The waiters start in at the far end of the room and turn out a few lights.  Drawing nearer and nearer to you they turn out more lights; and finally, by way of strengthening the hint, they turn out the lights immediately above your head, which leaves you in the stilly dark with no means of seeing your food even; unless you have taken the precaution to spread phosphorus on your sandwich instead of mustard—­which, however, is seldom done.  A better method is to order a portion of one of the more luminous varieties of imported cheese.

The best thing of all, however, is to take your hat and stick and go away from there.  And then, unless you belong to a regular club or carry a card of admission to one of the chartered all-night clubs that have sprung up so abundantly in London, and which are uniformly stuffy, stupid places where the members take their roistering seriously—­or as a last resort, unless you care to sit for a tiresome hour or two in the grill of your hotel—­you might as well be toddling away to bed; that is to say, you might as well go to bed unless you find the scenes in the street as worth while as I found them.

At this hour London’s droning voice has abated to a deep, hoarse snore; London has become a great, broody giant taking rest that is troubled by snatches of wakefulness; London’s grimy, lined face shows new wrinkles of shadow; and new and unexpected clumping of colors in monotone and halftone appear.  From the massed-up bulk of things small detached bits stand vividly out:  a flower girl whose flowers and whose girlhood are alike in the sere and yellow leaf; a soldier swaggering by, his red coat lighting up the grayish mass about him like a livecoal in an ashheap; a policeman escorting a drunk to quarters for the night—­not, mind you, escorting him in a clanging, rushing patrol wagon, which would serve to attract public attention to the distressing state of the overcome one, but conveying him quietly, unostentatiously, surreptitiously almost, in a small-wheeled vehicle partaking somewhat of the nature of a baby carriage and somewhat of the nature of a pushcart.

The policeman shoves this along the road jailward and the drunk lies at rest in it, stretched out full length, with a neat rubber bedspread drawn up over his prostrate form to screen him from drafts and save his face from the gaze of the vulgar.  Drunkards are treated with the tenderest consideration in London; for, as you know, Britons never will be slaves—­though some of them in the presence of a title give such imitations of being slaves as might fool even so experienced a judge as the late Simon Legree; and —­as perchance you may also have heard—­an Englishman’s souse is his castle.  So in due state they ride him and his turreted souse to the station house in a perambulator.