CHAPTER TEN.
HOW I RAN AGAINST MY FRIEND SMITH IN AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER.
I suppose my uncle thought it good discipline to turn a young fellow like me adrift for a whole day in London to shift for myself, and wrestle single-handed with the crisis that was to decide my destiny.
He may have been right, but when, after an hour's excited journey in the train, I found myself along with several hundred fellow-mortals standing in a street which seemed to be literally alive with people, I, at any rate, neither admired his wisdom nor blessed him for his good intentions.
Every one but myself seemed to be in a desperate hurry.

Had I not been sure it was the way of the place, I should have been tempted to suppose some tremendous fire, or some extraordinary event was taking place at the other end of the street, and that every one was rushing to get a glimpse of it.

I stood a minute or two outside the station, hoping to be left behind; but behold, no sooner had the tail of the race passed me, when another, indeed two other train-loads of humanity swarmed down upon me, and, hustling me as they swept by, fairly carried me along with them.
One thing alarmed me prodigiously.

It was not the crowd, or the noise, or the cabs, or the omnibuses, or the newspaper-boys, or the shops, or the policemen, or the chimney-pot hats.

These all astonished me, as well they might.