Who is he, this young man who strolls towards us down Regent Street, a carnation in his collar and a cane in his hand? We may deduce that he is well off, since he is dressed in the most fashionable clothes – but we would be wrong; we may deduce that he likes fine things, since he stops to look in the window of Liberty, the new department store devoted to the latest styles – or is that simply his own reflection he is admiring, the curling locks that brush his shoulders, quite unlike the other passer-by’s? We may deduce that he is hungry, since his footsteps speed up noticeably as they take him towards the Café Royal, that labyrinth of gossip and dining rooms off Piccadilly; and that he is a regular here, from the way he greets the waiter by name, and takes a Pall Mall Gazette from the rack as he moves towards a table. Perhaps we may even conclude that he is a writer, from the way he pauses to jot something down in that calfskin-leather pocket book he carries...
