TURGIS SEES HER IQ7

They're not allowed to talk about it. Whoi? Tew
svcred. Thet's what they'll tell you—tew sycred.
Secret and sycred—come from the sime root—mean the
sime thing. They do—stritel" His audience did not
care very much if secret and sacred did come from the
same root, but it thoroughly approved of the piggy
young man. And Turgis shared the general delight.

By the time he had returned down the line of speakers
to the place where the old shorthand enthusiast had
been (his pitch had been taken by a Christadelphian
evangelist, a burly red-faced fellow who looked like a
bookie), it was nearly dark and he found himself think-
ing about tea. He left the park, and walked along
Oxford Street. Every teashop he came to was crammed.
People were eating and drinking almost in one another's
laps. And already there were queues for the pictures.
"If they've got homes to go to," Turgis told himself,
"why don't they go to 'em/' He was sick of them. They
were no good to him, these jumbles of faces. Finally, in
somewhat low spirits, he found a place just off Oxford
Street, one of those humbler teashops with tall urns or
geysers on the counter, a slatternly girl in attendance,
a taxi-driver or two sitting at the first table and three
Italians sitting at the back. He had a poor tea and it
cost him fourpence-halfpenny more than he thought it
would. When he went out again, it was drizzling, and
miserably cold and damp. The queues for the pictures
were enormous. All the cheaper seats were probably
filled for the night".

He crossed Oxford Street, and, without thinking
where he was going, cut into the streets to the north of
it. In one of these, a number of people, mostly women,
were hurrying up some lighted steps. A notice informed