I wondered what on earth this superior person was doing there standing back behind a sack spread with antiques. Was it his hobby, or was it a bet?
"I think," went on the Oxford voice, "you will agree with me that the hieroglyphs were added at a later period. Perhaps during the Ptolemaic age, though I think the figure is much older, possibly Eighteenth Dynasty."
I was astonished to hear this in the Caledonian Market.
"No, indeed, sir, I do not do this for fun: I do it for bread and butter. Since the war, you know! Yes; I make enough to live. I have a flair for antiques. I buy cheaply and sell reasonably, and collectors always come to me."
Strange spot, the Caledonian Market!
As I went out I was offered another skeleton for ten shillings.
Cenotaph
Ten-thirty A.M. in Whitehall on a cold, grey February morning.
There is expectancy at the Horse Guards, where two living statues draped in scarlet cloaks sit their patient chargers. A group of sightseers wait at the gates for the high note of a silver cavalry trumpet for the click of hoofs on the cobbles and a shining cavalcade beneath an arch, the pageantry that precedes that silent ceremony of changing a guard that "turns out" for no man but the King.