Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

2 50 Walking Tours
talking, laughing, and gesticulating to himself.
His face changes from time to time, as
indignation flashes from his eyes or anger
clouds his forehead. He is composing
articles, delivering orations, and conducting
the most impassioned interviews, by the
way. A little farther on, and it is as like as
not he will begin to sing. And well for
him, supposing him to be no great master in
that art, if he stumble across no stolid peasant
at a corner ; for on such an occasion, I
scarcely know which is the more troubled, or
whether it is worse to suffer the confusion of
your troubadour, or the unfeigned alarm of
your clown. A sedentary population, accus-
tomed, besides, to the strange mechanical
bearing of the common tramp, can in no
wise explain to itself the gaiety of these
passers-by. I knew one man who was
arrested as a runaway lunatic, because, al-
though a full-grown person with a red beard,
he skipped as he went like a child. And
you would be astonished if I were to tell you
all the grave and learned heads who have