Angel Pavement

By J. B. Priestley

Fiction

Bright Day

The Good Companion?
They Walk in the City
Let the People Sing
Black-Out in Gretley
The Doomsday Men
Benighted

Festival at Farbridge
The Magicians

Angel Pavement

Daylight on Saturday

Faraway

Wonder Hero

Three Men in New Suits

Adam in Moonshine

Jenny Villiers

The Other Place

Low Notes on a High Level

Volume I

Dangerous Comer
Eden End

Time and the Conways
I Have Been Here Before

Plays

Johnson over Jordan
Music at Night
The Linden Tree

Volume II
Laburnum Grove
Bees on the Boat Deck
When We Are Married
Goodnight Children

Volume III
Cornelius
People at Sea
They Came to a City
Desert Highway

The Golden Fleece
How Are They at Home?
Ever Since Paradise

An Inspector Calls
Home is Tomorrow
Summer Day’s Dream

Essays and Autobiography

Delight ‘ Self-Selected Essays

Midnight on the Desert Rain upon Godshill

English Journey All About Ourselves and Other

£ Essays (chosen by Eric Gillett)

Criticism and Miscellaneous

Meredith (E.M.L.) ‘ The English Comic Characters

Peacock (E.M.L.) English Humour {Heritage Series )

Brief Diversions . Postscripts

Journey Down a Rainbow (with Jacquetta Hawkes)

ANGEL

PAVEMENT

BY

J. B. PRIESTLEY

WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD

MELBOURNE LONDON :: TORONTO

First Published 1930

Reprinted 1930 (three times), 1932 (three times).
1933 (twice), 1934, 1935 (twice), 1937, 1940, 1941,
1947, 1957

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE WINDMILL PRESS
KINGSWOOD, SURREY

To

C. S. EVANS

because he is not only a good
friend and a fine publisher a but
also because he is a London man
and will know what 1 am getting
at in this London novel.

CHAPTER

PROLOGUE
I THEY ARRIVE
n MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED
HI THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME

IV TURGIS SEES HER

V MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

VI MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE
VH ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS
VIII MISS MATFIELD’S NEW YEAR

IX MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED

X THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

XI THEY GO HOME

EPILOGUE

S HE came gliding along London’s broadest street,
and then halted, swaying gently. She was a steam¬
ship of some 3,500 tons, flying the flag of one of the
new Baltic states. The Tower Bridge cleared itself of
midgets and toy vehicles and raised its two arms, and
then she passed underneath, accompanied by cheerfully
impudent tugs, and after some manoeuvring and hooting
and shouting, finally came to rest alongside Hay’s Wharf.
The fine autumn afternoon was losing its bright gold
and turning into smoke and distant fading flame, so that
it seemed for a moment as if all London bridges were
burning down. Then the flare of the day died out, leav¬
ing behind a quiet light, untroubled as yet by the dusk.
On the wharf, men in caps lent a hand with ropes and a
gangway, contrived to spit ironically, as if they knew
what all this fuss was worth, and then retired to group
themselves in the background, like a shabby and faintly
derisive chorus; and men in bowler hats arrived from
nowhere, carrying dispatch-cases, notebooks, bundles of
papers, to exchange mysterious jokes with the ship’s
officers'above; and two men in blue helmets, large and
solid men, took their stand in the very middle of the
scene and appeared to tell the ship, with a glance or two,
that she could stay where she was for the time being
because nothing against her was known so far to the
police.' The ship, for her part, began to think about dis¬
charging her mixedcargo.

This cargo was so mixed that it included the man who

2

ANGEL PAVEMENT

now emerged from the saloon, came yawning on to the
deck, and looked down upon Hay’s Wharf. This solitary
passenger was a man of medium height but of a massive
build, square and bulky about the shoulders, and thick¬
chested. He might have been forty-five; he might have
been nearly fifty; it was difficult to tell his exact age. His
face was somewhat unusual, if only because it began by
being almost bald at the top, then threw out two very
bushy eyebrows, and finally achieved a tremendous
moustache, drooping a little by reason of its very length
and thickness; a moustache in a thousand, with some¬
thing rhetorical, even theatrical, about it. He wore,
carelessly, a suit of excellent grey cloth but of a foreign
cut and none too well-fitting. This passenger had come
with the ship from the Baltic state that owned her, but
there was something about his appearance, in spite of
his clothes, his moustache, that suggested he was really
a native of this island. But that is perhaps all it did
suggest. He was one of those men who are difficult to
place. The sight of him did not call up any particular
background, and you could not easily imagine him
either at work or at home. He had come from the Baltic
to the Thames, but it might just as well have been from
any place to any other place. As he stood there,
straddling at ease, a thick figure of a man but not slow
and heavy, with his gleaming bald front and giant
moustache, looking down at the wharf quite incuriously,
he seemed a man who was neither coming home nor
leaving it, and yet not a simple traveller, and this gave
him a faint piratical air.

'‘Lon-don, eh?” cried a voice at his elbow. It came
from the second mate, a small natty youngster not unlike
a pale and well-brushed monkey. “Vairy nice, eh?”

PROLOGUE

3

"All right.”

“You com’ ’ere, Misdair Colsbee? You stay ’ere?”
The second mate liked to air his English and had not
had much opportunity of doing so during the voyage.

“Yes, I stay here,” replied Mr. Golspie, for that was
the name the second officer was trying to pronounce.
“That is,” he boomed, as an afterthought, “if there’s
anything doing.”

“You leef ’ere, in Lon-don?” pursued the other, who
had missed the force of the last remark.

“No, I don’t. I don’t live anywhere. That’s me.”
And Mr. Golspie said this with a kind of grim relish,
as if to suggest that he might pop up anywhere and that
when he did, something or somebody had better look
out. He might have been one of the quieter buccaneers
sailing into harbour.

Then, nodding amiably, he stepped forward,looked up
and down the wharf again, and returned to the saloon,
where he took a cigar from the box the captain had
bought at the entrance to the Kiel Canal, and helped
himself to a drink from one of the many bottles that
overflowed from the sideboard to the table. It had been
a convivial voyage. Mr. Golspie and the captain were
old acquaintances who had been able to do one another
various good turns. The captain had promised to make
Mr. Golspie very comfortable, and one way of making
Mr. Golspie very comfortable was to lay in and then
promptly bring out a sound stock of whisky, cognac,
vodka, and other liquors. There had been nothing one¬
sided about this arrangement, for the captain had been
able to keep pace with his guest, even though his pro
gress had not had the same steady dignity. The captain,
who had once served in the Russian Imperial Navy and

4

ANGEL PAVEMENT

had only resigned from it by escaping in his shirt and
trousers over the side one night, was apt to turn fantastic
in his drink. On two nights out of the three, during
the voyage, he had insisted upon declaiming a long
speech from Goethe’s Faust in four different languages,
to show that he was a man of culture. And on the
night before they had entered the Thames Estuary, the
previous night, in fact, he had gone further than that,
for he had laughed a great deal, sung four songs that
Mr. Golspie could not understand at all, told a long
story apparently in Russian, cried a little, and shaken
Mr. Golspie’s hand so hard and so often that as he
thought about it all now, over his cigar in the saloon
that seemed so strangely still, Mr. Golspie could almost
feel the ache again in his hand. Mr. Golspie himself
did not perform any of these antics; he merely mellowed
as the evening waned and the bottles were emptied; and
he was mellowing now, early though it was, for he and
the captain had sat a long time over lunch. Apparently,
however, Mr. Golspie did not consider that he was
sufficiently mellow, for he now helped himself to
another drink.

Then men in bowler hats were by this time on board.
Some of them were interviewing the captain. Others
were interested in Mr. Golspie, for they had to decide
whether he was fit to land in the island of his birth.
His relations with these officials were quite amiable, but
they did not prevent him from expressing his views.

“Regulations! Of course, they’re regulations!” he
boomed through the great moustache, mellow-but pug¬
nacious. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not a lot o’
damned nonsense. There’s more palaver getting into
England now than there was getting into Russia and

PROLOGUE

5

Turkey before the blasted war. And we used to laugh
at ’em. Backward countries we used to call ’em. Pass¬
ports!” Here he laughed, then tapped the young man
on the lapel of his blue serge coat. “Never kept a rogue
out yet, never. Only wants a bit of cleverness. All they
do is to make trouble for honest men—fellows like me,
wanting to do a bit of good to trade. Isn’t that right?
You bet it is.”

He then saw the customs officers, who dipped a hand
here and there in his two steamer trunks and three
battered suitcases.

“I expect you’d like to get away,” said one of them,
beginning to chalk up his approval of the luggage.

Mr. Golspie watched him with idle benevolence, look¬
ing quite unlike a man who has two hundred and fifty
cigars cunningly stowed away in a steamer trunk. “Not
this time. No hurry, for once. I’m staying aboard to
pick a bit of dinner with the skipper here.” He waved a
hand, presumably to indicate the city that lay all round
them. “It can wait.”

“What can?” And the young man gave a final
flourish of chalk.

“London can,” replied Mr. Golspie. “All of it.”

The young man laughed, not because he thought this
last remark very witty, but because this passenger sud¬
denly reminded him of a comedian he had once seen at
the Finsbury Park Empire. “Well, I daresay it can. It’s
been waiting a long time.”

Left to himself, with his cigars all safe, Mr. Golspie
ruminated for a minute or two, then climbed to the
upper deck, perhaps to decide what it was that had been
waiting so long.

He found himself staring at the immense panorama

6

ANGEL PAVEMENT

of the Pool. Dusk was falling; the river rippled darkly;
and the fleet of barges across the way was almost shape¬
less. There was, however, enough daylight lingering
on the north bank, where the black piles and the white¬
washed wharf edge above them still stood out sharply,
to give shape and character to the water front. Over
on the right, the grey stones of the Tower were faintly
luminous, as if they had contrived to store away a little
of their centuries of sunlight. The white pillars of the
Custom House were as plain as peeled wands. Nearer
still, two church spires thrust themselves above the blur
of stone and smoke and vague flickering lights: one was
as blanched and graceful as if it had been made of
twisted paper, a salute to Heaven from the City; the
other was abrupt and dark, a despairing appeal, the
finger of a hand flung out to the sky. Mr. Golspie, after
a brief glance, ignored the pair of them. They in their
turn, however, were dominated by the severely rect¬
angular building to the left, boldly fronting the river
and looking over London Bridge with a hundred eyes,
a grim Assyrian bulk of stone. It challenged Mr.
Golspie’s memory, so that he regarded it intently. It
was there when he was last in London, but was new
.then. Adelaide House, that was it. But he still con¬
tinued to look at it, and with respect, for the challenge
remained, though not to the memory. Both the blind
eyes and the lighted eyes of its innumerable windows
seemed to answer his stare and to tell him that he did
not amount to very much, not here in London. Then
his gaze swept over the bridge to what could be seen
beyond. The Cold Storage place, and then, cavernous,
immense, the great black arch of Cannon Street Station,
and high above, far beyond, not in the city but in the sky

PROLOGUE

7

and still softly shining in the darkening air, a ball and a
cross. It was the very top of St. Paul’s, seen above the
roof of Cannon Street Station. Mr. Golspie recognised
it with pleasure, and even half sung, half hummed, the
line of a song that came back to him, something about
“St. Paul’s with its grand old Dome.” Good luck to St.
Paul’s! It did not challenge him: it was simply there,
keeping an eye on everything but interfering with no¬
body. And somehow this glimpse of St. Paul’s suddenly
made him realise that this was the genuine old monster,
London. He felt the whole mass of it, spouting and
fuming and roaring away. He realised something else
too, namely, the fact that he was still wearing his old
brown slippers, the ones that Hortensia had given him.
He had arrived, had crept right into the very heart of
London, wearing his old brown slippers. He had slipped
two hundred and fifty cigars past their noses and had not
even changed into his shoes. James Golspie was survey¬
ing London in his slippers, and London was not know¬
ing, not caring—just yet. These thoughts gave him
enormous pleasure, bringing with them a fine feeling of
cunning and strength: he could have shaken hands with
himself; if there had been a mirror handy he would
probably have exchanged a wink with his reflection.

He walked round the deck. Lights were flickering on
along the wharf, immediately giving the unlit entrances
a sombre air of mystery. A few men down there were
heaving and shouting, but there was little to see. Mr.
Golspie continued his walk, then stopped to look across
and over London Bridge at the near water front, the
south bank. Such lighting as there was on this side was
very gay. High up on the first building past the bridge,
coloured lights revolved about an illuminated bottle, tc

5} ANGEL PAVEMENT

the glory of Booth’s Gin, and further along, a stabbing
gleam of crimson finally spelt itself into Sandeman’s
Port. Mr. Golspie regarded both these writings on the
wall with admiration and sympathy. The sight of
London Bridge itself too pleased him now, for all the
buses had turned on their lights and were streaming
across like a flood of molten gold. They brought another
stream of pleasant images into Mr. Golspie’s mind, a
bright if broken pageant of convivial London: double
whiskies in crimson-shaded bars; smoking hot steaks
and chops and a white cloth on a little comer table; the
glitter and velvet of the music-halls; knowing gossip,
the fine reek of Havanas, round a club fender and fat
leather chairs; pretty girls, a bit stiff perhaps (though
not as stiff as they used to be) but very pretty and not
so deep as the foreign ones, coming out of shops and
offices, with evenings to spend and not much else: he
saw it all and he liked the look of it. There was a size,
a richness, about London. You could find anything or
anybody you wanted in it, and you could also hide in it.
He had been a fool to stay away so long. But, anyhow,
here he was. He took a long and wide and exultant look
at the place.

