Chapter Four: TURGIS SEES HER

I

Turgis was not lazy and while he was in the office he preferred doing something to doing nothing, but he did not share Mr. Smeeth’s enthusiasm for office work and never regarded himself as one of the firm. It was all very well for Twigg & Dersingham to be suddenly busy again, indeed much busier than they had ever been before, but Turgis did not see the fun of going hard at it all day and every day and frequently having to stay an hour later. No doubt somebody was doing well out of it, but he, Turgis, was getting nothing out of it but a great deal more work. He grumbled about this to Mr. Smeeth. It was Saturday morning; he had just received his fortnight’s pay, six pound notes, one ten-shilling note, and two florins; and it was a time for such confidences.

“All right, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the manner of a person who knew a great deal. “That’s your point of view, isn’t it?”

Turgis, a little diffidently now, for he had a considerable respect for Mr. Smeeth if no particular liking for him, replied that it was.

“Now let me tell you something, my boy,” Mr. Smeeth continued gravely. “Just a week or two ago—I’ll tell you exactly what day it was; it was the day Mr. Golspie first called here—Mr. Dersingham was talking things over with me, in that room there. I’m telling you this in confidence, mind. And Mr. Dersingham said the office expenses were too big and somebody would have to go. And it looked as if that somebody would be you.”

“Me!” Turgis’s mouth, always open a little, was now wide open, for his jaw suddenly dropped.

“You, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the satisfied air of a man who has produced the desired effect. “It was touch and go whether I told you that very day. I’m glad I didn’t because you might have got a fright for nothing. Now it’s all right, of course. We’re busy, and we need everybody. But when you want to start grumbling about a bit of extra work, my boy, just you remember that. You might have been looking for work now, and I’ll bet you wouldn’t have liked that, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t, Mr. Smeeth,” replied Turgis, humbly enough.

“And I don’t blame you.” Feeling fairly confident, for once, about his own job, Mr. Smeeth had a great desire to enlarge upon this topic, which had for him a terrible fascination. “Jobs aren’t easy to get, are they?”

“Not if you haven’t influence and you’re not in the know, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, who was a great believer in the mysterious power of influence and being in the know, and realised only too well that there were few people in London who had less influence or were further from the know than himself. “That’s the trouble. I seen it myself. You can’t get a look in. I’d a packet—my words, I’d a packet—before I got taken on here. Trailin’ round, queueing up, round again—oh, dear! You know what it’s like.”

“No, I don’t,” Mr. Smeeth returned, sharply.

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Smeeth. Of course, you don’t. I do, though. Oo, it’s sorful,” cried Turgis earnestly. “’S’not getting any better either. Well I’m glad you told me, Mr. Smeeth. I’d better keep my mouth shut a bit, hadn’t I? It is all right now, isn’t it?”

“Quite all right. You do your best for us,” Mr. Smeeth added sententiously, “and we’ll do our best for you.”

Turgis came nearer, and lowered his voice when he spoke. “D’you think, Mr. Smeeth, there’ll be any chance of a rise, now I’m getting all this extra work? Ought to be, oughtn’t there? I mean, I’m not getting a lot really, am I?”

“You leave it alone a bit, Turgis, and just do your best, and then I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I wish you would, Mr. Smeeth. You see, it’s not as if I’d got anybody helping me with my work, ’cos this new typist doesn’t really help me out much, does she? And if you could—just—you know—say something to Mr. Golspie or Mr. Dersingham, because, you know, Mr. Smeeth, I am doing my best, and you mustn’t think I want to grumble, ’cos I don’t.”

The new typist had been a great disappointment to Turgis, not because she was of no assistance to him in his work but because she was not the attractive young creature his heated fancy had conjured up to fill the post. Miss Poppy Sellers, with her unfortunate Oriental effect which merely resulted in dinginess and untidiness, did not seem to him at all pretty. At the end of the first morning, though he was flattered by her awe of him, he had dismissed her as a very poor bit of girl stuff. When he had heard that the firm was advertising for another typist, a younger girl to help Miss Matfield, he had had instant visions of working side by side with one of those really pretty ones he often noticed making their way about the City. There were one or two good ones in Angel Pavement itself: quite a pretty piece downstairs with the Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co.; another not so dusty who went up the stairs next door to C. Warstein: Tailors’ Trimmings; and a real beauty—one to make your mouth water, a peach—at Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings, at the end of the street. And there were two or three worth looking at, the flashy young Jewessy type, at Chase & Cohen’s Carnival Novelties place at the end. Any one of these girls, walking into Twigg & Dersingham’s, would have lit up the place for him, and the day’s routine would have become an adventure. But they must go and choose this dreary-looking kid with the fringe. It was just his luck. Two girls working in the same office, and neither of them any good. Miss Matfield was all right in her way, of course, but then she was too big, too old, and far too “posh” and bossy for him, even if she had ever showed any sign—and, so far, she hadn’t—of being really interested in his existence. This other one, Polly Sellers, was interested enough, quite ready to be friends, but then, well—look at her.

The maddening thing about it—and it really was maddening to Turgis—was that all these other ripe and adorable girls (he thought of them as “fine bits”) were all over the place, walking in and out of offices, sitting in corners of teashops, elbowing him sometimes (and he was always there to be elbowed) in buses and tube trains, so that you might have thought they worked for everybody in the City but Twigg & Dersingham. And it was no better, perhaps it was worse, when he was roaming about for pleasure and not simply going to and from the office. Everywhere he saw them, never missed seeing them. His mind was for ever busy with their images, for ever troubled by them. No matter where he went, he was tantalised, the path underneath his feet a narrow dusty track of wilderness but all hung about with rich forbidden clusters of feminine fruit, shrinking, withering, vanishing, at a touch.

Turgis was by temperament a lover. His thoughts never left the other sex long; happiness had for him a feminine shape; the real world was illuminated by the bright glances of girls; and at any moment, one of them might reveal to him an enchanted life they could share together. It would be easy to see him as a lonely lad seeking sympathy in that crowd in which he was lost. It would be just as easy to see him as a figure of furtive lusts, whose mind descended and there lived eagerly in an underworld of tiny mean contacts, seemingly accidental pressures of the arm and the foot. Yet behind both these figures was the lover. And this, in spite of his shabbiness and unprepossessing looks, the shiny baggy suit, and the frayed tie, the open mouth, that slight pastiness and spottiness, that faint grey film which seemed to cover and subdue his physical self. He was no dapper lady-killer. But then if Turgis, even with his scanty means, did not try very hard to make himself superficially attractive to the sex that despises crumpled clothes, matted hair, pasty cheeks, youth that has lost all vividness and glow, it was because he believed that the cry from within, urgent, never ceasing, must receive an answer. He knew that he had little to offer on the surface, was nothing to look at, nobody in particular, but he felt that inside he was different, he was wonderful, and that sooner or later a girl, a beautiful and passionate girl, caring nothing for the outside show, would recognise this difference, this wonder, within, would cry, “Oh, it’s you,” and love would immediately follow. Then life would really begin. So far it had not begun; in the tangle, blather, jumble of mere existence, of eating, sleeping, working, journeying and staring, it had only made a number of false starts. In other words, Turgis had had his little adventures but was not yet in love, or rather—for he was perpetually in love—had not yet found the single outlet for all this flood, the one girl.

After returning to his own desk, Turgis thought about these other girls who might so easily have come to work by his side instead of continuing with the Kwik-Work Razor Blade or Dunbury & Co., and then, dismissing them reluctantly, he began to tidy up his desk and finish off the week’s work. It was after twelve and the week-end was in sight. He leaned forward on his high stool, and breathed hard over communications from the London and North Eastern Railway and the City Transport Company. There was a girl at the City Transport—he had never seen her but she often answered the telephone—who sounded nice, lovely voice she had, and once or twice he had made her laugh. If he had been in the office by himself, he would have talked to her properly, perhaps suggested an appointment—on the pictures they called it a “date” but Turgis thought of it as a “point”—but he was never alone, and even if there was only that silly kid, Stanley, there, it would spoil it. But it was fine to hear her laugh down the telephone. Silvery, that was it—silvery laughter—her silvery laughter—just like in a book.

He was interrupted by a touch on his arm, and he looked round to find the new typist at his elbow, looking up at him with her biggish brown eyes. She had a lot of powder on one side of her nose, and none at all, just shiny skin, on the other side. No good.

“Please,” said Miss Sellers in her chirpy little Cockney voice, “please, have you written to the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping?”

“No, I haven’t,” he replied.

She merely stared.

“I haven’t written to the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping,” he continued severely, “because I’ve never heard of the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping. Don’t know them—see?”

“Oo, I’m sorry,” though she did not sound very sorry. “Have I said something wrong? I can’t remember all these names yet. Give me a chance. You know who I mean, don’t you? It is Anglo-something, isn’t it?”

