And serious, deadly serious, in their haste! I felt a strong inclination to stop a few of them and say: "Friends, cheer up.

It isn't half as bad as you think it is.

Cheer up!" After a time the severity of the human flood began to abate, and here and there at the bottom of that gulch of a street, which had begun to fill with soft, bluish-gray shadows, the evening lights a appeared.

The air had grown cooler; in the distance around a corner I heard a street organ break suddenly and joyously into the lively strains of "The Wearin' o' the Green." I stepped out into the street with quite a new feeling of adventure.

And as if to testify that I was now a visible person a sharp-eyed newsboy discovered me--the first human being in Kilburn who had actually seen me--and came up with a paper in his hand.
"Herald, boss ?" I was interested in the shrewd, world-wise, humorous look in the urchin's eyes.
"No," I began, with the full intent of bantering him into some sort of acquaintance; but he evidently measured my purchasing capacity quite accurately, for he turned like a flash to another customer.