“Yes, sir, they do,” the young clerk answered. “And I am one of them. If I had half a chance, I should go to America myself.”
The setting sun gave warning to the sight-seers that it was time to bring their excursion to an end. Both Kit and the Captain urged Watkins to return to Gravesend and eat supper with them on the North Cape; but he still had work to do in the office, and the party separated in Trafalgar Square, Captain Griffith and Kit taking a ’bus to the Fenchurch Street station, whence a train soon carried them to Tilbury, opposite Gravesend.
“Now, Silburn,” the Captain said that evening while they sat in the cabin, “I want you to answer those questions I asked you to-day. What have you to say about the traffic in the London streets?”
“They are the most crowded streets I ever saw, sir,” Kit answered; “but it does not seem to me that there is any more business done in them than in a great many other streets I have seen. I looked out for big trucks, express wagons, baggage vans, and such things, but did not see a great many. The crowding seemed to me to be done by the great number of ’buses and hansoms. If the ’buses were taken away, there would be no great crowd in the London streets. So if they had the same modern means of transit that we have in our American cities, fast cable and electric cars and such things, there would be plenty of room.”
“And the public buildings?” the Captain asked.
“Some of them must have been very fine when they were new, sir,” Kit replied; “but they are so dark with smoke and dirt and age that they make a fellow feel gloomy. I should think the Londoners would have the blues most all the time, with their dark buildings and those terrible fogs. It is a great place, of course; but somehow it doesn’t seem to me exactly like a city. It seems more like a lot of big villages that have grown together.”
“Ah, they’re not going to make an Englishman of you, that’s certain!” the Captain laughed. “But you are right in both the opinions you have given. It is the lack of quick transit that crowds the streets; and modern London is not exactly a city, but a collection of large towns that have grown together. You will be quite an expert in cities some day, if you study their points so carefully.”
CHAPTER X.
A LETTER FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT.
“I THINK it’s a mean way to treat a fellow, Kit,” Harry Leonard complained when they were alone together. “Oh, you needn’t think I’m going to be calling you Mr. Silburn when nobody else can hear. I want a chance to see something of London, and you know very well it’s only fair I should have. I haven’t been allowed ashore since we came into the Thames. You always used to go ashore when you were cabin boy, for you’ve told me so.”