"Yes, yes, yes."
Everybody is excited and hopping about, put into a state of hysteria by the horrible hubbub and confusion.
"It's number 48."
The porter handling the truck leads the way to the cab platform and howls "Forty-ite! Forty-ite!"
"'Ere you are," shouts forty-eight, who is wedged in behind two hansoms.
By some miracle of driving he gets over or under or past the hansoms and comes to the platform. The steamer trunks are thrown on top and the porter, accepting the shilling with a "'k you, sir," slams the door behind you.
Then you can hear your driver overhead managing his way out of the blockade.
"Pull a bit forward, cahn't you?" he shouts. Then to someone else, "'Urry up, 'urry up, cahn't you?"
You are in a tangle of wheels and lamps, but you get out of it in some way, and then the rubber tires roll easily along the spattering pavement of a street which seems heavenly quietude.
This is the time to lean back and try to realise that you are in London. The town may be common and time-worn to those people going in and out of the shops, but to you it is a storehouse of novelties, a library of things to be learned, a museum of the landmarks of history.