“If it’s the Anglo-Baltic Shipping Co. you’re talking about,” said Turgis with dignity, “then I have written to them. Wrote yesterday, ’s’matter of fact. But to the Anglo-Baltic, mind you. There’s no what’s-it about it.”

The girl looked at him for a moment. “Oo!” she cried softly, “squashed!” And then she promptly walked away.

Turgis glanced after her with distaste. “Getting cheeky now,” he told himself. “That’s the latest—getting cheeky. And just because she can’t make up to me. All right, Miss Dirty Fringe, you’ll have to be told off soon, you will. Try it again, that’s all, just try it again.” And he was filled with a righteous indignation, pointing out to himself that these girls didn’t know their place in an office, wouldn’t get on with their work properly, and were always trying their little tricks on men who wanted to do their job with no nonsense about it.

There was a familiar scurrying, as of some small animal of the undergrowth that had got itself shod with leather and iron tips; the door burst open; Stanley had returned.

“Come on, boy, come on,” said Mr. Smeeth, looking over his eyeglasses. “Get those letters copied, sharp as you can. Don’t want us to be here all day, waiting for you, do you?”

“I want to get the one-five from London Bridge, if I can, Mr. Smeeth,” said Miss Matfield. “I’m spending the week-end in the country, thank God.”

“You’ll get it all right, Miss Matfield,” Mr. Smeeth told her. “Plenty of time. Now then, Stanley—bustle about. Sharp’s the world, my boy.”

“Oo, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers began, staring at her, “d’you reely like the country this weather? I don’t know how you can bear it. I couldn’t, not now, when it’s winter. It’s not as if it was summer, is it?”

“Like it best in winter, if it’s not raining too hard. Jolly good! Nothing like so filthy as London is in winter.”

“Well, I’m sure it would give me the ’ump,” Miss Sellers declared. “But I do like it in summer. It’s lovely in summer, I think.” You could almost see her looking at the buttercups and daisies. “I like the seaside best, though. Don’t you, Miss Matfield? It’s lovely at the seaside in summer, I think. I’ve never been in winter. It’s nice in summer even when it rains at the seaside, isn’t it?”

Miss Matfield replied, shortly but amiably, that it was, and then began clearing up her papers.

“Here,” cried Stanley, in the middle of his copying, “I seen a smash right in Moorgate.” He looked round triumphantly.

“I’ll bet you didn’t,” said Turgis.

“I did, and I bet you I did. Anyhow, if I didn’t see it, I was there just after, when the bobby was taking names. Oh, what a crowd! I got right to the front. Car and a lorry it was. The lorry was all right, but you oughter seen the car. Oh, no, it wasn’t a mess—oh, no!”

“And how many hours did you stand there, eh?” Mr. Smeeth inquired. “That’s what takes your time, my boy—doing your bit of nosy-parkering.”

“I had to go that way and I couldn’t get past, Mr. Smeeth,” Stanley cried indignantly. “So I had to see what was up, couldn’t help it. I thought the bobby might take my name as a witness, but he didn’t. I wish he had done,” he added wistfully. “I’d like to be a witness.”

“If you don’t finish those letters in ten minutes,” said Mr. Smeeth, wagging a finger at him, “you’ll be in the dock, and never mind being a witness. How are you getting on, Turgis?”

“Nearly finished, Mr. Smeeth,” Turgis replied. “I’ll just give the City Transport a ring to see if they’ve heard anything about that lot we sent to Norwich.” And he promptly went to the telephone.

There was no silvery laughter this time from the City Transport Company. The voice that answered him was not only a masculine voice but also an irritated, badgered, weary, despairing voice, that of a man who was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he would be spending all Saturday afternoon answering idiotic inquiries. “Yes, I know, I know,” it barked. “You rang me up before about it. Well, we’re doing our best. We’ve got the matter in hand. Yes, yes, yes, I’ve told our Norwich people. I’ll let you know on Monday. The first thing, the very first thing, on Monday, I’ll let you know.” It was pleading now. “Can’t do more than that, can I?” And now it was tired of pleading. “All right, all ri-ight, we’re doing what we ca-a-an. Ring you on Mo-o-onday.”

“They’ve got through to Norwich about it, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, “but they say it’ll have to stand over till Monday.”

“That’s all right then, Turgis. Give them a ring on Monday.”

There was now a feeling throughout the office that all manner of things would have to stand over until Monday. This feeling was not confined to Twigg & Dersingham, but could have been discovered operating upstairs at the Universal Hosiery Co. and the London and Counties Supply Stores, and downstairs at the Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co., and at Chase & Cohen: Carnival Novelties on the one side and at Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings on the other side, in fact, all up and down Angel Pavement, and far beyond Angel Pavement, in all the banks and offices and showrooms and warehouses of the City. Very soon the City itself would be standing over until Monday: the crowds of brokers and cashiers and clerks and typists and hawkers would have vanished from its pavements, the bars would be forlorn, the teashops nearly empty or closed; its trams and buses, no longer clamouring for a few more yards of space, would come gliding easily through misty blue vacancies like ships going down London River; and the whole place, populated only by caretakers and policemen among the living, would sink slowly into quietness; the very bank-rate would be forgotten; and it would be left to drown itself in reverie, with a drift of smoke and light fog across its old stones like the return of an army of ghosts. Until—with a clatter, a clang, a sudden raw awakening—Monday.

Papers were swept into drawers, letters were stamped in rows, blotters were shut, turned over, put away, ledgers and petty cash boxes were locked up, typewriters were covered, noses were powdered, cigarettes and pipes were lit, doors were banged, and stairs were noisy with hasty feet. The week was done. Out they came in their thousands into Angel Pavement, London Wall, Moorgate Street, Cornhill and Cheapside. They were so thick along Finsbury Pavement that the Moorgate Tube Station seemed like a monster sucking them down into its hot rank inside. Among these vanishing mites was one with a large but not masterful nose, full brown eyes, a slightly open mouth, and a drooping chin. This was Turgis going home.

He had to stand all the way, and though there were at least five nice-looking girls in the same compartment—and one was very close to him, and two of the others he had noticed several times before—not one of them showed the slightest interest in him.

II

When Turgis returned again to the earth’s surface, he plunged at once into the noise and litter of High Street, Camden Town, and then turned up the Kentish Town Road, for he lodged in Nathaniel Street, which lies in that conglomeration of short streets between the Kentish Town Road and York Road. He was rather later than usual, for this new Golspie business was having its effect even on Saturday morning, and so he walked quickly for once. He was ready for dinner and he knew that dinner would be ready for him. On Saturdays and Sundays, his landlady provided dinner as well as breakfast, and, indeed, was not averse to laying out a bit of tea, too, if that should be called for, Turgis having been with her now for eighteen months and having proved himself to be—by Nathaniel Street standards, which are based on a bitter knowledge of this world—a good quiet lodger, sober, and punctual in his payments. During the week, he had, officially, nothing but breakfast in the house, and had to shift for himself for his other meals, which followed a descending scale of luxury every fortnight, beginning with the alternate week-ends when he was paid. Thus, every other Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Turgis was well fed, and every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he was comparatively half starved. At a pinch, however, his landlady would always give him a little supper. They were all friendly together. They had to be, for they all used the same back room for meals. The bed-sitting-room that Turgis had at the top of the house, so small that the iron bedstead, the yellow washstand, the three deal drawers, the lopsided and groaning basket chair, and the little old gas-fire, a genuine antique among gas-fires, made it seem uncomfortably crowded with furniture and fittings, was no place in which to feed. It did not like being sat in, resented the sight of a cup of tea and a biscuit, and the presence of one good plateful of roast beef, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and gravy, would have completely finished it.

Number 9, like all the other houses in Nathaniel Street, was small and dark, and its gloomy little hall was haunted by a mixed smell of cabbage, camphor, and old newspapers. Turgis never noticed this smell, but on the very rare occasions when he visited some other and less odorous house, then he noticed the absence of it, his nose declaring at once that it had found itself in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Now he hung up his hat and coat and marched straight into the back room. There he discovered his landlady, who, having finished dinner, was enjoying a cup of tea by the fire. She was not enjoying this cup of tea, however, in an easy leisurely fashion; she was sitting, almost tense, on the very edge of the chair; and she had something of the air of a cavalry general between two phases of a battle.

Mrs. Pelumpton had every right to such an air. She was a short and very broad woman, with a mop of untidy grey hair and a withered apple face, and it was easy to see that all her adult life had been one long struggle, and that unless she suffered a paralytic stroke or was driven out of her wits, she would die fighting. In her presence, progress seemed the most absurd myth. If Mrs. Pelumpton could have been turned into the wife of a marauding viking or one of the women following Attila’s horde, she would have felt she had been given a well-earned rest and would have been astonished at, perhaps horrified by, the sudden colour and gaiety of life.

