Wood Green and Newington Butts were startled on one day by the vision of this Apollonian creature striding in his proud beauty adown their dim byways; next day it was the turn of Tulse Hill and Hornsey Rise to know a second dawn, and then perhaps a sudden light brightened the lives of the obscure denizens of Poultry.
His keen eye soon noticed that ’busses had numbers.
“Really? Really? Is that so?” Uncle Wilkie had asked incredulously as they sat together in the Albany waiting to see in the New, and, as it turned out, so eventful, Year.[7]
[7] This would make the exact date of this interesting incident December 31st. (Lit. Exec.)
“Yes, isn’t it quaint?” nodded Gaveston. “And to-morrow I’m going to take a Number 1, and the day after that a Number 2, and so on till I really know my London.”
And the old rake roared at the lad’s witty caracoling.
One evening, too, when Gaveston, a trifle tired but still alert in every faculty, came back from one of these marvellous expeditions, his uncle greeted him in the Albany colonnade.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t. It’s beyond belief, m’ boy!”
“What can that be, uncle?” asked Gaveston with smiling calm.