on a london stroll

It was his practice, when walking through London, to look hopefully about him on the chance of exciting things happening. Nothing of the slightest interest had ever happened yet, and he had sometimes felt discouraged. But Bond Street restored his optimism. This, he felt, was a spot where anything might occur at any moment.
Here if anywhere, he said to himself, might beautiful women in slinky clothes sidle up to a man and slip into his hand the long envelope containing the Naval Treaty stolen that morning from a worried Foreign Office, mistaking him - on the strength of the carnation in his buttonhole - for Flash Alec, their accomplice. [big money]