ince and lost awhile smote me with a peculiar pleasure, and,
though I like the comradely American "Cap" or "Professor," and am hoping
soon to hear it again--yet the novelty of being addressed once more as
"Sir" has had, I must own, a certain antiquarian charm.

Wandering in a quaint by-street near my hotel, and reading the names and
signs on one or two of the neat old-world "places of business," I came
on the word "sweep." I believe it was on a brass-plate. For a moment, I
wondered what it meant; and then I realized, with a great gratitude,
that London had not changed so much, after all, since the days of
Charles Lamb. As I emerged into a broader thoroughfare, my ears were
smitten with the sound of minstrelsy. It is true that the tune was
changed. It was unmistakably rag-time. Yet, there was the old
piano-organ, and in a broad circle of spectators, suspended awhile from
their various wayfaring, a young man in tennis flannels was performing a
spirited Apache dance with a quite comely short-skirted young woman, who
rightly enough felt that she had no need to be ashamed of her legs.
Across the extemporized stage, every now and then, taxicabs tooted
cautiously, longing in their hearts to stay; and once a motor
coal-waggon, like a sort of amateur freight-train, thundered across; but
not even these could break the spell that held that ring of enchanted
loiterers, from which presently the pennies fell like rain--the eternal
spell--still operating, I was glad to see, under the protection of the
only human police in the world--of the strolling player in London town.
Just before the players turned to seek fresh squares and alleys new, I
noticed on the edge of the crowd what seemed, in the gathering twilight,
to be a group of uplifted spears. Spears or halberds, were they? It was
a little company of the ancient brotherhood of lamp-lighters, seduced,
like the rest of us, from the strict pursuance of duty by the vagabond
music.

To me this thought is full of reassurance, whatever be the murmurs of
change: London has still her sweeps, her strolling minstrels, and her
lamp-lighters.

Of course, I missed at once the old busses, yet there are far more
horses left than I had dared to hope, and the hansom is far from
extinct. In fact, there seems to be some promise of its renaissance, and
even yet, in the words of the ancient bard, despite the competition of
taxis--

Like dragon-flies,
The hansoms hover