"He keep saying Sharing Cross, Sharing Cross," he exclaimed, turning to
the other passengers; "and it is _no_ Sharing Cross. He is fool."
"Carn't yer understand," retorted the conductor, equally indignant; "of
course I say Sharing Cross--I mean Charing Cross, but that don't mean
that it _is_ Charing Cross. That means--" and then perceiving from the
blank look on the Frenchman's face the utter impossibility of ever making
the matter clear to him, he turned to us with an appealing gesture, and
asked:
"Does any gentleman know the French for 'bloomin' idiot'?"
A day or two afterwards, I happened to enter his omnibus again.
"Well," I asked him, "did you get your French friend to Charing Cross all
right?"
"No, sir," he replied, "you'll 'ardly believe it, but I 'ad a bit of a
row with a policeman just before I got to the corner, and it put 'im
clean out o' my 'ead. Blessed if I didn't run 'im on to Victoria."
CHAPTER XI
Said Brown one evening, "There is but one vice, and that is selfishness."
Jephson was standing before the fire lighting his pipe. He puffed the
tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then said:
"And the seed of all virtue also."
"Sit down and get on with your work," said MacShaughnassy from the sofa
where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; "we're discussing
the novel.
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