My high living continued. My Oxford friend accompanied me to London and we both registered at the Inns of Court on Holborn street. This hotel, facing Lincoln Inn Fields, was a pleasant, moderate-priced establishment, and was the only hostelry in which I had stayed which could be ranked as first-class. Of course, I was living beyond my means, but it was out of the question for me to drag my Oxford friend down to my usual plane of living.
I once came across an American from the Middle West travelling in Europe and asked him if he had been to London. He replied that he had, and when I enquired how he liked the National Gallery he looked at me with the intelligence of a cow. I then ventured a query about Saint Paul's Cathedral—and he told me that he had not seen it. I thought I was on a safe footing when I asked for his impressions of Westminster Abbey and Houses of Parliament. He had missed these also.
"What did you see?" I asked.
"Oh, I spent about an hour walking up and down the main street, looking in the store windows."
If this was all there is to "seeing" a European city, why not stay at home on the farm?
My collegiate friend and I had our hands full with the many places we mapped out, and we were far from satisfied when we had leisurely taken them all in. The National, Tate and Wallace Galleries were on our list. We spent hours in the British Museum. We visited both the Abbey and Saint Paul's several times, as well as countless other churches. We saw the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral, Hyde Park and so forth. At night we visited the various halls and theatres and on Sundays went to church in the morning and evening, and in the afternoon attended the concerts given under the auspices of the Sunday Concert Society by the Queen's Hall Orchestra.
My money was getting low. Something had to happen—and happen soon. My Oxonian friend left for St. Malo, in northern France, to spend a month studying French. I decided to take stock and find how much money I had. Counting all my cash I found that I had but thirty-five dollars. Over five thousand miles from home, out of work, with no friends and only thirty-five dollars—it meant I was broke. Work in England under normal conditions would be hardly profitable, for I could at best earn only about twenty shillings a week. At this time work was impossible. A great coal strike was on and every line of business was in a very disorganised state, due to the consequent fuel famine. Trains were running intermittently. Factories were closed and the country was full of the starving and the unemployed. I had in mind purchasing a steerage ticket for America or obtaining a job as waiter or deckhand on a trans-Atlantic liner.
St. John's Church, Needham Market