Chapter Seven: ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS

I

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, staring at Turgis and pulling hard at his little pipe, which replied with a sickening gurgle—“yersh, that’sh what you want, boy, shome short of ’obby, to parsh the time—shee?”

“That’s right,” cried little Mrs. Pelumpton, sitting down but only on the edge of the chair to show that this was a mere breathing-space in the long battle with beds and stairs and dirty plates and potatoes and legs of mutton. “You oughter get out of yourself more, Mr. Turgis—if you catch my meaning. That’s what you’re telling him, isn’t it?”

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, who was busy now poking at his pipe with a very large hairpin.

“Oh—I dunno,” said Turgis, vaguely and mournfully.

“Look at Edgar,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued. “What with ’arriering—y’know, a lot of ’em all running together, miles and miles, and not as much on as you might go in the water with if you was at the seaside—though he ’asn’t done much of that lately⁠——”

“Don’t blame him,” Turgis muttered, shuddering. The last thing on earth he wanted was to be a harrier, who not only ran and ran until he nearly dropped but also contrived to look silly. Ugh!

“What with that and now these racing dog dirt tracks⁠——”

“Hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton broke in, pointing a derisive pipe-stem, “d’hear that, Mishter Turgish? Dog dirt tracksh! That’sh a good one. You’ve got it wrong, Mother. Nobody’d pay to shee a dog dirt tracksh; you can shee them any time, outshide in the shtreet. Plenty of ’em round ’er. That makesh me laugh, that doesh.” And to show that it did, he cackled a little.

“It wouldn’t take much to make you laugh. But you know what I mean?” and she turned to Turgis.

“Greyhound racing.”

“That’s right,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly. “He goes to see ’em once or twice a week—never misses—and though it costs money⁠——”

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton. “Think it doesh. It’sh a betting bishnish—shame ash ’orsh racing, a betting bishnish.”

“Oh, is it?” Mrs. Pelumpton was thoughtful. “Well, that’s not as good as it might be, is it? I don’t want Edgar starting with them betting tricks—two to one each way and all that. Never any good came of that, in my opinion.”

“A mug’s game,” said Turgis, with the air of a rather gloomy man of the world.

“I thought they just went to see the dogs run about, just a bit of fun,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, dubiously. Then she brightened. “But I can trust Edgar to behave and not do anything silly.”

“Yersh, yersh. Matter of a bob or two, that’sh all. The boy’sh all right. Mindjew, for my part, I never cared for thish betting game, neither ’orshesh or anything elsh. Wouldn’t touch it. Fellersh ’ave shaid to me, ‘You put all you’ve got on sho-an’-sho—it’sh a shert,’—but I’ve told ’em, ‘No.’ Matter of prinshiple, shee? I don’t want the bookiesh’ money and they’re not going to ’ave my money. What I’ve made,” Mr. Pelumpton added, apparently under the impression that he had made whole fortunes in his time, “I’ve honeshtly earned. There’sh quite enough gambling in the dealing bishnish for me, quite enough.”

“Well, I’d rather see Edgar going up there, even if it means he’s putting his shillings on now and then,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, getting up, “than see him going round the pubs. That’s an expensive ’obby, if you like. And you can’t say you’ve never had a try at that, Dad. If you ever had any principles against the publicans ’aving your money, all I can say is they never took you very far. What you’ve honestly earned you’ve mostly honestly spent, too.” And Mrs. Pelumpton waddled into the kitchen.

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, completely ignoring his wife’s speech and now fixing Turgis with his watery stare, “quite enough gambling in the dealing bishnish for me. Now here’sh an inshtansh.”

“Oh, blow you and your instances!” Turgis cried to himself.

“Chesht o’ drawersh going up in Holloway and I’m requeshted to ’ave a look at it. Very pretty piesh, very pretty piesh. Worth money, that piesh. I’m tellin’ you now what I thought, at the time. I went back and shaw Mishter Peek an’ tellsh him that piesh’sh worth a ten pound note if it’sh worth a penny. ‘Go back,’ he shaysh, ‘and go right up to sheven if nesheshary.’ I go back and thish piesh’sh gone. Old Craggy up the road there had bought it—’ad to pay sheven too—an’ I could have kicked myshelf. Well, that’sh what?—oh, eight munsh, ten munsh, a year ago. All right. I’m looking round in old Craggy’sh the other day and what do I shee—the very shame piesh. I shaysh to ’im ‘I know that piesh’ and I told him ’ow and why I did know it. Then I shaysh to him, ‘What you wanting now for that piesh?’ An’ what do you think he shaid?”

“Fifty pounds,” said Turgis promptly. He had heard this type of story many, many times from Mr. Pelumpton.

“Now that’sh jusht where you’re wrong, boy,” cried Mr. Pelumpton, delighted. “Jusht where you’re wrong. Not fifty poundsh but five poundsh, two lesh than he’d given for it. Couldn’t get rid of it—shee?—and had pulled it down and down—and I give you my word, I believe I could have ’ad that piesh from him for four—he was sho shick of sheeing it about the shop. And I’d have bought it for sheven, sho would Mishter Peek, sho would you, sho would anybody. It jusht showsh you. The dealing bishnish ish a gamble.”

“If you ask me,” said Turgis, all gloomy and profound, “it’s all a gamble.”

“Well, don’t loosh ’eart, boy, don’t loosh ’eart. Take a ninterest in thingsh like I do. Shtart a nobby⁠——”

“What’s your hobby?” asked Turgis, not too graciously. And he immediately gave himself the answer silently, “Finding free beer, you old soak, that’s your hobby.”

“My work ish my ’obby now,” replied Mr. Pelumpton very solemnly. “In my time I’ve ’ad all manner of ’obbiesh, from pigeonsh to joining the volunteersh, but now my work ish my ’obby. It’sh not only my work but my play, ash you might shay. And if you’re going to make anything at all out of dealing, if you’re going to be a real dealer, that’sh the only way to do it—make it a full time job, wherever you are, be on the look-out, keep your eyesh open, your earsh open, turn thingsh over in your mind. If you’d a bit more money, d’you know what I’d shay to you?”

Turgis could think of several things that Mr. Pelumpton would say to him, the very minute he had some more money, but he was certain that not one of them was in Mr. Pelumpton’s thoughts at the moment. So he merely shook his head.

“What I’d shay to you ish—shtart collecting. In a shmall way, y’know, to begin with. Doeshn’t matter what you collect. And I’d put you on to thingsh. That’sh where you’d be lucky ’cosh you’d ’ave the benefit of my experiensh and knowledge of the trade.”

Turgis did not think he would care very much for collecting, and Mrs. Pelumpton, returning at that moment, wiping her hands on an apron, said that she didn’t think of collecting either. “Just wasting your money and littering the place up, that would be,” she added. “So don’t you go and put ideas into his head, Dad. I’d sooner see you taking an interest in these politics, same as Mr. Park.”

“You know what he ish, Mishter Park?” said her husband. “He’sh a Bolshie, that’sh what he ish.”

“Well, it keeps him quiet enough,” Mrs. Pelumpton retorted. “And sober, too. Never makes any noise or trouble. Nobody will make me believe he’s a real Bolshie, a nice quiet young chap like that. And he’s never been to Russia, never once set eyes on it. He told me so himself.”

“That doeshn’t matter,” said Mr. Pelumpton.

“What does matter then?” asked Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly.

No doubt her husband could have told her, but he did not choose to; he merely made a contemptuous noise, and then took up the evening paper. Turgis decided to go to bed. It was not late, but there was nothing to do. He was tired of talking to the Pelumptons, though he felt vaguely grateful to them, or at least to Mrs. Pelumpton, for taking an interest in him. What they actually said did not mean much to him—for he did not want any of their silly hobbies and had not the slightest desire to be like either Edgar or Park—but it was pleasant to feel that somebody was interested in him. His father took no interest in him, hadn’t done for years, and he had no other near relations. They didn’t care much about him at the office. Even Poppy-with-the-fringe had kept away from him lately, and the others simply took him for granted. He had no friends. He was just a chap in the crowd. Nearly all his time away from the office was spent in a crowd somewhere, getting back to his lodgings in the packed Tube, returning to the thronged streets afterwards, perhaps eating in some crowded place, then waiting in a queue to get in a picture theatre, making one of a huge audience, wandering along the lamp-lit pavements, and he was for ever surrounded by strange, indifferent or hostile faces, looking into millions of eyes that never lit up with any gleam of recognition, and spending hour after hour in the very thick of packed humanity without exchanging a single word with anybody. His existence was noticed only when he bought something, when he turned himself into a customer.

