“This sort of thing will do occasionally in London,” Kit said, “where a cab costs a shilling. But we’ll have to come down to street cars again, or walking, when we get back to America.”
“Where are the high buildings, Kit?” Harry asked, after they had gone a few blocks. “These are all small affairs, so far. Can’t we have him drive past some of the tall buildings?”
“I’m afraid we should have hard work to find any,” Kit answered. “I have seen no buildings here more than six or eight stories high.”
“Six or eight stories!” Harry cried; “and they call this a great city! Why, there are some buildings in New York twenty-six stories high, and lots of them from twenty to twenty-five stories. Yes, it’s just as I expected: they brag so much about London, but I don’t believe it’s ‘in it’ at all beside America. They can’t fool me with their mummies, either, for I saw some in a museum in New York when I was there. I know a thing or two about dried Egyptians.”
As he was prepared to find fault with the mummies, it was not hard to be disappointed in them. “They’re a very ordinary lot,” he declared when he saw them. “Those in New York were all kings and emperors and such things, but these are just common people. They don’t look as life-like, either. Why, those fellows in New York seemed just ready to sit up and eat their dinner.”
Some mention being made of Buckingham Palace, Harry immediately became anxious to see it. “Not that I suppose it amounts to much,” he explained, “but we may as well see what sort of tenement houses they lodge their royal family in. Royal family, indeed! Why, in our country we’d elect a new queen every year or two if we had to have one at all.”
“Very well,” Kit assented; “I should rather like to see Buckingham Palace, too, and we can have a look at the Thames Embankment at the same time. We can walk over to Gower Street station and take the underground road to St. James Park station, and that is near the Palace. We both want to see the great underground railway, of course.”
Feeling surer of making his way in the main streets, Kit led Harry to Tottenham Court Road, and turned up Euston Road to the Gower Street station. In Euston Road they found a great many openings in the street and in the yards on each side, through which poured clouds of sulphurous smoke.
“Bah!” Harry cried, as one of the dirty clouds enveloped and half choked them; “there must be a sulphur mine underneath here, and it’s caught fire. Or do you suppose it’s a match factory?”
“I suppose these must be airholes for the underground road,” Kit replied; “for it runs under this street. But I don’t see how the people can stand such rank smoke, that’s a fact. And it’s cheerful to think that that’s the air we will have to breathe in the underground train.”