d
khaki suits. He had lost his arm and was easily recognized. Wilfred
Laurier the French Premier of Canada and the Lord Mayor were the other
favourites. The scene in front of St. Paul's was absolutely
magnificent with the sooty pillars behind the groups of diplomats,
bishops and choir boys in white, University men in pink silk gowns, and
soldiers, beef eaters, gentlemen at arms and the two Archbishops. The
best moment was when the collected troops; negroes, Chinamen, East
Indians, West Indians, African troopers, Canadian Mounted Police,
Australians, Borneo police and English Grenadiers all sang the doxology
together in the beautiful sunshine and under the shadow of that great
facade of black and white marble. Also when the Archbishop of
Canterbury without any warning suddenly after kissing the Queen's hand
threw up his arm and cried out so that you could have heard him a
hundred yards off "Three Cheers for Her Majesty" and the diplomats, and
foreign rajahs and bishops and Salvation Army captains waved their hats
and mortar boards and the soldiers ran their bearskins and helmets on
their bayonets and spun them around in the air. The weather was
absolutely perfect and there were no accidents. Last night the
carriages were allowed to parade the streets and for hours the route
was blocked with omnibuses hired by private parties, coster carts,
private carriages, court carriages and the hansoms. The procession
formed by these was two hours in going one mile. They passed my
windows in Jermyn Street for three hours and a party of us sat inside
and guyed the life out of them until one in the morning. We got very
clever at it finally and very impudent and as the people were only two
yards from us my windows being on a level with the tops of the buses
and as we had a flaring illumination that lit up the street completely
we had lots of fun with them especially with the busses, as we
pretended to believe that the advertisements referred to the people on
the top, and we would ask anxiously which lady was "Lottie Collins" and
which gentleman had been brought up on " Mellin's Food"-- We had even
more fun with the swells coming home from the Gala night at the opera
and hemmed in between costers and Pickford's vans loaded down with
women and children.

They called on us for speeches and matches and segars and we kept the
procession supplied with food and drink. Nobody got mad and they
answered back but we were prepared with