und with
Oriental indifference. Porters, with hands and faces and uniforms
toned down to the universal greyness of things, trundled their
hand-lorries to the monotonous calling of "B' your leave, b' your
leave"; and variegated specimens of humanity were looking around after
their luggage as one might imagine disembodied souls looking for
their bodies in the Valley of Jehoshaphat on the Last Day. There were
not a few touches of cosmopolitanism suggestive of that gathering.

My Oriental alighted from the train. As his Japanese servant was quite
capable of looking after his luggage and bringing it to his hotel, his
master was left free to come right on with me and exercise his
industrious curiosity--a curiosity that seemed never to be surprised
at anything he saw, but took everything as a matter of course. He was
a man of the world in his own estimation. Nevertheless, what an
important part of it he had not yet seen! Was it not a great epoch in
his life, this arrival of his in London?

"This is our North Gate."

"Ah, yes, Hou-Men," he said. "A very dark day, is it not?"

We drove away in a cab under that sepulchral prison-like portico; we
had the glass down, it was raining so hard, and even he, whose
Westernisation was principally confined to New York, noticed the
absurdly asphyxiating arrangement of the London cab, which
hermetically seals its frame-bound occupants. The New Yorkers got
their idea of the cab from us, but they have improved upon the window
by having it slanting outwards, so that, while protecting people from
the rain, it admits air. For Londoners there is no alternative between
spatteration and suffocation. In the New York cabs they can have
shelter and fresh air.

It was not an inspiriting entrance through these first streets outside
Euston into London. The pavement of Melton Street was little better
than that of Pekin, and from each side those dreary-looking small
hotels blinked out of their closed windows on the muddy street as if
wondering when a God-forsaken guest would come and occupy them. And
then on through grimy Gower Street, looking like the empty bottom of a
drained canal.

It's not very inspiriting, this entrance into London from this North
Gate of ours.

The people we passed there were not an interesting lot; they seemed
all to belong to the two-storeyed houses. They were two-storeyed
people, apparently keeping themselves moderately busy making a
moderate amount of money, but hampere