416 ANGEL PAVEMENT

with me. We've both been working; we're both hungry;
and we're going to feed together."

"Oh, are we?" It was all she could find to reply at
the moment.

"If you want me to make a favour of it, I'll do it,"
he continued. "Here I am-on the last night of the
year, too-going to have dinner all by myself, and here
are you, as hungry as I am, and we've been working
together, and you won't join me to cheer me up a bit.
How's that?"

She laughed. "All right, I will Thank you. Only
I can't go anywhere very marvellous, looking like this,
you know."

"You could go anywhere looking like that, believe
me," he assured her. "But I suppose you mean you're
not all dressed up. That doesn't matter. We're not
going where they're slinging the confetti at one another,
we're going where the food is. You go and get ready
while I stamp these letters."

It was a clear cold night. Angel Pavement looked
strangely dark and deserted, a little black gulf with a
faint spangle of stars above it.

"Do you know why I came to your place?" said Mr.
Golspie, as they walked along. "I looked up the names
of the firms in this line of business, and Twigg and Der-
singham took my fancy not because of their name, but
because of the address. Angel Pavement did it. I was
so tickled by that name, I said to myself, 'I must have
a look at that lot, first of all/ And if I hadn't said that,
I shouldn't have been here, and you wouldn't have been
trotting along here with me, would you?"

"Didn't you know anything about this business
before?" she asked.