£66 ANGEL PAVEMENT

The first thing, the very first thing, on Monday, I'll lei
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 and
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 fa Cohen:
Carnival Novelties on the one side and at Dunbury b
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 police-
men 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