Chapter Six

MR, SMEETH GETS HIS RISE

MR. SMEETH was happier than he had been for
some time. The shadow of dismissal, unemploy-
ment, degradation, ruin, had gone, except in
occasional dreams, when, after a bit of fried liver or
toasted cheese had refused to be digested, he had found
himself out of a job for ever and walking down vague
dark streets with nothing on but his vest and pants. It
had vanished from his waking hours. The firm had not
only staved off bankruptcy, but it was doing a brisk trade
-you might almost call it a roaring trade-in these new
Baltic veneers and inlays. This meant that Mr. Smeeth
had more and more columns of neat little figures to
enter and then add up, and that no matter how hard he
worked during the day he had to put in an extra half-
hour or so with the ledger and day books in the evening.
He did not mind that, though sometimes when it was
nearer seven than six and the electric light above his
head had been burning half the day and any real air
there might have been in Angel Pavement during the
morning had been used over and over again, well, he
did find himself with a bit of a headache. Once or twice,
too, he had that nasty little ticking sensation somewhere
in his inside, but it never went on long, so he never said
anything about it to anybody. If he had mentioned it to

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