As soon as she saw Turgis she put down her cup and, as it were, jumped into the saddle again. She placed on the table two covered plates, her lodger’s dinner, meat and vegetables under one cover, pudding under the other.

“I’m a bit late to-day, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis, settling down.

“Well, I said to myself you might have been or you might not, according to whether that clock’s gone and got fast again, and it might well have done that, the way he’s been playing about with it.”

“About quarter of an hour fast, I make it—might be twenty minutes.”

“And that,” said Mrs. Pelumpton very decisively, “is what comes of messing about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I told him. ‘Clocks isn’t in your line.’ Not that quarter of an hour’s going to hurt anybody in this house—except Edgar, and he’s got his own watch with proper railway time on it.” Edgar, her son, who also lived in the house, worked on the railway down at King’s Cross. Turgis rarely saw him.

“That’s a nice bit o’ meat you’re having there, Mr. Turgis, isn’t it?” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, after taking a noisy sip of tea and then staring over the cup at him. “Chilled, that is. You’d have thought that was English if I hadn’t told you, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would, Mrs. Pelumpton.”

“Well, I won’t deceive you. It isn’t. It’s chilled. And it all depends on the picking. Take what they offer, and you don’t know where you are. You’ve got to look about a bit and pick it yourself. They know me now.” And here Mrs. Pelumpton produced a short triumphant laugh. “They know me all right. ‘Pick where you like, Ma,’ he always says to me. ‘Oh, I’ll watch it,’ I tells him. ‘I’ll watch it.’ And I do.”

“That’s the style. It’s a very nice dinner, Mrs. Pelumpton.”

A certain shuffling noise indicated that the master of the house, the messer-about with clocks, Mr. Pelumpton, was now approaching. Mr. Pelumpton moved very slowly, partly because he suffered from rheumatism, and partly because he was a man of great dignity. To look at him, at his slack and dingy figure, at his watery eyes, bottle nose, ragged and drooping grey moustache, to mark his leisurely air, was to imagine at once that Mr. Pelumpton was one of those men who do not work themselves but merely see that their wives and children work for them. But this was not the truth. Mr. Pelumpton did work, as his talk would quickly inform you. He was a dealer. He had no shop of his own, but he had some vague connection with a shop, where an astonishing variety of second, third, or fourth hand goods were sold, owned by a friend of his. He passed his time in a dusty underworld in which battered chests of drawers and broken gramophones changed hands and the deals were in shillings and the commission in pence. He interviewed parties who had for sale a cracked toilet set or an old bicycle or five mildewed volumes of The Stately Homes of England. He could sometimes be found in the humblest auction rooms, ready to bid up to half a crown for the odds and ends. Every Friday he became a bona-fide merchant by making an appearance in Caledonian Market, where, on that grey and windy height, he stood beside a small but very varied stock, consisting perhaps of a Banjo Tutor, two chipped pink vases, a silk underskirt, a large photograph of General Buller, five dirty tennis balls, a zither with most of the strings missing, and the Letters of Charles Kingsley. Dealing thus in things that were only one remove from the dustbin, Mr. Pelumpton did not contrive to make much money, and indeed he had been dependent for some time on Mrs. Pelumpton and Edgar; but, on the other hand, you could not say he did not work. He was in the second-hand trade, in the buying and selling line, a legitimate dealer, and took himself and his mysterious business with enormous seriousness. If he was not doing very well, that was because trade was so bad. Mr. Pelumpton had all the deliberation and dignity of an antique merchant prince. He smoked a foul little pipe, liked a glass of beer, was a great reader of newspapers, and always talked in a very solemn and confidential manner. Like many dealers and Caledonian Market men, who have drooping moustaches, very few teeth, and a confidential manner, he softened all the sibilants, putting an “h” behind every “s.” There is no doubt that a dealer who can only say “Yes” is not in such a strong position as the dealer who can draw it out into a mysterious “Yersh.” Mr. Pelumpton was essentially a “Yersh” man.

He now advanced very slowly into the room, carefully seated himself by the fire, took out his evil little pipe, looked at Turgis in a watery fashion, nodded solemnly, put back his pipe, and waited for somebody to ask him something.

“Well, did you catch him in?” his wife inquired. Mr. Pelumpton was always having to slip round the corner to catch somebody in, even if he had only just finished his own dinner.

“Out till five,” replied Mr. Pelumpton. “And a shaushy ansher for me trouble.”

“Who’s bin giving you a saucy answer?”

“Hish mishish,” said Mr. Pelumpton, “if it ish hish mishish. ‘Can’t expect to find ’im in on Shaturday arfternoon,’ she shaysh to me. ‘You’ll excuse me, mishish,’ I told her, ‘but in my bishnish, you’ve got to work Shaturday arfternoon shame ash any other arfternoon. Yersh,’ I told her, ‘an’ Shunday arfternoon too, if you’re not careful.’ Jusht telling her politely, shee? All right, what doesh she shay to that? She shaysh, ‘Well, we’re diff’rent ’ere, shee?’ and then shlamsh the door in me faysh.”

“The cheeky monkey!” cried Mrs. Pelumpton indignantly. “I’d slam it in her face if I’d anything to do with her. It’s downright ignorance, that’s what it is. There’s people round here has no more idea ’ow to behave than a—a—a parrot.”

“Ar, well,” Mr. Pelumpton continued, philosophically, “we’ve got a lot to put with in our bishnish. And you can take that from me, Mishter Turgish. But if the shtuff’sh there, we don’t mind. All in the day’sh work, shee?”

“After something good, Mr. Pelumpton?” Turgis inquired.

“That’sh right. A lovely piesh he’sh got to shell—a shideboard—oh, a lovely piesh, it ish—only wantsh a bit of polishing and it’sh good enough for anybody, that piesh ish, fit for a palash. I can’t ’andle it myshelf, not ash trade ish now, but I know who can. It’sh a commission job.”

“That’s the idea,” said Turgis, with vague approval. He was a youth who liked to agree with his company, not because he felt kindly disposed towards other people, but simply because it was less trouble to agree and applaud. He really thought Mr. Pelumpton a ridiculous old bore.

“Now that’s one thing I’ve always wanted,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton. “A sideboard, a proper nice sideboard, cupboards and all, and room for everything. Mahogany, I’d like.”

“Ah, that’sh what a lot o’ people would like. They’re fetching good money them thingsh are. Show me a good shideboard, a sholid piesh—not sho much of your shtuff about it, Mishter Turgish⁠——”

“What’s his stuff, for Heaven’s sake?” Mrs. Pelumpton demanded. “He hasn’t got any stuff, have you, Mr. Turgis? What you talking about, Dad?”

Mr. Pelumpton took out his pipe for this, and looked very reproachfully at his wife. “What am I talking about? I’m talking about what I know, that’sh what I’m talking about. ’Ow many pieshesh of furnisher have been through my handsh? Thoushandsh. All right then. Don’t I know the trade? Ho, no! Ho, no! I don’t know the trade.” Then he pointed his pipe at Turgis, who was very busy with his treacle pudding, and then said very slowly, very solemnly: “Veneersh. You know what them are. Well, that’sh hish shtuff. Am I right, Mishter Turgish?”

“That’s right,” said Turgis. “That’s what we sell at our place, Mrs. Pelumpton. Veneers for furniture, and inlays, and all that. ’S’matter of fact, I don’t have anything to do with ’em personally, ’cos it isn’t my particular job, but that’s what we sell all right.”

“Well, I never did!” Mrs. Pelumpton was filled with honest wonder at a world in which so many different things were bought and sold. “And I never knew that. Thought you was in an office, down in the City, y’know—a clurk.”

“Sho he ish,” her husband assured her, “but that’sh what hish firm shellsh. He told me long shinsh, didn’t you, Mishter Turgish. Well, ash I wash shaying, show me a good shideboard, a sholid piesh, and I’ll get you what you like for it—in reashon, in reashon, y’know. Trade may be bad. Trade ish bad. But for shome thingsh you ’ave a shteady demand, that’sh what you ’ave—a shteady demand. Where we’re feeling it in our bishnish ish in the shmall thingsh⁠——”

Mr. Pelumpton was now settling down to a good long monologue, but he reckoned without his audience, both of whom knew these monologues too well. His wife, seeing that Turgis had finished, pounced upon his used plates and bore them off, with a bustle and clatter that brought a frown to her husband’s face. He now tried to buttonhole Turgis, who was lighting a cigarette. “Now you take me, Mishter Turgish,” he began.

