“We’ll take another cab,” said Cyril with dignity. “Give me change for a sovereign, if you please.”
But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all.
Already a little crowd was collecting round the party.
“Come on,” said Robert, leading the wrong way.
The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the pavement talking very loudly.
“How ugly their clothes are,” said the Queen of Babylon. “They’d be rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.”
And of course, it was so.
The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress.
All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses.
A stupefied silence fell on them.