He had passed it
before he realized this; but the fact stirred him into wakefulness
again, and when his cab's wheels slipped around the City Hall corner,
he remembered to look up at the other big clock-face that keeps awake
over the railroad station and measures out the night.
He gave a gasp of consternation when he saw that it was half-past two,
and that there was but ten minutes left to him. This, and the many
electric lights and the sight of the familiar pile of buildings,
startled him into a semi-consciousness of where he was and how great
was the necessity for haste.
He rose in his seat and called on the horse, and urged it into a
reckless gallop over the slippery asphalt. He considered nothing else
but speed, and looking neither to the left nor right dashed off down
Broad Street into Chestnut, where his course lay straight away to the
office, now only seven blocks distant.
Gallegher never knew how it began, but he was suddenly assaulted by
shouts on either side, his horse was thrown back on its haunches, and
he found two men in cabmen's livery hanging at its head, and patting
its sides, and calling it by name. And the other cabmen who have their
stand at the corner were swarming about the carriage, all of them
talking and swearing at once, and gesticulating wildly with their
whips.
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