But Turgis refused to take him; he had taken him too often before; and now he promptly escaped upstairs, to his own room. It is difficult for a room to be both stuffy and cold, but this room contrived it somehow, and offered you the choice, if you chose to interfere with it, of being still stuffier or still colder. Turgis, who preferred stuffiness to cold, lit the gas-fire, that tiny antique, which so deeply resented being called into service again that it exploded with an indignant bang and then wheezily complained every other second. After the last breath of raw November had been driven out of the room, Turgis took off his collar and his shoes and stretched himself out on the bed. First, he read all the advertisements in his newspaper, which specialised on Saturdays in the mail-order business. There was a whole page of these advertisements, offering everything from Orientally perfumed cigarettes to electric belts for rheumatism, and Turgis carefully read them all. In public he pretended to be very knowing and cynical about advertisements, but in private he was still their willing victim, and nearly every shilling he spent, whether on clothes, drink, tobacco, or amusement, was conjured out of his pocket by the richest and most artful advertising managers. Perhaps that is why his suits bagged so soon, his shoes soaked up the rain, his cigarettes shredded and split, and his amusements failed to amuse.

When he had done with the newspaper, he took from the mantelpiece (and he could do this without getting up from the bed) the latest issue of a twopenny periodical that was devoted to the films, though more especially to the film actors with the longest eyelashes and the actresses with the largest eyes. He spent the next half-hour staring at the photographs in this paper and reading its scrappy paragraphs, not with any particular enthusiasm. Turgis was not really a film enthusiast. He knew nothing about camera angles and “cutting” and all the intricacies of crowd work, and never in his life had he seriously compared one film with another. He could laugh at the comic men with the rest, but he did not fully appreciate the clowning on the screen, simply because he had not a very strong sense of humour. No, what drew him to the films was the fact that he and they had a common enthusiasm, they had both a passionate interest in sex. In those dim sensuous palaces, filled with throbbing music and shifting coloured lights, Turgis the lover entered his dream kingdom. You could say that the money he paid at their doors was silver tribute to Aphrodite, to whose worship the Phœnicians of the Californian coast have built more temples than ever the old Phœnicians of Cyprus did; and for a few moments, as he sat in the steep darkened galleries, Turgis would be shaken and then intoxicated by the golden presence of the goddess as she flashed through with her train, Eros and the Hours and the Graces, though of all that retinue only two remained with him, to see him home, Pothos and Himeros, shapes of longing and yearning.

The paper slipped from his fingers. His eyes closed; his jaw dropped a little; and his head turned on the pillow, so that the light of the gas-fire, now coming to life in the dwindling daylight, for the window was no brighter than a slate, played faintly but rosily on his features, the pleasant width of the brow, the nose that had missed masterfulness, the round chin that fell away, and as his breathing grew more regular and he slipped into unconsciousness, that light brought something at once grotesque and sad, the red gleam and deep shadow of some Gothic tragedy, into the little room. And for an hour or so Turgis slept, while Saturday went rattling and roaring on, gathering momentum, through the dark little abysses of brick and smoke outside, the streets of London.

III

The Turgis who came out of 9, Nathaniel Street, later that Saturday afternoon, was quite different from the youth we have already met. He was washed, brushed, conscientiously shaved, and he moved briskly. This was for him the best time of all the week. Saturday sang in his heart. If the Great Something ever happened, it would happen on Saturday. The trams, buses, shops, bars, theatres, and picture palaces, they all gleamed and glittered through the rich murk to-day for him. Even now, Adventure—in high heels and silk stockings—might be moving his way. He was making for the West End, for on Saturdays, especially the alternate Saturdays when he received his pay, he despised Camden Town and Islington and Finsbury Park, those little centres that broke the desert of North London with oases of flashing lights and places of entertainment. These were good enough in their way, but if you had a few shillings to spend, the West was a great deal better, offering you the real thing in giant teashops and picture theatres. For this was his usual Saturday night programme, if he had the money: first, tea at one of the big teashops, which were always crowded with girls and always offered a chance of a pick-up; then a visit to one of the great West End cinemas, in which, once inside, he could spin out the whole evening, perhaps on the edge of adventure all the time. And this was his programme for this night, too, though, of course, he was always ready to modify it if anything happened in the teashop, if he found the right sort of girl there and she wanted to do something else.

At the very time he was setting out, hundreds and hundreds of girls, girls with little powdered snub noses, wet crimson mouths, shrill voices, and gleaming calves, were also setting out—nearly all of them, unfortunately, in pairs—to carry out the very same programme. Turgis knew this, or perhaps only a hunter’s instinct led him to where the game were thickest; but he did not visualise them, luckily for him, for the tantalising image would have driven him nearly to madness. But there they were, tripping down innumerable dark steps, chirping and laughing together in buses and trams without end, and making for the same small area, the very same buildings, perhaps to jostle him as they passed. It would have been easier for Turgis, as he knew only too well, if he too had had a companion, to match all these pairs of girls, but he had only a few acquaintances, no friends, and, in any event, he preferred to hunt in solitude, to thread his way through the brilliant jungle alone with his hunger and his dream.

A bus took him to the West End, where, among the crazy coloured fountains of illumination, shattering the blue dusk with green and crimson fire, he found the café of his choice, a teashop that had gone mad and turned Babylonian, a white palace with ten thousand lights. It towered above the older buildings like a citadel, which indeed it was, the outpost of a new age, perhaps a new civilisation, perhaps a new barbarism; and behind the thin marble front were concrete and steel, just as behind the careless profusion of luxury were millions of pence, balanced to the last halfpenny. Somewhere in the background, hidden away, behind the ten thousand lights and acres of white napery and bewildering glittering rows of teapots, behind the thousand waitresses and cashbox girls and black-coated floor managers and temperamental long-haired violinists, behind the mounds of shimmering bonbons and multi-coloured Viennese pastries, the cauldrons of stewed steak, the vanloads of harlequin ices, were a few men who went to work juggling with fractions of a farthing, who knew how many units of electricity it took to finish a steak-and-kidney pudding and how many minutes and seconds a waitress (five feet four in height and in average health) would need to carry a tray of given weight from the kitchen lift to the table in the far corner. In short, there was a warm, sensuous, vulgar life flowering in the upper stories, and cold science working in the basement. Such was the gigantic teashop into which Turgis marched, in search not of mere refreshment but of all the enchantment of unfamiliar luxury. Perhaps he knew in his heart that men have conquered half the known world, looted whole kingdoms, and never arrived at such luxury. The place was built for him.

It was built for a great many other people too, and, as usual, they were all there. It steamed with humanity. The marble entrance hall, piled dizzily with bonbons and cakes, was as crowded and bustling as a railway station. The gloom and grime of the streets, the raw air, all November, were at once left behind, forgotten: the atmosphere inside was golden, tropical, belonging to some high midsummer of confectionery. Disdaining the lifts, Turgis, once more excited by the sight, sound, and smell of it all, climbed the wide staircase until he reached his favourite floor, where an orchestra, led by a young Jewish violinist with wandering lustrous eyes and a passion for tremolo effects, acted as a magnet to a thousand girls. The door was swung open for him by a page; there burst, like a sugary bomb, the clatter of cups, the shrill chatter of white-and-vermilion girls, and, cleaving the golden, scented air, the sensuous clamour of the strings; and, as he stood hesitating a moment, half dazed, there came, bowing, a sleek grave man, older than he was and far more distinguished than he could ever hope to be, who murmured deferentially: “For one, sir? This way, please.” Shyly, yet proudly, Turgis followed him.

That was the snag really, though. This place was so crowded that you had to take the seat they offered you; there was no picking and choosing your company at the table. And, as usual, Turgis was not lucky. The vacant seat he was shown, and which he dare not refuse, was at a table already occupied by three people, and not one of them remotely resembled a nice-looking girl. There were two stout middle-aged women, voluble, perspiring, and happy over cream buns, and a middle-aged man, who no doubt had been of no great size even before this expedition started, but was now very small and huddled, and gave the impression that if the party stayed there much longer, he would shrink to nothing but spectacles, a nose, a collar, and a pair of boots. For the first few minutes, Turgis was so disappointed that he was quite angry with these people, hated them. And of course it was impossible to get hold of a waitress. After five minutes or so of glaring and waiting, he began to wish he had gone somewhere else. There was a pretty girl at the next table, but she was obviously with her young man, and so fond of him that every now and then she clutched his arm and held it tight, just as if the young man might be thinking of running away. At another table, not far away, were three girls together, two of whom looked very interesting, with saucy eyes and wide smiling mouths, but they were too busy whispering and giggling to take any notice of him. So Turgis suddenly stopped being a bright youth, shooting amorous glances, and became a stern youth who wanted some tea, who had gone there for no other purpose than to obtain some tea, who was surprised and indignant because no tea was forthcoming.

“And mindjew,” cried one of the middle-aged women to the other, “I don’t bear malice ’cos it isn’t in my nature, as you’ll be the first to agree, my dear. But when she let fly with that, I thought to meself, ‘All right, my lady, now this time you’ve gone a bit too far. It’s my turn.’ But mindjew, even then I didn’t say what I could have said. Not one word about Gravesend crossed my lips to her, though it was there on the tip of my tongue.”

