"You can have either ham, sir, or eggs. Not both."
And we learned something else, too. You couldn't order more than thirty cents' worth of food at one sitting. It's against the law, and, what's more, you can't treat a pal; you can't even treat a girl, which ought to please some people I know back home.
We didn't stay in that joint. We tried four others with the same result. I never wanted to spend money so badly before in my life.
What got me was the work the women are doing in London. Women bus drivers--women street cleaners--women baggage smashers--and all of them the healthiest lot of girls I've ever seen--red cheeks and clear eyes and a smile for us always.
"Will you let us wish on you?" they'd cry. Of course we let them. I only hope their wishes came true.
But, say, night in London is one great party. It gets dusk, and, if you're on to what you are in for, you make a bee-line for where you are going, before the light fades entirely--or you don't get there. We didn't know that, so we planned to go to the Hippodrome; but we waited until dark. Say, talk about pitch black! It's pale beside London at night!
Imagine Broadway with not a single light--not even a pale glimmer. Imagine it filled with thousands and thousands of people, bumping into each other--talking, laughing, whispering.
No wagons or street-cars--nothing on wheels, except an ambulance, which crawls about with weird blue lights, very dim. Just crowds and crowds, knocking your hat off, stepping on your feet, taking your arm by mistake. Men apologizing. Girls giggling. Voices coming from nowhere. Forms brushing by and vanishing.
The streets are full. I think every last person in London must turn out after dark. It is one big adventure. You never forget it. You don't know where you are or where you are going--no one seems to. When you get tired you stop someone and ask the way to a rooming house. If they know they lead you along. You feel a door. You open it and close it cautiously behind yourself. You are in a dark vestibule. You cross a black hall groping before you. Suddenly your hand touches two curtains drawn close. You part them. Beyond is light at last. You enter the living-room of the house. Someone quietly draws the curtains so no faintest glimmer will penetrate the outer darkness. Say, it was some experience!