Voices were cold and clear, echoing, as it seemed, against the straight, grey walls of the houses, and all the trees in the garden glistened with their wet leaves shining with gold; there seemed to be, too, a dim veil of smoke that was homely and comfortable.
It is not usual to see a small boy of four alone in a London square, but Bim met, at first, no one except a messenger boy, who stopped and looked after him.

At the corner of the Square--just out of the Square so that it might not shame its grandeur--was a fruit and flower shop, and this shop was the entrance to a street that had much life and bustle about it.

Here Bim paused with his money-box clasped very tightly to him.

Then he made a step or two and was instantly engulfed, it seemed, in a perfect whirl of men and women, of carts and bicycles, of voices and cries and screams; there were lights of every colour, and especially one far above his head that came and disappeared and came again with terrifying wizardry.
He was, quite suddenly, and as it were, by the agency of some outside person, desperately frightened.

It was a new terror, different from anything that he had known before.