From north, south, east, and west the people flocked, springing as it were from the very earth. The news came in at 10 A.M. By eleven the City was alive with drama. Hats were being waved or flung into the air, regardless of the effect upon the nap; flags from here, there, and everywhere fluttered--in default of these, other brandishable things were seized. Sometimes handkerchiefs did duty, newspapers, and even parcels and commercial bags; and from tongues innumerable came cheers and shouts and snatches of patriotic song, till an ignorant spectator, if one such there could have been, might have imagined Bedlam to have broken loose. "Rule Britannia," "God save the Queen," "Tommy Atkins," "The Absent-Minded Beggar"--all tunes poured forth to an accompaniment of cheers. The Lord Mayor was called out, and appeared on his balcony. He was forthwith invited to speak. The great man opened and shut his mouth--he was much moved with the general emotion--but no sound penetrated the uproar. Cheers loud and vehement tore the air, and the walls of the civic domain literally shook with the inspiriting fracas. Then for a moment or two there was a lull, and taking advantage of the opportunity, in a short sincere speech the Lord Mayor expressed himself. "Fellow-citizens, this news of the relief of Ladysmith makes our hearts leap with joy. We are now satisfied that at last our sacrifices of blood and treasure are not in vain!" Upon that the crowd roared itself hoarse, sung "For he's a jolly good fellow," and never with better cause, for Sir A. J. Newton had put the best of himself into the launching of the glorious C.I.V.'s. By-and-by came, with banners and much ceremony, a deputation from the Stock Exchange, and after them waves on waves of shouting enthusiasts--a spectacle so un-English, so genuine, so unrestrained, that the gloomy decorous regions of the City seemed suddenly to have become things apart, card-houses to fill in the background to a soul-stirring scene. Everywhere, in the alleys of "'Arriet," in the haunts of the "wild, wild West," at the Bank, in Leadenhall Market, and along the Thames, went up the jubilant echo--"Ladysmith is relieved!" Whereupon windows and balconies were dressed, flags, red, white, and blue, and the green of Erin with its romantic harp in the corner, fluttered wings of ecstasy from every British nest, and from every British household there rose unanimously a rapturous cry that was almost a sob, a cry of thanksgiving that the end had come, and that Ladysmith and the honour of the old country were saved! THE FORMAL ENTRY