Dinner that night was very good indeed, the best the
boat had given him. Mr. Golspie and the captain shared
it with the chief engineer, who came beaming and
shining from the depths, and the first mate, usually a
very wooden fellow, for ever brooding over some mys¬
terious domestic tragedy in Riga, but now for once
gigantically social and cheerful. The steward, the one
with the cropped head and gold tooth, lavished his all
upon them. Bottles that had not been emptied before
were emptied now, together with some that were pro-

PROLOGUE

9

duced for the first time. The talk, so far as Mr. Golspie
had any part in it, was conducted in a fantastic mixture
of English, German, and the ship’s own Baltic language,
a mixture it would be impossible to reproduce here, but
it went very well, smashing its way through the entangle¬
ments of irregular verbs and doubtful substantives, for
nothing removes the curse of Babel like food, drink,
and good-fellowship. All four grew expansive, bellowed
confidences, roared through the fog of cigar smoke,
threw back their heads to laugh, and were gods for an
hour.

“Very soon we shall meet again,” said the captain to
Mr. Golspie, clinking glasses for the third time. “Is
that not so, my friend?”

“Leave it to me, my boy,” replied Mr. Golspie, very
flushed, with tiny beads of perspiration on that massive
bald front of his.

“You come back when you have finished your busi¬
ness here in London?”

“As to that, I can’t say. If I can, I will.”

“That is good,” said the captain. Then he looked
very deep, and put a finger as big as a pork sausage to
his forehead. “And now you will tell us what this busi¬
ness is, eh? In secret. We will not tell.”

The chief engineer tugged at the ends of his mous¬
tache, which was nearly as large as Mr. Golspie’s, and
tried to look even deeper than the captain, like the re¬
pository of innumerable commercial secrets.

“I say this,” cried the huge first mate, who was in no
condition now to wait until his opinion had been asked.
“I say this. It is good business. It is for the good of our
country. I drink to you,” he shouted, and promptly did
so, with the result that he immediately remembered that

10

ANGEL PAVEMENT

disastrous affair at Riga, and sat silent, with the tears in
his eyes, for the next twenty minutes.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mr. Golspie, taking out his
cigar and looking at it very knowingly, as if it was a
fellow conspirator. “There’s no need to make a mystery
of it. D’you remember Mikorsky? Wait a minute. Not
the little fellow with the office in Danzig, but the big-
fellow with the beard, in the timber trade. That’s the
one. Remember him?”

The captain did, and was evidently so pleased by this
effort of memory that he appeared to conduct several
bars of one of the stormier symphonies. The mate re¬
membered, too, but only nodded, his tearful blue eyes
being still fixed on that tragic interior in Riga. The
chief engineer did not remember Mikorsky, and, in
what seemed nothing less than mental anguish, repeated
the name in twenty different tones, beginning very high
and ending in a despairing bass.

“I’ve done one or two little jobs for him,” Mr. Golspie
continued, ‘ during the time I had a bit of a pull. We’d
a night or two together, too. I met him one day, not a
month ago, and he said he was just going down into the
country, to see his cousin, and I ought to go with him.
So I did. I’d nothing better to do. Hot as hell it was
down there, too, and I was bitten to death. This cousin
of Mikorsky’s was in the furniture end of the timber
trade, and he’d invented a new process, machine, treat¬
ment, everything, for turning out veneers and inlays.
And labour costs next to nothing down there. I asked
where all this stuff was going. Well, they’d got orders
from Germany and Czecho-Slovakia and Austria and a
chance of something in Paris. ‘What’s it going to cost
in London?’ I said, showing ’em one of their lines, and

PROLOGUE

U

they told me. It sounded all right to me, but I didn’t
say anything. Not then. I went away and made a few-.
enquiries. I found out what they were paying for this'
sort of stuff in Bethnal Green and Hoxton and those
parts, in London, you know, where the furniture’s
made—”

“Bednal Green, yes,” said the chief engineer proudly.
“My uncle Stefan was there, yes, old Stefan in Bednal
Green. Socialist,” he added, as a melancholy after¬
thought.

“He was, was he?” Mr. Golspie boomed, with a
certain brutal heartiness characteristic of him. “Well,
good luck to him! I’ll get on with the tale. They were
paying half as much again for the same sort o’ stuff,
veneers and inlays, not a bit better, here in London.
Couldn’t get it where it was produced so cheap, y’see?
Didn’t look about ’em. They’re getting slow here.
There’s something in this for me, I said to myself, and
off I went down there again, to see this other Mikorsky,
the cousin. I wanted to know how much of this stuff I
could have every month, various lines, and the prices.
They told me, and guaranteed it. We had a few drinks
on it, and I walk out, with a contract in my pocket, so
much of this, that, and the other, at so much, whenever
I liked to take it up, and me the sole agent for Great
Britain.”

“Very good business,” said the captain, with a grave
judicial air, in spite of his rather goggly eyes. “And
now, you sell it all, eh? You make big profit?”

“What I do is to find somebody who’s in the way of
selling it, somebody who’s in this line o’ business, and
then go in with ’em.” Mr. Golspie refreshed himself
noisily. “And if I haven’t laid my hand on somebody

12

angel pavement

by this time the day after to-morrow, my name's not
Jimmy Golspie.”

“Make plenty of money, be rich, eh?”

“No, it’s too honest. But I’ll pick a bit up, to be
going on with.”

“Ah, no, no,” cried the captain, reaching over and
patting Mr. Golspie on the shoulder, “you make plenty,
here in London. Ho-ho, yes! Plenty! Money here in
London-oh!—” And he held out his hands as if he ex¬
pected the Bank of England to be emptied into them.

“Not so much as you think,” said Mr. Golspie, shak¬
ing his head very slowly. “Oh, no, not at all. They
may have it, but it’s all tied up. It’s not—er—shir-
circulating. I tell you, they’re slow here, they’re slow.”

“You think they sleep?”

“That’s right. Half asleep, most of ’em.”

“Ho-ho,” roared the captain. “And you will put
them awake?”

“One or two, p’rhaps, I might be able to shake up a
bit. If not, I’m on the move again. And I’ll have to
be on the move now, boys. I told that steward’s mate
—the fellow that plays the concertina—to go and get
me a taxi and take my traps ashore. It ought to be
there, at the corner, any minute now. All right then.
Just a last one for luck.”

They were having this last one, with some formality,
when the man returned to say that the taxi was waiting.
Mr. Golspie led the way to the deck, and then stopped
near the gangway to say good-bye.

“Now for it,” he cried, more for his own benefit than
for his listeners’. “Straight back into the old rabbit
warren. God, what a place! Millions and millions
and most of ’em don’t know they’re bom yet! Eyes

PROLOGUE

13

and tails, that’s all they are, diving in and out of their
little holes. The good old rabbit warren. Look at it!
Ah, well, it’s no good looking at it here because you
can’t see it. But I’ve been looking at it. What a place!
Well, chief—well, captain—this is where I go.”

“And the beautiful daughter, the little Lena?” the
captain inquired. “Is she here, waiting for you?”

“Not yet. She’s still in Paris, with her aunt, but
she’ll be coming over as soon as I’ve settled down.
Golspie and Daughter, that’ll be the style of the firm
then, and we’ll see what London makes of it. And—my
God—if I don’t waken some of ’em up, she will, the
artful little devil. But she’ll have to behave here. Yes,
she’ll have to behave. Well, captain, keep her afloat, and
remember me to all the girls and boys at the other end,
and let’s meet again next time you’re over. Drop me a
line to the office here. I’ll tell ’em where to find me.
Where the devil’s the lad? Oh, he’s there, is he? Has he
taken everything ashore? Right you are! So long!”

After a final wave of the hand, Mr. Golspie, a very
massive figure now in his huge ulster, made a slow,
steady, and very dignified progress down the gangway.
When he found himself treading at last the stones of
London, he turned his head and nodded, then strode off
more briskly to the comer of Battle Bridge Lane, where
the taxi was waiting. Two minutes later, he had gone
hooting into the lights and shadows of the city, which
sent whirling past the windows a crazy frieze, glimmer¬
ing, glittering, darkening, of shops, taverns, theatre
doors, hoardings, church porches, crimson and gold
segments of buses, little lighted interiors of saloon cars,
railings and doorsteps and lace curtains, mounds of
chocolate, thousands of cigarette packets, beer and buns

H ANGEL PAVEMENT

and aspirin and wreaths and coffins, and faces, faces
more and more faces, strange, meaningless, and without
end. But the lights that came flashing i n found a Hnv
answering gleam in Mr. Golspie’s eyes; and when they
had gone, in the double darkness of the cab and the
shadow of that great moustache, he grinned. London
neither knew nor cared; nevertheless, there it was: Mr.
James Golspie had arrived.

Chapter Onr.

THEY ARRIVE

1

M ANY people who think they know the City well
have been compelled to admit that they do not
know Angel Pavement. You could go wander¬
ing half a dozen times between Bunhill Fields and
London Wall, or across from Barbican to Broad
Street Station, and yet miss Angel Pavement. Some
of the street maps of the district omit it altogether;
taxi-drivers often do not even pretend to know it;
policemen are frequently not sure; and only post¬
men who are caught within half a dozen streets of
it are triumphantly positive. This all suggests that
Angel Pavement is of no great importance. Everybody
knows Finsbury Pavement, which is not very far away,
because Finsbury Pavement is a street of considerable
length and breadth, full of shops, warehouses, and
offices, to say nothing of buses and trams, for it is a real
thoroughfaie. Angel Pavement is not a real thorough¬
fare, and its length and breadth are inconsiderable. You
might bombard the postal districts of E.C.i and E.C.2
with letters for years, and yet never have to address
anything to Angel Pavement. The little street is old,
and has its fair share of sooty stone and greasy walls,
crumbling brick and rotting woodwork, but somehow
it has never found itself on the stage of history. Kings,

l6 ANGEL PAVEMENT

princes, great bishops, have never troubled it; murders
it may have seen, but they have all belonged to private
life; and no literary masterpiece has ever been written
under one of its roofs. The guide-books, the volumes
on London’s byways, have not a word to say about it,
and those motor-coaches, complete with guide, that
roam about the City in the early evening never go near
it. The guide himself, who knows all about Henry the
Eighth and Wren and Dickens and is so highly educated
that he can still talk with an Oxford accent at the very
top of his voice, could probably tell you nothing about
Angel Pavement.

It is a typical City side-street, except that it is shorter,
narrower, and dingier than most. At one time it was
probably a real thoroughfare, but now only pedestrians
can escape at the western end, and they do this by de¬
scending the six steps at the corner. For anything larger
and less nimble than a pedestrian, Angel Pavement is
a cul de sac } for all that end, apart from the steps, is
blocked up by Chase & Cohen: Carnival Novelties , and
not even by the front of Chase & Cohen, but by their
sooty, mouldering, dusty-windowed back. Chase Sc Cohen
do not believe it is worth while offering Angel Pavement
any of their carnival novelties—many of which are given
away, with a thirty-shilling dinner and dance, in the
West End every gala night—and so they turn the other
way, not letting Angel Pavement have solpmuch as a
glimpse of a pierrot hat or a false nose. Perhaps this
is as well, for if the pavementeers could see pierrot hats
and false noses every day, there is no telling what might
happen.

What you do see there, however, is something quite
different. Turning into Angel Pavement from that

THEY ARRIVE

17

crazy jumble and jangle of buses, lorries, drays, private
cars, and desperate bicycles, the main road, you see on
the right, first a nondescript blackened building that is
really the side of a shop and a number of offices; then
The Pavement Dining Rooms: R. Ditton , Propr., with
R. Ditton’s usual window display of three coconut buns,
two oranges, four bottles of cherry cider picturesquely
grouped, and if not the boiled ham, the meat-and-
potato pie; then a squashed little house or bundle of
single offices that is hopelessly to let; and then the bar
of the White Horse, where you have the choice of any
number of mellowed whiskies or fine sparkling ales, to
be consumed on or off the premises, and if on, then
either publicly or privately. You are now half-way down
the street, and could easily throw a stone through one
of Chase & Cohen’s windows, which is precisely what
somebody, maddened perhaps by the thought of the
Carnival Novelties, has already done. On the other
side, the southern side, the left-hand side when you turn
in from the outer world, you begin, rather splendidly,
with Dunbury & Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings, and
two windows almost bright wfith sample fittings. Then
you arrive at T. Benenden: Tobacconist, whose window
is filled with dummy packets of cigarettes and tobacco
that have long ceased even to pretend they have any¬
thing better than air in them; though there are also, as
witnesses to T. Benenden’s enterprise, one or two little
bowls of dry and dusty stuff that mutter, in faded letters,
“Our Own Mixture, Cool Sweet Smoking, Why not
Try it.” To reach T. Benenden’s little counter, you
go through the street doorway and then turn through
another door on the left. The stairs in front of you-
and very dark and dirty they are, too—belong to

l8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

C. Warstein: Tailors’ Trimmings. Next to T. Benenden
and C. Warstein is a door, a large, stout, old door
from which most of the paint has flaked and shredded
away. This door has r:o name ojii it, and nobody, not
even T. Benenden, has seen it open or knows what there
is behind it. There it is, a door, and it does nothing
but gather dust and cobwebs and occasionally drop
another flake of dried paint on the worn step below.
Perhaps it leads into another world. Perhaps it will
open, one morning, to admit an angel, after look¬
ing up and down the little .street for a moment, will
suddenly blow the last trumpet. Perhaps that is the
real reason why the street is called Angel Pavement.
What is certain, however, is that this door has no con¬
cern with the building next to it and above it, the real
neighbour of T. Benenden and C. Warstein and known
to the postal authorities as No. 8, Angel Pavement.

