on another the exordium, "For this is a true saying and worthy of all
acceptation," was followed by the statement of a religious dogma; while
on another pane was an urgent appeal not to do in the omnibus what you
would not do in a drawing-room. Yes, Priam Farll had seen the world, but
he had never seen a city so incredibly strange, so packed with curious
and rare psychological interest as London. And he regretted that he had
not discovered London earlier in his life-long search after romance.

At the corner of the High Street he left the omnibus and stopped a
moment to chat with his tobacconist. His tobacconist was a stout man in
a white apron, who stood for ever behind a counter and sold tobacco to
the most respected residents of Putney. All his ideas were connected
either with tobacco or with Putney. A murder in the Strand to that
tobacconist was less than the breakdown of a motor bus opposite Putney
Station; and a change of government less than a change of programme at
the Putney Empire. A rather pessimistic tobacconist, not inclined to
believe in a First Cause, until one day a drunken man smashed Salmon and
Gluckstein's window down the High Street, whereupon his opinion of
Providence went up for several days! Priam enjoyed talking to him,
though the tobacconist was utterly impervious to ideas and never gave
out ideas. This morning the tobacconist was at his door. At the other
corner was the sturdy old woman whom Priam had observed from his window.
She sold flowers.

"Fine old woman, that!" said Priam heartily, after he and the
tobacconist had agreed upon the fact that it was a glorious morning.

"She used to be at the opposite corner by the station until last May but
one, when the police shifted her," said the tobacconist.