And yet, of course, this was not entirely true. There were innumerable people in London who were not only ready to make the acquaintance of Turgis, but were actually longing for him. There were Park’s comrades, the communists, who would be only too glad to obtain another recruit; possibly the Socialists; and certainly the Anti-Socialists, who would have been delighted to show him how to mount a soap-box. There were clergymen of all denominations and sects on the prowl for him, willing to lead him in prayer, to instruct him in the Scriptures, to teach him anthems, to show him lantern slides of the Norfolk Broads, to smoke a manly pipe at him, to play a game of chess, draughts, dominoes, bagatelle, or billiards with him, to give him a right hook and then a straight left with the gloves on, according to their varied tastes and dispositions. There were men who were not clergymen, but had the habits and outlook of clergymen, leaders of ethical societies and the like, who would be pleased to talk to him about their own particular universes, lend him a few books, and welcome him twice a week at their philosophical-literary-musical services. No doubt there were criminals who could have made good use of a youth with such a guileless air. There were thousands of other young men in lodgings and offices, young men who were not very clever or strong or handsome or brave or artful, young men who were for ever packing themselves into tubes and buses, eating hastily in corners of crowded teashops, and then using the music-halls, picture theatres, saloon bars, and lighted streets as their drawing-rooms, studies, and clubs, who would soon have been overjoyed, once the mumbling preliminaries were passed, to spend their evenings with Turgis.

But then he did not really want any of these people, did not want company for company’s sake. What he really wanted was Love, Romance, a Wonderful Girl of His Own. And these had lately all been assuming the same shape in his mind, that of Miss Lena Golspie. He had never spoken to her, had never seen her except once, at a distance, since that day she appeared at the office, but he had thought a great deal about her. To say that he had fallen in love with her at sight would be to exaggerate. If an attractive girl—and she need not have been anything like so pretty as Miss Golspie—had turned up and had been kind to him, no doubt he would soon have forgotten all about Lena. But no such girl turned up; indeed no girl of any kind appeared. If Lena Golspie was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen (and he could not remember a prettier, not even if he included the beautiful shadow people, Lulu Castellar and the other film stars), she was certainly the prettiest girl he had ever spoken to, and the fact that she had actually made her appearance at the office door in Angel Pavement somehow brought her definitely into his own world. That she was not really a creature of that world only made her more fascinating, mysterious, romantic, like the beautiful heroine of a love story of the films. She was a lovely bird of passage. He imagined her against a background of strange places and fantastic luxuries. It was as if Lulu Castellar had stepped out of the screen, taken on colour and solid shape, and had actually spoken to him, smiled at him. And yet, there it was, her father worked in the very same business, in the very same office, with him. No wonder he could not get the girl out of his head, which for a long time now had been haunted by a vague but infinitely desirable feminine shape. It was vague no longer; it had definite form and features; it had a name.

It had also an address, and Turgis, his wits suddenly sharpened, had contrived to learn it at the office. The Golspies lived at 4a, Carrington Villas, Maida Vale, W. 9. He had seen the very house, or rather the upper half of the house, in which they lived. He had, in fact, seen it several times, and had actually been watching when lights were being turned on and off there. Before this, Maida Vale had been for him a mere name, but now he was rapidly becoming familiar with the district, and it had for him a most curious fascination. He had never really decided what he would do if he was lucky enough to run into Miss Golspie. She had been friendly that day she came to the office, though condescending to him, of course, as she had every right to do; but on the strength of that, he did not see how he could very well stop her, perhaps in one of the darkest parts of Carrington Villas, and say: “Do you remember me. I’m Turgis and I’m the clerk at Twigg and Dersingham’s. And how are you, Miss Golspie?” And if he wasn’t to do that, what was he to do? He did not know, and so left it to the inspiration of the moment. That moment never arrived. He was not very surprised or disappointed. He went across to Maida Vale several nights, not so much because he felt he had a good chance of meeting her there or even of seeing her, but because on these particular evenings every other part of London seemed terribly dreary, and Maida Vale drew him across these desolated spaces like a magnet. He only went when it was fine, and then he took a turn or two up and down Carrington Villas, sometimes stopping near the house to see if anything was happening there (it was a detached house with two pillars before the door and three steps leading up to it, and there was a broken statue in the dingy bit of garden in front), perhaps walked along the street at the top a little way, towards the main road, then did the same at the bottom, had a last saunter along Carrington Villas, perhaps ended up with a glass of bitter at the high-class little pub just round the corner at the top, and went home. The first few evenings he had spent like that he had enjoyed; there was to him something enchantingly mysterious and romantic in the winter-evening gloom of this Maida Vale; as he moved about the quiet streets, a shadow among shadows, he became aware of an intense secret inner life of his own; but the pleasure rapidly decreased. Too often the upper half of the house was all dark, and then of course the whole neighbourhood lost its charm, which was transferred to some other, unknown, part of the city, where she was spending the evening. Probably in the West End, that brilliant jungle, where you might meet anybody, the last person in the world you expected to meet, and where you might miss for ever the one person you wanted to meet. It was in the West End he caught sight of her. He had been to a picture theatre and it was late, and he saw her with her father and another man. Mr. Golspie was shouting for a taxi, and in another moment he had got one and they were gone. But he saw her distinctly, and it was strange seeing her, for though he had thought so much about her, she had almost stopped being real.

He was beginning to mope now, for he was tired of going over to Maida Vale, and yet could not settle down to spend his evenings in the old way, and that was why the Pelumptons, seeing him hanging about and looking vaguely miserable, had begun to give him advice about hobbies. They did not understand, he told himself gloomily, that he wasn’t simply another Edgar or Park. But he admitted once again that it was decent of them to take an interest in him, even if they missed the great fact about him—namely, that he was entirely different from Edgar or Park or anybody else they knew. The innermost self of Turgis was always being surprised and hurt by the general ignorance of this simple fact. Having reached his little room, he now did what he had done many hundreds of times before: he examined his face carefully in the tiny cracked mirror to see if there were any signs of this difference written there; and once again he came to the conclusion that there were, only you had to look closely and sympathetically at him, not just give a hard stare and then march off, to notice them.

For once, the little gas-fire did not explode when the match came near and then wheezily complain. It gave only a soft pop and then merely murmured. Its master knew that that meant that the meter demanded another shilling, and as he had not got a shilling and was too lazy to return to the back room for possible change, he let it murmur and sink, until its flames were like tiny blue flowers. Then he did something he had not done hundreds of times before. He began brushing his clothes. Mr. Smeeth had already noticed, as we saw, that Turgis had smartened himself up. We are now behind the scenes of this smartening. It had occurred to Turgis that his next meeting with Lena Golspie, if there ever was one, might easily take place in the office, like the first meeting, and then he realised at once that he would have to take some trouble with his appearance during the day. He went to the length of spending one-and-three-pence on a clothes brush of his own. A day or two later, he went to the further length of buying a few collars, very smart soft collars with long points on them, and was quite surprised at the difference they made. Then he had taken to folding his trousers and putting them under the mattress, and had even taken his better pair downstairs once and ironed them. Now, after brushing the coat and waistcoat and doing a little scratching here and there with his penknife, he took these trousers from under the mattress and thoroughly examined them.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, the trousers over his arm, staring at the large hole in the old rug. But he was not looking at the hole, but through it, into Angel Pavement, into the office. Mr. Golspie had just gone away, and now Turgis suddenly realised that that fact was tremendously important. It might mean that there was no chance whatever of Lena coming near the office, now that her father was not there. On the other hand, it might mean just the opposite, that there was a very good chance of her visiting the office, just because her father was away. She might want something; she might be in trouble; and Mr. Golspie might easily have told her to come to the office. And now he remembered hearing something, something that Mr. Golspie, at the outer door, had shouted to Mr. Dersingham sitting in the private office, a something that had to do with Lena and “you people here,” as Mr. Golspie had called them. Turgis knew definitely that Lena was being left behind. Well then, she might call at the office any day. There was quite a chance, anyhow. So there and then, he decided that for the next twelve days or so, while Mr. Golspie was away, he would shave carefully every morning, put on his better suit and wear a clean collar, and have his hair cut at lunch time on the following day. Having thus made up his mind, he felt quite excited, and, as people do, if they have drifted for a long time and then suddenly come to a decision and adopted a programme, he found himself visited obscurely by a conviction that something was bound to happen, just as if by drawing a firm straight line he could compel circumstance to come and toe it.

The gas-fire retired from service with a very sad little pop. He moved and the bed immediately gave a groan. (Everything in the room creaked and groaned and constantly complained. It was tired of people, that little room.) Very carefully he raised the mattress and replaced the trousers underneath. Then, with something like an air of sheer dandyism, he put out an absolutely clean collar for the morning. He went to the little dormer window and stared through the few inches of open space at the dark and the faint glimmer of the town. Here he was, high up above Camden Town, in his own little room. There she was, Lena Golspie, perhaps in her little room in Maida Vale, perhaps just above those two pillars he had seen, peering through the open gate, perhaps looking down on that broken statue in the front garden. It made his eyes water, staring there like that, but still he remained. His lips moved. “Listen, Lena,” he began; but then stopped. “Listen, Miss Golspie, Miss Lena Golspie. Listen. Do come to the office, do come to the office. And make it something I can do. Turgis, you know, the one you saw that day. Do come to the office.”

