Ah, The Big Smoke! The largest of the walled cities and one of endless delights.
It's a place where a fellow may step out of his front door with no particular plan in mind and yet find himself, before luncheon, having acquired a new hat, a pressing engagement at his club, a minor scandal to his name and some cryptic clue about the whereabouts of that much prized Splendidium out in the back-and-beyond.
It is a place where the streets throng with the industrious, the intoxicated, and the thoroughly perplexed, where hansom cabs, motorcars, and the occasional determined bicycle weave through the chaos cheerful disregard for life and limb on their actual faces. Getting shouted out by a bicycle is worth the entrance fee alone.
The air is thick with the scent of roasting chestnuts, fresh ink from the morning papers, and whatever it is that gets trodden in by Bounders from outside the city's magical walls.
In the parks, small dogs of aristocratic lineage trot beside their owners, casting baleful looks at any pedestrian who dares to be insufficiently distinguished, while in the gentlemen’s clubs house elderly majors slumbering peacefully under the delusion that they are there making plans for another foray into the wild wilderness. Theatres glitter, restaurants bustle, and at every hour of the day or night, one can find a cheerful establishment willing to serve a man a bracing cocktail and a word of encouragement before he sallies forth once more into the cruel world beyond the city walls.