TURGIS   SEES    HER
ferences and addressing envelopes to distant comrades
and circulating what seemed to Turgis, who had in-
spected it, some terribly dreary literature. The two
young men did not like each otner 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 com-
munist 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 to 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 con-
gregate. 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