Turgis looked at her with disgust. Silly old geezer!

At last the waitress came. She was a girl with a nose so long and so thickly powdered that a great deal of it looked as if it did not belong to her, and she was tired, exasperated, and ready at any moment to be snappy. She took the order—and it was for plaice and chips, tea, bread and butter, and cakes: the great tea of the whole fortnight—without any enthusiasm, but she returned in time to prevent Turgis from losing any more temper. For the next twenty minutes, happily engaged in grappling with this feast, he forgot all about girls, and when the food was done and he was lingering over his third cup of tea and a cigarette, though no possible girls came within sight, he felt dreamily content. His mind swayed vaguely to the tune the orchestra was playing. Adventure would come; and for the moment he was at ease, lingering on its threshold.

From this tropical plateau of tea and cakes, he descended into the street, where the harsh night air suddenly smote him. The pavements were all eyes and thick jostling bodies; at every corner, the newspaper sellers cried out their football editions in wailing voices of the doomed; cars went grinding and snarling and roaring past; and the illuminated signs glittered and rocketed beneath the forgotten faded stars. He arrived at his second destination, the Sovereign Picture Theatre, which towered at the corner like a vast spangled wedding-cake in stone. It might have been a twin of that great teashop he had just left; and indeed it was; another frontier outpost of the new age. Two Jews, born in Poland but now American citizens, had talked over cigars and coffee on the loggia of a crazy Spanish-Italian-American villa, within sight of the Pacific, and out of that talk (a very quiet talk, for one of the two men was in considerable pain and knew that he was dying inch by inch) there had sprouted this monster, together with other monsters that had suddenly appeared in New York, Paris, and Berlin. Across ten thousand miles, those two men had seen the one-and-sixpence in Turgis’s pocket, and, with a swift gesture, resolving itself magically into steel and concrete and carpets and velvet-covered seats and pay-boxes, had set it in motion and diverted it to themselves.

He waited now to pay his one-and-sixpence, standing in the queue at the balcony entrance. It was only a little after six and the Saturday night rush had hardly begun, but soon there were at least a hundred of them standing there. Near Turgis, on either side, the sexes were neatly paired off. There were one or two middle-aged women but no unaccompanied girl in sight in the whole queue. The evening was not beginning too well.

When at last they were admitted, they first walked through an enormous entrance hall, richly tricked out in chocolate and gold, illuminated by a huge central candelabra, a vast bunch of russet gold globes. Footmen in chocolate and gold waved them towards the two great marble balustrades, the wide staircases lit with more russet gold globes, the prodigiously thick and opulent chocolate carpets, into which their feet sank as if they were the feet of archdukes and duchesses. Up they went, passing a chocolate and gold platoon or two and a portrait gallery of film stars, whose eyelashes seemed to stand out from the walls like stout black wires, until they reached a door that led them to the dim summit of the balcony, which fell dizzily away in a scree of little heads. It was an interval between pictures. Several searchlights were focussed on an organ keyboard that looked like a tiny gilded box, far below, and the organ itself was shaking out cascades of treacly sound, so that the whole place trembled with sugary ecstasies. But while they waited in the gangway, the lights faded out, the gilded box dimmed and sank, the curtains parted to reveal the screen again, and an enormous voice, as inhuman as that of a genie, announced that it would bring the world’s news not only to their eyes but to their ears.

“One? This way, sir,” and the attendant went down, flashing his light. This was always an exciting moment for Turgis. He might find himself next to some wonderful girl, as lonely as he was, who would talk to him, squeeze his hand, let him take her home, and kiss him in the darkness of some mysterious suburb. The great adventure might begin at the end of that pointing pencil of light. On the other hand, he might find himself miserably wedged in between two fat middle-aged people. It was all a gamble, with the odds heavily against the wonderful girl, as he knew too well. But still, there was always a chance, and he never walked down these dark steps behind the electric torch without feeling a mounting excitement.

The light pointed along a row, and he followed it, pushing past a dozen indignant knees. The last pair was very stubborn, and he negotiated them without enthusiasm. He had no luck. Here, on one side of him was the owner of the knees, an enormous woman, bulging over her seat, and on the other was a man with a beard and a noisy pipe. And it was too late to change his place now. Once again the miracle had not happened. Gloomily he turned his attention to the news film, and not one single inch or roar of it entertained him. It was followed by a comedy, all about a lot of silly kids, and he sat there, steadily hating it. He also hated the enormous woman, who laughed so much that great lumps of her hit him on the shoulder. He decided, miserably, that he ought not to have come to the Sovereign. Next time he would give the Sovereign a miss. Stiff with fat women and men with stinking pipes, that’s what it was—oh, cripes!—awful hole! And another Saturday night going, gone!

Then came the film of the evening, the star feature, and Turgis soon began to take an interest in it and found himself lifted out of his gloom. It was a talkie called “The Glad-Rag Way,” and it was all about a beautiful girl (and she was beautiful, for she was Lulu Castellar, one of his favourites) who went to New York to dance in cabarets and for a time forgot all about her sweetheart, a poor young inventor who lived in the most dismal lodgings, like Turgis, but, unlike Turgis, also contrived to have his hair exquisitely waved at regular intervals. This beautiful girl behaved in the most foolish way. She accepted presents from rich men with ugly leering mouths; she went out to supper with them and got tipsy, as well she might, for the whole atmosphere consisted sometimes of champagne bubbles; she attended parties, very late at night, in their flats, and though the rooms in these flats were three hundred feet long and two hundred feet broad, the parties themselves were undoubtedly intimate affairs, at which a girl was able to express herself by dancing on the table and throwing off some of her clothes. Everything this girl wore, every movement she made, only called the attention of these leering fellows to some part of her ravishing figure; and even when she herself had stopped making eyes and smiling at them and undulating round them, with a champagne glass in her hand, her charming legs still insisted on claiming their notice. It was obvious that at any moment these rich cads would make their old mistake, they would assume that she was not a virtuous girl and would act accordingly, to her astonishment and indignation and shame at being so misunderstood, so treated. Meanwhile, the young inventor had received a letter (and you heard him tear it open) asking him to come to New York to meet three heavy men who had just been barking at one another about him in the previous scene. It was, as he himself admitted, his “beeg chaince.”

His train was still roaring across the screen when Turgis, whose interest had been thoroughly roused, heard a voice say “’Scuse me” and saw a dim feminine shape that was obviously trying to get past.

“’S’quite all right,” he said affably, withdrawing his knees to let her pass.

She dropped into the seat on his left, taking the place of the man with the foul pipe, who must have crept out, towards the other gangway, without Turgis noticing him. This girl who had just arrived was still only a dim shape, but he felt sure she was young and pretty.

“’Scuse me,” she whispered again, “but is this the big picture?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied eagerly.

“Has it been on long?”

“No, not so long. It isn’t half through yet, I’m sure,” he told her, trying to talk as if he were a confidential old friend. “I’ll bet the best’s coming on.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” she said, settling herself in the rather narrow seat and then giving her attention to the screen.

A faint sweet whiff of scent had come his way. His senses did not wait for any more evidence; they reported at once to his imagination, which immediately dowered the vague dark figure beside him with all sweetness and prettiness, not unlike that of Lulu Castellar, who was at the moment absent from the screen, the young inventor, having arrived in New York, being barked at by the three heavy men. Turgis took in all that the film had to offer him, but now he was no longer lost in it; he was living intensely in the tiny darkened space between him and the girl. Instinctively, he edged a little her way. Their elbows touched on the arm of the seat, and even that trifling contact sent a thrill through him. A little later, his left leg encountered something at once firm and soft, another leg, a beautifully rounded feminine leg, and the two remained in contact. This, like the other, may have been casual, but to Turgis the effect was electric. And then it chanced that his hand, hanging loose by his side, touched another hand, which was not withdrawn when it was touched again, this time deliberately. The two hands now met fairly; they grasped one another, squeezed; their fingers were intertwined; they sent and received messages in the dark. Turgis could now regard the graceful antics of Lulu Castellar with a benevolent detachment. The dream life of the screen was nothing compared with the pulsating real life of those contacts in the warm gloom, those little pressures and squeezes that were signals from that other enchanted world. He did not try to talk to her again. That would come later. He said nothing, hardly looked her way, afraid lest he should break the spell.

When the film ended and a kind of soft russet dawn broke as the screen disappeared behind the curtains, they moved away from one another, and he did not even catch a glimpse of her face. A great many people went out, and a great many others came in, but they were not disturbed. Then the curtains moved again; a soft russet twilight came, only to fade into darkness; and the programme artfully continued. But would this other and far more exciting programme continue? His heart bounded in the new darkness. He leaned towards her again; she did not evade him; and hand clasped hand again, stickily perhaps now but still exquisitely, thrillingly. Turgis had not been so happy for months.

