428 ANGEL PAVEMENT

could do in that crowded space, for now there seemed to
be twice as many people on the floor.

"How d'you like this show?" he asked, grinning ac
her.

"I do like it. It's amusing."

Tm glad you think so/'

"You sound as if you don't care for it very much/'

"It's not bad," he told her. "But too much of a crowd
for my liking. Just the pair of us somewhere would
please me better,"

Afterwards there was an interval, during which every-
body ate and drank and smoked and talked all at once,
and a girl who appeared to be a secretary at some lega-
tion came up with Something-insky and another, older
man, and the girl who was a secretary was very giddy
and gay and apparently rather tight, though not un-
pleasantly so, and then a little foreign girl with a hideous
fur-trimmed jacket joined them, and the six of them
made a little group in one corner, where they ate and
drank and smoked and talked as hard as anybody. Then
the little hostess screamed again, and this time the tall
host produced a number of astonishing syllables in a
rasping tenor and then put on a colossal smile, and at
once everybody sat down somewhere and most of the
lights were turned out. Only the corner where the Jew
still sat at the piano was fully illuminated. Then there
appeared in front of the piano a smallish plump man
with an enormous bald head .and yellow fat face, who
stood there, smiling vaguely at them while they
applauded, like another but alien Humpty-Dumpty.
The Jew played a few sonorous and melancholy chords,
Humpty-Dumpty put his hand to his mouth, as if to
press a button, for when he lowered his hand, his face