l, I went to a window to look upon day-lit
London. There were the 'buses parading the streets with the miens of
elephants. There were the police looking precisely as I had been
informed by the prints. There were the sandwich-men. There was almost
everything.

But the artists had not told me the sound of London. Now, in New York
the artists are able to pourtray sound, because in New York a dray is
not a dray at all; it is a great potent noise hauled by two or more
horses. When a magazine containing an illustration of a New York street
is sent to me, I always know it beforehand. I can hear it coming
through the mails. As I have said previously, this which I must call
sound of London was to me only a silence.

Later, in front of the hotel a cabman that I hailed said to me--"Are you
gowing far, sir? I've got a byby here, and want to giv'er a bit of a
blough." This impressed me as being probably a quotation from an early
Egyptian poet, but I learned soon enough that the word "byby" was the
name of some kind or condition of horse. The cabman's next remark was
addressed to a boy who took a perilous dive between the byby's nose and
a cab in front. "That's roight. Put your head in there and get it
jammed--a whackin good place for it, I should think." Although the tone
was low and circumspect, I have never heard a better off-handed
declamation. Every word was cut clear of disreputable alliances with its
neighbours. The whole thing was as clean as a row of pewter mugs. The
influence of indignation upon the voice caused me to reflect that we
might devise a mechanical means of inflaming some in that constellation
of mummers which is the heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Then I saw the drilling of vehicles by two policemen. There were four
torrents converging at a point, and when four torrents converge at one
point engineering experts buy tickets for another place.

But here, again, it was drill, plain, simple drill. I must not falter
in saying that I think the management of the traffic--as the phrase
goes--to be distinctly illuminating and wonderful. The police were not
ruffled and exasperated. They were as peaceful as two cows in a pasture.

I remember once remarking that mankind, with all its boasted modern
progress, had not yet been able to invent a turnstile that will commute
in fractions. I have now learned that 756 rights-of-way cannot operate
simultaneously at one point. Right-of-way, like fighting women, requires
space