It was not until the young inventor’s train to New York was again roaring across the screen, after the programme had gone round its full circle, that the girl loosened her hand and began to put on her gloves. Turgis had been waiting for this moment for some time. When she rose, he rose too; and she followed him past the indignant knees and up the stairs. It was when they reached the exit steps, descending into the real world, that he turned and spoke to her. And he knew instinctively that they were not now the two people who had been holding hands for so long in the darkness inside; those two intimates were ghosts now; these two on the steps, in the light, were strangers and would have to begin over again. When he spoke he acted upon this instinctive or intuitive knowledge.

“How did you like the picture then?” he asked, casually.

“I didn’t think it was so very good,” she replied, just as casually. “I don’t like that Lulu Castellar. Pulls herself about a bit too much, she does, if you ask me. Might as well have Saint Vitus’ dance and have done with it. Do you like her?”

“Oh—I dunno—she’s all right,” he muttered. He was recovering from a horrible shock. This girl was not pretty at all, not even reasonably good-looking. She was years older than he was, and she was hideous. He had just caught sight of her face properly for the first time. Her nose was all twisted and she had a bit of a squint. She was thirty if she was a day. Oh, hell—what a wash-out! She was still talking, but he could not bother listening to what she was saying. Sheer vexation made his eyes smart. He kept pace with her down the steps, mumbling an occasional “Yes” and “No,” but somewhere inside him was a hot little angry man who screamed and cursed at everything.

“Well,” she said, when they reached the bottom door, “I’ve got my sister to meet, so I’ll say good-night to you.”

“Good-night,” said Turgis miserably.

Saturday night was roaring away outside, but for him the heart had gone out of it. He walked on mechanically, so sorry for himself, so angry with everything, that he could have cried. His head ached from being in that rotten balcony so long. There were queer aches in his body too. Where could he go now? Nowhere worth going to. If you had plenty of money, evening dress and all that, you could go to restaurants and night clubs and dance with beautiful girls with fine bare arms. But he wasn’t in that seam. He’d no evening dress; no money; and anyhow he couldn’t dance. He couldn’t do anything. No, perhaps he couldn’t, but he was as good as most of those fat rotten blighters who had the money, who just went chucking it away while he had to count every penny. Look at that lot in the big car, with their fur coats and diamonds and white shirt fronts, probably going somewhere to dance and get boozed up and God knows what before they’d finished! Swine! He was as good as them any day. And better—he did do some work. What did they do? It was enough to make any chap turn Bolshie. He didn’t like the other chap who lodged at Mrs. Pelumpton’s very much; Park was a dreary, unfriendly sort of devil, and a Sheeny at that; but he didn’t blame Park for turning Bolshie. For two pins, he’d turn Bolshie, too. Yes, but what was the good of that?

All this time he had been walking on and on, through a Saturday night with the bottom dropped out of it, and now had left the spangled West End behind him. He stopped at a coffee stall, where several fools were arguing about nothing as usual, and had two buns and a cup of coffee—poor stuff it was too, too sweet and nearly cold. As he turned his back to the counter, he saw a girl, a really nice kid with a red hat and big dark eyes, smiling in his direction, and he smiled back at her hopefully, but then he saw her eyes move slightly and the smile instantly vanish. She had not been looking at him before, when she smiled; she had been looking at the chap standing next to him, who was ordering two coffees. And what a chap to be out with, to be smiling at! If that’s what she wanted, she could have him. One vast sneer, Turgis moved away, and boarded the first bus he found that would take him to Camden Town, back to Nathaniel Street with the ruins of his evening.

“’Ad a good time, boy?” said Mr. Pelumpton, now mellow with beer, as Turgis looked into the back room. “That’sh the way. Yersh. Enjoy yershelf while you’re young, I shay, and while you can enjoy yershelf. I did when I wash your age an’ don’t ferget it, boy.” Here Mr. Pelumpton chuckled and then coughed. “I ’ad a good time and nobody could shtop me ’aving one.”

“What’s this about you and your good times?” said his wife, popping out from nowhere.

“I’m jusht telling our friend ’ere that I don’t blame him for enjoying himshelf while he’sh young, ’cosh I did the shame thing when I wash young.”

“Ar, you was a wicked devil you was,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, with reluctant admiration.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” Mr. Pelumpton chuckled. “Lishen to that. Ar well, boy, I don’t blame yer. Good old Shaturday night. I’ve ’ad ’em. I know.”

“I’ll bet you never had, you silly old fathead,” Turgis muttered under his breath.

“Only jusht remember thish, boy. Don’d overdo it, that’sh all. Don’d overdo it. You’re only young wunsh. Enjoy yershelf, if yer like, but don’d overdo it.”

Turgis looked at him in disgust. “Good-night all,” he said, mournfully, and climbed the chilling stairs to his room.

So much for Saturday.

IV

Sunday was fine, that is, there was no rain, sleet, or snow falling. There was also very little sunlight falling, and the streets of Camden Town and Kentish Town were like echoing slatey tunnels. Turgis saw them when he went out to buy a paper and a packet of cigarettes, and as usual he disliked the look of them. They were not very cheerful on a weekday, but they were a pantomime and a bean feast then compared with what they were on Sunday. It was on Sunday that Turgis felt his loneliness most keenly.

It must be admitted, though, that on this particular Sunday morning he had received and refused two invitations. The first was from Mr. Pelumpton, who had decided that he must pay a visit to Petticoat Lane—“jusht to shee ’ow the shtuff’s goin’,” he said, with an impressive professional air. He had suggested, with some condescension, that Turgis might like to go with him. Turgis had promptly declined. He had been to Petticoat Lane before, and he saw quite enough of old Pelumpton in Nathaniel Street and had no desire to go to Whitechapel with him, merely to provide him with a listener and some free beer.

The other invitation came from his fellow lodger, Park, the Bolshie. Park, a neat dark Jewy sort of chap, quiet and civil enough but with something machine-like and vaguely menacing about him, just as if he was not quite human, worked in the printing trade and apparently had to go at all hours, so that Turgis hardly ever saw him. Moreover, he was a tremendous communist worker, for ever attending meetings and conferences and addressing envelopes to distant comrades and circulating what seemed to Turgis, who had inspected it, some terribly dreary literature. The two young men did not like each other very much, but Park always saw in Turgis, who had the depressed look of a faintly class-conscious proletarian, a possible convert. Hence the invitation, which this time was for some communist affair, a meeting or two and coffee and cake for the comrades, somewhere out at Stratford or West Ham. Turgis turned it down, though not ungraciously, for though he did not care much for Park, he had a vague kind of respect for him. But he did not see himself with the comrades. Perhaps the real reason was that he could not imagine any girls, real nice girls, not glaring female comrades, in the picture. He did not tell Park so, did not even admit it to himself; and when Park, with the drab innocence of his kind, accused him of being a timid slave of the bourgeois classes, a would-be bourgeois himself, he had no defence but a grin and a jeering noise.

The paper kept him amused until dinner time. After dinner he went for a walk, which chiefly consisted of penny bus rides. They finally landed him, as they had landed a few thousand other people, at the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park, where the Sunday orators congregate. Turgis often visited this forum and listened to the orators. He had no intellectual curiosity and never really attended to the arguments, such as they were, but he had a sort of genial contempt for the speakers that was a warming, comforting feeling. He felt that they were a great deal sillier than he was, and that was pleasant. Moreover, any leisurely crowd always had an attraction for him, because there was always a chance that there might be, somewhere in the middle of it, bored and lonely, a wonderful girl who would suddenly smile back at him.

He drifted from speaker to speaker with the crowd, which was largely composed of youths like himself, all feeling pleasantly superior, with a sprinkling of aggressive dialecticians and religious and political fanatics. There was a fantastic old man in a greenish frock coat who banged a large chart and talked in a high sing-song that left five words out of six quite unintelligible. His subject—of all things—was shorthand. Turgis stared at him for a minute or two, concluded that he was mad, and moved on. The next meeting, a large one, was political, and the only words Turgis caught—“What about Russia, where your socialism, my friends, has been put into practice?”—drove him away at once. Then there was a tiny group of people round a harmonium, played by a young man with bulging eyes and a straggling beard. They were drearily singing a hymn, and nobody was taking any notice of them. Next to them, one of those involved discussions, typical of the place, was in heated progress, and the audience, in its own ironical fashion, was enjoying it. All that Turgis, at the back, could hear was the speaker himself, a young man with spectacles and long yellow hair who had something to do with the Catholic Church, who kept crying: “One mewment, my friend, just one mewment! Kindly allow me to speak. Yes, yes, but one mewment! You have asked me if I would considah such a person insane. Now, one mewment!” Turgis lingered for some time at this meeting. There were one or two nice girls in the crowd, but not one of them was by herself. It was no good. He would have to find a pal.

