The streets were gay and crowded, partly with black and grey people who seemed to be going about some business or other, but starred beautifully here and there with bright-eyed, clear-skinned, slender youths in straw hats, something like Austin himself, enjoying their release from school. Phalanxes of smartly-dressed ladies impeded the traffic outside the windows of all the millinery shops, omnibuses rattled up and down in a never-ending procession, and strident urchins with little pink newspapers under their arms yelled for all they were worth. Austin, absorbed in the cheerful spectacle, sauntered hither and thither, now attracted by the fresh verdure of the Green Park, now gazing with vivid interest at the ever-varying types of humanity that surged around him; blissfully unconscious that every one was staring at him, as though wondering who the pale-faced boy with eager eyes and a shiny black wooden leg could be, and why he went zigzagging to and fro and peering so excitedly about as though he had never seen any shops or people in his life before. At last he arrived at the Corner, and, turning into the Park, spent a quarter of an hour watching the riders in Rotten Row; then he crossed to the Marble Arch, passing a vast array of gorgeous flowers in full bloom, listened wonderingly to an untidy orator demolishing Christianity for the benefit of a little knot of errand-boys and nursemaids, took another omnibus along Oxford Street to the Circus, and, after an enchanting walk down Regent Street, entered a bright little Italian restaurant in the Quadrant, where he had a delightful lunch. This disposed of, he found that he could afford a full hour to have a look at the National Gallery without danger of losing his train, and off he plodded towards Trafalgar Square to make the most of his opportunity.