He wandered with the first gleam of light among the flower-beds of the Park, sniffing with joy at the late hyacinths, revelling in the cool, sweet softness of the unpolluted air.

Then he listened to the awakening, to the birth of the day.

He heard it from the bridges, from London Bridge and Westminster Bridge, over which thundered the great vans fresh from the country, on their way to Covent Garden.

He stood in front of the Mansion House and watched the thin, black stream of the earliest corners grow into a surging, black-coated torrent.

There were things which made him sorry and there were things which made him glad.