The speaker on the right was being heckled by a woman who looked rather like Mrs. Pelumpton. He was an elderly man, dressed in an old-fashioned black suit, and he was shaking a Bible almost in her face. “Well, what do Ah do?” he cried, his eyes gleaming. “Ah turn once mo-ore to the graa-aate Boo-ook. Yes, Ah’ve a Bahble text for tha-at.” Turgis did not learn what the text was, for there came a tremendous bellow from this man’s neighbour, a dirty little fellow with a broad flat nose and an india rubber mouth, who looked like a nasty compromise between Hoxton and Manchuria. “What is thee yighest idee-al of thee yole universe, my friends?” he was screaming, in a lather of oratory. “I’ll tell you. Thee yighest idee-al of thee yole universe is Man—Man.” And he thumped himself on the chest. Turgis did not like the look of him at all. He also did not like the look of the Salvation Army lasses who were conducting the service on the other side. They were all so pimply. They looked as if they were always eating things that disagreed with them.

Next to the Army was a bony, shabby chap, a Bolshie, possibly one of Park’s pals. Turgis had heard him before, and only stayed long enough to make sure that he was on the same tack. He was. “Noo where did communism firrst appearr, ma frien’s?” he was asking. “Noat in Russia—oh no! Noat in England—oh no! Noat in Frrance—oh no! Bu’ in Grreece, ma frien’s, in ancient Grreece, where a mon called Playto wrote a buik called The Repuiblic. Yes, Ah know that this mon should rightly be called Plarto, but if Ah said Plarto, Ah know everybody would be staring at it an’ wondering who this Plarto was, so Ah call him Playto. An’ he was the firrst communist.” It was like listening to a Scots comedian who had gone sour. Turgis moved on, passing with the merest glance a very tiny group that everybody had ignored. There were three of them, two bearded and bare-headed men and a faded woman, and they were standing close together, apparently praying. Nobody was taking any notice of them, except a battered and boosy old actor (he recited a sort of story that introduced the names of all the successful plays running at the time, and Turgis knew him of old) who was waiting to claim the pitch. Why did these people come here? Who were they? What did they do at home? Once more, Turgis concluded they were all mad, but this time the thought did not give him any pleasant feeling of superiority. It depressed him. Suppose he was suddenly taken that way!

But there were roars of laughter coming from the crowd on the right, and above it Turgis recognised another familiar figure, an atheist chap, and quite a turn too. He was a fat young man, with a glittering squint and a nose so resolutely turned up that it could be described as a snout; and he had a very self-confident perky manner and a shrill voice. Turgis edged himself into the audience. “Now, where was Oi? Losing me plice, wasn’t Oi?” he cried humorously. “Ow, Oi know. Fish on Froiday, thet was it. Whoi dew the Catholics eat fish on Froiday? They down’t know. They down’t—strite! Yew arsk ’em an’ see. They down’t know. But Oi know.” Here the crowd roared its approval. “It’s in nonner of the old goddess, Froiyer, goddess of plenty. Froiyer—Froiday—see? Thet’s whoi they eat fish on Froiday. It is—strite.” The crowd roared again. “Then there’s the Trinity. What’s thet? Yew arsk ’em. They down’t know. They’re not allowed to talk about it. Whoi? Tew sycred. Thet’s what they’ll tell you—tew sycred. Secret and sycred—come from the sime root—mean the sime thing. They do—strite!” His audience did not care very much if secret and sacred did come from the same root, but it thoroughly approved of the piggy young man. And Turgis shared the general delight.

By the time he had returned down the line of speakers to the place where the old shorthand enthusiast had been (his pitch had been taken by a Christadelphian evangelist, a burly red-faced fellow who looked like a bookie), it was nearly dark and he found himself thinking about tea. He left the park, and walked along Oxford Street. Every teashop he came to was crammed. People were eating and drinking almost in one another’s laps. And already there were queues for the pictures. “If they’ve got homes to go to,” Turgis told himself, “why don’t they go to ’em.” He was sick of them. They were no good to him, these jumbles of faces. Finally, in somewhat low spirits, he found a place just off Oxford Street, one of those humble teashops with tall urns or geysers on the counter, a slatternly girl in attendance, a taxi-driver or two sitting at the first table and three Italians sitting at the back. He had a poor tea and it cost him fourpence-halfpenny more than he thought it would. When he went out again, it was drizzling, and miserably cold and damp. The queues for the pictures were enormous. All the cheaper seats were probably filled for the night.

He crossed Oxford Street and, without thinking where he was going, cut into the streets to the north of it. In one of these, a number of people, mostly women, were hurrying up some lighted steps. A notice informed him that the Higher Thought Alliance, London Circle, was meeting in that hall, to hear a lecture by Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles, and that admission was free and that all would be heartily welcome. He lingered on the steps, where he was sheltered from the thickening drizzle, and wondered whether to go in or not. Now and again, on Sundays, he looked in at various services and meetings (though he had never tried the Higher Thought Alliance before, and had never heard of it), partly for want of something better to do, and partly because he always hoped he might strike up an acquaintance with a girl there, perhaps share the same hymn-book or programme. As he was hesitating, a large middle-aged woman in a fur coat, who had been fussing about in the entrance, noticed him and said: “Do come inside. Everybody is welcome.” So he shook the raindrops from his overcoat, clutched at his hat, and, shyly, awkwardly, with his mouth wide open, he entered the hall. There, of course, before he had time to look round and see if there were any vacant seats near any nice-looking girls, an officious little man insisted on showing him to a seat. There were only about four men in the hall, but about two or three hundred women, mostly middle-aged and very dull. His own uncomfortable cane chair was between two of the dullest. On the platform, two women with short grey hair and a strained, gulping sort of expression, played the violin and the piano, and went on playing for the next ten minutes. Turgis began to feel sorry he had come, even though the place was warm and dry and the affair would not cost him anything.

Then the middle-aged woman in the fur coat, who had spoken to him outside, mounted the platform, and announced that they would begin with a hymn. It was not an ordinary sort of hymn—even Turgis could see that—and unfortunately nobody seemed to know the tune. Even the violinist had some difficulty in arriving at it. When the hymn finally trailed away into silence, they all remained standing, and then the woman in the fur coat said: “We affirm health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple,” and everybody else, except Turgis, looked down at slips of paper and repeated it after her: “We affirm health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple.” Several of the people near Turgis had some trouble in affirming this, because they were interrupted by fits of coughing, but they did their best. After that, they affirmed all sorts of things, divine love and power and truth and a general sort of oneness in the universe. Then they sat down, and nothing happened for a minute or two, during which time the universe had an opportunity of taking stock of their attitude towards it. Turgis was bewildered and not too happy, for the chair was very uncomfortable and his feet were cold.

He did not listen to what the woman in the fur coat said when she began talking again. She seemed to be reading a poem by a friend of hers, and then leaving a thought with them all. Turgis heard this remark because she repeated it several times and looked straight at him, the last time she said it. “And I’ll just leave that great thought with you,” she cried, and stared hard at Turgis, who felt embarrassed. The next moment, the two women with short grey hair were playing the violin and piano like mad, and the fussy little man and two others were rushing round with collection boxes. Two hundred and fifty women dived into handbags and then sat bolt upright, trying to look as if they did not know that their right hands were all clutching sixpences. Turgis left his pocket alone, and when the collection box came his way, he gave it a mysterious shake and then passed it on very quickly.

“A few minutes’ silent meditation,” the woman in the fur coat announced, composing her face meditatively. All the other women composed their faces meditatively too, and then looked down at their shoes. Turgis looked down at his, and noticed that one of them was splitting at the side. He wanted to waggle his toes to warm his feet, but if he began waggling, the shoe might split still more. They were rotten shoes. Everything he ever bought always turned out to be rotten. He was always being taken in. What he ought to buy was a pair of good thick Army boots; there were still some about in those ex-government stores shops; and they were cheap and they would last. But there again, what was a girl going to think of him if she found him clumping about in boots like a navvy’s? What girl, though? “Where d’you get your girls from?” he asked himself, with a sneer. There was a rustle and a shuffle: the silent meditation was over.

“And I’m sure Mr. Frank Dadds needs no introduction from me,” the woman in the fur coat was saying. “We are delighted to have him here with us again. We remember the inspiring talks he gave us last time, and we realise that we have a treat in store.” And there was an appreciative murmur.

Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles suddenly shot up as the woman in the fur coat sat down. He was a tallish, fattish, fairish American in a light brown suit and a pink tie. He clasped his hands, then rubbed them together. He smiled at them all. He was obviously at home in the universe, and filled with divine love and power and truth and a general sort of oneness. Even Turgis was impressed by him, and all the women sat up and gazed at him with adoration. Then Mr. Frank Dadds burst into speech.

