Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/129

 nose with a spring, and all the rest of it. When he has an appointment you'll see him burst out of the front door and rush down the street, jerking his watch out every few yards, his coat tails flying and his top-hat lowered like a battering-ram. It's a wonder he doesn't telescope into that hat against something.

He is a good magazine writer, and a grand chap personally; and when I get him quiet for an hour he's just the same old chap I knew in Sydney. He has had a gruelling which he will never forget. Some day I'll tell you about his life in London—the tragedy of it scared me. Talk about heroes!

But where was I? Oh, about St. Paul's and those places. I went through St. Paul's because I found myself on the steps and couldn't think of anywhere else to go just then. I went through the Art Gallery and the Abbey because my literary friend rushed me round and through those places. I must go and see for myself later on.

St. Paul's is one of those places which are built too big, in a way, to look large. Looming out of London, it does not appear more imposing than a big corrugated iron shed looming out of the lonely scrubs Out Back in Australia, and certainly less impressive when you are properly impressed (or rather oppressed) by the extent and loneliness of the mighty Bush.

I haven't seen the ruins of ancient lands—probably they would impress me; but as far as I have seen of the works of modern man, I can't help thinking that when he sets to work to build a great, useless building with an eye to bigness only he succeeds in putting up a