THPGIS SEES HER ^85

He had no luck. Here, on one side of him
was the owner of the knees, an enormous woman,
bulging over her seat, and on the other was a man with
a beard and a noisy pipe. And it was too late to change
his place now. Once again the miracle had not hap-
pened. Gloomily he turned his attention to the news
film, and not one single inch or roar of it entertained
him. It was followed by a comedy, all about a lot of silly
kids, and he sat there, steadily hating it. He also hated
the enormous woman, who laughed so much that great
lumps of her hit him on the shoulder. He decided,
miserably, that he ought not to have come to the
Sovereign. Next time he would give the Sovereign a
miss. Stiff with fat women and men with stinking pipes,
that's what it was—oh, cripes!— awful hole! And another
Saturday night going, gone!

Then came the film of the evening, the star feature,
and Turgis soon began to take an interest in it and
found himself lifted out of his gloom. It was a talkie
called The Glad-Rag Way, and it was all about a beauti-
ful girl (and she was beautiful, for she was Lulu
Castellar, one of his favourites) who went to New York
to dance in cabarets and for a time forgot all about her
sweetheart, a poor young inventor who lived in the
nuost dismal lodgings, like Turgis, but, unlike Turgis,
also contrived to have his hair exquisitely waved at
regular intervals. This beautiful girl,behaved in the
most foolish way. She accepted presents from rich men
with ugly leering mouths; she went out to supper with
them and got tipsy, as well she might, for the whole
atmosphere consisted sometimes of champagne bubbles;
she attended parties, very late at night, in their flats,
ttid though the rooms in these flats were three hundred