No. 8, once a four-storey dwelling-house where some
merchant-alderman lived snugly on his East India divi¬
dends, is now a little hive of commerce. For the last
few years, it has contrived to keep an old lady and a
companion (unpaid) in reasonable comfort at The
Palms Private Hotel, Torquay, and, in addition, to
furnish the old lady’s youngest niece with an allowance
of two pounds a week in order that she might continue
to share a studio just off the Fulham Road and attempt
to design scenery for plays that are always about to be
produced at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead. It has
also indirectly paid the golf club subscription and
caddie fees of the junior partner of Fulton, Gregg and
Fulton, the solicitors, who are responsible for the letting
and the rents. As for the tenants themselves, their names
may be found on each side of the squat doorway. The

THEY ARRIVE

19

ground floor is occupied by the Kwik-Work Razor Blade
Co., Ltd., the first floor by Twigg fa Dersingham, and
the upper floors by the Universal Hosiery Co., the
London and Counties Supply Stores, and, at the very
top, keeping its eye on everybody, the National Mer¬
cantile Enquiry Agency, which seems to be content with
the possession of a front attic.

This does not mean that we have now finished with
No. 8, Angel Pavement. It is for the sake of No. 8
that we have come to Angel Pavement at all, but not for
the whole of No. 8, but only for the first floor. No
doubt a number of tales, perhaps huge violent epics,
could be started, jumped into life, merely by opening
the door of the Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co., Ltd., or
by trudging up the stairs to the Universal Hosiery Co.
and the London and Counties Supply Stores, or by
looking up at the grimy skylight, and giving a shout to
the National Mercantile Enquiry Agency; but we must
keep to the less mysterious but more respectable first
floor -and Twigg fa Dersingham.

2

On this particular morning in autumn, Mrs. Cross was
rather later than usual. That did not matter very much
because it was not one of the floor-washing mornings
but just one of the ordinary dust-round-and-sweep-up-
a-bit mornings. But somebody, one of the interfering
sort, had left a note for her in the General Office, that

is, the room just behind the fronted glass partitions
and the sort of ticket office window with Enquiries on

it, and this note said: Mrs. Cross. What about turning

20

angel pavement

this room out for a change? Thank you!!

“An’ thank you!” said Mrs. Cross, quite aloud and
with grim irony, as she tore up this note and popped it in
the top of the stove. To show that she was not the kind
of woman to be dictated to in this fashion, she immedi¬
ately went and gave the other room, Mr. Dersingham’s
private office, a thoroughly good sweeping and dusting.
Having done that, she waddled straight across the
General Office to the other room, which, with its long
counter and cupboards and drawers and samples of wood
and litter, was the one she liked least, being always in
a terrible mess. On her way, she completely ignored the
General Office, did not even give it a look, just as if it
were full of people in the habit of leaving notes. Her
back told it very plainly that she would clean up the
office in her own way. Once in the other room, the
nasty one, she felt so pleased about this rebuff that she
set to work with a will, and for the next ten minutes
was enveloped in a cloud of dust. By the time she had
finished, there may have been very few few articles in the
room that were free from dust, but nearly all of them
had at least exchanged their old dust for another variety
that came perhaps from quite a distant corner. Then
she thrust back a wisp of grey hair from her swollen
face, on which time and trouble had first sketched a
few lines and then deepened them by puffing out the
surrounding flesh; she dragged her swollen feet across
to the discarded leather office chair in the corner; she
flopped into the chair and put her swollen hands—for
though she said with some truth that she worked her
fingers to the bone, hot water and soap and wet scrub¬
bing brushes had piled sodden, nerveless flesh on^those
bones—in her lap, and rested. Immediately she plunged

THEY ARRIVE

21

into a fierce reverie, in which the figure of Mr. Cross,
who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, the two rooms
between the City Road and the black Regent’s Canal
that were her home, Mrs. Tomlinson, the woman she
was going to clean for later in the morning, and the
image of a pound of stewing steak, all played their parts.
Then she returned to the General Office.

This time, she noticed its existence, and what she saw
suddenly gave her a little fright. She had been a bit
too hasty (her old fault) about that note. It really did
want a good tidying. She had neglected it a bit lately,
because for the last three mornings she had been late,
all because she was not getting her proper sleep, and all
because Mrs. Williams and her husband on the next
floor had got a loud speaker, one of them little horns,
and it was not only a loud speaker but also a late
speaker, and in fact would speak your head off. And if
she didn’t get on with this office a bit, the one that left
that note would be complaining to Mr. Dersingham,
and then that might mean another job gone, all due to
hastiness. She had better be putting her hastiness be¬
hind a brush and duster. And, as if to give her a final
push, a clock somewhere outside sounded the half hour.
Half-past eightl—well, now she would have to bustle
round.

She was still bustling round-though, to be accurate,
she was only engaged in passing a languid, duster¬
holding hand over the tin cover of the typewriter-when
Messrs. Twigg and Dersingham’s next employee
arrived, and their day really began. The frosted glass
door that opened from the little space in which en¬
quirers were kept waiting for a few minutes, now swung
back to admit into the General Office the body of 2

22

ANGEL PAVEMENT

boy about fifteen, whose eyes were focused upon a
papei, folded into a very small compass, that he held
about four inches away from them. This was the office
boy or very junior clerk, Stanley Poole, who had just
come all the way from Hackney, which remained with
him as a combined flavour of cocoa and bread dipped
in bacon fat that still haunted his palate. His body,
which was small and thin but sufficiently tough, and
was crowned by a snub nose, some freckles, greyish-
greenish eyes, and some unbrushed sandy hair, had
been in the service of Twigg and Dersingham for the
last twenty minutes, when it had boarded a tram and a
bus and had walked down several streets. Now it had
arrived in the office. But his mind had not yet begun
the day’s work. Even now, when the very threshold had
been passed, it was still in the wilds of Mexico, enjoy¬
ing the heroic and exhilarating companionship of Jack
Dashwood and Dick Robinson, the Boy Aviators, the
terror of all Mexican bandits.

“So you’ve come,” said Mrs. Cross, putting back that
wisp of hair again. “It’s about time I was ’opping it if
you’ve come.”

Stanley looked up and nodded. With a sigh, he with¬
drew from the world of the Boy Aviators and the
Mexican bandits. He tried to fold his paper into a still
smaller compass, before cramming it into his pocket.

Read, read, read!” cried Mrs. Cross derisively.
“Some of yer’s always at it. What they find to put in
all the time beats me. What’s that yer reading now?
Murders, I’ll bet.”

“ ’Tisn’t,” replied Stanley, balancing himself on one
leg for no particular reason that we can discover. “It’s a
boy’s paper.” He made this announcement with a kind

THEY ARRIVF

23

of sullen reluctance, not because he was really a sullen
lad, but simply because he had discovered that when his
elders asked these questions, they were usually not in
search of information, but were trying to get at him.

“Penny bloods, them things is.”

“ ’Tisn’t,” said Stanley, balancing himself on the
other leg now. “This is tuppence. I buy it ev’ry week,
have done ever since it come out. Boy’s Companion,
it’s called. It’s got the best tales in,” he added, in a
sudden burst of confidence. “All about boys who fly in
airplanes an’ go to Mexico an’ Russia an’ all over an' -
have advenshers!”

“Advenshers! They’d be better off at ’ome—with their
advenshers! You’ll be wantin’ to go an’ ’ave advenshers
yerself next—and then what will yer poor mother say?”

But this only goaded Stanley into making new and
even more dangerous admissions. “I’m going to try
and be a detective,” he mumbled.

“Well now, did y’ever!” cried Mrs. Cross, at once
shocked and delighted. “A detective! I never ’eard
of such a thing! What d’yer come ’ere for if yer want
to be a detective. There’s no detectin’ ’ere. Go on with
yer! ’Ere, yer not big enough, and yer never will be
either ’cos yer’d ’ave to be a pleeceman first before they’d
let yer be a detective, and they’d never ’ave yer as a
pleeceman.”

“You can be a detective without being a bobby first,”
replied Stanley, scornfully. He had gone into this ques¬
tion, and was not to be put off by a mere outsider like
Mrs. Cross. “ ’Sides, you can be a private detective an’
find jewels, an’ shadder people. That’s what I’d like to
do-shadder people.”

"What’s that? Follerin’ ’em about, is it? Oh, that’s

ANGEL PAVEMENT

24

nasty work, that is. Shadderin’! I’d shadder yer if I
caught yer at it, my words I would.” And Mrs. Cross
took up her brush and dust-pan and gave them a fierce
little shake, almost as if she had just caught them at it.

“Now you just get on with yer work like a good boy,
and don’t you go tellin’ anybody else yer want to be
shadderin’ else yer’ll be gettin’ yerself into trouble.
Yer can’t expect people to ’ave any patience with shad-
derers. If Mr. Dersingham knew what was goin’ on in
that ’ead of yours, ’e’d tell yer to go straight ’ome and
’ave nothing more to do with yer, and yer’d find yerself
shadderin’ for another job, and that’s all the shadderin’
you’d get.”

Stanley turned away, and then pulled a face, not so
much at Mrs. Cross as at the whole narrow school of
thought represented at this moment by Mrs. Cross. He
went to the letter-box and brought back the morning’s
post, which he placed on the nearest high desk. There
he remembered something, and looked with a grin at
Mrs. Cross, who was now having a final bustle round.

“Did you see that note left for you?” he enquired.

Mrs. Cross suspended operations at once. “Yes, I
did see it, and if yer want to know where it is, I can tell
yer, ’cos it’s in that stove.” She struck an attitude that
suggested a counsel for the prosecution of the high¬
handed type. “And 00 , might I ask, left that there
note? Oo wrote it? Just you tell me that, that’s all?”

“Miss Matfield wrote it.”

“An’ I thought as much. Soon as I set eyes on it.

I knew. Miss Matfield wrote it! Miss Matfield!”
Her irony was now so terrible that she shook all over
with it, and her head seemed in danger of falling off.
“And ’ow long, might I ask, ’as Miss Matfield been in

THEY ARRIVE

25

this office, doin’ ’er typewriting? ’Ow long? Two
munce. All right—three munce. An’ ’ow long ’ave I
been cleaning for Twiggs and Dersinghams, coming ’ere
ev’ry morning, week in an’ week out, to clean this office?
Yer don’t know. No, yer don’t know, and yer Miss
Matfield doesn’t know. Well, I’ll tell yer. I’ve been
cleaning for Twiggs and Dersinghams for seven years,
I ’ave. It wasn’t this Mr. Dersingham that started me,
it was ’is uncle, old Mr. Dersingham, ’im oo’s dead now
—an’ a nice old gentleman ’e was too, nicer than this
one an’ a better ’ead on ’im to my way of thinking—and
when this Mr. Dersingham took on, ’e sent for me and
said, ‘You keep on cleaning, Mrs. Cross, and I’ll pay
yer whatever my uncle did,’ that’s what ’e said to me in
that very room there, and I said, ‘Much obliged, sir, and
the very best attention as always,’ and ’e said, ‘I’m sure
it will, Mrs. Cross.’ Typewriters! Coming and going
so fast I can’t be bothered learning their names. If
there’s been one ’ere since I started, there’s been eight
or ten or a dozen. Miss Matfield! Now when she comes
in, just give ’er a message from me,” she cried, thor¬
oughly reckless by this time. “Just say to ’er: ‘Mrs.
Cross ’as seen the note left and only asks 00 is cleaning
this office, Miss Matfield or ’er, and if ’er, then them
oo’s been doing it for seven years, week in and week
out, knows their own business better than them oo’s
only been typewriting ’ere for three munce, and so Mrs.
Cross’ll thank her to keep ’er notes to ’erself in future
till they’re asked for.’ Just you tell ’er that, boy. And
I’ll say good morning.”

With that, Mrs. Cross unfastened her apron and
gathered up her things with great dignity, gave Stanley
a final shake of the head, and waddled out, closing the

B

26 ANGEL PAVEMENT

outer door behind her, a moment later, with a decisive
bang.

Left to himself, Stanley, with the contemptuous air
of a man who is meant for better things, began his morn¬
ing’s work. After taking off die two typewriter covers,
dumping a few books on the high desk, and filling up
all the ink-pots and putting out clean sheets of blotting-
paper (which duty was a little fad of Mr. Smeeth’s),
he remembered that he was a creature with a soul. So,
grasping a short round ruler in such a way that it re¬
motely resembled a revolver, he crouched behind Mr.
Smeeth’s high stool for a few tense moments, then
sprang out, pointing his gun at the place where the
great criminal’s bottom waistcoat button would have
been, and said hoarsely: “Put ’em up, Diamond Jack.
No, you don’t! Not a move!” He gave a warning
flourish of the gun, then said casually, over his shoulder,
to one of his assistants or a few police sergeants or some¬
body like that, “Take him away.” And that was the end
of Diamond Jack, and yet another triumph for S. Poole,
the young detective whose exploits were rivalling even
those of the Boy Aviators. And having thus refreshed
himself, Stanley replaced the round ruler and condes¬
cended to perform one or two more of those mono¬
tonous and trifling actions that Messrs. Twigg and
Dersingham demanded of him at this hour of the morn¬
ing. These left him ample time for thought, and he
began to wonder if he would be able to get out during
the morning. Once outside the office-even though
he was only going to the post office or the railway
goods department or some firm not four streets away
-he could enjoy himself, for the affairs of Twigg
and Dersingham faded to a grey thread of routine;

THEY ARRIVE

27

he plunged at once into the drama of London’s under¬
world; and as he hopped and dodged about the crowded
streets, like a sandy-haired sparrow, he was able to do
some marvellous shadowing. There also loomed
already, early as it was, a problem that would become
more and more disturbing as the long morning wore
on and he became hungrier and hungrier. This was
the problem of where to go and what to buy for
lunch, for which his mother allowed him a shilling
every day. He always ate his breakfast so quickly that
his stomach forgot about it almost at once and left him
hollow inside by ten o’clock and absolutely aching by
twelve. He often wondered what would happen to him
if, instead of being the first to go to lunch, at half-past
twelve, he was the last, and had to wait until about half¬
past one. There are innumerable ways of spending a
shilling on lunch, from the downright solid way of blow¬
ing the lot on sausage or fried liver and mashed
potatoes, say at the Pavement Dining Rooms, to the
immediately delightful but rather unsatisfying method
of spreading it out, buying a jam tart here, a banana
there, and some milk chocolate somewhere else; and
Stanley knew them all.

