Frank Lucius Packard

Pawned Frank Lucius Packard

A HANSOM cab, somewhat woebegone in appearance, threaded its way in a curiouslydejected manner through the heart of New York's East Side. A fine drizzle fell, throughwhich the street lamps showed as through a mist; and, with the pavements slippery, theemaciated looking horse, the shafts jerking and lifting up at intervals around its ears, appeared hard put to it to preserve its footing. The cabman on his perch drove with his coat collar turned up and his chin on his breast. He held the reins listlessly, permitting the horse to choose its own gait. At times he liftedthe little trap door in the roof of the cab and peered into the interior; occasionally his hand, tentatively, hesitantly, edged toward a bulge in his coat pocket-only to be drawn back againin a sort of panic haste. The cab turned into a street where, in spite of the drizzle, hawkers with their push-cartsunder flaring, spitting gasoline banjoes were doing a thriving business. The horse wentmore slowly. There was very little room. With the push-carts lining the curbs on both sides, and the overflow of pedestrians from the sidewalks into the street, it was perhaps overtaxing the horse's instinct to steer a safe course for the vehicle it dragged behind it. Halfwayalong the block a wheel of the hansom bumped none too gently into one of the push-carts, nearly upsetting the latter. The hawker, with a frantic grab, saved his wares from disasterby an uncomfortably narrow margin, and, this done, hurled an impassioned flood of luridoratory at the two-whee