CARLYLE AND THE 'BUS CONDUCTOR 197 and determined, so patient and so plucky; and one's knowledge of those qualities makes one pity them and long to help them all the more. But then the spring-time is coming, and the sunshine, and the gentle April shower; and the crocuses and daffodils will peep out after their winter slumbers, and flaunt once more before our eyes the glory of their purple and their gold. : I must not pass over the subject of the London omnibus. What an institution it is for people who, like myself, cannot afford the luxury of a barouche, or a victoria, and certainly not a motor car! As Mr. Gladstone put it, where can one see London and London life so well as " from the top of a 'bus"? An omnibus is such a place, too, in which to study character, and very often anatomy, for it seems to be the vehicle par excellence for the two extremes of "fat and lean kine." Carlyle was wont to use the humble 'bus, generally wearing his broad-brimmed white hat. On one occasion, when he got out at his destination, one of the "insides" said to the conductor, 66 Queer hat that old gentleman wears!" "Ah! p'r'aps it is a queer 'at; but, lor', what would you give for such an 'ead as is inside it?" Comparatively few people know anything of the 198 FAMILIAR LONDON grandeur and beauty of the London docks, the great treasure-house of the world. To the port of London comes the wealth of half the globe-the produce of the gardens of the East, and of the farms and ranches of Australia, America, New Zealand. To them come the wines of fair Burgundy and the Medoc, of Spain and Portugal, and (in more recent years) of California and Australia; tea from John Chinaman, and from India; vegetables and fruits, meat and meal, from East and West; provisions of every kind, raw and manufactured material for our looms and shops, and a thousand other things. Here one sees that forest of masts which so appealed to Turner as a boy. Here are crowded the leviathan vessels of the world-those great argosies that come to our shores, to this great trysting-place of the globe, laden with the treasures of every land, to feed the greedy man of London Town. Aye: a truly wonderful place is our London; and, seeing it as it is, and knowing the sturdy character of its children, one can the more fully appreciate the words of the great Napoleon, who, when he was contemplating the invasion of England, said, "Yes: I can land my men there; but I should never get them back again." Lord of the world's great waste, the ocean, we |