Soon
from every street there rises the soothing cry,
"Mee'hilk--mee'hilk."
London like some Gargantuan babe, is awake, crying for its milk.
These be the white-smocked nurses hastening with its morning
nourishment. The early church bells ring. "You have had your milk,
little London. Now come and say your prayers. Another week has
just begun, baby London. God knows what will happen, say your
prayers."
One by one the little creatures creep from behind the blinds into
the streets. The brooding tenderness is vanished from the City's
face. The fretful noises of the day have come again. Silence, her
lover of the night, kisses her stone lips, and steals away. And
you, gentle Reader, return home, garlanded with the self-sufficiency
of the early riser.
But it was of a certain week-day morning, in the Strand that I was
thinking. I was standing outside Gatti's Restaurant, where I had
just breakfasted, listening leisurely to an argument between an
indignant lady passenger, presumably of Irish extraction, and an
omnibus conductor.
"For what d'ye want thin to paint Putney on ye'r bus, if ye don't GO
to Putney?" said the, lady.
"We DO go to Putney," said the conductor.
"Thin why did ye put me out here?"
"I didn't put you out, yer got out.
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