But
in a few minutes--the clock on the turret of the Co-operative Wholesale
Society's Shops gives the time--away it starts once more on the
adventure. Again there are the reckless swoops downhill, bouncing the
loops: again the chilly wait in the hill-top market-place: again the
breathless slithering round the precipitous drop under the church: again
the patient halts at the loops, waiting for the outcoming car: so on and
on, for two long hours, till at last the city looms beyond the fat
gas-works, the narrow factories draw near, we are in the sordid streets
of the great town, once more we sidle to a standstill at our terminus,
abashed by the great crimson and cream-coloured city cars, but still
perky, jaunty, somewhat dare-devil, green as a jaunty sprig of parsley
out of a black colliery garden.
To ride on these cars is always an adventure. Since we are in war-time,
the drivers are men unfit for active service: cripples and hunchbacks.
So they have the spirit of the devil in them. The ride becomes a
steeple-chase. Hurray! we have leapt in a clear jump over the canal
bridges--now for the four-lane corner. With a shriek and a trail of
sparks we are clear again. To be sure, a tram often leaps the rails--but
what matter! It sits in a ditch till other trams come to haul it out. It
is quite common for a car, packed with one solid mass of living people,
to come to a dead halt in the midst of unbroken blackness, the heart of
nowhere on a dark night, and for the driver and the girl conductor to
call, 'All get off--car's on fire!' Instead, however, of rushing out in a
panic, the passengers stolidly reply: 'Get on--get on! We're not coming
out.
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