He was trifling with the thought of trying the nearest
Lyons again, and was actually searching his memory to
discover the exact price of a portion of Lancashire Hot¬
pot in that establishment, when he was interrupted by
the arrival of a colleague. This was Turgis, the clerk,
who might be described as Stanley’s senior or Mr.
Smeeth’s junior. He was in his early twenties, a thin-
nish, awkward young man, with a rather long neck,
poor shoulders, and large, clumsy hands and feet. You
would not say he was ugly, but on the other hand you

2 8

ANGEL TAVEMENT

would probably admit, after reflection, that it would
have been better for him if he had been actually uglier.
As it was, he was just unprepossessing. You would not
have noticed him in a crowd—and a great deal of his
time was spent in a crowd—but if your attention had
been called to him, you would have given him one
glance and then decided that that was enough. He was
obviously neither sick nor starved, yet something about
his appearance, a total lack of colour and bloom, a slight
pastiness and spottiness, the faint grey film that seemed
to cover and subdue him, suggested that all the food he
ate was wrong, all the rooms he sat in, beds he slept in,
and clothes he wore, were wrong, and that he lived in a
world without sun and clean rain and wandering sweet
air. His features were not good nor yet too bad. He
had rather full brown eyes that might have been called
pretty if they had been set in a girl’s face; a fairly large
nose that should have been masterful but somehow was
not; a small, still babyish mouth, usually open, and
revealing several big and irregular teeth; and a droop¬
ing rather than retreating chin. His blue serge suit
bulged and bagged and sagged and shone, and had obvi¬
ously done all these things five days after it had left the
multiple cheap tailors’ shop, in the window of which a
companion suit, clothing the wax model of a light¬
weight champion, still maliciously challenged Turgis
with its smooth surface and sharp creases every time he
sneaked past it. His soft collar was crumpled, his tie a
little frayed, and there was a pulpy look about his shoes.
Any sensible woman could have compelled him to im¬
prove his appearance almost beyond recognition within
a week, and it was quite dear that no sensible woman
took any interest in him.

THEY ARRIVE

29

“Morning, Stanley,” he said, not very cheerfully.

“Hello,” said Stanley, in the toneless voice of one who
expects nothing.

Turgis went over to his own high desk, pulled a
blotting-pad out of the drawer, put a book or two on his
desk, examined a note he had left on his pad, reminding
him to “ring Whishaws first thing,” and then spent a
melancholy five minutes at the telephone.

“Will I have to call there this morning?” Stanley
asked hopefully, when Turgis had rung off.

“No, they’re sending somebody. Good job, tool We
don’t want you off half the morning. You’ll stop in and
do a bit of work, my son, for a change. Do you good.”

“What work?” demanded Stanley, with scorn.

“By jingo, I like that!” cried Turgis. “There’s plenty
to do, if you’ll only look for it instead of dodging it.
You ask Smeethy, he’ll find you some. Haven’t you
got enough? You can do some of mine, if you like.
I’ve got more than I want.”

Stanley changed the subject. “I say,” he began,
grinning, “you ought to have heard old Ma Cross on
about that note. She let herself go all right, didn’t she
just! Oo, you ought to have heard her.”

“What did she say?” Turgis inquired. But he did it
very languidly, just to show that what amused small fry
like Stanley might not amuse him.

At that moment, however, they heard the outer door
opening, and the next moment the cause of all the
trouble, Miss Matfield herself, walked in. She flung
down a library book, her large handbag, and pair of
gloves on her table, then marched over to her hook and
removed her coat and hat, while the other two waited
m silence. They were both rather frightened of Miss

go ANGEL PAVEMENT

Matfield- Even Mr. Smeeth and Mr. Dersingham him¬
self were rather frightened of Miss Matfield.

“Good morning,” she cried, looking from one to the
other of them, and, as usual, putting a disturbingly
ironical inflection into her tones. “Are we all very well
this morning? Well, I’m not,” and here, her voice
changed. “Oh Lord, I thought I’d never get here. That
bus journey gets fouler every morning, slower and
slower and fouler and fouler.” She sat down opposite
her machine, but took no notice of it.

“You ought to try the Tube,” Turgis suggested, not
very boldly or hopefully. He'had made this suggestion
before. Everything had been said before, and they all
knew it.

“Oh, I can’t bear the Tube.” Once more she seemed
to annihilate the whole vast organisation.

It was now Stanley’s turn. “Oo, I like it. I think
it’s exciting. I wish they had ’em where we live.”

Miss Matfield was now busy rummaging in her hand¬
bag, and all she said was “Curse!” rather like a villain in
an old-fashioned melodrama. It is only these strictly
modern young ladies, who live their own life by pound¬
ing a typewriter all day and then retiring to tiny bed¬
sitting rooms in clubs, these beings who are supposed to
be the inheritors of the earth, who can afford to talk like
villains in old-fashioned melodramas. Miss Matfield,
after a final and unsuccessful rummage, said “Curse!”

| again, then closed the bag with a sharp snap, seized her
;gloves, and marched them over to her coat. The other
itwo said nothing, but looked at her. What they saw was
a girl of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, or even twenty-
nine, with dark bobbed hair, decided eyebrows, a
smouldering eye, a jutting nose, a mouth that was a dis-

THEY ARRIVE

11

contented crimson curve, and a firm round chin that
was ready to double itself at any moment. She was not
pretty, but she might have been handsome if somebody
had kept telling her she was pretty. She was a trifle
taller and bigger-boned than the average girl of her class
and type, with a good neck and good shoulders, but her
figure as a whole—and it was plain to the view in her
belted orange-coloured jumper, her short dark skirt,
and artfully silky stockings—was perhaps too top-
heavy, too masterful in the bust for the flattened calves
below, to please everybody. (Including that distant and
wistful connoisseur, Turgis, who by making an effort
at times was able to see her as a female figure and not
as a personality.) For the rest, her face, her voice, her
manner, all pointed to the conclusion that Lilian Mat-
field nursed some huge, some overwhelming grievance
against life, but though she gave tongue to a thousand
little grievances every day, she never mentioned the
monster. But there it was, raging away, when she was
complaining or being bitter about everything; and
there it was, raging away more furiously than ever, when
she was being bright and jolly, which was not often, and
hardly at all during business hours.

“The char must have got my note,” she announced on
her return to her table, “but I must say she doesn’t seem
- to have done much about it. Look at that. This is the
foulest office I’ve ever worked in. She never makes any
attempt to clean it properly. All she’s done now is to
walk round with a duster. And we’ve got to spend all
day in the beastly place, all filthy, just because she won’t
take the least trouble. Well, I’m going to make a row
. about it.”

“She got it all right,” cried Stanley, delighted to be

o

ANGEL PAVEMENT

important and to make a little trouble for somebody.
“You ought to have heard her. Didn’t she go on!”
And, in order to show exactly how she did go on, he
opened his mouth and his eyes still wider. But then he
stopped. The outer door had been opened, and feet
were being wiped. That meant that Mr. Smeeth had
arrived, and Mr. Smeeth liked to find Stanley busy
during these first few minutes. So Stanley broke off,
and dashed at a bit of work he had saved for this
moment.

“Good morning, everybody,” said Mr. Smeeth, put¬
ting down his hat and his folded newspaper, and then
rubbing his hands. “It’s getting a bit nippy in the morn¬
ings now, isn’t it? Real autumn weather.”

3

You could tell at once by the way in which Mr. Smeeth
entered the office that his attitude towards Twigg and
Dersingham was quite different from that of his young
colleagues. They came because they had to come; even
if they rushed in, there was still a faint air of reluctance
about them; and there was something in their de¬
meanour that suggested they knew quite well that they
were shedding a part of themselves, and that the most
valuable part, leaving it behind, somewhere near the
street door, where it would wait for them to pick it up
again when the day’s work was done. In short, Messrs.
Twigg and Dersingham had merely hired their services.
But Mr. Smeeth obviously thought of himself as a real
factor of the entity known as Twigg and Dersingham:

THEY ARRIVE

33

he was their Mr. Smeeth. When he entered the office,
he did not dwindle, he grew; he was more himself than
he was in the street outside. Thus, he had a gratitude,
a zest, an eagerness, that could not be found in the
others, resenting as they did at heart the temporary loss
of their larger and brighter selves. They merely came
to earn their money, more or less. Mr. Smeeth came to
work.

His appearance was deceptive. He looked what he
ought to have been, in the opinion of a few thousand
hasty and foolish observers of this life, and what he was
not—a grey drudge. They could easily see him as a drab
ageing fellow for ever toiling away at figures of no im¬
portance, as a creature of the little foggy City street,
of crusted ink-pots and dusty ledgers and day books, as
a typical troglodyte of this dingy and absurd civilisa¬
tion. Angel Pavement and its kind, too hot and airless
in summer, too raw in winter, too wet in spring, and too
smoky and foggy in autumn, assisted by long hours of
artificial light, by hasty breakfasts and illusory lunches,
by walks in boots made of sodden cardboard and rides
in germ-haunted buses, by fuss all day and worry at
night, had blanched the whole man, had thinned his hair
and turned it grey, wrinkled his forehead and the space
at each side of his short grey moustache, put eyeglasses
at one end of his nose and slightly sharpened and red¬
dened the other end, and given him a prominent
Adam’s apple, drooping shoulders and a narrow chest,
pains in his joints, a perpetual slight cough, and a hav-
fevered look at least one week out of every ten. Never¬
theless, he was not a grey drudge. He did not toil on
hopelessly. On the contrary, his days at the office were
filled with important and exciting events, all the more

ANGEL PAVEMENT

34

important and exciting because they were there in the
light, for just beyond them, all round them, was the
darkness in which lurked the one great fear, the fear
that he might take part no longer in these events, that
he might lose his job. Once he stopped being Twigg
and Dersingham’s cashier, what was he? He avoided the
question by day, but sometimes at night, when he could
not sleep, it came to him with all its force and dread¬
fully illuminated the darkness with little pictures of
shabby and broken men, trudging round from office to
office, haunting the Labour Exchanges and the news¬
paper rooms of Free Libraries, and gradually sinking
into the workhouse and the gutter.

This fear only threw into brighter relief his present
position. He had spent years making neat little
columns of figures, entering up ledgers and then balanc¬
ing them, but this was not drudgery to him. He was a
man of figures. He could handle them with astonish¬
ing dexterity and certainty. In their small but per¬
fected world, he moved with complete confidence and
enjoyed himself. If you only took time and trouble
enough, the figures would always work out and balance
up, unlike life, which you could not possibly manipu¬
late so that it would work out and balance up. More¬
over, he loved the importance, the dignity, of his posi¬
tion. Thirty-five years had passed since he was an office
boy, like Stanley, but a trifle smaller and younger; he
was a boy from a poor home; and in those days a clerk¬
ship in the City still meant something, cashiers and
chief clerks still wore silk hats, and to occupy a safq
stool and receive your hundred and fifty a year was to
have arrived. Mr. Smeeth was now a cashier himself
and he was still enjoying his arrival. Somewhere at the

THEY ARRIVE

35

back o£ his mind, that little office boy still lived, to
mark the wonder of it. Going round to the bank, where
he was known and respected and told it was a fine day
or a wet day, was part of the routine of his work, but
even now it was something more than that, something
to be tasted by the mind and relished. The “Good
morning, Mr. Smeeth,” of the bank cashiers at the
counter still gave him a secret little thrill. And, unless
the day had gone very badly indeed, he never con¬
cluded it, locking the ledger, the cash books, and the
japanned box for petty cash, away in the safe and then
filling and lighting his pipe, without being warmed by
a feeling that he, Herbert Norman Smeeth, once a mere
urchin, then office boy and junior clerk to Willoughby,
Tyce and Bragg, then a clerk with the Imperial Trading
Co., then for two War years a lance-corporal in the
orderly room of the depot of the Middlesex Regiment,
and now Twigg and Dersingham’s cashier for the last
ten years, had triumphantly arrived. It was, when you
came to think of it—as he had once boldly ventured to
point out to a friendly fellow boarder at Channel View,
Eastbourne (they had stayed up rather late, after their
wives had gone upstairs, to split a bottle of beer and
exchange confidences)—quite a romance, in its way.
And the fear that grew in the dark and came closer to
the edge of it to whisper to him, that fear did not make
it any less of a romance.

Mr. Smeeth now unlocked the safe, took out his books
and the petty cashbox, looked over the correspondence
and attended to that part meant for him, made a note
that Brown and Gorstein, and North-Western and
Trades Furnishing Co., and Nickman and Sons had not
fulfilled their promises and sent cheques, dealt with the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

36

two small cheques that some other people had sent, gave
Miss MatfHd three letters to type, asked Turgis to
telephone to Briggs Brothers and the London and
North-Eastern Railway, delighted Stanley by giving
him a message to take out, and, in short, plunged into
the day’s work and set Twigg and Dersingham in
motion, even though Twigg had been quiet and un¬
stirring for years in Streatham Cemetery, and the
present Mr. Dersingham was only in motion yet on the
District Railway, on his way to the office.

Stanley disappeared, as usual, like a shell from a gun,
before Mr. Smeeth could possibly change his mind;
Miss Matfield contemptuously rattled off her letters
(the little ping of the typewriter bell sounding like a
repeated ironical exclamation); Turgis talked down the
telephone rather gloomily; and Mr. Smeeth made the
neatest little figures, sometimes in pencil, sometimes
in ink, and opened more and more books on his high
desk. And for ten minutes or so, no word was spoken
that had not immediate reference to the affairs of the
office.

