"However, you can keep the pennies.

They will buy you bread, you know." The fellows edged off, muttering resentfully, and Austin prepared to cross the road to Piccadilly.

The next moment he received a violent blow on the shoulder from an advancing horse, and was knocked clean off his legs.

He was in the act of half-consciously taking off his hat and begging the horse's pardon when a stout policeman, coming to the rescue, lifted him bodily up in one arm, and, carrying him over the crossing, deposited him safely on the pavement.

He recovered his breath in a minute or two, and then began to walk down Piccadilly towards the Park.
The streets were gay and crowded, partly with black and grey people who seemed to be going about some business or other, but starred beautifully here and there with bright-eyed, clear-skinned, slender youths in straw hats, something like Austin himself, enjoying their release from school.