“My friends,” he began, without any hesitation, “the title of my lecture this evening is Understanding and Yew. Let me commence by talking about Yew, jast Yew. Perhaps yew don’t think much of yourselves. Life doesn’t seem to yew to offer very much. There are people—and there may be some of them here with us to-night—who jast haven’t got livingness. They think that life is always jast the same old thing. They can even talk of killing time. Killing time!—when every noo moment of time is diamonded with the greatest passibilities of lahv and trewth and bewdy. Once we have got livingness—once we have got understainding—once we are in toon with the in-fy-nyte—then there is a power within us, yes, within every one of us, that can cree-ate the world anoo. Our external selves can easily be fladdered. It is easy to make too much of what we’ve done. But it is com-pletely im-passible for any words—no matter if the greatest poets utter those words—to fladder what we have within us, our po-tentialities in baddy, mind, and spirrut. We’ve got to get rid of what some people like to call our in-feriority camplexes. We’ve got to realise that power within us. That doesn’t mean—as some people seem to think—that we should develap sooperiority camplexes. And why? Bee-cause, as Noo Thought shows us, there is a Oneness in the Universe and we are all united in that Oneness. It isn’t jast the potes who sing lahv songs. The whole Universe sings a lahv song. The whole Universe is a lahv song. If it isn’t, the very atoms of which we are composed would disintegrate. I tell you, my friends, there is radiant health, there is power, there is wanderful bewdy, there is lahv, all without stint, without measure, eternal, awaiting all of us, and if we only open our eyes, find the way, develap understainding, get in toon, get livingness, there is not only a heaven above but a heaven here upon earth ...”

For some twenty-five minutes more, the voice went sounding on, offering them radiant health, power, truth, beauty, and love, without ever once faltering. Turgis could not understand it all, but he listened in a happy dream, forgetting that his chair was uncomfortable and his feet were cold. He realised that he had only to do something or other, get this livingness and oneness and understanding, just turn a corner, and everything would be different, everything would be marvellous. Vaguely he saw himself trim and sleek, with evening clothes, a huge overcoat, white trousers for summer, money in his pocket, money in the bank, an office of his own perhaps, a flat with shaded lights and big chairs and a gramophone and a wireless set, even a car, and by his side, worshipping him, the loveliest and kindest of girls. It was wonderful.

“Come again, young man,” said the fussy little man, at the door. “Always glad to see you here.”

“Thank you very much,” said Turgis earnestly, still glowing.

And then, somehow, outside in the wet streets, among the black figures hurrying home, it all went. Angrily he tried to recapture the glow and the dream, but they would not return. Inside the steaming bus, swaying with the strap he held, he found there was nothing left. He did not know how to get understanding or livingness or oneness or any of those things, could not even imagine what they were. Neither radiant health nor power, truth nor beauty, was coming his way. As for love, well, he had better chuck thinking about it. There was a girl standing next to him, not a bad sort of girl, but every time the bus went swaying round a corner, he bumped into her, not hurting her but just gently bumping into her. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but the third time it happened, she drew back and looked daggers at him—silly little idiot! Oh, yes, the universe was a love song all right!

Park was having a cup of tea and a bite of bread-and-butter with Mrs. Pelumpton in the back room when he got back, and he joined them, telling them where he had been and what he had heard.

“Dope, my friend, that’s all you’ve had,” said Park contemptuously, “nothing but dope! Comes from America, doesn’t it? Yes, and why? Because the masses there have got to be doped, that’s why. You come with me next time and you’ll hear something that’ll open your eyes a bit; no dope, but the real thing. What’s the matter with you, Turgis, is that you don’t see how your leg’s being pulled, you’re not properly class-conscious yet.”

Turgis disliked this contemptuous tone. “Are you what-is-it—class-conscious, Park?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, you can have it,” Turgis retorted, in a voice that told Park pretty plainly that he was a dreary devil.

“All right then, my friend, all right. I will have it. And you keep on with the dope.”

“I don’t want any dope. Don’t believe in it.”

“Well, what do you want, then?” demanded Park, who thought he saw in this a chance of a fine long argument.

“I dunno,” said Turgis, finishing his tea. “Yes, I do, though. I want to go to bed.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Pelumpton approvingly. “Bed. You couldn’t go to a better place. I’m sure I’m ready for mine. We’re all in now, except Edgar, and I’m not waiting for him.”

And then all that was left of Sunday was a walk upstairs.

V

Then, the very next day, on Monday of all days, it happened. It happened in the afternoon. Somebody came in, and, as Stanley was out, Turgis dashed to the other side of the frosted glass partition to see who it was. There, like a being from another world, stood a girl all in bright green, a girl with large brown eyes, the most impudent little nose, and a smiling scarlet mouth, the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“Good afternoon. Is my father here, please?” She had a queer, fascinating voice.

“Your father?”

“Yes. Mr. Golspie. This is the place, isn’t it? He told me to call for him here.”

“Oh, yes, he is, Miss—Miss Golspie,” cried Turgis eagerly, his eyes devouring her all the time. “He’s in that room there. But I think there’s somebody with him. Shall I tell him you’re here?”

“You needn’t yet if he’s busy with somebody,” said the glorious creature, smiling at him. “I can wait.”

“I can tell him now, if you like.” He was trembling with eagerness to help, to serve.

“No, it doesn’t matter. I know he hates being interrupted. I’ll wait for him. I don’t suppose he’ll be long, will he?”

“I’m sure he won’t,” he told her fervently. “Will you wait here or in the office? It’s warmer in the office.”

“This will do,” and she made a movement towards the chair.

“Excuse me, Miss Golspie.” He brought it stumbling out somehow, and at the same time he dusted the seat of the chair with his handkerchief. “It—it—might be dirty, y’know.”

She looked him full in the eyes, deliciously, drowning him in sweetness, and then smiled. “Thank you. I’d hate to spoil my new coat. Everything looks a bit grimy here, doesn’t it? It’s such a frightfully dark place, too, isn’t it?”

He supposed it was, and tried to imagine her walking up Angel Pavement outside. He still lingered. “Is there anything else,” he began vaguely, hovering, adoring her.

“Quite happy, thanks.”

There was no excuse possible to stay a moment longer. Reluctantly he returned to his desk, with his heart swelling with excitement. The others looked at him inquiringly, but he pretended to be busy with something. He did not even want to explain about a girl like that. He wanted to keep the very thought of her being there to himself. Meanwhile, he was determined to listen hard. The moment that he heard Mr. Golspie’s visitor going, he would rush out, tell Mr. Golspie she was there, and thus see her again.

But he was not able to manage it. Mr. Golspie must have shown his visitor out, for immediately after the door was opened, Turgis heard Mr. Golspie’s voice booming behind the partition. “Hello, Lena girl!” he heard him say. “Forgotten about you coming. Won’t keep you a minute.”

Mr. Golspie then came into the office. “I’ve got to go out,” he told Mr. Smeeth, “and I shan’t be coming back to-day. Be in about eleven in the morning though, if anybody wants me. Mr. Dersingham’ll be back to-morrow afternoon, if anybody wants him. And I say, what’s your name—Turgis⁠——”

“Yes, sir,” replied Turgis smartly.

“Get hold of the Anglo-Baltic—Mr. Borstein, nobody else, mind, Mr. Borstein—and tell him from me that if we’ve any more delays like that with the stuff, there’s going to be heap big trouble. They said they wouldn’t let us down, and they’re letting us down like hell. And you can tell him that from me.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Did you say Mr. Borstein?” And Turgis stared at Miss Lena Golspie’s father, at his massive bald front, at his great moustache, at his big square shoulders. Mr. Golspie had never seemed an ordinary man, but now he had for Turgis the power and fascination of a demi-god. Already his very name spelt sweetness and wonder.

“That’s the chap,” Mr. Golspie grunted. “Afternoon, everybody.” And he departed.

“That was Mr. Golspie’s daughter then who came to the door, was it?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“His daughter, eh?” Miss Matfield raised her eyebrows, then looked at Turgis, and said casually: “What was she like? Pretty?”

“Yes,” Turgis mumbled, “she was.” And he would say no more. He was not going to talk about her. He preferred to think about her. Lena Golspie.

Then, with something like amorous urgency, he went to the telephone, rang up the Anglo-Baltic, and sternly demanded Mr. Borstein. He would tell Mr. Borstein something! He would show him whether he could let them down like hell! Lena Golspie. Lena Golspie. Lena, Lena, Lena. “Hello, is that Mr. Borstein? This is Twigg and Dersingham. Yes, Twigg and Dersingham. Mr. Golspie asked me to ring you up—Mr. Gols-pie, Mr. Gol-spie ...” Lena’s father. Lena, Lena, Lena.