"How horrible London is to-night," Julian said as he and Valentine got
into their cab.
"Yes. Why add to our necessary contemplation of its horrors? Why go on
this mad errand?"
"I want you to see Marr," Julian replied, with a curious obstinacy. He
pushed up the trap in the roof.
"Drive to the European Hotel, in the Euston Road," he said to the cabman.
"D' you know it?"
"Yes, sir," the cabman said. He was smiling on his perch as he cracked
his whip and drove towards the Circus.
The glass had been let down and the two friends beheld a continuously
blurred prospect of London framed in racing raindrops and intersected
by the wooden framework of the movable shutter. It was at the same time
fantastic and tumultuous. The glare of light at the Circus shone over
the everlasting procession of converging omnibuses, the everlasting mob
of prostitutes and of respectable citizens waiting to mount into the
vehicles whose paint proclaimed their destination. Active walkers darted
dexterously to and fro over the cobblestones, occasionally turning
sharply to swear at a driver whose cab had bespattered their black
conventionality with clinging dirt. The drivers were impassively
insulting, as became men placed for the moment in a high station of
life.
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