The Yellow Tram.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 62, 10 September 1904, Page 10

The Yellow Tram.

It wa* full, inside and out. The passengers were workers from tho neighbourhood of Tottenham Court-road, and tho yellow tram was carrying them home through tho twilight. ' * The conductor entered .to collect the fares. Without looking up from their papers and novelettes the silent passengers offered their pence and received their tickets. They were all reading, except an old woman with a huge bundle hold upon her knee by a soragjjy wrist, nnd a narrow-shouldered, pasty-xa<3ed office-boy, who swung his legs and stared at the opposite advertisements on the covered roof of tho car. The old woman, when it came to her turn, offered two pence, and asked to be bo put down at Highgato. Tho conduc tor threw back the money and pulled the bell-strap viciously. "This isn't a Highgate tram," he said. ' "Isn't it?'" cried the woman, clawing the bundle to her thin bosom. "Well, I could have declared I see Highgato on it I "This is a Hampstead tram," Baid the conductor. "Be quick, please." "I'll be ns quick as I con," answered the old woman, stumbling apologetically to tho door. As she reached the step the conductor jerked the bell. No one had looked up except the officeboy. A LONDON INTERIOR. The fares were collected, and ther* was silence in the tram. Against the door the conductor leaned his shoulder and stared at the car behind. On his pronged stool the driver sat, with humped back, jerking the reins and flicking the lash of his stumpy whip automatically from horse to horse. It was like a carriage filled with the dead. Nobody spoke; nobody moved. The men's eyes were pressed to tho evening newspapers ; the heads of the women wore bowed over the sixpenny pages of "Pelhaai," "Lady Audley's Secret," and "Moths." Only the office-boy, who swung his legs, with one boot resting on the other, was aware of his environment. It was a strange picture, this Lon- I don interior. Weary, dusty, languid, and depressed, these 'people, who had been so spruce and alert on thoir way to" work, were jammed together in the crowided, rumbling tram, shoulder to shoulder, arms overlapping, but strangers to each other, their minds and all the domesticity of their lives as secret from one another as though they vere continents asunder. Some sat on the edge of the seats, some in the centre, and some lay back with their shouldors against the windows. They were pale and slack. They breathed through their lips; the lids of their eyes hung low over tho pupils ; thero was no tension in the chins. The women with pe«rl necklaces and the men with shir^ fronts protruding ' over their WAißicoj/s represented a group of humanity exhausted by a day of civilisation. They were grey, and worn, and numb. It was a wonderfully still and silent picture, too. One heard nothing but the dull rumble of the equat iron wheels in the grooves of the line, except when a page wns turned or a newspaper folded in another fashion. % At such times tho half-conscious reader would look up for a moment, wearily nnd xuiintereetedly, stare for a second- at a blouse or hat, and then turn «g«.in to the magic of romance. / In the midst of this silence, when the train was moving evenly and quickly on its way to tho jwburbs, the driver sud1 denly leimed forward and wound down I hi* brake, causing the pa^sengprw ito shako and bump against e*ch ! other, They righted themselves, and looked up* from thoir reading. Then a large and cheerful voico sounded from tho twilight outside. "Spoiling my horses, that's what he's doiuij— spoiling 'cm 1 Pretty way to pull up my carriage, blow me if it isn't 1" THE NEWCOMER. The conductor stooped down and assisted this new passenger Jto mount, tho >-«teps. Here waa a shuffling of feet on the platform, the bell rang, and then ha appeased in the* doorway— a fnt, redfnced, gogglc-oyed man, with humorous, broad Tips, hiph shoulden>, capacious stomach, and short, fat legs. Re staggered in, with dized, staring ejes. "And why aren't you in livery?" h» demanded, turing round upon the conductor. "Don't you know ns y<w're my foot-man,-and this is my carriage?" The pa-ssengcis grinned. The condiif or .showed a smiling face in the dooiway. "I knqw *U abort that," he. said, . WerMfy: ' '- '• '■** ■*'.•• •

"Am I a working man?" cried th'« newcomer, lurching to the spare seat. Am I a working man, or am I not?— that's what I want Jo be told. If I'm a working man, then tlue vehicle ie my carriage. Those are my horses," be cried, pointing to the closed door and the driver's smiling face through the glass ; and you," he added, turning round to *■»« conductor, "are my footman." That's all right," said the conductor 1 and now I'll take your fare." "Take it!" cried the man ; "you needti t take it, my friend 5 T\\ give it to you. Thero you are— a pennortli of tram, please, and don't wrap it up in the Daily News because inotWs a rectum oi Jw Chamberlain, and only reads tie UhnsUan Age." Everybody Whed except the oniceboy, who looked over his shoulder at the hhop windows und the crowded street, and took ne notice of the tipsy humorist "What's this for?" demanded the redfaoed man, looking at hia ticket "A free pass for the opera, or the latest tuing m halfpenny newsna.pßTts?" "You take it home and read it. when you get to bed," said the conductor. - "Reading in bed never did anybody good yet, ' answered the man. "It's bad for the oy<?s, bad for the back, and bod for the gas-bill." -He looked round *he car for a moment and beamed. "AH going home to be happy and comfortable '» he said, benevolently. "Well, j«u de1 servo it. London's a mighty oity, and takes a lot of keeping up. Frieuds and countrymen, you are keeping up London. It does me proud to look at you! I look at your happy fnoes, and I say to myself and to all the world, 'This ia London !' And, mind you, I'm one o{ you. I'm a worker myself— when I oaa ' got it." THE OFFICE-BOY. Only the office-boy wus untouched by this address. The rest of the puabengun grinned delightedly, and the men admitted to each other that the newcomer wai "a jolly cove." They were grateful to him. Old women and young women beamed upon him. The face of humanity shone upon him. * In a few minutes he had changed the expression of the tram. Everywhere one saw humour and goodwill and' cheerfulness. A moment before we had seen only weariness and fag. There was light whore there had been darkness,, sound where there had been silence. The goodhumoured, jolly-fuoed man had aroused in the lfiinda of the jaded workers a capacity and- a relish' for enjoyment. And he kept the «miling and giggling with his merriment ' till £he office-Boy jumped up and made for tHe door. Then tho man, leaning forward, gripped tha lad's aim. "Wimfcl you young villain I" he cried. "You here all tha time, and never gave your dear old father one little word of lore !" ■ The boy, held by the father's hand, hung his head and flushed to his hair. , "And you were going to leave daddy to travel past his destination 1" continued the man, glancing out of the window and struggling to his feet. "Stop the carriage, William 1" he cried to tho conductor; "stop the homes, at oncai This is my mansion house." But this time nobody smiled;. They were looking at the boy. , "I believe, Arthur," he went on to his son, as they reached the door, "I believed you were ashamed of your poor old, dear old father! Ashamed of himt Ashamed of him !" • —Harold Begbie, in the Daily Mail.