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I made a study of German London, which, at that time, before something happened like an earthquake, had as many German clubs as any good-sized city of the Fatherland, and several German churches, workers’ unions, theatrical and musical societies.

In Soho I poked about French London, lunched at the Petit Riche or dined at the Gourmet, and between Wardour Street and Old Compton Street met the French girls who made artificial flowers for the ballets and pantomimes, silk tights for the fairies of the footlights, and embroidered shoes which twinkled on the boards.

Italy in London was one of my earliest discoveries as a young writer in search of the picturesque. It was but a ten minutes’ walk from my first office, and often in lunch time I used to saunter that way, stopping to listen to the English cheap-jacks in Leather Lane, on the other side of Holborn, and then plunging into a labyrinth of narrow lanes and courtyards entirely inhabited by Italians.

It was a little Naples, in its color, its smells, its dirt. Across the courtyards Italian women stretched their “washing”; and blue petticoats and scarlet bodices, and silk scarves for women’s hair gave vivid color to these London alleys. The women, as beautiful as Raphael’s Madonnas, sang at their washtubs, surrounded by swarms of bambini.