Among them you may find . . . . real treasures at the price of trash.
Also, I found a paper-covered copy of an Indian edition of Kipling’s early tales, and many such pleasant wares.
The fruit shops, too, have treasures both new and second-hand. This seemed strange to me, at first, and I learned of it by hearing a fellow-customer ask to hire a few pines.
After her departure I inquired of the shopman the meaning of it all.
He obligingly told me that many of his finest specimens of pineapples, canteloupes, Hamburg grapes, and other spectacular fruits, could be rented out for banquets night after night, with but slight wear and tear on their beauty and bloom. One enormous bunch of black grapes, as perfect as the colour studies of fruit that used to appear as supplements to the Art Amateur, he caressed fondly, as he told me it had been rented out for the last nine nights, and was yet good for another week’s work.
I then remembered the architectural triumphs of fruits that had graced many of the dinner tables I had smiled at, and I marvelled afresh at the English thrift.
“He told me it had been rented out for the last nine nights.”
All shops, streets, theatres, and traffic merge and congest in a perfect orgy of noise, motion, and color at Piccadilly Circus.
The first humorous story I heard in London was of the man who, returning from a festal function, inquired of the policeman, “Is this Piccadilly Circus, or is it Tuesday?” That story seems to me the epitome of London humor, and also a complete description of Piccadilly Circus.