He did not harmonize with the omnibus group, being both too elegant and too high-spirited.  His proper role in the circumstances would have been to ‘jump into a hansom’; but there were no empty hansoms, and moreover, for certain reasons of finance, he had sworn off hansoms until a given date.  He regarded the situation as ‘rather a lark,’ and he somehow knew that the group understood and appreciated and perhaps resented his superior and tolerant attitude.  An omnibus rolled palely into the radiance of the Queen’s Elm lamp, the horses’ flanks and the lofty driver’s apron gleaming with rain.  He sprang towards the vehicle; the whole group sprang.  “Full inside!” snapped the conductor inexorably.  Ting, ting!  It was gone, glimmering with its enigmatic load into the distance.  George turned again to the wall, humiliated.  It seemed wrong that the conductor should have included him with the knot of common omnibus-travellers and late workers.  The conductor ought to have differentiated....  He put out a hand.  The rain had capriciously ceased!  He departed gaily and triumphantly.  He was re-endowed with the magical invulnerability.

The background of his mind was variegated.  The incidents of the tremendous motor-car race from Paris to Berlin, which had finished nearly a week earlier, still glowed on it.  And the fact that King Edward VII had driven in a car from Pall Mall to Windsor Castle in sixty minutes was beautifully present.  Then, he was slightly worried concerning the Mediterranean Fleet.  He knew nothing about it, but as a good citizen he suspected in idle moments, like a number of other good citizens, that all was not quite well with the Mediterranean Fleet.  As for the war, he had only begun to be interested in the war within the last six months, and already he was sick of it.  He knew that the Boers had just wrecked a British military train, and his attitude towards such methods of fighting was rather severe and scornful; he did not regard them as ‘war.’  However, the apparent permanence of the war was splendidly compensated by the victory of the brothers Doherty over the American lawn-tennis champions in the Gentlemen’s Doubles at Wimbledon.  Who could have expected the brothers to win after the defeat of R.H. by Mr. Gore in the Singles?  George had most painfully feared that the Americans would conquer, and their overthrowing by the twin brothers indicated to George, who took himself for a serious student of affairs, that Britain was continuing to exist, and that the new national self-depreciative, yearning for efficiency might possibly be rather absurd after all.