Chapter IV

In the street, he remembered that he had forgotten to ask Lizzie to tell him how to find Fleet Street, but her capacity for conversation prevented him from returning to the house to ask her. The number of trams and 'buses of different colours bewildered him, as he stood opposite to the White Horse, and watched them go by: and the accents of the conductors, when they called out their destinations, were unintelligible to him. He heard a man shouting "Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng, BENGK!" in a voice that sounded like a quick-firing gun, but the noise had no meaning for him. He saw names of places that were familiar to him through his reading or his talk with Uncle Matthew, painted on the side of the trams and buses, but he could not see the name of Fleet Street among them. He turned to a policeman and asked for advice, and the policeman put him in the care of a 'bus-conductor.

"You 'op on top, an' I'll tell you where to git off," the 'bus conductor said, and John did as he was bid.

He took a seat in the front of the 'bus, just behind the driver, for he had often heard stories of the witty sayings of London 'busmen and he was anxious to hear a 'bus-driver's wit being uttered.

"That's a nice day," he said, when the 'bus had gone some distance.

The driver, red-faced, obese and sleepy-eyed, slowly turned and regarded John, and having done so, nodded his head, and turned away again.

"Nice pair of horses you have," John continued affably.

"Yes," the driver grunted, without looking around.

John felt dashed by the morose manner of the driver and he remained silent for a few moments, but he leant forward again and said, "I expect you see a good deal of life on this 'bus?"

"Eih?" said the driver, glancing sharply at him. "Wot you sy?"

"I suppose you've seen a good many queer things from that seat?" John answered.

"'Ow you mean ... queer things?"

"Well, strange things!..."

The driver turned away and whipped up the horses.

"I've never seen anythink strynge in my life," he said. "Kimmup there! Kimmup!..."

"But I thought that 'bus-drivers always saw romantic things!"

"I dunno wot you're talkin' abaht. Look 'ere, young feller, are you a reporter, or wot are you?"

"A reporter!"

"Yus. One of these 'ere noospyper chaps?"

"No."

"Well, anybody'd think you was, you ast so many questions!"

John's face coloured. "I beg your pardon," he said in confusion. "I didn't mean to be inquisitive!"

"That's awright. No need to 'pologise. I can see you down't mean no 'arm!" His manner relaxed a little, as if he would atone to John for his former surliness. "That's the 'Orns," he said, pointing to a large public-house. "Well-known 'ouse, that is. Best known 'ouse in Sahth London, that is. Bert ... that's the conductor ... 'e says the White 'Orse at Brixton is better-known, an' I know a chep wot says the Elephant an' Castle is!..."

"It's mentioned in Shakespeare," John eagerly interrupted.

"Wot is?"

"The Elephant and Castle. In _Twelfth Night_. My Uncle, who knew Shakespeare by heart, told me about it. It was a public-house in those days, too. But I never heard of the Horns!"

The 'bus-driver was impressed by this statement, but he would not lightly yield in the argument. "Of course," he said, "The Elephant my 'ave been well-known in them dys, and I don't sy it ain't well-known in these dys, but I do sy thet it ain't so well-known now as wot the 'Orns is. There ain't a music-'all chep in London wot down't know the 'Orns. Not one!"

"Shakespeare didn't know it," John exclaimed.

"Well, 'e didn't know everythink did 'e?" the driver retorted. "P'raps the 'Orns wasn't built then. I dessay not. 'E'd 'ave mentioned it if 'e'd 'ave known abaht it. All these actor cheps know it, so of course 'e'd 'a' known abaht it, too. We'll be at the Elephant presently. I always sy to Bert we 'ave the most interestin' pubs in London on this route, White 'Orse, the 'Orns, the Elephant an' the Ayngel. Ever 'eard of the Ayngel at Islington?"

"Yes," said John, "That's where Paine wrote _The Rights of Man_."

"Did 'e?" the driver answered. "Well, I dessay 'e did. It's a celebrated 'ouse, it is. Celebrated in 'istory. There's a song abaht it. You know it, down't you!...

Up and dahn the City Rowd,
In at the Ayngel...
Thet's the wy the money gows,
Pop gows the weasel.

Ever 'eard thet?"

"Oh, yes," John replied, smiling. "I used to sing that song at home!"