As soon as he stepped back into the little room, it told him, in its various creaky voices, not to be a damned fool.

“Oh!—you!” he said to it, aloud, and then made haste to undress and get the light out.

II

Turgis kept his word to himself. Every day he appeared at the office all shaved and brushed and as spruce as it was possible for him to be. The others congratulated him and chaffed him and invented the most elaborate reasons for the change. Sandycroft, the tall traveller with the small head, the inquisitive nose, and the extraordinary number of teeth, paid one of his flying visits to headquarters and pretended, possibly at the instigation of Mr. Smeeth, not to know Turgis.

“I say, Smeeth,” Sandycroft barked—and he really did bark; it was like having an enormous terrier about the place when Sandycroft arrived—“what’s become of that other chap—you know, what’s his name—that chap who used to wear the dark brown collars⁠——?”

“Now who was that, Sandycroft?” said Smeeth, frowning and putting his head on one side. Smeeth was as conscientious and painstaking a wag as he was a cashier. It was not often that he joined in a joke, but when he did he was almost alarmingly thorough.

“You know the chap I mean, Smeeth,” replied Sandycroft, sniffing with that queer little nose of his. “Never had his hair cut—wore a beard—looked like a Spring Poet in the autumn. Sat at the desk over there,” he continued, lowering his voice, “where that smart young feller is. Oh, what was his name?”

Here Stanley gurgled and spluttered, not perhaps because he thought this was very brilliant humour, but because he thought comic relief in any form should be encouraged. Miss Poppy Sellers was giggling a little, too, and Miss Matfield smiled at them, not without condescension.

“Oh, don’t be so funny,” Turgis mumbled, giving Stanley a ferocious scowl.

“That’s queer, Smeeth. The same voice—the very same voice.”

“I believe you’re right, Sandycroft. I believe you’re right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the air of a dutiful cross-talk comedian.

“Sure I am,” the other barked. Then he stepped forward, with a large polite smile on his face, displaying at least a hundred teeth. “Not Mr. Turgis? Surely it can’t be Mr. Turgis?”

“No,” said Turgis, who was not very good at this sort of thing, “it’s Charlie Chaplin.”

“Well, Mr. Charlie Chaplin Turgis,” said Sandycroft, “I must congratulate you, I really must. All in favour, show in the usual way. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.” And he turned away, grinning.

“Ah, well,” said Mr. Smeeth, settling down to his books again, rather as if he had just come to the end of some great gusty epic of humour, “a bit of fun won’t do any of us any harm now and again. Here, Stanley, slip round to Nickman and Sons with this and say it’s for Mr. Broadhurst—for Mr. Broadhurst, mind. And hurry up, don’t take all morning about it. Don’t go shadowing somebody all round London.”

A week had passed, and though news of Mr. Golspie himself had trickled through into the general office, Turgis had heard nothing about Lena. It seemed as if he was making a fool of himself—and being laughed at by the others for his pains—and he was beginning to feel very disheartened. On two evenings, he had returned to Maida Vale and had hung about the neighbourhood of 4a, Carrington Villas, but had been rewarded by nothing more than a glimpse of a shadow on a curtain. He had been tempted then to walk boldly up to 4a and offer some wild excuse for trying to see Miss Golspie. But he could think of nothing that did not sound insane, and, realising that this crazy step might spoil everything and get him into trouble at the office, he dismissed the notion. The other evenings went very heavily. He had begun to tell himself that he was silly to bother his head about the girl at all, but it was one thing to tell himself that and quite another thing to stop bothering.

Stanley returned, and was sent out again. Mr. Smeeth departed for the bank. Turgis and the two girls worked away quietly; there was not a lot to do that morning. Then Poppy Sellers came over to Turgis with some advice notes she had just typed.

“Are these all right?” she asked.

He looked them over. “Yes, they’re all right. You’ve got into it now, haven’t you?” he added, deciding to give her a good word for once. She wasn’t a bad kid, really. “Wish I could type as neat as that. I used to have to do it sometimes, before you came, but I used to make a nasty mess of it, I did.”

Her sallow little face brightened at once at such praise. But her manner was as perky as ever. “My word! we are coming on, aren’t we! What have I done to deserve this? But I say,” and here she became more confidential in tone, “you didn’t mind what they said—y’know when they were trying to pull your leg. I had to laugh, and I thought you looked a bit mad.”

“If it amuses ’em, I don’t care,” replied Turgis loftily. “Bit silly, I call it, all the same. I don’t go round making personal remarks about other people. Matter of fact, I don’t mind what old Smeethy says, ’cos he’s a decent sort and anyhow it isn’t often he breaks loose. But I don’t like that chap Sandycroft. He’s a cocky devil, he is. And, anyhow, he’s only just come here—what does he want to be trying to be funny for?”

“That’s right,” said Poppy, nodding her head. “I don’t think much of him, either. Not my style at all, he isn’t. Too many teeth, if you ask me. And I don’t like them noses that turn up the way his does. If he worked here all the time, he’d have that nose and teeth into everything. I know that sort.”

“So do I. We’d a school teacher the very image of him when I was a kid, and he used to try it on with us—oh, what a hope!”

“Mind you,” Poppy continued, looking at him a little uncertainly, “you do look diff’rent—smarter, y’know.”

“Well, that’s nobody else’s business but mine,” Turgis declared. “What’s it got to do with anybody else?”

“Oo, all right, don’t jump at me. I only meant—well, you look a lot nicer now. In fact, I think you look very nice.”

Turgis did not know what reply to make to this, so he merely grunted.

“You don’t mind me saying so, I hope?”

“No, ’s’all right,” he replied awkwardly.

“I say, listen. Are you going anywhere to-night?” She stopped for a moment, but then, before he had time to answer, went on with a rush. “’Cos if you aren’t—well, it’s like this, my friend—her father’s a policeman—and she got two tickets given for the Police Minstrels to-night and now she can’t go ’cos she’s in bed with the flu and I’ve got the tickets and I wondered if you’d like to come with me.” And she drew a deep breath.

“Well, thanks very much,” he stammered, “but—I don’t know—you see⁠——”

“Have you fixed up already to go somewhere?”

“Well, I have—really⁠——”

“Oh, sorry.” Her face fell. She was silent for a moment, then looked up—rather cheekily, he thought—and said, “Going out with your girl, p’raps?”

This annoyed him, just as if she had jabbed at some sore place. “Well, that’s my business, isn’t it?”

“Oo, sorry, sorry, sorry! Squashed again. I’d better shut up.” And she marched away, a compact little figure, and began typing with great vigour and noise. Miss Matfield threw a curious glance at her.

Turgis wondered if he had been foolish to pretend that he wasn’t free to go to that entertainment. It would be a lot better than doing nothing. He supposed it was too late to change his mind, particularly now that she had walked off in a huff. He would wish, when the evening did come and he had nothing to do but mope about, that he had accepted her offer. She really hadn’t a bad face when you took a good look at it. Yes, perhaps he’d been silly not to accept.

But when the evening did come and he suddenly remembered how he had refused this other engagement, how glad he was! It seemed like fate. And afterwards, when he suddenly remembered yet again how he had refused this other engagement, how sorry he was! And still it seemed like fate.

He and Miss Matfield came back from lunch at the same time that afternoon (Miss Matfield had gone out first, but then she always took quarter of an hour longer than anybody else), running into one another in Angel Pavement, near T. Benenden’s. “You know, Turgis,” she announced, in that clear hard voice of hers which always rather frightened him, “I do think you’re beastly rude to little Miss Sellers.”

“Why, what have I done to her?” he demanded.

“I saw this morning you’d hurt her feelings again,” Miss Matfield continued. “And why you should, I can’t imagine. She’s quite a nice child, really, underneath that silly perky manner of hers, and I think she’s rather lonely, and you could be quite good friends. You see, she happens to think you’re rather marvellous.”

“And you don’t, Miss Matfield,” said Turgis, bold for once with her. “Go on, you might as well put that in properly. I could hear it in your tone of voice.”

“I certainly don’t think you’re at all marvellous,” she said coolly. “Why should I? What I do think is that you’re being very rude to somebody who is prepared to like you a good deal. And when people really like you,” she added severely, “you ought to be specially nice to them and not rude. Now don’t say anything to her about what I’ve just said or I shall be really annoyed.”

“All right,” said Turgis sulkily, wondering why he couldn’t say something sharp to her, for her cool cheek. “But I don’t see what I’ve done to her. She takes offence too quickly, that’s it. And whose fault’s that? And for that matter, who’s ever considered my feelings in the office?”

“You’re different,” she said airily, “or if you’re not, you ought to be. You’re a man.”

