So that amongst incidents seemingly trivial--a crying baby, a meeting of a tramp and his pal, the attempt of Arthur’s soldier son to choose between two rival candidates for his affection--there is revealed a whole depth of human helpfulness, and of human sympathy which is not helpful but is exceedingly desirous to be so. In one of Mr. Lyons’s exuberant evenings a man with a baby in his arms wearily drifts to the coffee-stall, waiting for the belated all-night tram. And at once this company of nightbirds and homeless populace become absorbed in one overwhelming problem--how to stop the baby crying. “Arthur” himself starts the enterprise. “I ain’t no amatoor at this business,” he cheerily remarks. “Soothin’ down babies is one of my specialities.” So he makes grimaces, shouts “Oy! oy! oy!” at the unfortunate infant, emits shrieks to imitate a locomotive in “a performance very unusual and distressing,” bays like a bloodhound (“trying the dawg on him,” he calls it), imitates various other animals--with disastrous effect. Arthur’s “man” then steps into the breach, “I know a dodge about babies,” he remarks. “First of all,” explained the specialist, “you turn ’im over on ’is chest. Then you say, ‘Hups a daisy! _There’s_ a little man!’ and thumps him on his back. Then you give ’im a fork or sich like to play with. Then you say, ‘Did ’e ’ave a dirty blackguard of a father then?’ (no offence to _you_, sir, only it’s the custom), and then you jerk ’im up an’ down, and ’old your breath till ’e falls asleep.” This also fails. The owner of the infant meanwhile imparts reminiscences of his life, his sister and the baby, full of intimate detail, to the friendly company. A “certain old drab,” half-starved, is stuffed with coffee and sardines and promised “tuppence” to stop the child’s “’ollering.” She immediately succeeds. The tram arrives; the father and child vanish in the night. It is twenty minutes past one o’clock--in a submerged, undistinguished corner of six millions of sleeping people. But all modern life is in it--the stupidity, the gravity, the generosity, the ready companionship and sympathy under misfortune which may be common to all, of half-lost, undistinguished people who normally travel through mean streets to no profitable end.