To-day his walk through the gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as
a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that
he looked at delighted him--the richness of shop-windows, showing all
the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the
liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the
glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses
of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the
stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small
newspaper boys; the life, the color, the noise. It seemed as if the
busy city and the pleasure-loving West-end alike unfolded themselves
as a panorama especially arranged for one's amusement; and his
satisfaction was so great that it mutely expressed itself in words
which he would have been quite willing to shout aloud. Such as:
"Bravo, London! You aren't a bad little place when one gets to know
you. There's more in you than meets the eye, first view."
And because he was so happy himself, he could sympathize with the
happiness of everybody else. He was glad that the rich people were so
rich and the poor people so contented; he admired a young swell for
buying flowers from a woman with a shawl over her head; he mused on
all the honest, well-paid toil that had gone to the raising of the
grapes and peaches at a Piccadilly fruiterer's.
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