It was also a London wherein I found, wherever I went, a people whose spirits were, nevertheless, high; human beings whose chins were up. The typical Cockney taxi-driver who brought me from Waterloo to my long-time headquarters, the Savoy, summed it all up on my arrival, when he said: “We’ll come out of this orlrite. We weren’t born in the good old English climate for nothin’. It’s all a bit of a disappointment; but we’re used to disappointments, we are. Why when ah was a kid as we ’ad a nice little picnic all arranged for Saturday afternoon, as sure as fate it rained and the bleedin’ picnic was put orf again.... We’re goin’ to ’ave our picnic one day; this ’ere picnic’s just been put orf, that’s all....” As the porters were disposing of my luggage, the genial commissionaire at the Savoy, Joe Hanson, added his bit to the general optimism. After greeting me, he asked me if I had heard about the shipwreck in the Thames, opposite the Savoy. I had not, and wondered how I had missed the news of such a catastrophe. “Well, it was like this, guv’nor,” he said. “Churchill, Eden, Atlee and Ernie Bevin went out on the river in a small boat to look the place over. Just as they were a-passin’ the ’otel ’ere, a sudden squall blew up and the boat was capsized.” He paused and blew his nose vociferously into a capacious kerchief. “Who do you think was saved?” “Churchill?” I enquired. He shook his head in the negative. “Eden?” He shook his head. “Atlee?” Again he shook his head. “Bevin?” Once more the negative. “No one saved?” I could hardly believe my ears. “Ah, there’s where you’re wrong, sir.... _England_ was saved!” The commissionaire’s big frame shook with prideful laughter. I freshened myself in my room and went down to my favorite haunt, my London H. Q., as I like to call it, the Savoy Grill, that gathering place of the theatrical, musical, literary, and balletic worlds of London. One of the Savoy Grill’s chief fixtures, and for me one of its most potent attractions, was the always intriguing buffet, with my favorite Scottish salmon. This time the buffet, while putting up a brave decorative front, was a little disappointing and, to tell the truth, a shade depressing. But a glance at the entertainment advertisements in _The Times_ (the “Thunderer,” I noted, was now a four-page sheet) showed me that the entertainment world was in full swing, and there was excitement in the air. I dined alone in the Grill, then returned to my room and changed to black tie and all, for it was to be a festive evening, and walked the short distance between the Savoy Hotel and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I was going to the ballet in a completely non-professional capacity, as a member of the audience, going for the sheer fun of going, with nary a balletic problem on my mind.