Turgis, pleased by this statement that he was a man, but still labouring under a grievance, could do nothing but mumble and mutter, and Miss Matfield, taking no further notice of him, led the way upstairs. The next time he saw Miss Sellers, Turgis looked curiously at her. So she thought he was “rather marvellous,” did she? He found himself returning to this, and to her, several times during the afternoon.

But then something happened, something so important that it promptly blew away all thought of Miss Sellers or anybody or anything in that office. Mr. Dersingham, who had only been there long enough in the morning to go through the first post, returned about four to examine the later posts, and he had not been in ten minutes before he sent for Mr. Smeeth. After a short interval, during which one of them telephoned to somebody from the private office, Mr. Smeeth came out, looking fussy, as he always did when he had something special to do.

“Let’s see,” he said, looking round the office, “does anybody here live Maida Vale way?”

What was this? Turgis’s heart jumped and knocked.

“Well, I live in Hampstead and that’s roughly the same way,” Miss Matfield began, dubiously.

“What is it, Mr. Smeeth?” cried Turgis eagerly. “I know Maida Vale very well.”

“Thought you lived Camden Town way?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Yes, I do, but—er—I know somebody in Maida Vale, often go there. Is it anything I can do, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Yes, I think you’d better have the job, Turgis,” said the unconscious Mr. Smeeth, little knowing what effect his words were having. “You see, Mr. Golspie’s got a daughter living with him—well, you know that, because she came here one day, didn’t she?”

Oh, my gosh!—didn’t she!

“She hasn’t got a bank account,” Mr. Smeeth continued, “and apparently the girl’s got through all the money her father left her—these girls, my word, they think we’re made of money!—wait till you’re a father, Turgis, and then you’ll know—and he’s arranged with us to let her have some from his account here. She wants it at once, to-day, and we’ve just telephoned to see if she’ll be in, and she will—trust her!—they’ll always be in if they get something for it—so somebody had better take it up to her, Mr. Dersingham says. I’d make the young madam wait if I’d anything to do with it,” he went on, maddeningly, “because this is only encouraging extravagance, upon my word it is—but Mr. Dersingham says she’d better have it now.”

“Well, I’ll take it, Mr. Smeeth.” Oh, wouldn’t he just!

“All right, then. You’d better clear off that work you’ve got on hand, Turgis, and then when you go, you needn’t come back. If you leave here about five, you’ll get there about half-past five, and that’ll leave her ample time to put in a full evening spending it. I’ve got the address here all ready.”

Got the address! If old Smeethy only knew! Turgis could have banged his desk and sent all his advice notes and bills of lading and railway and shipping accounts flying about the office. He did contrive to clear up a few odd jobs, but he did not do as much work as he pretended to do, for it was impossible to keep his mind crawling there, among the papers, and to prevent it from taking a wild leap now and then. At a few minutes to five, he cleared his desk ruthlessly, so that it looked as if the last crumb of work had been gobbled up. “I’m ready now, Mr. Smeeth,” he announced.

“Right you are,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m putting twelve pounds, twelve pound notes, into this envelope, and it has the name and address on, you see—Miss Golspie, 4a Carrington Villas, Maida Vale. I’ll seal that. Now here’s a form of receipt I’ve made out, and you must get her to sign that, so that there’s no possible mistake. You understand that?”

Turgis assured him fervently that he did. He was delighted at the receipt idea. Once or twice he had thought what a dismal ending it would be if he merely handed over the money at the door—“Is that the money? Thank you. Good afternoon.” But signing a receipt was a different matter; it could not be done properly at the door; you should read a receipt carefully before you sign it; you might want to have it explained; you must ask the messenger in, and then of course he might have a chance to talk. The receipt made it a piece of real business. Good old Smeethy! It was just like him to insist on a proper receipt.

“And you needn’t come back, of course,” said Mr. Smeeth. “Just pop off home. I’ll just tell Mr. Dersingham I’ve fixed it all up.”

“What’s all this about?” Miss Matfield asked, as he was taking his overcoat from its peg.

He explained shortly.

“Where do they live?”

“In Maida Vale. 4a, Carrington Villas,” he told her.

“I say, listen,” cried Miss Sellers, sweeping away her grievance. “If you get a chance of going in, go in, and then tell us what it’s like to-morrow. I’d like to know what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in. Wouldn’t you, Miss Matfield?”

Miss Matfield, to Turgis’s surprise, for he expected her to be disdainful of such idle curiosity, admitted at once that she would. “I’m rather sorry I didn’t ask for the job,” she added. “It would be amusing to see what the daughter’s like. I have just seen her, but that’s all. And I can’t imagine what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in, though it’s probably some furnished maisonette they’re camping in. Maida Vale’s stiff with them.”

“Well, I can’t fancy that Mr. Golspie having a ’ome at all,” Miss Sellers put in. “Seems a ’omeless sort of man to me.”

“I’ll say ‘Good afternoon,’” cried Turgis loudly and cheerfully, and off he went, the money and the receipt form snugly tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat, the best coat he had and all brushed and as natty as you like. Now for Maida Vale, and no hanging about this time, but straight as a shot from a gun through the front gate of 4, Carrington Villas. He hurried out, running down the stairs, in fear of Mr. Dersingham or Mr. Smeeth or Miss Golspie or the gods suffering a change of mind at the last minute and dragging him back to his desk.

III

There was just light enough, and time enough, for him to notice that the broken statue, really a plaster thing, was that of a little boy playing with two large fishes, and that the two pillars were peeling badly. There were two bells, one for 4, the other for 4a. He was careful to press the 4a one. He pressed it several times and altogether waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked as if she was out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell for 4. Instantly a light was switched on in the hall, and the door—there was only one door for both flats—flung open.

“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous woman in an apron, standing there. “Because if it is, I’ve to give you the mistress’s word that she’s paying out no more money for the machine because the girl that could work it has left and it’s no use to us at all the way we are now, and not another penny will she pay out for it, so take it itself and leave us in peace.”

“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis told her.

“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the very image of him.”

“I want to see Miss Golspie.”

“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other bell, with the a on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”

“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung it about six times.”

“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman, coming out and looking at the bell-push, as if that might explain something. “Haven’t they got that bell of theirs ringing yet? Every time it’s us, it’s really them. Come inside, young man, come inside, or if we stand here talking another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain the way she’ll say she’s destroyed with the draught. Does she know you’re coming at all?”

“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the hall. “I’ve been sent to see her on business. It’s very important. I hope she’s in.”

“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say she was going to see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a bit of a door—it may be open and it may be shut—and if you knock on it, you’ll make her hear. The servant they have is out to-day because I met her here myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock on the door.”

Just beyond the head of the stairs, there was a door, and it was open a little, so that he could plainly hear the sound of a gramophone playing jazz. He knocked hard. The gramophone stopped abruptly.

It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She was dressed in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was prettier than ever. At the sight of her standing there, solid and real again at last, his heart bumped and his mouth went suddenly dry.

“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss Golspie,” he announced, stammering a little.

Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that money?” she cried, in that same queer fascinating voice he remembered so well. “How much is it? Come in, though. This way.”

The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but in spite of its size it was full of things. Turgis had never seen, except on the pictures, so many cushions; there seemed to be dozens of them, huge bright cushions, piled up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed into armchairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then there were gramophone records and books and magazines all over the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits and fancy boxes heaped together on little tables, and then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash-trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and yellow, shaded lamps, and it was very cosy and warm; almost too warm, even though it was a cold afternoon, for an excited young man who had hurried there from the bus.

“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a receipt here that you have to sign.”

“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you. I adore having money. Don’t you? It’s beastly when you suddenly find you haven’t got any, and can’t go anywhere or buy anything. Oh, I remember you. You’re the one I spoke to that day when I called at the office, aren’t you? Do you remember me?”

Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still standing, awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his overcoat hanging loose from his shoulders, and he felt rather hot and uncomfortable.

“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly. “How did you remember so well?”

“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you, Miss Golspie?” he said humbly.

She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”

“Well, I remembered you,” he replied, gasping a little, “because I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever spoken to in all my life.”

“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She shrieked with laughter. “What a marvellous thing to say! Is that why you brought the money?”

“Yes, it is,” he said earnestly.

“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some one had to come here,” he continued with sudden recklessness, “I specially asked to be sent—just to see you again.” The hand that was still in his overcoat pocket tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result that his overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and emptied a box of cigarettes on to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie, greatly entertained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and sweating now with sheer awkwardness and shyness. “I’ll pick them up.”

“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your hat down, and then you’ll feel much better. That’s right. Dump them down there—anywhere. Now you can pick the cigarettes up and you can also give me one of them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily he lit her cigarette, picked up the others, and then lit his own. “Now what about the money?” she continued. “What do I have to do to get it?”

“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought to count it first to see if it’s all right.”

When they had concluded this little transaction, she said suddenly, “Have you had any tea?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.