"Did you nah. An' w'ere is your 'ome?"

"In Ireland!"

"Ow! Thet acahnts for it. I couldn't myke aht 'ow it was you never 'eard of the 'Orns. Fency you hearin' abaht the Elephant in Ireland!"

"Well, you see, Shakespeare mentions it!..."

"I down't tyke much interest in 'im. 'Ere's the Elephant! Thet's Spurgeon's Tabernacle over there!..."

The driver became absorbed in the business of pulling up at the stopping-place and alluring fresh passengers on to the 'bus in place of those who were now leaving it, and John had time to look about him. The public-house was big and garish and even at this hour of the morning the hot odour of spirits floated out of it when a door was swung open. "I don't suppose it was like that in Shakespeare's day," he said to himself, as he turned away and gazed at the flow of people and traffic that passed without ceasing through the circus where the six great roads of South London meet and cross. It seemed to him that an accident must happen, that these streams of carts and trams and 'buses and hurrying people must become so involved that disaster must follow. He became reassured when he observed how imperturbed everyone was. There were moments when the whole traffic seemed to become chaotic and the roads were choked, and then as suddenly as the congestion was created, it was relieved. He felt enthralled by this wonder of traffic, of great crowds moving with ease through a criss-cross of confusing streets.

"It's wonderful," he said, leaning forward and speaking almost in a whisper to the driver.

"Wot is?"

"All that traffic!"

"Ow, thet's nothink. We think nothink of thet owver 'ere," the driver replied. "We down't tyke no notice of a little lot like thet!"

The conductor rang his bell, and the driver whipped up his horses, and the 'bus proceeded on its way.

John remembered that he had not heard any witticisms from the driver. Uncle Matthew had told him that one could always depend upon a 'busman to provide comic entertainment, but this man, although, after a while, he had become talkative enough, had not said one funny thing. He had not chaffed a policeman or a footpassenger or another 'busman, and now that they had passed away from the Elephant and Castle, his conversation seemed to have dried up. The 'bus tooled through the Newington Butts, along the Borough High Street (past the very inn where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, although John was then unaware that he was passing it) and under the railway bridge at St. Saviour's Cathedral Church of Southwark.

"What's that place?" John said to the driver, pointing to the Cathedral.

"Eih? Ow, thet! Thet's a cathedral!"

"A cathedral! Hidden away like that!..."

A hideous railway bridge cramped St. Saviour's on one side, and hideous warehouses and offices cramped it on the other. There was a mess of vegetable debris lying about the Cathedral pavement, the refuse from the Borough Market.

"What cathedral is it?" John demanded.

"Southwark!" the driver replied, pronouncing it "Suth-ark." "Suthark!" John said vaguely. "Do you mean Southwark?..." He pronounced the name as it is spelt.

"We call it Suthark!" said the driver. "Yes, thet's it, Southwark Cathedral!..."

"But that's where Shakespeare used to go to church!" John exclaimed.

"Ow!" the driver replied.

"And look at it!..."

"Wot's wrong with it?" The 'bus was now rolling over London Bridge, and the Cathedral could not be seen.

"They've hidden it. That awful bridge!..."

"I down't see nothink wrong with it," the driver interrupted.

"Nothing wrong with it! You'd think they were ashamed of it, they've hidden it so!"

"I down't see nothink wrong with it. Wot you gettin' so excited abaht?"

"_Shakespeare said his prayers there!_" John ejaculated.

"Well, wot if 'e did?" the driver replied. "We down't think nothink of Cathedrals owver 'ere! We've got 'undreds of 'em!"

John sat back in his seat and stared at the driver. He was incapable of speaking, and the driver, busy with his horses, said no more. The 'bus crossed the river, drove along King William Street into Prince's Street, and stopped. The conductor climbed to the roof and called to John. "You chynge 'ere," he said, beckoning him.

"Good-morning," John said to the driver as he rose from his seat.

"Goo'-mornin'!" said the driver. He paused while John got out of the seat into the gangway. "You know," he went on, "you wown't git so excited abaht things after you bin 'ere a bit. You'll tyke things more calm. Like me. I down't go an' lose my 'ead abaht Shykespeare!..."

"Good-morning," said John.

"Ow, goo'-mornin'!" said the driver.

