down and said, "This
is your hotel." Sedgwick got out and was walking off mechanically, when
cabbie said, "Five shillings, please, sir." Sedgwick, with "O, I had
forgotten," handed the man a guinea, and passed into the hotel. Cabbie
looked after him, then tapped his forehead as much as to say, "He is off
in the upper story," and mounting his box, drove away.

Sedgwick went to his rooms, threw off his coat, opened a window, sat
down, put his heels on the table, lighted a cigar which went out in a