“Well, I haven’t, either. I was too lazy to make it. The maid’s out to-day. Let’s have some. Shall we? Most of it’s ready on a tray, but I just couldn’t bother boiling some water and making the tea. You come and help and then you shall have some.” He followed her into the little kitchen, where he filled a kettle and watched it come to the boil while she chattered in a drifting haze of cigarette smoke and languidly produced another cup and saucer and some things to eat. Then, when everything was ready, he carried the tray into the other room and set it down on a low table in front of the fire. Lena reclined, like a lovely lazy animal, on a pile of cushions, while Turgis, at the other side of the low table, sat in a low, fat armchair. It was a wonderful tea. The tea itself was good, for there were little sandwiches and all kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and biscuits, all piled up anyhow, like everything in this careless and sumptuous place. And then, far more important than sandwiches and cake, there was Lena herself, so real, so close, so magically illuminated there in the firelight and shaded lamplight. She asked him all manner of questions, beginning with “What’s your name?”

“Turgis,” he told her shyly.

“What’s your first name?”

“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody (anybody, that is, who didn’t merely want him to fill up a form) had asked him what his Christian name was. He brought it out with desperate embarrassment, but when it came out, he felt better.

“I don’t like Harold much. Do you? Mine’s Lena.”

“Yes, I know it is.”

“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she cried, laughing. “You’ll be telling me next how old I am and where I was born and all the rest of it. Who do you think you are—a detective?”

This was a good opportunity to be bright and entertaining, so he told her all about Stanley at the office and how Stanley wanted to be a detective and went about “shaddering” people. After which, Lena, who seemed to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people at the office.

“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day in a place like that. So dark and dismal, isn’t it? And they call that street Angel Pavement! What a name for it! I nearly passed straight out when my father told me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work in a shop than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind being a mannequin. Or go on the stage. That would be best of all. I want to go on the stage. I nearly went on when I was in Paris. And a man wanted me to go in for film work—he said he’d get me a part right away. Do you think I’d be any good for the films?”

“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all solemn adoration. “You’d be wonderful on the pictures—like Lulu Castellar or one of those stars—only better. I’d go anywhere to see you.”

If he had thought about it for days, he could not have produced a speech more calculated to please her than this, because it chimed with her own innermost aspirations and beliefs. And his solemn adoration, a change from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant. She smiled at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet deliberation, and he sat looking at her, silent, intoxicated.

The silence was broken by a sharp rat-tat-tat. “Oh, damn!” cried Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to see. She returned, raising her eyebrows comically at Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. It was an old woman who looked like a dressed up and painted witch. She had an enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply sunken eyes, but, nevertheless, her face had the pink and white colouring of youth. This was because it was thickly painted, and when it caught the light, it shone, just as if it was enamelled and varnished. She was wearing, above a purple dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with a pattern of scarlet flowers on it, and she glittered with brooches, necklaces and rings. Never in his life before had Turgis been in the same room with anybody as fantastic as this old woman, and suddenly he felt frightened. For a second or so, he even forgot about Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he was somewhere familiar, sensible and safe. It was a queer moment, and he remembered it long afterwards.

Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash fashion, so that he never caught the name of this extraordinary visitor. All he knew was that it was something foreign; and he guessed that she was the woman who lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat Irish cook, or whatever she was who had admitted him into the house.

“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a cracked foreign voice, “I’ll not stay at oll, onlee one seengle minute. I haf asked my nephew and hees vife and hees friend from de Legation to com’ to me to-night because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no end of eet.” At this point she sat down, shot out a claw-like hand and took a cake, and promptly gobbled it up. Turgis stared at her, fascinated.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound concerned, but obviously ready to giggle at any moment.

“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a great many times and wagging her head as she did so. “My daughtair again, of course—need you ask? Always de same—onlee a deef’rent troble.” She swooped down upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth and lit it with uncommon dexterity. After blowing a cloud of smoke in Lena’s direction, she resumed: “I haf com’, my dee-air, for two t’ings. First, here are de plomss I said to you I would geef you. No, no, no, no. Dey are noding, noding, noding at oll. Steel, dey are vairy, vairy nice plomss.” Apparently these plums were in the little box she now handed to Lena. “Next, I ask your fadair, Meestair Colspie—does he say ven he com’ back ’ere?”

“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think he quite knows yet. But it ought to be some time next week. Perhaps you know, do you?” And she looked at Turgis.

“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis, very conscious of the fact that the old woman was staring at him. “We expect him back some time next week.”

“No, no, no, no. I should like to ask your fadair about dees troble for my daughtair—dat ees oll—and eenoff! Aw yes!—eenoff. My nephew’s friend from de Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, I ask your fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, and got up from her chair surprisingly quickly. “Aw, my dee-air, dat ees a nice, a vairy nice dress you ’ave on now. Aw yes, eet ees.” She ran a be-ringed claw over some of it. Then she looked at Turgis, who immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a nice dress, eh? You t’eenk so?”

The embarrassed Turgis said it was.

“She ees vairy preety, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes—loffly, you t’eenk, eh?”

“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing his throat.

“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”

These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap? What had it got to do with her, the nosy old hag? He made some sort of noise in his throat, and it was enough to stop her staring at him and to set her moving towards the door, chuckling just as if she was a witch. “The young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im a plom, dee-air.”

When Lena came back, after closing the outer door behind the old woman, a new feeling, of friendly ease and lightness, immediately descended upon them both. They were young together. They laughed at the old woman, whom Lena imitated with some skill.

“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old thing, really—she’s always giving me things—but quite cracked, of course. And the daughter she talks about, the one who’s in ‘troble’—she’s some sort of a countess—seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who ever comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only people I’ve spoken to these last few days, so you can tell the sort of time I’ve had. It’s just my damnable luck!—when my father’s away and I could do what I liked—three friends, all three, take it into their heads to go away, too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve been so bored.” She lounged over to the window and looked out. “Looks very thick now. Another fog coming, I suppose. That’s the worst of London, all these foul fogs. What shall we do now? You haven’t to go home or anything, have you?”

Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he hadn’t to go home or anywhere.

“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near here. It’s not bad. Just wait; I shan’t be long. Or, look here, you could take these tea things back into the kitchen.”

He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to think of washing them long before Miss Golspie appeared again. What he did, when she did appear, was to wash himself in a bathroom that had more towels and bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other half-dozen bathrooms he had ever seen put together. And now they were ready for the pictures.

It was not far, but they had to grope their way through a mist that was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once or twice Lena put her hand on his arm, and they were cosy together in the blank woolly night, and it was all rather wonderful. It was better still when they were sitting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and deep rose-shaded dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre. (Turgis had paid for these best seats, and was left with exactly three-and-threepence to take him through the rest of the week.) They were both enthusiastic and knowing patrons of the films, so that they had a good deal to talk about, and frequently as they whispered, her head came close to his and her hair even brushed his cheek. It was tremendously exciting. The chief picture, a talkie—it was Her Dearest Enemy, with Mary Meriden and Hunter York—was good stuff, but it was nothing compared to merely sitting in that balcony with Lena Golspie, who, incidentally, was much prettier than Mary Meriden. She herself thought she was just as pretty, but Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told her so several times. On this occasion he abandoned his usual tactics. He did not even try to hold her hand. He was content to sit there, to whisper, to be so near to this fragrant dim loveliness, with his hunger, which he had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily appeased. A dream had come true. He reminded himself of this, time after time, if only because the dream, which had been haunting him so long, was still more real than this sudden actuality. He longed to make everything stand still, knowing only too well that it was all flowing away from him. Every photograph that leaped on to the screen and then leaped away again was nibbling at the evening. Very soon the programme would be completing its circle, and she would be wanting to go, and it would be all over. Turgis felt all this, even if he did not find phrases to express it, so that he was not completely and perfectly happy. He was, as we have seen, a born lover, and a romantic, and what he wanted at heart was not ordinary human happiness, but a golden immortality, a balcony seat high above Time and Change.

“You can come back and have some supper, if you like,” said Miss Golspie casually, when they descended into the gloom of Maida Vale again. “You can help me to make it. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

He was hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like to help her with supper. He could have shouted for joy at the thought that he had not to leave her yet, that the evening was being thus magically extended. All the way back, they talked about pictures and film actors and actresses they liked and disliked, and as there was not really much difference in their points of view, for they both went to the films in search of an amorous dream life and the mere difference of sex only added spice to the discussion, they got on very well indeed. After the fog, the room at 4a seemed richer and cosier than ever, and as Turgis helped to put odds and ends of food, mostly out of tins, on the little table in front of the fire, he felt as if he had wandered into a glorious film.

“Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.

“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real life at all to him, and in a sudden burst of candour he added: “Matter of fact, I’ve never tasted one in my life.”

“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying to be funny. You must have had.”

“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and whisky and port wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve never had a cocktail.”

“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily, “you’re going to have one now—one of the special Golspie Smashers.”

