I love the smell of London, the cinematographic picture of London, the thrill of London.

To understand what I mean you have only got to get rid of your legs and keep your heart and nerves and memories, and live in a little country town.
Yes, my visits to London are red-letter days.

To get there with any enjoyment to myself involves such a fussification, and such an unauthorised claim on the services of other people, that my visits are few and far between.
A couple of hours in a club smoking-room--to the normal man a mere putting in of time, a vain surcease from boredom, a vacuous habit--is to me, a strange wonder and delight.

After Wellingsford the place is resonant with actualities.

I hear all sorts of things; mostly lies, I know; but what matter?
When a man tells me that his cousin knows a man attached as liaison officer to the staff of General Joffre, who has given out confidentially that such and such a thing is going to happen I am all ears.