They were interrupted by the entrance of yet another
employee of the firm. This was Goath, the senior
traveller, whose job it was to visit all the cabinet-makers
in London and the home counties and to persuade them
to buy the veneers and inlays of Messrs. Twigg and Der¬
singham. He entered in the usual fashion, came trail¬
ing in, with one large flat foot feeling reluctantly for the
new bit of ground and the other large flat foot equally
reluctantly taking leave of the old bit of ground. He
was smoking the usual cigarette, which left a faint and
fading spurt of smoke vanishing happily into nothing
behind him. He wore the same shapeless old overcoat,

THEY ARRIVE

S7

bagging monstrously at the pockets, and he wore it in
the same way, that is, almost hanging off his drooping
shoulders. The familiar dusty bowler hat was tilted,
not cheerfully but depressingly, back from his furrowed
and pimply forehead. He did what he always did. He
turned upon the activities of the office a dull and know¬
ing eye, an eye like a wet morning in February, just as
damp and grey and hopeless, and at once these activities
seemed to dwindle, to shrink from it. Mr. Dersingham
had often said to Mr. Smeeth, and Mr. Smeeth had
often said to Mr. Dersingham, that what Goath didn’t
know about selling inlays and veneers and the like was
not worth knowing. But when you looked at him stand¬
ing there, it seemed as if what he did know was also
not worth knowing: it had had such a bad effect upon
him. Everything about Goath was the same as usual
except his appearance at this hour, on this day, for
Goath only called at the office, his base of operations,
on certain days and this was not one of them.

“Busy, are’n’cher,” said Goath. It was not an inquiry.
It was not a greeting. It was a kind of gloomy sneer.

Mr. Smeeth laid down his pen. “Hello, what are you
doing here?”

“Told to come,” replied Goath. “Mr. Dersingham
told me to come in this morning-wanted to see me.”

“Oh, did he?” It was obvious from Mr. Smeeth’s
tone that he did not like the look of this, quite apart
from not liking the look of Mr. Goath, for which he can
hardly be blamed.

“He did. Why he did, I don’t know,” Goath con¬
tinued drearily, “so don’t ask me because I can’t tell
you. He simply said, ‘Come here first thing in the
morning the day after to-morrow,’—that’s this morning

ANGEL PAVEMENT

38

now—and I’ve come. And I’ve got here too early, into
the bargain.”

“Mr. Dersingham didn’t tell me anything about it,”
said Mr. Smeeth, with the air of a man who liked to be
told something about it.

Goath gave a ferocious pull at the last half inch of his
cigarette and made a horrible hissing noise. “He
wanted to make it a surprise—a pleasant little surprise
for you all—that’s it.” And as he said this, he tried to
make Miss Matfield, who had just got up from her
machine, accept a friendly leer, but all that it encoun¬
tered was a stare like a high wall with broken glass along
the top.

Mr.. Smeeth ran a finger backwards and forwards
along his lower lip, a trick of his in a reflective moment.
Now that he had looked at it a little longer, he plainly
liked it still less. But then, after a short pause, he
brightened up. “Perhaps he’s got some new stuff to
show you? Perhaps he wants to ask you something
about it?”

“Haven’t heard of anything new. I’d have heard.
It always gets round; everything gets round: ‘No good
showing us that,’ they say. ‘Show us some of this new
stuff. That’s what we want,’ they tell you. That’s what
they say, soon enough. 'And they don’t know what they
want, not half their time, they don’t. There’s fellers
making furniture now -and making money out of
it—who don’t know a good bit of wood from a bit of
oilcloth. How they get away with it,” Goath concluded
mournfully, “beats me.”

“That’s right, Goath,” said Mr. Smeeth. “It beats
me, too. It’s cheek that does it, really, that’s my opinion
—cheek, and a bit of luck. But honestly now, how are

things going? You’ve been on the North London round
this time, haven’t you? How’s it going? Better than
last time, eh?”

“No,” the other replied, with all the satisfaction of
the confirmed pessimist. “Worse.” He took off his
bowler hat and for once examined it with the distaste
it deserved. “Much worse.”

Mr. Smeeth’s face fell at once, and he made a tut-
tut-tutting noise. “That’s bad.”

“Bloody bad, I call it, if Ethel here’ll excuse me.”

Miss Matfield turned on him at once. “My name is
Matfield,” she told him. “If you want to say ‘bloody’
you can, for all I care, but I’m not ‘Ethel here’ or Ethel
anywhere else, and I don’t intend to be.”

“I’m crushed,” said Goath putting on a faint and
entirely repulsive air of vocal dandyism, “quite
crushed.” But, being in his fifties, indeed, having
apparently been in them almost longer than anybody
else has ever been, and a hardened offender, he was not
crushed.

“That’s all right, Miss Matfield,” Mr. Smeeth told
her, uncomfortably. And he gave Goath a warning
little frown.

“Well, as I was saying,” Goath continued, “things
are rotten. I’ve been in the trade thirty years, and I’ve
never known ’em worse. If the price is right, then the
stuff’s wrong. And if the stuff’s right, the price’s wrong.
And it’s mostly the price. They want it cheap now,
want it given away, no mistake about it, though the
money they’re getting for the finished article is more
than ever. You look at what furniture’s fetching now,
retail, and then go and hear some of ’em talk—make
)r»u sick. It would-make you sick.”

40

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“I believe you,” Mr. Smeeth assured him earnestly.
Then he hesitated. “But—after all—somebody must be
selling veneers, even if the inlays have gone out a bit.
I mean, they’ve got to buy it from somebody, haven’t
they?”

“Well, whether they have or they haven’t, all I can
say is, they’re not buying it from me. And I’ve been
going to some of ’em for twenty years. Yes, I have,
young feller,” he added, for some unaccountable reason
catching the eye of Turgis and talking to him quite
sternly, “for twenty years. I was calling on some of
them houses—Moses and Stott, f’r’instance—rvhen you
was a baby or nothing at all.”

“It’s a long time, isn’t it, Mr. Goath?” replied Turgis,
proud to be noticed by such terrific seniority and rather
proud, too, to think that though he might not be any¬
body of much importance even now, at least he was
more than a baby, or nothing at all.

“You’re right, young feller,” said Mr. Goath with
heavy patronage, “it is a long time. Hello, is this him?”

But the person who had just opened the outer door
and was now standing at the other side of the frosted
glass partition was obviously not Mr. Dersingham, so
Turgis, in the absence of Stanley, went out to discover
the caller’s business.

“Good morning,” said a brisk but ingratiating voice.

Any typewriter supplies? Ribbons, carbons, wax
stencil sheets, brushes, rubbers?”

“Not this morning, thank you,” said Turgis.

Rubbers, brushes, stencil sheets, best quality papers,
carbons? Ribbons?”

“No, not this morning.”

“Well,” said the voice, a little less brisk and ingra-

THEY ARRIVE

41

tiating now, “if you should want any typewriter sup¬
plies any time, here’s my card. Good morning.”

“It’s surprising the number of those chaps we get
round,” said Mr. Smeeth, rather sadly, “all trying to
sell the same bits of things. If you bought anything,
what would it amount to? A shilling or two, that’s all.
It beats me how they make anything out of it. Smart,
well-dressed chaps too, some of them. I don’t know¬
how they do it, I really don’t.”

“You’d think that chap was making thousands a
year,” said Turgis, speaking in an aggrieved tone, as if
somehow his own shabbiness came into the question.
“He’s always all dressed up, spats and everything. He
comes round here about once a fortnight and we’ve
never bought anything from him yet.”

“He’s ’oping, that’s what he’s doing, just ’oping, like
me,” Mr. Goath remarked grimly. “Only it doesn’t run
to spats with me. I’d better try ’em, then I might get a
big order or two. ‘Here’s old Goath with spats on,’
they’d be saying up Bethnal Green way. ‘We’ll have to
give him an order now.’ P’r’aps they would. And then
again, p’r’aps they wouldn’t. Ah well”—and he yawned
hugely and kept his eyes closed even after the yawn
was done—“I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.” He sent this
rumbling away into the mournful distance. “Fact is,
some of these mornings my inside’s all wrong, dead
rotten. Doctor says it’s liver—that’s all because I take
a drop of whisky—but I say it’s ’eart. And whether it s
’eart or liver, I’m going to sit down.”

The room sank into a kind of mild sadness, rather
like that of the atmosphere outside, where rich autumn
had been bleached and deadened into a mere smokiness
and gathering grey twilight, in which the occasional

ANGEL PAVEMENT

42

smell of a sodden dead leaf came like a remembrance ol
another world, as startling as a spent arrow from some
battle still raging in the sun.

The faces of the three men-Mr. Smeeth’s grey oval,
Goadr’s purple pulp, Turgis’s tarnished youth-sank
with the room, were half frozen into immobility, and
seemed for a moment or two to be vacant, staring into
nothing. Miss Matfield, who had risen from her table,
saw it all for one queer second tangled with a whole
jumble of deathly images: they were all under a spell,
powerless to stir while the sky rained soot, dust poured
from every crevice, and cobwebs wound about them.
She wanted to scream. Instead, quite without thinking,
she swept off her table a little brass box crammed with
paper fasteners, and the clatter it made restored her
to her normal senses.

“Sorry!” she cried harshly, stooping.

“And I should think so,” said Goath.

“That should be Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth,
cocking an ear towards the approaching footsteps.

Mr. Dersingham put his head inside the general
office. “Good morning, everybody,” he cried. “You’re
here then, Goath. Are the letters in my room, Turgis?
All right then, I’ll just have a peep at them, and then I
want to see you, Goath, and you too, Smeeth. I’ll give
you a shout when I’m ready. Stanley about? All right
—doesn’t matter if he isn’t. Send him in when he comes.
I’ve forgotten to buy some cigarettes. I may want you
in about five minutes, Miss Matfield. And if a man
called Bronse rings up for me, don’t put him through.
Tell him I’m out. Oh—and I say—Smeeth, just make
out a what-do-you-call-it, will you—a statement of out¬
standing accounts—you know, just rough and ready?

THEY ARRIVE 43

I shall want that. Anything come this morning? It
doesn’t matter, though; you can tell me later.”

“And if I know anything,” Mr. Goath mumbled,
when the head of Mr. Dersingham had been withdrawn,
"that won’t take you long, Smeeth—telling how much
you’ve ,got in this morning.”

“It won’t,” said Mr. Smeeth cheerlessly.

4

Seated at his table, looking through the morning’s
letters, as he was now, Howard Bromport Dersingham
might have been accepted as a typical specimen of the
smart younger City man. At a first glance, he seemed
the brother of all those smart younger City men who
figure in advertisements, wearing unique collars, ties,
suits, examining the infallible watch, or looking at a
vision of less successful men who have never taken the
particular correspondence course. He looked much too
good for Angel Pavement, where business is merely
business and a rather haphazard and dusty affair at that.
He would not have seemed out of place in one of those
skyscrapers filled with terrifically efficient and success¬
ful operatives and administratives, in those regions
where business is not at all a haphazard and dusty affair
and takes on a solemn air, even a mystical tinge, as if it
really explained the universe. It appeared absurd that
such a fellow and all his concerns should be sandwiched
between the Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co. and the
London and Counties Supply Stores.

Another glance or two, however, would reveal the
fact that he was only a rough, weakly unfinished sketch

44 ANGEL PAVEMENT

of the type. The hard-boiled eye, the chiselled nose, the
severally controlled mouth, the masterful chin, all these
were missing, and in their place were ordinary mas¬
culine English features, neither very good nor very bad,
very strong nor very weak. Mr. Dersingham was a year
or two under forty, tallish, fairly well-built but begin¬
ning to sag a little; his hair, which was now rapidly
taking leave of him, was light brown, and his eyes light
blue, and they neither sparkled nor pierced but just
regarded the world blandly and amiably; he had re¬
tained one of those short pruned moustaches that crept
under the noses of so many subalterns during the War;
and he looked clean, healthy and kind, but a trifle
flabby and none too intelligent. It was only after the
War, during which he had assisted, with rapidly
diminishing enthusiasm, one of the new battalions of
the Royal Fusiliers, that he had joined his uncle at
Twigg and Dersingham’s. Before the War he had tried
various things with no particular success, though he
liked to suggest that the War had almost ruined his
prospects. (In strict fact, it had improved them, for his
uncle would never have taken him into the business,
and left it to him when he died, if he had not taken
pity on him as a returned hero.) It had been the inten¬
tion of his parents to send Howard Bromport to Oxford
or Cambridge, but they had lost money suddenly and
Howard Bromport, no scholar, had failed to obtain a
scholarship, so he had been compelled to stroll into
business. In spirit, however, he went on to the univer¬
sity, and thus he became one of those men who are
haunted by a lost Oxford or Cambridge career. These
are not the scholars or the brilliant athletes who have
been denied their chance of distinction, but simply the

THEY ARRIVE

45

fellows who have been robbed of an opportunity of
acquiring more striped ties, college blazers, and tobacco
jars decorated with college coats-of-arms, in short, the
fervent freshmen who never have the freshman nonsense
knocked out of them. They it is who turn into the
essential public school “old boys.” Dersingham was a
tremendous “old boy.” He never missed a re-union,
never failed to renew his stock of school ties. The
public school spirit worked for ever in him. He was
always ready to do the decent thing—and this was not
hard, for he was really a decent, kindly soul, stupid
though he might be—not for your sake, not for his own,
but “for the sake of the old school.” Strictly speaking,
that school, Worrell (one of the second-class public
schools, fatally second-class but terrifically public
school) is not very old, but it has turned out so many
fellows like Dersingham that it has acquired, by verbal
association, the antiquity of Eton. Perhaps the
shortest definition of Dersingham-and he himself
would have asked for no other—was that he was an old
Worrelian.