The conductor was standing on the pavement when John descended.

"You'll get a 'bus owver there at the Mansion 'Ouse," he said, "thet'll tyke you right into Fleet Street. Or you can walk it easy from 'ere. 'Long Cheapside, just rahnd the corner!..."

"Cheapside!" John said with interest. Uncle Matthew had told him that Herrick, the poet, was born in Cheapside, and that Richard Whittington, resting in Highgate Woods, had heard Bow Bells pealing from a Cheapside steeple, bidding him return to be Lord Mayor of London and marry the mercer's daughter.

"Yus, Cheapside!" the conductor dully repeated. "Go 'long Cheapside, turn to the left pas' St. Paul's, and you'll be in Ludgate 'ill. After thet, follow your nowse! See?"

"Thank you!" said John.

The throng of traffic seemed to be greater here than it had been at Elephant and Castle, and John, confused by it, stood looking about him. "Thet's the Benk of England, thet!" the conductor hurriedly continued, pointing across the street to the low, squat, dirty-looking building which occupied the whole of one side of the street. "An' thet's the Royal Exchynge owver there, an' this 'ere is the Mansion 'Ouse where the Lord Mayor lives. I can't stop to tell you no more. Ayngel, Ayngel, Ayngel! Any more for the Ayngel?..."

Several persons climbed on to the 'bus, and then, after attempting to persuade people, anxious to go to Charing Cross, to go to the Angel at Islington instead, the conductor rang his bell. He waved his hand in farewell to John, who smiled at him. The 'bus lumbered off, John watched it roll out of sight and, when it had gone, turned to find Cheapside. There was an immense pressure of people in the streets, and for a few moments he imagined that he had wandered into the middle of a procession.

"Is there anything up?" he said to a lounger.

"Up?" the man repeated in a puzzled tone.

"Yes. All these people!..."

"Oh, no," the man said, "It's always like this!"

_Always like this!_...

He had never seen so many people or so much traffic before. The crowd of workmen pouring out of the shipyards in Belfast was more impressive than this London crowd, but not so perturbing, for that was a definite crowd, having a beginning and an end and a meaning: it was composed entirely of men engaged in a common enterprise; but this crowd had no beginning and no end and no meaning: there was no common enterprise. It was an amorphous herd, and almost it frightened him. If that herd were to become excited ... to lose its head!... Hardly had the thought come into his mind when an accident happened. A four-wheeler cab, trundling across Mansion House Place towards Liverpool Street, overbalanced and fell on its side. The driver was thrown into the road, and John, imagining that he must be killed by a passing vehicle, shut his eyes so that he might not see the horrible thing happen.... When he opened his eyes again, the driver was on his feet and, assisted by policemen and some passers-by, was freeing his horse from its harness, while two other policemen dragged an old lady through the window of the cab and placed her on the pavement.

"Really, driver!" she said, "you ought to be mere careful. I shall lose my train!"

"You'd think I'd done it a-purpose to 'ear 'er," the driver mumbled.

And the traffic swept by on either side of the overturned cab, and there was no confusion, no excitement, no disaster. The careless, traffic of the streets which seemed so likely to end in disorder never ended otherwise than satisfactorily. There was control over it, but the control was not obtrusive.

He felt reassured in a measure, but a sense of loneliness filled him. He stood with his back, against the wall of a large building and regarded the scene. Wherever he looked there were masses of people and vehicles and tall buildings. Crowds and crowds of people with no common, interest save that of speedily reaching a destination. He might stand there for hours, with his back to this wall, and not see the end of that crowd. In Belfast, at twelve o'clock on Saturday morning, the workmen would hurry over the bridge to their homes: a thick, black, unyielding mass of men; but at thirty minutes after twelve, that thick, black, seemingly solid mass would be dissolved into the ordinary groupings of a provincial city and there would be no sign of it. This London crowd would never dissolve. The man had told him that "it's always like this"!... There were nearly seven millions of men and women and children in London, but he did not know one of them. He had seen George Hinde for a few moments, and he had spoken to Miss Squibb, and to Lizzie ... but he did not know anyone. He was alone in this seven-million-fold herd, without a relative or an intimate friend. He might stand at this corner for days, for weeks, on end, viewing the passersby until his eyes were sore with the sight of them, and never see one person whom he knew even slightly. In Ballyards, he could not walk a dozen yards without encountering an acquaintance. In Belfast, he was certain to see someone whom he knew in the course of a day. But in this place!... He became horrified at the thought that if he were suddenly to drop dead at that moment, none of the persons who would gather round his body could say who he was. He would be carried off to a morgue and laid on a marble slab in the hope that someone would turn up and identify him ... and he might never be identified; he might be buried as "a person unknown." He determined to keep a note of his name and address in his breast-pocket, together with a note of his mother's name and address.