He watched her take bottle after bottle from the sideboard and then shake a tall silver flask, just as he had seen people do on the stage and in films. “Now just you taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” she commanded, giving him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, rather sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of golden glow, which seemed to travel all over him.

“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.

“It’s fine.”

“Have another then. We’ll just have one more and then we’ll eat.” After the second one, he felt larger and more important and even happier than he had done before. He insisted upon showing her a trick with three pennies. He knew three tricks, one with the pennies and the other two with cards. The other two could wait; it would not do to show her everything at once. She thought the trick with pennies very smart, and they postponed eating until he had shown her how to do it and she had practised it several times. They were better friends than ever when they sat down to eat the sardines and the two salads in the cardboard jars and the sliced veal loaf and the fruit salad and chocolate cake. Lena ate very quickly and left things and started again on them and pushed them aside and altogether dined in a delightfully fussy extravagant fashion that was quite new to Turgis, who was used to seeing people walk through a meal at a good round pace.

When she had finished eating, Lena lit a cigarette and then darted to the large gramophone in the corner. Having wound it up, she could not find the record she wanted (there seemed to be records all up and down the room), and he had to help her, when she had told him half the name and tried to whistle a bit of it at him. At last they found it, and the gramophone came gloriously to life, filling the room with the lilt and throb of this fashionable tune.

“Can you dance?” she asked him, gliding and twirling to the music.

“Not much,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.

“Well, let’s see. Shove that rug back, there. That’s enough. Now then.” And she came up to him. “Not that way. Like this. That’s it. Go on, you can hold me tighter than that.”

He could, and he did. If they had been standing still, it would have been a rapturous moment, but though he was delightedly conscious of the body against one arm and of the hand that gripped his, he had to try and dance, and he was very awkward.

“You’re ghastly,” she told him, with lips that were not four inches from his, “but you’ll improve. I’ve known worse. You’ve got some idea of the rhythm, and some men never even get that. Now—left—right—left—that’s better. Only you’re so stiff—put some pep into it. Oh, hell!—the gramophone’s stopped. Shove another dance record on and we’ll try again.”

They tried several times, with an interval during which they had another cocktail each, and Turgis improved considerably, and towards the end was holding her as she wanted to be held, close to him, and had time to enjoy the situation. When they stopped, his arm left her waist reluctantly and she did not seem to resent it. She told him all about the dances she had been to in Paris, and then, having come to the end of them, suddenly yawned. He glanced at the clock.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’d better be going now.”

“All right,” she replied, yawning again. “I suppose you had. I’m tired all at once—must be this rotten heavy weather.”

“What about all this stuff?” He pointed to the little table.

“Oh, they don’t matter. The maid will clear them in the morning. She’ll be in soon—unless her sailor boy’s persuaded her to stay out all night. And that would be nice for me, wouldn’t it?—here all night by myself. No, she’ll be in soon. I thought I heard her then.”

Very slowly, reluctantly, Turgis put on his coat, carefully buttoning it and lingering over every button. While he did this, he stared at her, wondering how he could possibly say what was in his mind.

She, too, had been thoughtful. “Look here,” she cried at last. “Have you been to the Colladium this week? Well, I haven’t either, and I want to go, and I hate going by myself. If I can get two seats for the first house to-morrow night, will you come with me? I might go down and get them to-morrow afternoon if I feel like it. I want to spend some of that twelve pounds, anyhow.”

Would he go? Oh, my gosh!

“All right then,” she continued, walking towards the door with him. “Listen. I’ll telephone to you at the office some time in the afternoon if it’s all right. I’ll tell you where to meet me and all that then.”

They were standing at the door now, and he was still holding her hand, as if he were about to shake it, but was at the moment too busy trying to stammer out a few adequate phrases. Nor was he merely holding the hand, for, involuntarily, he was pulling it too, so that there was less and less space between them as his little speech floundered on. This made Lena impatient.

“I don’t know what on earth you’re trying to say,” she told him, “so don’t bother. And you might as well go now before the girl does get back. And I’ll telephone to-morrow. Oh, don’t dither so much, silly. There!” And with that she leaned against him, putting a hand on each shoulder, kissed him swiftly on the mouth, drew back, laughed, and then shut the door on him.

Turgis stared at the door, drew a long breath, and then wandered down the stairs and through the hall below like a man drifting drunkenly out of some Arabian Night. He walked up to Kilburn, where he caught a 31 bus that took him most of the way home. The fog was not very thick, but it was wretchedly cold damp stuff that made people shiver and cough and wipe their eyes and blow their noses and look miserable. But Turgis did not care. As he sat gazing at nothing in the bus or marched along the blackened pavements, he was warmed by the fire inside him and cheered by a host of coloured fancies that were rocketing in his mind.

IV

When he awoke next morning, he knew at once that he was in possession of an exquisite secret and was quite different from the Turgis who had rubbed his eyes so often in that little room. He was the chap who had been kissed by Miss Lena Golspie the night before. He was also the chap she was going to telephone to this very day and take to the Colladium this very night. He jumped out of bed and then jumped into the part of this new and splendid chap. The fact that he still looked like the old Turgis, to whom nothing wonderful had ever happened, only made it all the more amusing.

“Another raw morning, my word,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, as she handed him his breakfast. “Them’s best off this morning who has to stay in. Edgar’s been gone these two hours, and a nasty cold job it must be in that station this morning.”

“Yes, it must, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis heartily. “I’m sorry for Edgar.” And so he was. Edgar would never be kissed by a girl like Lena Golspie, not if he lived to be a thousand. Poor dreary devil!

Old Pelumpton shuffled in, unwashed, blue about the nose, and wearing a greasy muffler. Turgis had seen him like that many times before, but this morning he resented the appearance of this dirty apparition. If Lena Golspie knew that he had to eat his breakfast looking at that nasty old mess, who might have just crawled out of the dustbin, she would probably never speak to him again.

“No letter, I shee,” said Mr. Pelumpton, going to the fire and warming his hands. “That meansh he doeshn’t want me to go and shee the shtuff thish morning. I’ll go round jusht before dinner and catch ’im in then. That’sh the idear.”

“Yes, that is the idea,” said his wife sharply, as she bustled about. “Wait till the pubs is open and then catch him in. I know that idea. It’s a good idea, that is. If it wasn’t for that idea, I don’t know why the pubs ’ud ever open at dinner time, ’cos they wouldn’t have any custom.”

“You hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton said to Turgis, who was putting away his breakfast as fast as he could. “Deary me, they’ve got pubsh on the brain, the women ’ave. If a man shtops in a bit, they want to know when he’sh going to do a bit o’ work, an’ if he goesh out, then it’sh the pubsh.”

“And you don’t go in the pubs, do you, Mr. Pelumpton?” said Turgis, with a very marked ironical inflection.

“Oh no! He ’ates them, he does,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton. “You couldn’t get him to go near one.”

“What shome o’ you people don’t realishe,” retorted Mr. Pelumpton with dignity, “ish that the pub may be nesheshary in bishnish. And until you’ve been in bishnish—a bishnish like mine, I mean—it’sh shomething you don’t undershtand. The amount of bishnish transhacted in pubsh, my wordsh⁠——”

“’Morning, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis, wiping his mouth and dashing out. What a life the Pelumptons had! It seemed incredible that anybody could find so dingy an existence worth living. Hurrying down to the Camden Town Tube Station, cramming himself into the lift, waiting for a City train, swaying near the doors among a mass of elbows, newspapers and parcels all the way to Moorgate, he hugged his grand secret. When he arrived at the office, he swelled exultantly, for this was where Mr. Golspie gave his orders, and they all knew Mr. Golspie and they had heard about his daughter, but they did not know what Turgis knew. It was a delightful feeling. He wanted to laugh out loud every time one of the others spoke to him or even looked at him. Ah, little did they know!

“You got that receipt all right, did you, Turgis?” said Mr. Smeeth.

It was extraordinary. He had forgotten all about the money and the receipt. But he had the receipt in his pocket, nevertheless, and when he handed it over he found himself swelling again inside, nearly bursting with secret knowledge and happiness.

“Did you go inside?” said Mr. Smeeth casually.

“Yes,” replied Turgis. Did he go inside!

“Oo, did you?” cried Poppy Sellers, who missed nothing. “Tell us what it was like? What did you say to his daughter? Is she nice? Tell us all about it—go on.”

Not a bad kid, really, though that fringe effect was a distinct mess. And she thought him—what was it?—rather marvellous. (And so she ought. Why, if Lena Golspie—oh, well, I-mean-to-say!) Poor kid—a bit pathetic, when you came to consider it. And she had wanted him to go with her to the Police Minstrels last night! And he had half thought of going! Dear, dear, dear!

“Well, Miss Sellers, if you really want to know,” he said, “I’ll tell you.”

“My words, aren’t we getting grand!” cried Poppy. “Go on. Very good of your lordship, I’m sure.”

