All this time we had been going eastward into the city of London, and now we were arrived at the most extraordinary scene of confusion you can possibly imagine. I should be afraid to say how many 'buses and cabs were struggling and surging in a small open space at the junction of several streets. Foot-passengers in hundreds bustled along the pavements or dodged between the horses, and, immobile in the midst of it, the inevitable policeman appeared actually to be sifting this mob according to some mysterious scheme.
“Cheer-O,” cried my friend upon the box. “'Ow's the price o' lime-juice this morning?
“That there's wot we calls the Bank, sir, where the Queen keeps 'er money, and the Rothschilds and the like o' them; guarded by seven 'undred of the flower o' the British army, it is, the hofficer bein' hinvariably a millionaire hisself, in case he's tempted to steal. Garn yerself and git yer face syringed with a fire-'ose. You can't clean it no 'ow else. The 'andsome hedifice to your right, sir, is the Mansion 'Ouse; not the station of that name, but the 'ome of the Lord Mayor; kind o' governor of the city, 'e is; 'as a hextraordinary show of 'is own on taking the hoath of hofflce; people comes all the way from Halgiers and San Francisco to see it; camels and 'orses got up like chargers of the holden time, and men disguised so as their own girls wouldn't know 'em. Representing harts, hindustries, and hempire, that's their game. Pleeceman, them there bloomin' whiskers of yours will get mowed off by a four-wheel cab some day, and then 'ow'll you look? Too bloomin' funny, am I? More'n them whiskers is, hinterfering with the traffic like that.”
“Yes, sir, we 'as a rest 'ere for a few minutes; we ain't near at the end yet, though.”
I shall leave it to your judgment to guess which of these remarks were addressed to me and which to various of his countrymen in this vortex of wheels and human beings. For a few minutes he now sat at ease in a quieter street (though, my faith! no street in this city of London but would seem busy in most towns), apparently deliberating what topic to enter upon next. I say apparently deliberating, but on further acquaintance with my good “Halfred,” as he called himself (the aspirated form of “Alfred” used by the cockney Alfred being the name of England's famous monarch), I came to the conclusion that his mind never was known to go through any such process. What came first into his head flew straight to his tongue, till by constant use that organ had got into a state of unstable equilibrium, like the tongue of a toy mandarin, that oscillates for five minutes if you move him ever so gently.
In a word, Halfred was an inveterate chatterbox.
Even had I been that very compatriot of mine who had so deeply, and, I could not but admit, so justly, roused his ire, he would, I am sure, have chattered just as hard.