He did not play games very well and was not even a
good judge of them, but he liked nothing better than
solemn long discussions about them, in which minor
pedantries could be thrashed out to the bitter end. Still,
he played golf nearly every week-end, a little lawn
tennis, and when the Charlatans had to turn out a third
side at cricket, he sometimes turned out with them, as
a possible slow bowler. (For four weeks every year, he
dropped the old Worrelian and wore the Charlatan
tie.) He smoked considerable quantities of Sahib
Straight Cut Virginia cigarettes, drank steadily but not
too much for reasonable health and decency, delighted

ANGEL PAVEMENT

46

in detective and adventure stories, humorous anecdotes,
jigging easy tunes, musical comedies, and good loud talk
in which everybody agreed with everybody else except
about things that could not matter very much to any¬
body,'.disliked literature, art and music, cranks and
fanatics of every kind, most foreigners, anything or any¬
body really mean or cruel (when he could see the mean¬
ness and cruelty), and all the opinions that newspaper
editors asked him to dislike. He had one or two real
friends, a host of acquaintances, and a wife and two
children whom he did not understand but of whom he
was genuinely fond.

And now, after glancing through the letters, most
of which were merely offers to sell him something he
did not want, he sat on, stroking his ruddy cheek, look¬
ing puzzled and feeling puzzled. After a few minutes
of this, he took a sheet of paper and carefully made
some notes upon it. He did this all the more carefully
because he felt that somehow by writing down what was
already in his head, he was really grappling hard with
the problem. Having frowned at these notes for
another minute or so, he shook himself, set his face in
hard business-like lines, reached out for a cigarette and
then remembered that there were none, and rang the
bell.

Miss Matfield appeared, or rather a notebook and
pencil appeared, with a shadow of Miss Matfield in
charge of them.

“I’m sorry, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Dersingham,
with true Old Worrelian courtesy. “I’d forgotten I’d
told you to come in. I think I’d better see Mr. Smeeth
and Mr. Goath first, and you can take down some letters
afterwards. Will you ask them to come in-and then-

THEY ARRIVE

47

er—just carry on with something, eh?”

“Very well,” said Miss Matfield.

“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham. He never felt sure
how he ought to handle Miss Matfield, quite apart from
the fact that she seemed to him a rather formidable sort
of girl. Her father, he knew, was a doctor, only a doctor
in the country now, miles from anywhere, but he had
once played scrum half with the Alsations. Ordering
about the daughter of a scrum half of the Alsations, just
as if she was some ordinary little tuppenny-ha’penny
typist, was a ticklish business. And that was why Mr.
Dersingham added “Good!”: it meant that he knew all
about the surgery and the Alsations.

“You fellows had better sit down,” he said to Smeeth
and Goath. “We may be some time over this. That’s
right. Now wait a minute. Let me see, Goath, you’re
making—what? Two hundred, plus commission, that’s
it, isn’t it? And you, Smeeth, what are you getting now?
Three-fifteen, isn’t it?”

Mr. Smeeth, troubled, admitted that it was. He had
seen what was coming, all along, had seen it for days and
days and horrible nights.

“And what am I making?” Mr. Dersingham gave
a short and embarrassed laugh. “Well, you can imagine
for yourself, Goath, and you know well enough, Smeeth.
Just lately, I’ve been making nothing, not a bean. Just
paying expenses, that’s all.”

“Er,” Mr. Goath began with a pessimistic rumble.

“Just a minute. Don’t think I’m beginning like this
because I think you fellows are not earning all you
make. I know you are. There’s no question about that.
But we’ve got to go into it all, haven’t we—got to see
where we stand. I’ll tell you in strict confidence that if

48 ANGEL PAVEMENT

it hadn’t been for my wife having a little money of her
own, I couldn’t have carried on as long as I have done.
You’ve only to look at the figures to see that for your¬
selves.”

Here he stopped long enough to give Mr. Goath a
chance of describing the state of the cabinet-making and
wholesale furnishing trades. As we have heard him
already, we do not want to hear him again. It is suffi¬
cient to say that his theme was that if the price was
right, the stuff wasn’t, and if the stuff was right, the
price wasn’t, and that his theme was elaborated by
many variations in the minor key. And something in
the nature of a second subject, repeated continually in
the bass, was added by the statement that the speaker
had been thirty years in the trade. To all of which,
Mr. Dersingham and Mr. Smeeth listened with gloomy
attention.

“Well,” said Mr. Dersingham, looking at his miser¬
able little notes, “we’ll have to go into all that later on.
We’re getting the wood from all the same people we
dealt with in my uncle’s time—and in some cases we’re
getting it on better terms than he did, isn’t that so,
Smeeth?”

“Ah, but there’s more competition now, a lot more,"
said Goath dejectedly. “More and more competition,
that’s the way it is. Some of these people in the trade
must be cutting it as fine as that”-and he waggled a
very dirty thumb-nail—“to get orders. Nearly giving
it away. Pay when you like, too. Foreigners,” he added
darkly, “that’s what we’re up against now, foreigners,
coming over here to unload the stuff like mad. I met
one coming out of Nickman’s only yesterday morning,
coming out as 1 was going in, and looking as pleased

THEY ARRIVE

49

with himself as if he’d just backed a dozen winners.
German he was. Speaking English as good as you and
me, and dressed all up to the nines, but German all
over him. And he had backed the winners all right, you
bet he had. Got a pocket full of orders, he had. What’s
the good of having a war, I say, if it only means
Germans coming over here and pinching trade right
under our noses. Cor!-makes me sick—thirty, years in
the trade and tramping round every week in and week
out, and nothing doin’ two-thirds o’ the time, not a
thing, and foreigners coming here with fur coats on-
fur coats! Taking the bread right out of your mouth,
that’s all they’re doing.”

“Quite so, Goath,” cried Mr. Dersingham. “I don’t
say I’m not with you there. But we can buy from
Germany, just the same, and have been doing for some
time, but it’s beginning to look as if we can’t compete.
That’s what I was going to talk about, to begin with.
We shall have to try and do some cutting, too. It’s our
only chance. And the only way to do that-I think you
fellows will agree, especially you, Smeeth-is to reduce
expenses. The - er - what’s-its-name - er - overhead
charges are too big.” Having found this word “over¬
head,” so suggestive of big business, of keen men piling
up fortunes in forty-two storey buildings, Mr. Dersing¬
ham clutched at it thankfully: it was a floating plank on
the wide ocean of puzzle and muddle into which he had
suddenly been plunged. “That’s it. The first thing, the
very first thing, we’ve got to do is to reduce the over¬
heads in this business.”

Mr. Smeeth tried to look very brisk and business-like,
but he seemed greyer than ever and there was a mourn¬
ful droop in his voice. “Well, we can try, sir. But it

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5°

won’t be so easy. We’re spending as little as we can,
here in the office.”

“Dash it all, Smeeth, I know that.” Mr. Dersingham
rubbed his cheek irritably. “But we shall have to spend
less. I don’t want to do it-I want to do the decent
thing by everybody here-but you see how it is, don’t
you. Must cut something down. Now look here, to
begin with, there’s Turgis. What’s he getting? A
hundred and seventy-five, isn’t he? And Miss Matfield?
We started her at three pounds a week, didn’t we?”

“That’s right, Mr. Dersingham. It was less than
she’d been getting before, but she said she’d start at that
with us, and then we’d see about giving her a rise when
she’d settled down with us. She’s a very capable girl,
very capable, and very intelligent, too, much better than
the last we had; no comparison at all.”

“And Turgis? What about him?”

“I can’t really grumble, sir,” replied Mr. Smeeth.
“He does his best. He’s a bit careless sometimes, I’ll
admit, and he’s not to be trusted far with figures yet
-you remember the terrible mess he made of the books
when I was on my holidays this year?—but as these boys
go nowadays, he’s as good as the next. He doesn’t take
the interest in his work and in the firm that I did when
I was' his age, but then they don’t these days, and that’s
all you can say about it. Miss Matfield’s just the same,
for that matter. She does her work all right, but she’s
not interested, doesn’t think of herself, you might say,
as one of the firm, but just comes in the morning, does
what she’s told to do, and then goes in the evening.”

“Thinking about young men, that’s what they are,
all these typewriters,” said Goath. “Young men and
• dancing and going to the pickshers, that’s what’s run-

THEY ARRIVE 51

ning in their ’eads, and you can’t expect anything else
of ’em, not in my opinion. Cheeky with it, they are,
too.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Smeeth, I really am, but I don’t
see anything else for it. One of them will have to go,
either Turgis or Miss Matfield. We can’t spare you,
Smeeth—”

“Thank you, sir.” And as he said it-quite simply
and not with any touch of irony—Mr. Smeeth looked
still greyer. Indeed, he shook a little.

“No question of it at all,” Mr. Dersingham con¬
tinued, heartily, “absolutely none. But we’ll have to get
rid of one of these two and divide the work between us.
I’ll do something. I’ll begin to type my own letters. I’ll
have a good shot at it anyhow. It’s a question now
whether you’d rather keep Turgis and let him do some
of the letters or keep Miss Matfield and divide his work
between the two of you. Stanley might do a bit more,
too, if he’s got any sense. In any case, we must have a
boy, so there’s no question of getting rid of him. Now
what d’you think, Smeeth. Turgis or Miss Matfield?
Nothing much in it, I know, but you ought to decide.
You’ll have most of the extra work yourself, I expect,
when it gets down to brass tacks, though, mind you,
I’m going to do a lot more myself, if I’ve time, in the
office.”

Mr. Smeeth did not feel quite so bad as he had felt a
minute ago, but he felt bad enough. He tried to give
all his attention to the immediate problem, which was
serious enough for him, for he knew very well that it
was he who would have to do most of the extra work,
but, try as he would, his mind wandered darkly. He
could not pretend to himself now that such pitiful

ANGEL PAVEMENT

52

economies as these could stop the rot. He had seen it
coming for months. The firm, his position, his very
living, they were all crumbling away together. The next
thing would be that he would have to accept a cut in
his salary. And the next thing after that would be find¬
ing himself outside, in Angel Pavement, with a hat on
his head and no salary, no office, nothing. He hesitated,
stammering something, rather painfully.

“I didn’t want to spring it on you,” said Mr. Dersing-
ham, “and I suppose you’d really like a day or two to
think it over.”

“Wouldn’t think a minute if I was you,” said Mr.
Goath. “Get rid of the girl, right away, without ’esita-
tion. They never should have started girls in the City.
The place has never been right since. Powderin’ noses!
Cups 0’ tea! You don’t know where y’are.”

“I would like to think it over, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr.
Smeeth told him slowly. “I don’t want to get rid of
the wrong one.”

“I’d like to get it settled to-day while we’re at it, but
you think it over between now and five o’clock, and
then we’ll have another talk about it. All right then.”
And Mr. Dersingham examined his notes again, and
then looked very severe. “The next thing is this ques¬
tion of what-d’you-call-it—these rotters who won’t pay
up. You’ve made out a statement, have you?"

But there was a knock at the door, and Stanley sidled
in, a card in his hand. “Somebody wants to see you,
sir.”

“I’m busy. Who is it? Shut the door.” He examined
the card. “Never heard of this chap. Look at this,
Goath. Anybody you know? What does he want?”

“Wanted to speak to you, sir,” replied Stanley, look-

THEY ARRIVE

53

ing very mysterious and important, with a hint of the
“shadderer” in his manner. “Very important. That’s
what he said.”

“I’ll bet he did,” said Mr. Dersingham, with a grin
at the other two. “Probably wants to sell me some
ridiculous office gadget. If he did, though, he’d prob¬
ably have something about it on his card. This is a
private card. Golspie, Golspie? No, I don’t know him.
Look here, Stanley, just tell him I’m having a discus¬
sion—no, a thingumty—a conference, just now, but if
it’s something really important, not trying to sell me
typewriters and files and muck, I’ll see him soon. He can
either call again or he can wait there. Tell him that.”

Mr. Golspie decided to wait.

5

He was still waiting there, sitting in the little chair
beside the door and behind the partition, ten minutes
later. Sometimes, Stanley and Turgis and Miss Mat-
field heard him stir and clear his throat. They also
caught the fragrance of the excellent cigar he was
smoking. Its fumes seemed to turn the office into a dull
little box and their duties into the most mechanical and
trivial tasks. There was something rich and adven¬
turous about that drifting luxurious smoke. It un¬
settled them.

“Who is he?” Turgis whispered. “What’s he like?”

Stanley crept nearer and curved a hand round his
mouth. “He’s biggish and broad and got a big mous¬
tache,” he whispered in reply. “D’you know what I bet
he is?”

54

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“No, I give it up.”

“Inspector from Scotland Yard.”

“You’ve got ’em on the brain, you little chump,” said
Turgis. “Course he isn’t.”

“Well, I betcher. He looks just like one. You go
and have a look at him.”

But Turgis was saved from the necessity, for the
visitor suddenly marched into the office itself.

“Where’s that boy?” he demanded. “Oh, look here,
just go in again and tell Mr. What’s-it—”

“Mr. Dersingham, sir,” said Stanley brightly, proud
to serve Scotland Yard or anybody who suggested
it.

“Mr. Dersingham. Tell him I can't wait much
longer—I’m not used to hanging about like this—and
that if I go, I go for good and all, and then he’ll be
sorry. D’you get that? All right then, trot off and speak
out. Wait a minute, though. He doesn’t know what I
want, doesn’t know who I am, so I’d better show him
I’m not going to waste his time.” He took something
out of the small despatch-case he was carrying, and the
others recognised it at once as a sample book of veneers
and inlays, a few square inches of each specimen wood,
thin as cardboard, being fastened to each stout page.
“Now give him this, tell him to look it over, and say
that’s what I’ve come to talk about. D’you under¬
stand?”

