"You'd meet the like of them any minute of the day in London," said
Uncle Matthew. "You'd mebbe be walking up a street, the Strand, mebbe,
or in Hyde Park or Whitechapel, and in next to no time at all, you'd
run into the whole jam-boiling of them. London's the queer place for
seeing queer people. Never be content, John, when you're a man, to stay
on in this place where nothing ever happens to anyone, but quit off out
of it and see the world. There's all sorts in London, black men and
yellow men, and I wouldn't be surprised but there's a wheen of Red
Indians, too, with, feathers in their head!...."

"I'd be afeard of them fellows," said John. "They'd scalp you, mebbe!"

"Ah, sure, the peelers wouldn't let them," said Uncle Matthew. "And
anyway you needn't go near them. They keep that sort down by the Docks
and never let them near the places where the fine, lovely women live.
London's the place to see the lovely women, John, all dressed up in
silk dresses, for that's where the high-up women go ... in the Season,
they call it ... and they take their young, lovely daughters with them,
grand wee girls with nice hair and fine complexions and a grand way of
talking ... to get them married, of course. I read in a book one time,
there was a young fellow, come of a poor family, was walking in one of
the parks where the quality-women take their horses every day, and a
young and lovely girl was riding up and down as nice as you like, when
all of a sudden her horse ran away with her. The young fellow never
hesitated for a minute, but jumped over the railings and stopped the
horse, and the girl was that thankful and pleased, him and her was
married after. And she was a lord's daughter, John! A very high-up
lord! She belonged to a queer proud family, but she wasn't too proud to
fall in love with him, and they had a grand time together!"