68 ANGEL PAVEMENT

laundry bill," Mr. Smeeth replied, much amused by
this retort of his.

T. Benenden made a slight gesture of contempt to
show that this was mere trifling. Then he looked very
solemn, very impressive. "You'd have said, 1 can't be
bothered with South Coast Laundries. I'm not touching
'em—don't want 'em—take your South Coast Laundries
away/ And you'd have been right-as far as you could
see, then. But what happens, what happens? Read your
paper. It's there, under my very 'and. Along comes a
big merger—a bit of syndicate and trust work—and up
they go, right up to the top-bang! Now—you see—you
can't touch 'em. And there's a feller here—you can see
it in the paper—who's been clearing anything out of it—
a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand-a clean
sweep, made for life. And he's not the only one, not a
bit of it! And we sit here, pretending to laugh at South
Coast Laundries, or what ever it might be, and what
are we doing? We're missing it, that's what we're doing,
we're missing it." Here, a dramatic pause.

"And if your Mr. Dersingham isn't careful," Benen-
den concluded, still impressive even if a trifle vague now,
"he's going to miss it. He wants to keep his eyes open.
There's one or two bits in this paper I'd like to show
him. Let's see, what was it you gave me? Half a crown,
wasn't it? That's right then—one and six change. And
good night to you, Mr. Smeeth/' And T. Benenden,
after stooping down to the tiny gas-jet to relight his pipe,
retired to his corner to ruminate.

Mr. Smeeth made his way to Moorgate, where, as
usual, he bought an evening paper and then climbed to
the upper deck of a tram. There, when he was not being
bumped by the conductor, jostled by outgoing and in-