Having thus dispatched the boy, Mr. Golspie stood
there at ease, his feet wide apart, his big chest thrown
out, coolly enjoying his cigar. It was one of the strictest
rules of the place that casual callers were not allowed
beyond the partition, and Turgis ought to have ordered
him out of the office at once. But somehow Turgis felt

THEY ARRIVE 55

that this was not a man to be ordered out of the office
by him.

“Not much of a place this, I must say,” Mr. Golspie
observed, looking about him, then addressing Turgis.
“But they keep you pretty busy, eh?”

“Well, they do and they don’t,” Turgis mumbled. “I
mean to say, sometimes we’re busy and sometimes we’re
not. It all depends, you see.”

“I don’t see, but I'll take your word for it. Must be
a dark hole, this, a bit later on, when you get the fogs.
Too dark for my taste. Not enough air either. I like
plenty of air, though God knows it’s not worth having
when you get it, in this neighbourhood. What do they
call this street? Angel Pavement, isn’t it? That’s a dam’
queer name for a street, though I’ve known queerer
names in my time. How did it get it, d’you know?”

Turgis admitted that he didn’t.

“Didn’t suppose you would,” the stranger told him.
“Perhaps this young lady knows. They know every¬
thing nowadays.”

Miss Matfield looked up. “No, I don’t know,” she
replied, with a hint of distaste in her tone. Then she
bent her eyes to her work again. “And I don’t care.”

“No, you don’t care,” said Mr. Golspie, bluff, hearty,
and completely unabashed. “I don’t suppose you care
tuppence about the whole concern. Why should you,
anyhow? I wouldn’t, if I were a good-looking girl, not
tuppence.”

Miss Matfield looked up again, this time wearily,
wrinkling various parts of her face. Then she brought
to bear upon this intruder the full force of her con¬
temptuous gaze, which would instantly have routed
Turgis, Mr. Smeeth, or Mr. Dersingham, and a great

ANGEL PAVEMENT

56

many other people of her acquaintance. On this objec¬
tionable man it had no effect at all. He stared hard at
her, and then smiled, or rather grinned broadly. De¬
feated by such complete insensitiveness, Miss Matfield
made a gesture of annoyance, and then went on with
her work, without looking up again.

“Now what the devil’s that boy doing in there!” Mr.
Golspie boomed to Turgis. “You’d better go and see if
they’ve killed him. You needn’t, though. He’s coming.”

He came, followed by Mr. Smeeth, who said: “I’m
sorry you’ve been kept waiting. Mr. Dersingham can
see you now.”

They waited until they heard the door close behind
him before any of them spoke again.

“What does he want, Mr. Smeeth?” asked Turgis.

“I don’t know what he wants exactly, Turgis,” Mr.
Smeeth replied. “I take it he wants to sell us some stuff.
He sent some good samples in, really first-class Mr.
Dersingham and Goath said it was. I don’t pretend to
know much about it. But I expect the price will put
it out of the question.”

“He’s a funny sort of chap, isn’t he?”

“A loathsome brute!” cried Miss Matfield from her
machine. “Imagine working for a man like that!
Ghastly!”

Mr. Smeeth regarded her thoughtfully, and then, after
telling Stanley to get on with his work and if he hadn’t
any work to go and find some, he turned to regard Turgis
equally thoughtfully. One of them had to go. Should
he put it to them now? Miss Matfield would probably
not care very much-it was hard to imagine her caring,
though she had been anxious enough to get the job—
whereas Turgis, who had an oldish poverty-stricken

THEY ARRIVE

57

father somewhere up in the Midlands, lived in lodgings
here in London, and was lucky if he had five pounds in
all the world, would be very hard hit and would not
easily find another job. It would have to be Miss Mat-
field. Yet Miss Matfield, who had a good education
behind her, was the more promising worker of the two,
and would take over some of Turgis’s work and be glad
to do it. Well, well, this wanted a bit more thinking
about, and, in the meantime, there were a hundred and
one little things to be done.

The three in Mr. Dersingham’s room remained there
for the next half-hour, giving no sign of their existence
beyond an occasional rumble of voices. At the end of
that time, the door opened, louder voices and a fresh
reek of cigars invaded the general office, and Mr. Der-
singham called out: “I say, Smeeth, we’re all going out.
Shan’t be back before lunch. I’ll give you a ring if I’m
going to be any later.” And then they were gone, leaving
Mr. Smeeth and Turgis staring at one another. The
various lunch-hours, beginning with Stanley’s (he went
to the Pavement Dining Rooms and had sausage and
mash, after all), came and went, the afternoon wore on,
and still there was no message from Mr. Dersingham
or Goath. The crescendo of the last hour of the day,
when Stanley turned berserk with the copying press and
Turgis snarled at the telephone and then yelled into it,
had begun when the message actually did arrive.

“Hello, is that you, ol’ man—I mean, Smeeth? Der¬
singham speakin’.” Even through the telephone, a
strangeness, a certain richness, could be remarked in
Mr. Dersingham’s voice. He seemed quite excited.

“Smeeth speaking, Mr. Dersingham.”

“Good, very good. Well, look here, Smeeth, I shan't

ANGEL PAVEMENT

58

be back this afternoon. Nothing important, is there?
You just carry on then-and then-er-you know, finish
off, sign anything that wants signing, then finish off, lock
up, go home.”

“That’ll be all right, Mr. Dersingham. There's
nothing very important. But what about that business
we talked about this morning? Yes, Turgis and Miss
Matfield?”

“All done with,’’and the telephone seemed to chuckle.
“No need to bother about that, not the slightest. Turgis
stays. Miss Matfield stays. D’you know, Smeeth, that
that girl’s father played scrum half with the Alsations?
He did-same fella, Matfield. No, she stays. Both
stay."

“I’m very glad, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who really was
glad, though perhaps he was mostly puzzled. There
seemed to be no sense in all this.

“Explain ev’rything in the morning, Smeeth,” con¬
tinued the voice of Mr. Dersingham. “Only person who
goes is Goath.”

“What! I didn’t catch that, sir.”

“Goath. Goath. We’ve done with him. Goath’s
finished with. Don’t want to see him again. If he
comes for his money, pay him at once, d’you under¬
stand, Smeeth, at once, up to end of month. Then tell
him—to clear—right out, right out.”

“But-but what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I don’t
understand.”

“Explain ev’rything in the morning. But you under¬
stand about Goath, eh? Pay the blighter off if he comes,
finish with him. You understand that, eh? Righto.
Carry on then, ol’ man.”

Bewildered, Mr. Smeeth laid down the receiver and

THEY ARRIVE

59

walked over to his desk. He had hardly time to collect
his thoughts and to begin to wonder whether he ought
to say something to the others, when the door flew open,
almost like a vertical trap-door, to shoot into the middle
of the office, where it suddenly stopped dead, the figure
of a man. It was Goath. His ancient overcoat was
still hanging from his shoulders as if it hardly belonged
to him, but, on the other hand, his bowler hat, instead
of being at the back of his head, was now tilted forward,
giving him an unusual and almost sinister look. His
face was purpler than ever; his eyes were glaring; and
his mouth was opening and shutting, as if he were an
indignant fish. To say of Goath that he had been drink¬
ing was to say nothing, for he was obviously always
drinking, but this time he had plainly had more than
usual, or had been mixing his liquors. And his appear¬
ance, his manner, everything about him, was so extra¬
ordinary that everybody in the office stopped work at
once to look at him.

“Smeeth,” the apparition cried in a thick, hoarse
voice. “You pay me my money, d’y’ear. Sala’y to end
of mun’ an’ commission to yesserday. I’ve finished wi’
Twigg an’ Dersi’am, finished, finished—com-pletely.’’
Here he produced a magnificent cutting gesture that
nearly upset his balance. “I’ve finished wi’ them. They
finished wi’ me. All over.”

“Mr. Dersingham’s just told me, Goath,” said Mr.
Smeeth, looking at him in astonishment. “And I’ll give
you your money if you really want it now—”

“Mus’ ’ave it. Finished—com-pletely, com-pletely.”

“But what’s happened?”

‘Til tell you what’s ’appened,” replied Goath, with
tremendous solemnity, lowering his head so far that it

6 o

ANGEL PAVEMENT

looked as if his hat would fall off. “Go—Golspie, tha’s
wha’s ’appened—Gol-sss-pie.”

“Who’s that? Do you mean—”

“Feller same s’mornin’.”

“But what about him.”

Goath now threw back his head and looked defiant.
“Mister Wha’sit bloody Gol-spie,” he announced, with
great deliberation, “tha’s the feller. An’ he’s a—devil.
I tol’ him, I tol’ him ‘Thirry years—thirry years —in the
trade, tha’s me.’ An’ wha’ did he say to tha’? Wha’ did
he bloody well say?”

“Here, old man, steady, steady,” Mr. Smeeth
cautioned him.

“Don’t mind me,” said Miss Matfield coolly. “Go on,
Mr. Goath. What did he say? Tell us all about it.”

“Never mind wha’ he said,” cried Goath aggressively,
glaring round at them all. “Does’n’ ma’cr wha’ ’e said.
Who is 'e? Where’s ’e come from? With ’is drinks an’
cigars! All ri—very nice—drinks an’ cigars—but any¬
body can buy drinks an’ cigars, an’ do buy drinks an’
cigars and big lunches. It’s wha’ 1 say—thirry years,
don’ forge’ tha’, thirry years-wha’ I say tha’ ma’ers.
An’ I say—wha’s the game?—where’s ’e get this stuff
from?—who tol’ ’im to come here?”

“Yes, but what’s this chap doing?” Mr. Smeeth asked.
“That’s what I want to know.”

“Bullyin’ an’ twistin’, tha’s wha’ ’e’s doin’,” replied
Goath promptly, taking off his hat. “An’ he’s got Mr.
Dersi’am like tha’, jus’ like tha’.” And, to the intense
delight of Stanley, one hand fell heavily on the hat. “It’s
jus’ like wha’s it-y’know-wha’s it, wha’s it?” And to
show what he did mean, Goath glared harder than ever
and then wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes, direct-

THEY ARRIVE 6l

ing them at Miss Matfield, who let out a sudden peal
of laughter.

“Hypnotism,” suggested Turgis.

“Tha’s ri’, boy, tha’s ri’. Hyp-no-tism. Jus’ like
tha’. But not me,” he continued, speaking very slowly
and more distinctly now, “not me. I tell ’em what I
think. Begins tellin’ me I oughter to do this an’ ougbter
do that, an’ I won’t ’ave it. I know the trade an’ I speak
my mind. An’ another thing. If I don’t like a feller, I
don’t like ’im, and that finishes it. That feller comes
’ere, very well, I don’t, I finish.”

“Is he coming here?” demanded Mr. Smeeth.

“You’ll see, you’ll see, Smeeth. I say no more. Finish.
You just let me ’ave my money.”

“All right, Goath,” said Mr. Smeeth, who had been
jotting down some figures for the last minute or two.
“I won’t keep you a minute. Then you’d better get
straight home, old man—”

“Have no ’ome,” Goath announced. “Lodgings.”
He lurched up to the desk, which was high enough for
him to rest his elbows on the edge of it. “That’s the
way, Smeeth, a nice lil cheque. I tell you, Smeeth, ol’
man, you’ve always been decent to me, an’ now I’m sorry
for you.”

“Well, I’m sorry too, Goath, and I must say I don’t
understand what’s happening at all. Mr. Dersingham
rang up and told me you were leaving. Are you sure
it’s not all a mistake. I mean, you chaps seem to have—
—er—had rather a lot to-day, you know, and in the morn¬
ing you might all feel different about it.”

With an effort, Goath stood erect, and then held out
his hand to Mr. Smeeth. “No, no, I’ve finished. Shake
hands, ol’ man. See you again sometime. Meet some

62

ANGEL PAVEMENT

day-still in the trade, y’know, can’t change after thirty
years-have to stick to the trade. Goo’-bye, all.” And
Goath, after removing the dent from his hat with one
fierce jab, crammed it on the back of his head and, with
a final wave of the hand, departed.

“Well, this beats me,” Mr. Smeeth confessed. “I can’t
make head or tail of it, I really can’t.”

“It looks as if that other chap is taking his place,
don’t you think,” said Turgis. “Though I must say he
didn’t look as if he wanted that sort of job. I mean, he
looked too smart and bossy.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Mr. Smeeth told him.

“Thank the Lord, we’ve seen the last of Mr. Goath,
anyhow!” cried Miss Matfield fervently. “I loathed the
sight of him, he always looked so dirty and dilapidated.
I’m sure he was a rotten man to have going round call¬
ing on people.”

“But what if the other chap comes?” said Turgis,
grinning. “You didn’t like the look of him, did you?”

, “I should think not! I never thought of that.” She
groaned as she stuck another sheet of paper into the
typewriter. “What a life!”

“That’s right, let’s get finished. Turgis, Stanley,
come on, get a move on,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply. And
down below, in Angel Pavement, now a deep narrow
pool of darkness sharply spangled with electric lights,
you could hear a little host of other people finishing for
the night, a final clatter of typewriters, a banging of
doors, the hooting of homing cars, the sound of foot¬
steps hurrying up the street towards liberty.

Chapter Two

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

1

M R. SMEETH, still puzzling and pondering
over the sullen departure of Goath and the
arrival of this mysterious Mr. Golspie, put his
books away for the night, and, as his habit was, pulled
out his pipe and tobacco-pouch. The others had gone,
and the office was in darkness except for the solitary
light above his desk. His pouch, one of those oilskin
affairs, was nearly empty, and he had to take out the last
crumbs in order to get a decent pipeful. He had just lit
up, blown out the first few delicious clouds, and switched
off his light, when the telephone rang sharply, urgently,
in the gloom. As he groped back to the receiver, he felt
almost frightened. What was coming now? He found
himself wishing he had gone earlier, just a little earlier,
but nevertheless he had not the strength of mind to
ignore the telephone’s peremptory challenge.

