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inexplicable businesses of all these infinitesimal beings. In the
aggregate it had no other colour than confusion for him....
He is said to have plucked a lady from her carriage in Kensington, a
lady in evening dress of the smartest sort, to have scrutinised her
closely, train and shoulder blades, and to have replaced her--a little
carelessly--with the profoundest sigh. For that I cannot vouch. For an
hour or so he watched people fighting for places in the omnibuses at the
end of Piccadilly. He was seen looming over Kennington Oval for some
moments in the afternoon, but when he saw these dense thousands were
engaged with the mystery of cricket and quite regardless of him he went
his way with a groan.
He came back to Piccadilly Circus between eleven and twelve at night
and found a new sort of multitude. Clearly they were very intent: full
of things they, for inconceivable reasons, might do, and of others they
might not do. They stared at him and jeered at him and went their way.
The cabmen, vulture-eyed, followed one another continually along the
edge of the swarming pavement. People emerged from the restaurants or
entered them, grave, intent, dignified, or gently and agreeably excited
or keen and vigilant--beyond the cheating of the sharpest waiter born.
The great giant, standing at his corner, peered at them all. "What is it
all for?" he murmured in a mournful vast undertone, "What is it all
for? They are all so earnest. What is it I do not understand?"
And none of them seemed to see, as he could do, the drink-sodden
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