Early on the morning of a Tuesday in the second half of June 1903, George Cannon¹ was moving fast on a motor-bicycle westwards down the slope of Piccadilly. At any rate he had the sensation of earliness, and was indeed thereby² quite invigorated; it almost served instead of the breakfast which he had not yet taken. But thousands of people travelling in the opposite direction in horse-omnibuses and in a few motor-buses seemed to regard the fact of their being abroad at that hour as dully normal. They had fought, men and girls, for places in the crammed³ vehicles; they had travelled from far lands such as Putney; they had been up for hours, and the morning, which was so new to George, had lost its freshness for them; they were well used to the lustrous⁴ summer glories of the Green Park; what they chiefly beheld⁵ in the Green Park was the endless lines of wayfarers⁶, radiating from Victoria along the various avenues, on the way, like themselves, to offices, ware-houses, and shops. Of the stablemen, bus-washers, drivers, mechanics, chauffeurs⁸, and conductors, who had left their beds much in advance even of the travellers, let us not speak—even they had begun the day later than their wives, mothers, or daughters. All this flying population, urged and preoccupied⁹ by pitiless time, gazed down upon George and saw a gay young swell¹⁰ without a care in the world rushing on 'one of those motor-bikes' to freedom.