t said. 'I'm alookin' fer
somebody. I serpose you ain't seed the genelmun as orduder bawth
anywhere abart, 'ave yer?'

Fearful lest further delay should lead to the bricking up of the
bathroom, or to a crier being sent round the town for 'the genelmun,'
etc., I hastened out almost into the arms of the retainer, and
forcibly checked him, as he began on an interrogative note to cheep
out: 'You the genelmun as orduder----'

Coming from a country where, even in the poorest workman's house, the
bathroom at all events is always in commission, I was greatly struck
by this incident; more especially when, an hour later, I heard the
chambermaid cry out over the banisters:

'Mibel! The genelmun as orduder bawth sez 'e'll 'ave a chop wiv 'is
tea!'

III

It was at the beginning of the second day at the Blue Boar that I
counted over my money, and was rather startled to discover that
expenditure in pennies can mount up quite rapidly.

In those days pennies were comparatively infrequent, almost
negligible, in Australia; the threepenny-bit representing for most
purposes the lowest price asked for anything. (It still is a coin more
generally used in Australia than anywhere else, I think.) Now, during
my first day or so in London I was so struck by the number of things
one could do and get for a penny, that it seemed I was really spending
hardly anything. I covered enormous distances on the tops of
omnibuses, and talked a great deal with their purple-faced drivers,
most of whom wore tall hats, and carried nosegays in their coats. When
beggars and crossing-sweepers asked, I gave, unhesitatingly, in the
Australian fashion, as one gives matches when asked for them. I gave
only pennies; and now was startled to find what a comparatively large
sum can be disbursed in a day or so, in single pennies, upon 'bus
fares, newspapers, charity, and the like.

The two men to whom my only letters of introduction were addressed
were both out of town: one in Algiers, the other, I gathered, on the
Riviera. I suppose most people in London have never reflected on the
oddity of the position of that person in their midst who does not know
one solitary soul in the entire vast city. And yet, there must always
be hundreds in that position. There was a time when I had serious
thoughts of asking a policeman to recommend to me the cheapest quarter
in which one might obtain a lodging, for I had already conceived a
great admiration for the uniformed warden