When we got beyond the shops I said to the cabman:
“Do you know exactly the way you have come?”
“Yes, miss,” he said.
“Then go back precisely the same way.”
“Have you lost something, miss?” he inquired.
“Yes,” I said, “I have lost an impression, and I must look till I find it.”
“Very good, miss,” he said.
If I had said, “I have carelessly let fall my cathedral,” or, “I have lost my orang-outang. Look for him!” an imperturbable British cabby would only touch his cap and say, “Very good, miss!”
So we followed our own trail back to “The Insular.” “In this way,” I said to my sister, “we both get a complete view. To-morrow we will do it all over again.”
But we found that we could not wait for the morrow. We did it all over again that afternoon, and that second time I was able in a measure to detach myself from the hum and buzz and the dizzying effect of foreign faces, and I began to locate impressions. My first distinct recollections are of the great numbers of high hats on the men, the ill-hanging skirts and big feet of the women, the unsteadying effect of all those thousands of cabs, carriages, and carts all going to the left, which kept me constantly wishing to shriek out, “Go to the right or we’ll all be killed,” the absolutely perfect manner in which traffic was managed, and the majestic authority of the London police.