“They live in the top half of a detached house,” said Turgis, “and the room I went into was a large room, bigger than this office here, and it had all sorts of things in it, and shaded lights and a big gramophone and dozens of cushions all over the room⁠——”

“Did it look like a furnished flat?” asked Miss Matfield.

“I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about furnished flats.”

“Well, what about his daughter?” Miss Sellers enquired. “What’s she like?”

“I’ve seen her—for a minute,” said Miss Matfield. “She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” replied Turgis, keeping a hold on himself. He was bubbling inside.

“Yes, but what’s she like?” Miss Sellers persisted, staring at him. And when he made no reply, but turned away and pretended to be suddenly busy with some work, she gave him a curious look before she herself turned away too. He never saw it, and if he had seen it, he would not have been interested.

Fortunately, both for him and for Twigg & Dersingham, he was not very busy that afternoon. Otherwise, he might have muddled every consignment of veneers and inlays, and so confused the whole trade that it might not have recovered for a fortnight. The disadvantage of pinning your whole afternoon on a possible telephone call in an office is that the telephone is ringing every few minutes and you are for ever on the jump. Up to three-thirty, Turgis was comparatively calm; from three-thirty to four, he was on the tiptoe of expectation; from four to four-fifteen he was desperate; from four-fifteen to four-thirty he was swaying on the brink of a vast abyss of misery, only to be plucked back by every ring of the bell and then hurled forward again by each unwelcome voice (“And if you ask me,” said the girl at Brown & Gorstein’s, after making one of these calls, “I think it’s time Twigg and Dersinghams just veneered a few manners on. The way they snap your head off!”); and, at four-thirty-five he was sitting staring at a desk in hell, all hope gone, and at four-forty-five he was breathing heavily down a telephone receiver in heaven. Yes, she had got the tickets and would he meet her just inside the entrance to the Colladium at twenty-five past six.

Even now, there was no peace for him. The instant he had put down the receiver he had realized that it would not be easy for him to be at the Colladium at twenty-five past six. Sometimes they did not finish until nearly that time, and indeed, on really busy nights, it was often considerably later. He had to get from Angel Pavement to the Colladium, and if possible he had to have some tea.

“What time do you think we’ll be finishing to-night, Mr. Smeeth?” he enquired respectfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked up from his neat little wonderland of figures. “Oh, I dunno, Turgis. Just after six, I suppose. Why, have you got something special on?”

“I’ve got to be up in the West End at twenty-five past six,” said Turgis. (“And if you knew who I’m going to meet, Smeethy, old man, you’d have a fit.”) Then he thought for a moment. “Would you mind if I sent Stanley out for some tea for me, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Well, as long as you do it now, before he’s busy copying the letters, it’ll be all right.”

So Stanley was dispatched to the Pavement Dining Rooms for one pot of tea, one buttered teacake, and a bun—total eightpence. “And do I keep the change?” asked Stanley, who had been given a shilling.

“I should think you don’t, my lad!” cried Turgis, whose finances were now in a desperate state. The pictures last night had left him with three and threepence; the bus going home had cost him twopence; lunch had been ninepence (it cost him nothing travelling to the office because he had a pass on the Underground); and now, after paying out this eightpence, he would be left with one and eight. On that one and eight, he would have to travel to the Colladium and get home afterwards, and then exist all the next day, Friday. And he had only two cigarettes left. If Lena wanted anything in the Colladium—and he could imagine her asking for chocolates and cigarettes and ices—he was in a hole.

He got away at five minutes past six, after having a very thorough wash-and-brush-up in the little office lavatory, hurled himself into the flood of west-bound travellers, and arrived, breathless and triumphant, under the red glare of the Colladium entrance exactly on time. He had ten minutes in which to cool off before Miss Golspie appeared, wearing a handsome coat with a huge fur collar and cuffs and looking so rich and beautiful that he was almost too shy to talk to her. Their seats were down at the front—Turgis had never sat in such seats before—and it would all have been perfect if it had not been for two little incidents. The first occurred when Lena, during the second turn, a silent juggling affair, announced that she would like some chocolates. “Can you get hold of that girl there,” she said. “She always has some nice boxes.”

Nice boxes! “How much are they?” he asked her, miserably.

“Well, you are a mean pig! How much are they? I like that, and after I’ve paid for the seats, too!”

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, “but—you see—I’ve only got one and sixpence.” He had paid tuppence on the bus, getting there.

“One and six!” Lena laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was not a very sympathetic one either. “That’s worse than I was, before you brought that money, yesterday. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know that I do want any chocolates. But would you spend your wonderful one and six if I asked you to?”

“Yes, I would. Of course I would. If I’d,” he added, as the curtains swept down on the smiling jugglers, “if I’d hundreds and hundreds of pounds, I’d spend them all if you asked me to. I would, honestly.”

“Oh, it’s easy to say that,” said Lena, not displeased, however, at his fervent tone. She gave him a brilliant glance, and no doubt remarked that his face was flushed and his eyes were at once hot and moist, as if he stared through a steam of embarrassed adoration.

Unfortunately, not all her brilliant glances were reserved for him, and that fact formed the basis of the second disturbing incident. There was a young man, a rather tall handsome chap with wavy hair, who was sitting with a girl in the row in front of them and a little to their right. Turgis had noticed that this fellow was turning round a good deal whenever the lights went up and that every time he did so his glance always came to rest finally on Lena. After this had happened several times he noticed that she was returning this glance. At last, during the interval, he caught her smiling, yes, actually smiling, at the chap. Instantly, he felt miserable, then angry, then miserable again.

He could stand it no longer. “Do you know that chap there?” he asked, trying to appear light and easy.

“Which one? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you keep smiling at him—I mean, that one there, the chap who’s just had a permanent wave, by the look of him.”

“Oh, the one who keeps looking round. He seems to think he knows me, doesn’t he? He’s rather attractive, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, I suppose as long as you think so, it’s all right, isn’t it?” said Turgis bitterly. He could feel a pain, a real pain, as bad as toothache, somewhere inside him. “He doesn’t attract me,” he mumbled. “If you ask me, he looks a rotten twister—bit of a crook or something.” But in his heart he knew that the chap was taller and stronger and better-looking and better-dressed and altogether more important than he was, and he could have killed him for it.

“He doesn’t at all,” said Lena. Then she laughed and made a face at him. “You’re jealous, that’s all. And you oughtn’t to be jealous, it isn’t nice. I’ll smile at him again now. I think he’s lovely.”

When she said that and looked so determinedly in that fellow’s direction, Turgis was filled with a desire to take hold of her there and then, dig his nails into her soft flesh, and hurt her until she screamed. He was suddenly shaken with the force of this desire, which was like nothing he had known before. But at that moment this little game of glancing and smiling came to an end, and the person who put a stop to it was the girl with the other man. She turned round too—and good luck to her, thought Turgis—then frowned and said something to her companion, and after that there was no more turning round and Lena divided her attention between the stage and Turgis, who was left in a queer state of mind and body.

“You can come and have some supper again, if you like,” said Lena, when it was all over. “The maid wanted to go out again, so I said she could, and if you’d like to come and help me again, you can.”

“I should think I would like to,” he cried enthusiastically. “And I’m sorry if I was silly—y’know, in there.”

“Jealous boy,” she said, smiling. “That’s what you are, aren’t you? Oh, it’s cold out here, isn’t it. Let’s get a taxi. Oh, never mind about your precious one and six—I’ll pay. I want to get home quick, out of the cold. Come on. Stop that one, there.”

Turgis had only been in a taxi once before in all his life. As he sat close to Lena in the dark leathery interior and saw the familiar crowded streets go reeling past the window, this effortless journeying seemed magical. They were in Maida Vale in no time. It made life seem at once wonderfully rich and simple. When they entered the house, they heard a tremendous babble of talk coming from the lower flat. It sounded as if that fantastic old foreign woman had summoned all her relations and friends and all their friends and relations to discuss her “troble.” In the room above, there appeared to be even more cushions, gramophone records, boxes and bottles than there were the day before. Once more, Lena mixed some cocktails, and Turgis encountered the queer flavour, sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sudden glow. Once more, he had a second and bigger one, and found everything enlarged, including himself. Once more, they sat down to supper at the little table in front of the fire, though this time there was more luxurious food and it all seemed to come out of little cardboard containers. They were very friendly over the cocktails and the food, and Lena, dressed in bright green, a colour that seemed to throw her red-gold hair and light brown eyes, her scarlet mouth and white neck, into brilliant relief, was lovelier than ever. It was wonderful.

“Do you know Mrs. Dersingham?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “She came to the office once, and I just saw her, that’s all.”

“She’s not as pretty as I am, is she? Or do you think she is?”

“Pretty as you!” Turgis gave a gasp, and meant it. “Why, there’s no comparison. She’s just ordinary—and you’re lovely. Yes, you are, really.”

