As the indignant carrier explained afterwards, it all happened before you can say "knife." It was just about dusk. The lad on the bicycle, with head bent over the handle-bars, his thoughts probably on the hot dinner awaiting him at home, possibly on the girl he was going to meet afterwards, scorched round the corner, opposite the hotel, riding on the wrong side of the road, and crashed into the carrier's horse. The startled animal floundered for an instant on the wet, slippery road, the frantic driver tugged at the reins, and, in the next second, the horse lay struggling on its side, with the boy and bicycle pinned underneath.

"Spare me days! W'y can't yer keep on yer right side?"

The angry driver was standing in his van shaking his whip at the white, pain-distorted face that grinned up at him from amongst the mane of the fallen horse.

"For God's sake pull me out! I'm crushed!" shrieked the boy, his eyes rolling in agony.

But the driver, secure in the knowledge that he had duly observed the municipal by-law, and, filled with a holy indignation, cursed on.

It was a quiet spot, seldom frequented by pedestrians at that time of the day; but the little lady on the other side of the road, walking home after a hard day's shopping, had seen and heard all. She was a meek little lady, with a modest suburban reputation as a social reformer and an enemy of drink. When the impact happened she had dropped her sunshade and reticule, and, for an instant, stood rooted to the kerb, speechless with horror. A week before she had fainted at the sight of a bleeding finger; but before the outraged carrier was half way through his decorative and indignant tirade, this timid disciple of temperance whose proud boast it was that she had never seen the inside of an accursed bar, was sprinting for the corner door.

The next moment the inmates of the bar-room - the barman and two bleary loungers - were startled by a violent assault on the swing-doors and the sudden apparition of a small, respectably dressed female; with a wild eye, her hat worn rakishly on one side, shrieking for aid.

"Quick, quick!" panted the little lady. "There's been an accident! A horse has fallen on a boy! He can't get up! Oh, be quick, be quick! and bring some - bring some brandy!"

The barman regarded her suspiciously with a cold and fish-like eye, and went on polishing his glasses.

"Try a new game, missus," he advised, dispassionately. "That one's worked out."

"Oh, come, come quickly; he'll be killed!" cried the little lady, stamping her small feet into the sawdust of the bar-room floor.

Half-awakened from his accustomed torpor by her earnestness, one of the loungers moved with hesitation towards the door. He paused, gazed lovingly backward, and returned deliberately to his half-finished beer.

"Life's too short," he remarked, and, with this brief explanaton, considered himself excused.

For one short second there shone in the little lady's scornful eye a curse more comprehensive, more withering than any ever uttered within the precincts of those licenses premises. Then the look of terrified anxiety returned, and, turning, she fled once more into the open, followed by the ironical laughter of the lords within.

Outside, she beheld confusion. A tramcar had stopped beside the scene of the accident. There was a chorus of startled feminine squeals, and a flutter of drapery as half a dozen women descended, and, headed by a muscular, business-like female in a short skirt, hastened towards the still struggling horse and shrieking boy.

The carrier descended from his van, and, rushing towards the tram, called on all and sundry to witness that he was on the right side of the road.

The inmates of the bar, their curiosity aroused by the noises without, emerged leisurely.

The barman, throwing his towel over his shoulder, lighted a cigarette, and, leaning gracefully against the doorpost, viewed the proceedings languidly, as became a sportsman and a man.

A large red man, who was eating pies on top of the car, related to his neighbours particulars of a similar accident which he had witnessed seven years before, his words filtering through a mouthful of pastry and meat.

"For God's sake! He's crushing me!" shrieked the imprisoned boy.

"Hold the reins, somebody! Keep his head down," panted the business-like female.

"It's the Gor's truth! 'E come round the corner on 'is wrong side!" yelled the indignant carrier, recommencing a decorative description of the accident.

"Oh, quickly, quickly! Won't some of you men help?" wailed the little, meek lady.

"An' just as he got to the curve," mumbled the man with the pies, "Smash! clean into him, just like that."

"Lot of blankey excitement about nothin', aint there?" remarked the blasé barman.

Half a dozen women, assisted by one weedy lad, were endeavouring, with nervous, unaccustomed hands, to extricate the still shrieking boy. The terrified horse, maddened by tumult, renewed its struggles, and, wrenching its head free from the weak fingers that held it, rose on its fore feet, scattering the women, and, planting one iron-shod hoof full on the white, up-turned face, crushed it into the mud of the road.

A woman in the crowd fainted. Several shrieked and rushed frantically about. The men on the car, suddenly awakening to the fact that something serious was happening, descended hastily, the large, red man cramming into his mouth the remainder of his last pie. Two workmen, who had just arrived, quieted the horse and dragged away the thing that lay beneath.

The barman, still leaning carelessly against the doorpost, blew a cloud of cigarette smoke, and opined that "the bloke had thrown a seven this time."

A motor car drove up and stopped.

"A doctor! It's a doctor!" shouted somebody.

A tall, grave man descended, and hastened to where the business-like female, now very white and scared, was trying, pathetically, with her small hankerchief, to wipe the poor, crushed features.

The doctor's examination was brief.

"It's all over with him," he said, turning to one of the workmen. "Better put him up in your dray and drive to the Morgue. I'll go on before you."

Many willing helpers came forward now, and within a minute, the dray moved off with its ghastly burden.

"All aboard," shouted the tram conductor, suddenly awakening to a sense of his duty to the company. A crowd scrambled aboard the tram, chattering and gesticulating excitedly. A few remained to assist the still indignant carrier to harness his horse.

"You're all witnesses," he said, "I was on me right side of the road. There's no get away from that. I ain't to blame."

All chorussed assent, except the barman, who still puffed his cigarette, and, as became an oracle, gazed abstractedly into the middle distance. Then, with a gesture full of supreme contempt, he cast his cigarette end into the gutter, and gave forth his judgment.

"The damn women," he said, in a voice of utter disgust. "Always pokin' their noses into wot don't concern 'em. Only fer their bloomin' curiosity that bloke mighter been as right as you or me this minute. Aw, it makes me sick!"

"C. J. D."
The Gadfly, 23 May 1906, p6