. Even two rights-of-way can make a scene which is only suited to
the tastes of an ancient public.

This truth was very evidently recognised. There was only one
right-of-way at a time. The police did not look behind them to see if
their orders were to be obeyed; they knew they were to be obeyed. These
four torrents were drilling like four battalions. The two blue-cloth men
manoeuvred them in solemn, abiding peace, the silence of London.

I thought at first that it was the intellect of the individual, but I
looked at one constable closely and his face was as afire with
intelligence as a flannel pin-cushion. It was not the police, and it was
not the crowd. It was the police and the crowd. Again, it was drill.

CHAPTER VIII.

I have never been in the habit of reading signs. I don't like to read
signs. I have never met a man that liked to read signs. I once invented
a creature who could play the piano with a hammer, and I mentioned him
to a professor in Harvard University whose peculiarity was Sanscrit. He
had the same interest in my invention that I have in a certain kind of
mustard. And yet this mustard has become a part of me. Or, I have become
a part of this mustard. Further, I know more of an ink, a brand of hams,
a kind of cigarette, and a novelist than any man living. I went by train
to see a friend in the country, and after passing through a patent
mucilage, some more hams, a South African Investment Company, a Parisian
millinery firm, and a comic journal, I alighted at a new and original
kind of corset. On my return journey the road almost continuously ran
through soap.

I have accumulated superior information concerning these things, because
I am at their mercy. If I want to know where I am I must find the
definitive sign. This accounts for my glib use of the word mucilage, as
well as the titles of other staples.

I suppose even the Briton in mixing his life must sometimes consult the
labels on 'buses and streets and stations, even as the chemist consults
the labels on his bottles and boxes. A brave man would possibly affirm
that this was suggested by the existence of the labels.

The reason that I did not learn more about hams and mucilage in New York
seems to me to be partly due to the fact that the British advertiser is
allowed to exercise an unbridled strategy in his attack with his new
corset or whatever upon the defensive public. He knows that the
vulnerable point is the informatory sign which