“You don’t mean it. You’re just teasing me.”

“I’m not,” he said, solemnly. Teasing her indeed! A fat chance he would ever have of teasing her. “I’ve never known any girl as pretty as you—never seen one—in all my life before—and I never shall, never, never.”

She rewarded him with a smile. Then she frowned. “I don’t like Mrs. Dersingham. I met her once. I loathe her. She’s a snob and a rotten cat.”

“Is she?” Turgis didn’t care what Mrs. Dersingham was.

“Yes, she is. I hate her. My father doesn’t like her either. He doesn’t like Mr. Dersingham much either. He thinks he’s a fool.”

“I don’t think he’s a bad chap though,” said Turgis thoughtfully. “I’ve never really had much to do with him. But I don’t believe he’s much good at business. I know the business was in a rotten state just before your father came. Good job for us he did come. I don’t pretend to know much about it, but I do know that. Mr. Golspie’s clever, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “He’s always making a lot of money, but he usually spends it all or loses it in some mad scheme. He hates staying in one place long, and if it wasn’t for that, he could have made a lot more money and been really rich. But he doesn’t care about that. When he wrote to tell me he was coming to London, he said I’d have to come, too, because he was going to stay a long time and make a proper home for us, but now he’s here, he says he doesn’t like London, and he’s going away again soon.”

“Is he?” Turgis stared at her. “What—how do you mean ‘soon’?”

“Oh, quite soon,” she replied carelessly. Then she remembered something. “Look here, I may be wrong, though. And you mustn’t say anything to anybody, will you? Promise you won’t.”

“All right, I won’t. But if he went,” Turgis continued, regarding her earnestly, “would you go too?”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?”

“Yes, it is. You wouldn’t be going, would you?”

“I might—pass me a cigarette, will you?—and then again, I might not. It all depends. But, look here, if my father knew I’d been saying anything, he’d be furious, and though he usually lets me have my own way, when he’s really furious, he’s hellish, I can tell you.”

“I’ll bet he is,” said Turgis, who had never had any doubts about that. “I wouldn’t like to see him in a temper.”

“What a dreary depressing conversation!” she cried, getting up. “Let’s have another drink. Have you ever been tight? I expect you have. I got tight once or twice in Paris, with some Americans. We were drinking champagne and liqueurs all night. I fell on the floor once and rolled under a table and went to sleep for hours and hours. Shove the gramophone on, with something decent on. Then come and have this drink and I’ll see if you can dance yet.”

They did not dance long, however, for Lena announced that she was too tired and that he was too clumsy. She turned off one of the two shaded lights and went and stood by the fire. He joined her there, standing quite close, trembling a little. He put his arm round her tentatively and when she did not move away, he tightened it. She half turned so that she was lightly pressing against him, and then she lifted her glamorous face, looked at him with huge mysterious eyes, raised her lips to within an inch or two of his, and whispered, “Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?”

“Yes,” and he made a quick movement.

But she was quicker still, and in a second had broken away from him and was laughing. “Well, you can’t then—unless you say you adore me and are madly in love with me and that I’m the most wonderful person you’ve ever met and that you’ll do anything in the world I ask. Now then.”

“But you are. Oh, you are,” he stammered, all his heart trying to break through. “I’ve thought that ever since I saw you that day in the office. I’ve never thought about anything else. I used to come and stand outside this house, hoping to see you again, just to look at you.”

“You didn’t.” There was a faint suggestion of giggling in her voice. “You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. Lots of nights. I did, really. Oh, Lena⁠——”

“Oh, funny boy!” she cried, mocking him. “Well, you can kiss me—if you can catch me.”

And she dodged behind enormous armchairs and round the various tables and he went almost blindly after her, until at last she darted across to the big deep sofa thing, and there sank down among the cushions. “No, no,” she cried, laughing and breathless, as he came up, “you didn’t catch me.”

But now he bent over her, clasped her fiercely in his arms, and kissed her hard. When he drew back, she began laughing and protesting again, but in another minute her arms were about his neck and her body was crushed against his and they were kissing again. After a few minutes of this, she pushed him away and sat up, but she gave him her hand and he knelt there, holding it, with great roaring tides sounding in his ears.

“And now you’ve got to behave yourself,” she said, strangely calm.

“Yes,” he said humbly, looking up at her. If she had spoken kindly to him then he would have cried.

She smiled at him, and then, leaning forward, rubbed his cheek gently with her other hand. She brought her face nearer his, so that her mouth flamed again in his misty sight, but as he raised his head, she retreated, until at last he sprang up and clasped her to him as fiercely as before, and they were kissing again. For an hour she kept him swaying and lunging and beating about in this wild dark tide, and sometimes he was only gripping her hand and pressing it to his cheek and at other times she was completely in his arms for a few moments, answering his drive of passion with sudden bright flares of her own. And then, strangely calm again, she told him he must go.

Dazed and aching, he leaned against the back of a chair and stared at her with hot pricking eyes.

She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace, humming a little dance tune. Then she turned round, met his stare with a slight frown, and pointed out again that he really must go.

He wanted to say all manner of wonderful things to her, but could not find words for them. He tried to put them into the look he gave her. “Can I see you to-morrow?” he said at last.

“Mmmm?” She pretended to look very thoughtful. “Well, perhaps. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t mind what it is so long as I’m with you,” he assured her, trying to smile, but finding his face all stiff, so stiff that a smile would crack it. “What would you like to do? Can’t I take you somewhere?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see that Ronald Mawlborough talkie, that new one, you know—where is it? at the Sovereign. Isn’t that it—the Sovereign? I believe it’s terribly crowded, so you’d have to book seats.”

“I’ll do that if you’ll only come,” said Turgis stoutly.

“All right. We’ll go there, then. And you get the seats, don’t forget.”

“I shan’t forget. What time?”

“Let me see. Oh, I’ll meet you just outside at quarter to eight. I believe that’s just before the Ronald Mawlborough picture starts, because I looked it up in the paper, this morning.”

“Quarter to eight. All right then. And—I say—Lena⁠——”

But she pointed to his hat and coat, and when he had got them on she took his arm and led him to the door. “You can tell me all that to-morrow. But just tell me this. Am I nice?”

“Oh, Lena—you’re the most marvellous girl—oh, I don’t know what to say⁠——”

“Don’t you, dar-ling?” she replied, laughing at him. She came very close, held up her mouth, drew it back suddenly, laughed again, but finally allowed herself to be kissed.

Turgis was still dazed, still aching, still hot and pricking about the eyes, as he went out into the street and turned to have a last look at the enchanted window above; and desire burned and raged in him as it had never done when he had vainly searched the long lighted streets for an answering smile, had stared at red mouths, soft chins, rounded arms and legs in tube trains and buses and teashops, had felt those exciting little pressures in the darkness of the picture theatres, had returned to his little room, tired in body but with a heated imagination, as he had done so many times, to see its dim corners conjure themselves tantalisingly into the shapes of lovely beckoning girls. The flame of this desire was fed from the heart. He was now in love, terribly in love. The miracle had happened; the one girl had arrived; and with this single magical stroke, life was completed. He merely existed no longer; but now he lived, and, a lover at last, was at last himself. Love had only to be kind to him, and there was nothing he would not do in return; he was ready to lie, to beg, to steal, to slave day and night, to rise to astounding heights of courage; all these trifles, so long as he could still love and be loved.

The conductor of the 31 bus, noticing the young man with the rather large nose, the open mouth and irregular teeth, the drooping chin, whose full brown eyes shone as they stared into vacancy, whose face had a queer glowing pallor, might easily have concluded that there was a chap who was sickening for something. But Turgis was alight with love. He sat there in a dream ecstasy of devotion, in which remembered kisses glittered like stars.

V

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, next morning, “could you let me have a pound to-day?”

Mr. Smeeth rubbed his chin irritably. “Well, you know, Turgis, I don’t like doing this,” he said, fussily. “It’s not so much the thing itself⁠——”

“It’s only till to-morrow morning,” Turgis pointed out, for the next day, Saturday, was the fortnightly pay day.

“Yes, I know that, and it’s a small thing in itself, but it’s a bad system. Once you start doing that sort of thing, you don’t know where you’re going to end. When I was with the Imperial Trading Company, before the war, they’d a very easy-going cashier there, an old chap called Hornsea, and we used to be paid every month. The result was, some of the fellows, particularly one or two of the lively sparks, were subbing all the time and old Hornsea would let them have it out of the petty cash. What happened in the long run? He got let down, badly let down. Now I don’t mean to say you’re going to let me down⁠——”

“You know I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Smeeth.”

“Well, you couldn’t, not even if you tried,” said Mr. Smeeth with great emphasis. “It wouldn’t work here at all. I’m not old Hornsea. But, believe me, my boy, it’s a bad system. Can’t you last out until to-morrow morning? I could lend you a bob or two myself, for that matter.”