The Napoleon of Notting Hill
Buck walked to the window without replying.
"You understand, of course," he said at last, "I do not dream of giving in." ······ The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue omnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been greatly disturbed by these events, for, the affair was treated as a Notting Hill riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in the hands of a gang of recognised rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as they would have done if a road were being mended, and the omnibus on which the correspondent of the Court Journal was sitting swept round the corner of Queen's Road, Bayswater.
The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the speed at which it was going.
"Forward, my beauty, my Arab," he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he sleep side by side with thee—"
His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stoppage. Looking over the edge,
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