“That’s the best wish you’ve had yet,” said Jane with cordial approval. Just by the Bank the cabman stopped. “I ain’t agoin’ to drive you no further,” he said. “Out you gets.” They got out rather unwillingly. “I wants my tea,” he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was a mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a spotted currant pudding. Also a large can. “You pay me my fare,” he said threateningly, and looked down at the mound, muttering again about his tea. “We’ll take another cab,” said Cyril with dignity. “Give me change for a sovereign, if you please.” But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all. Already a little crowd was collecting round the party. “Come on,” said Robert, leading the wrong way. The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the pavement talking very loudly. “How ugly their clothes are,” said the Queen of Babylon. “They’d be rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.” And of course, it was so. The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress. All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses. A stupefied silence fell on them. “I say,” a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that silence, “it’s only fancy of course—something wrong with my eyes—but you chaps do look so rum.” “Rum,” said his friend. “Look at _you_. You in a sash! My hat! And your hair’s gone black and you’ve got a beard. It’s my belief we’ve been poisoned. You do look a jackape.” “Old Levinstein don’t look so bad. But how was it _done_—that’s what I want to know. How _was_ it done? Is it conjuring, or what?” “I think it is chust a ver’ bad tream,” said old Levinstein to his clerk; “all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people have their hants full of food—_goot_ food. Oh yes, without doubt a very bad tream!” “Then I’m dreaming too, sir,” said the clerk, looking down at his legs with an expression of loathing. “I see my feet in beastly sandals as plain as plain.” “All that goot food wasted,” said old Mr Levinstein. A bad tream—a bad tream.” The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a noisy lot. But the noise they made now to express their disgust at the costumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. One had to shout before one could hear oneself speak.