"I'm not going to run the risk of them burying me without knowing who I am." he murmured to himself.

Someone jostled him roughly, and mumbling "Sorry!" hurried on. In Ireland, John thought to himself, had a man jostled a stranger so rudely, he would have stopped and apologised to him and would have asked for assurance that he had not hurt him. "I beg your pardon, sir," he would have said. "I'm very sorry. I hope I haven't hurt you!" But this stranger who had roughly shoved against him, had not paused in his rude progress. He had shouted "Sorry!" at him, but he had barely turned his head to do it.

"Of course, I ought not to be standing here, blocking the way!" John admitted to himself. "I wonder is London always like this, rough and in a hurry!"

He crossed the street, not without alarm, and stood by the entrance to the Central London Railway. There were some flower-sellers sitting by the railings, but they had no resemblance to the flower-girls of whom Uncle Matthew had often told him. He glanced at them with distaste. "It's queer," he thought, "how disappointed I am with everything!" and then, as if he would account for his disappointment, he added, "I'm bitter. That's what's wrong with me! I'm bitter about Maggie Carmichael!"

He turned to a man who was leaning against the iron railings. "What's down there?" he asked, pointing to the stairs leading to the Central London Railway.

"The Toob," said the man.

"The what?"

"The Toob. The Tuppeny Toob. Undergrahnd Rylewy!"

"Oh, is that what you call the Tuppeny Tube?" John exclaimed, as comprehension came to him. He had read of the Underground Railway built in the shape of two long tubes stretching from the centre of the City to Shepherd's Bush, but he had imagined a much more dramatic entrance to it than this dull flight of steps.

"But you _walk_ into it," he exclaimed to his informant.

"There's lifts down below," the man replied unemotionally.

"I thought it would be different," John continued.

"Different? 'Ow ... different?"

"Well ... different!"

The man spat. "I down't see wot more you could expect," he said. "It's there, ain't it? Wot more du want?"

"Oh, it's there, of course ... only!..."

The man interrupted him. "Wot's a toob for?" he said. He answered his own question. "To travel by. Well, you can travel by it. Wot more du want?"

"But I thought it would be exciting!..."

"An' 'oo the 'ell wants excitement in a toob!" the man answered.

John considered the matter for a moment or two. "I expect you're right," he said, and then, more briskly, added, "Yes, of course. Of course, you're right. Travelling in a train would not be pleasant if it were exciting."

"It would not," the man answered.

"But it sounded such an extraordinary thing, a Tube, when I read about it that I expected to see something different," John continued.

"Well, it is an extraordinary thing," the man said. "You walk down them steps there, an' get into a lift, an' wot'll 'appen to you? You'll be dropped 'undreds of feet into the earth, an' when you get ta the bottom, you'll find trains runnin' by electricity. I call that extraordinary, if you down't ... only I down't want to myke a song abaht it!"

John felt that he had been rebuked for an excess of enthusiasm. The Englishman was right about the Tube. It was a wonderful thing, more wonderful, perhaps, because of the quietness of its approach: it would not be any more wonderful if people were to go about the town uttering shouts of astonishment over it, nor was it any less wonderful because the English people treated it as if it were an ordinary affair.

He looked across the road at the Bank of England, devoid equally of dignity and sensation, and then turned and looked at the Royal Exchange. A pigeon flew up from the ground and perched among the figures carved over the portico, and as he watched it, he read the inscription beneath the figure of Justice: _The Earth is the Lord's and the Fullness Thereof_.

"Dear me!" he said, turning away again.

He began to feel hungry, and he moved away to search for a place in which to find a meal.

"Good-morning," he said to the man who had instructed him concerning the Tube.

"Oh. goo'-mornin'!"