Palpitating

As the door opened there came a tumultuous rush into the hall, rapid feet clattered up the stair, and an instant later a wild-eyed and frantic young man, pale, dishevelled, and palpitating, burst into the room.

Is your heart palpitating?

Glorious London! Leviathan of human greed; palpitating hot-bed of iniquity and joy; Greek, Roman, Spanish, Saxon, Kelt, Scot, Pict, Norman and Dane have swept over thee like winter storms; and the mighty Cæsar, Julius of old, with a myriad of bucklered warriors and one hundred galleons of sailors, triple-oared mariners, defying wave and fate, have ploughed the placid face of Father Thames, startling the loud cry of hawk and bittern as his royal prows grated on thy strand, or skimmed over the marshes of thy infancy.

The circus, therefore, took on the proportions of a high holy day in my personal calendar and, just as I lived from Christmas to Christmas, I lived from circus to circus with equal palpitating anticipation.