“Look there! It is the lady of the shilling.”
I doubt if anyone could have guessed what would be the three very first things to strike deeply upon the imaginations of Ali and Sakari when they first entered London.
They were: Policemen in uniform, wax models, and babies in perambulators.
The police were:
“Magic men, who, when they go put up hand, they fit go stop all the people.”
Wax models:
“English magic. This people savvy how to make woman same same for live.”
Babies in perambulators were remarkable because of the novelty of seeing infants carefully wheeled “in small motor-car” with a nurse in attendance, for in their own country their youngsters are carried on the backs of the womenfolk, or more or less left to take their chance of life by the hut doors.
Of all they saw, then and thereafter, Ali and Sakari frankly concluded, times without number:
“Ki! White men go catch plenty plenty sense! All savvy work plenty fine. They be kings of work—all!” “All the people go catch money for this country. It plenty sweet past our country.”