“Hello?” he began.

A huge voice cut him short, came roaring out of the
dark. “Look ’ere, Charlie, what abart makin’ it fifty?
Carm on, yer gotter do it, ol’ son, yer can’t get away
from it—”

“Wait a moment,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “This is
Twigg and Dersingham. Who do you—’’

“I know, I know ” the voice continued, smashing its

63

ANGEL PAVEMENT

64

way across London and entirely ignoring Mr. Smeeth’s
protest. “I know wotcher goin’ to say, but it’ll ’ave to
be fifty this time. I been talkin’ ter Tommy Rawson
s’afternoon, an’ ’e says yer’ll be lucky if yer get it at that.
‘Tell Charlie from me,’ ’e says, ‘ ’e won’t touch it under
fifty an’ ’e’ll be lucky if ’e gets it at that.’ Tommy’s own
words them. An’ I agree, I agree, Nar then, what d’yer
say, Charlie?”

“You’ve got the wrong number,” cried Mr. Smeeth.

“What’s that? I want Mr. ’Iggins.”

“There’s no Mr. Higgins here. This is Twigg and
Dersingham.”

“Wrong number again,” said the voice, disgusted.
“Ring off—for gord’s sake.”

Mr. Smeeth, relieved, rang off with pleasure, and de¬
parted, chuckling a little. Who was Charlie, and what
was it he had to pay fifty for, and why did Tommy
Rawson think he’d be lucky if he got it? “Might easily
be crooks,” he concluded, with a little romantic thrill,
worthy of Stanley himself, and then smiled at himself.
More likely to be fellows buying second-hand cars, loads
of scrap iron, or something like that. At the bottom of
the stairs, he ran into the tall fellow with the broad-
brimmed hat, who was just coming out of his Kwik-
Work Razor Blade place.

The tall man nodded. “Turning colder.”

“Just a bit,” replied Mr. Smeeth heartily. These little
encounters and recognitions pleased him, making him
feel that he was somebody. “Not so bad, though, for the
time of year.”

“That’s right. Business good?”

“So-so. Not so good as it might be.” And then Mr.
Smeeth let the tall man stride away down Angel Pave-

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 65

ment, for he remembered that he was out of tobacco and
so turned into the neighbouring shop, the one occupied,
by T. Benenden.

Mr. Smeeth was one of T. Benenden’s regular
customers, a patron (perhaps the only one) of T. Benen¬
den’s Own Mixture (Cool Sweet Smoking). “No,” he
liked to tell some fellow pipe-smoker, “I don’t fancy
your ounce-packet stuff. I like my tobacco freshly
mixed, y’know, and so I always get it from a little shop
near the office. It’s the chap’s own mixture and so it's
always fresh. Oh, fine stuff!—you try a pipeful—and very
reasonable. Been getting it for years now. And the
chap I get it from is a bit of a character in his way.”
Saying this made Mr. Smeeth feel that he was a con¬
noisseur of both tobacco and human nature, and it gave
an added flavour to his pipe, which could do with it after
being charged with nothing but T. Benenden’s own
mixture. It is hardly possible that he was right about
the tobacco being “freshly mixed,” for though mixed—
and well mixed—it may have been, it could not come
from T. Benenden’s little shop, with its hundreds of
dusty dummy packets, its row of battered tin canisters,
its dilapidated weight scales, its dirty counter, its solitary
wheezing gas mantle, its cobwebs and dark corners, and
still be fresh. On the other hand, he was certainly right
when he described T. Benenden himself as a bit of a
character in his way.

T. Benenden’s way was that of the philosophical
financier turned shopkeeper. He was an oldish man
who wore thick glasses (which only magnified eyes that
protruded far enough without their help), a straggling
pepper-and-salt beard, one of those old-fashioned single
high collars and a starched front, and no tie. When Mr.

c*

66

ANGEL PAVEMENT

Smeeth first visited the shop, years ago, he was at once
startled and amused by this absence of tie, jumping to
the conclusion that the man had forgotten his tie. Now,
he would have been far more startled to see Benenden
with a tie. He had often been tempted to ask the chap
why he wore these formal collars and fronts and yet no
tie, but somehow he had never dared. Benenden him¬
self, though he was ready to talk on many subjects, never
mentioned ties. Either he deliberately ignored them or
he had never noticed the part these things were now
playing in the world, simply did not understand about
ties. What he did like to talk about, perhaps because
his shop was in the City, was finance, a sort of Arabian
Nights finance. He sat there behind his counter, steadily
smoking his stock away, and peered at old copies of
financial periodicals or the City news of ordinary
papers, and out of this reading, and the bits of gossip
he heard, and the grandiose muddle of his own mind,
he concocted the most astonishing talk. It was difficult
to buy an ounce of tobacco from him without his
making you feel that the pair of you had just missed a
fortune.

As soon as he recognised Mr. Smeeth, T. Benenden
very deliberately pulled down his scales and then placed
on the counter the particular dirty old canister set apart
for his own mixture. “The usual, I suppose, Mr.
Smeeth?” he said, picking up the pouch and then
smoothing it out on the counter, “I saw your chief
this morning, the young fellow—Mr. Dersingham.
Came in for some Sahibs. Got somebody with him
too, new to me, well set up gentleman, with a good
cigar in his mouth, a very good cigar. You’ll know who
I mean?”

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 67

"‘He called this morning at the office,” said Mr.
Smeeth.

“Weil, I didn’t say anything,” Benenden continued,
very seriously as he weighed out the tobacco. “It’s not
my business to say anything. I don’t say anything. But
I keep my eyes open. And I said to myself, the minute
they went out, ‘This looks to me as if Twigg and
Dersingham’s are moving on a bit. This has the look of
a merging job, or a syndicate job, or a trust job. And,’

I said, ‘if Mr. Smeeth does happen to come in for the
usual, I’ll put it straight to him. It’s no concern of mine,
but he’ll tell me. I’ll test my judgment,’ I said.”

“Sorry, Mr. Benenden,” said Mr. Smeeth, smiling at
him, “but I’ve nothing to tell you. I don’t rightly know
what’s happening, but you can depend on it, it’s nothing
in that line.”

“Then,” cried Benenden, quite passionately, rolling
up the pouch and then slapping it down on the counter,
“you’re wrong. I don’t mean you, Mr. Smeeth, I mean
the firm. That’s the way things are going all the time
now, Mr. Smeeth, big combinations-merging away till
you don’t know where you are-and sweeping the deck,
until-dear me-there isn’t a picking, not a crumb, left.
You see what I mean? Now there’s a bit here in one of
the papers-I was just reading it when you came in—
and I don’t suppose you’ve seen it. Just a minute and
I’ll find it. Now here it is. Suppose, Mr. Smeeth, just
suppose,” and here T. Benenden leaned across the
counter and his eyes seemed colossal, “I’d come to you
a fortnight since, a week since, and said to you, ‘What
about picking up a bit on South Coast Laundries?’—
what would you have said?”

“I’d have said it takes me all my time to pay my own

68

ANGEL PAVEMENT

laundry bill,” Mr. Smeeth replied, much amused by
this retort of his.

T. Benenden made a slight gesture of contempt to
show that this was mere trifling. Then he looked very
solemn, very impressive. “You’d have said, ‘I can’t be
bothered with South Coast Laundries. I’m not touching
’em—don’t want ’em—take your South Coast Laundries
away.’ And you’d have been right—as far as you could
see, then. But what happens, what happens? Read your
paper. It’s there, under my very ’and. Along comes a
big merger—a bit of syndicate and trust work—and up
they go, right up to the top—bang! Now—you see—you
can’t touch ’em. And there’s a feller here—you can see
it in the paper—who’s been clearing anything out of it—
a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand—a clean
sweep, made for life. And he’s not the only one, not a
bit of it! And we sit here, pretending to laugh at South
Coast Laundries, or what ever it might be, and what
are we doing? We’re missing it, that’s what we’re doing,
we’re missing it.” Here, a dramatic pause.

“And if your Mr. Dersingham isn’t careful,” Benen¬
den concluded, still impressive even if a trifle vague now,
“he’s going to miss it. He wants to keep his eyes open.
There’s one or two bits in this paper I’d like to show
him. Let’s see, what was it you gave me? Half a crown,
wasn’t it? That’s right then-one and six change. And
good night to you, Mr. Smeeth.” And T. Benenden,
after stooping down to the tiny gas-jet to relight his pipe,
retired to his corner to ruminate.

Mr. Smeeth made his way to Moorgate, where, as
usual, he bought an evening paper and then climbed to
the upper deck of a tram. There, when he was not being
bumped by the conductor, jostled by outgoing and in-

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 69

coming passengers, thrown back or hurled forward by
tire tram itself, an irritable and only half tamed brute,
he stared at the jogging print and tried to acquaint him¬
self with the latest and most important news of the day.
An excitable column and a half told him that a young
musical comedy actress, whom he had never seen and
had no particular desire to see, had got engaged, that it
had been quite a romance, that she was very, very happy
and not sure yet whether she would leave the stage or
not. Mr. Smeeth, not caring whether she left the stage
or dropped dead on it, turned to another column. This
discussed the problem of careers for married women, a
problem that had been left absolutely untouched since
the morning papers came out, ten hours before. It did
not interest Mr. Smeeth, so he tried another column.
This reported an action for divorce, in which it appeared
that the petitioning wife had only been allowed a hun¬
dred and fifty pounds a year on which to dress herself.
The Judge had said that this seemed to him—a mere
bachelor (laughter)-an adequate allowance, but the
paper had collected the opinions of well-known society
hostesses, who all said it was not adequate. Mr. Smeeth,
who found he could not share the editor’s passionate
interest in this topic, now tried another page, which
promptly informed him that evening gowns would cer¬
tainly be longer this winter, and then went on to tell
him, to the tune of three solid columns, that the modern
business girl (with her latch-key) had quite a different
attitude towards marriage and therefore must not be
confused with her grandmother (Victorian, with no
latch-key). Mr. Smeeth, feeling sure that he had read
all this before, passed on, and arrived at the sports page,
where the prospects of certain women golfers were

70

ANGEL PAVEMENT

discussed at considerable length. Never having set eyes
on any of these Amazons and not being interested in golf,
Mr. Smeeth next tried the gossip columns. The tram was
swaying now and the print fairly dancing, so that it was
at the cost of some eye-strain and a slight headache that
he learned from these paragraphs that Lord Winthrop’s
brother, who was over six feet, intended to spend the
winter in the West Indies, that the youngest son of Lady
Nether Stowey could not only be seen very frequently
at the Blue Pigeon Restaurant, but was also renowned
for the way in which he painted fans, that the member
for the Tewborough Division, who must not be mis¬
taken for Sir Adrian Putter, now in Egypt, had perhaps
the best collection of teapots of any man in the House,
and that he must not imagine, as so many people did,
that Chingley Manor, where the fire had just occurred,
was the Chingley Manor mentioned by Disraeli, for it
was not, and the paragraphist, who seemed to go about
a great deal, knew them both well. Indeed, he and his
editor seemed to know all about everybody and every¬
thing, except Mr. Smeeth and all the other staring men
on the tram, and the people they knew, and all their con¬
cerns and all the things in which they were interested.
Nevertheless, Mr. Smeeth reflected, as he carefully
folded the paper, there were a lot of things in it that his
wife would like to read. They seemed to have stopped
writing penny papers for men.

Mr. Smeeth occupied a six-roomed house (with bath)
in a street full of six-roomed houses (with baths), in that
part of Stoke Newington that lies between the High
Street and Clissold Park—to be precise, at the postal
address: 17, Chaucer Road, N.16. Why the late
Victorian Speculative builder had fastened on Chaucer

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 71

is a mystery, unless he had come to the conclusion that
the Canterbury Pilgrims, who have never vanished from
this island, might come to rest in the twentieth century
behind his brick walls. But there it was, Chaucer Road,
and Mr. Smeeth had once tried his hand at Chaucer, but
what with one thing and another, the queer spelling
and all that, had not made much of him. All that he
remembered now was that Chaucer had called birds
"'Smally foulies,” and to this day, when he was in a
waggish mood, Mr. Smeeth liked to bring in “smally
foulies,” only to be countered with “You and your
"smelly foulies!’ ” from a delighted Mrs. Smeeth. To¬
wards 17, Chaucer Road, Mr. Smeeth now stepped out,
swinging his folded newspaper, through the alternating
lamplight and gloom, the crisping air, of the autumn
evening. Dinner, with a cup of tea to follow, awaited
him, for during the week, Mr. Smeeth, like a wise
man, preferred to dine when work was done for the
day.

*

‘‘Cut some off for George," said Mrs. Smeeth, “and I’ll
keep it warm for him. He’s going to be late again.
“You’re a bit late yourself to-night, Dad.”

“I know. We’ve had a funny day to-day,” replied Mr.
Smeeth, but for the time being he did not pursue the
subject. He was busy carving, and though it was only
cold mutton he was carving, he liked to give it all his
attention.

“Now then, Edna,” cried Mrs. Smeeth to her daughter,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

72

“don’t sit there dreaming. Pass the potatoes ana tnc
greens-careful, they’re hot. And the mint sauce. Oh, l
forgot it. Run and get it, that’s a good girl. All right,
don’t bother yourself. I can be there and back before
you’ve got your wits together.”

Mr. Smeeth looked up from his carving and eyed
Edna severely. “Why didn’t you go and get it when
your mother told you. Letting her do everything.”

His daughter pulled down her mouth and wriggled a
little. “I’d have gone,” she said, in a whining tone.
“Didn’t give me time, that’s all.”

Mr. Smeeth grunted impatiently. Edna annoyed him
these days. He had been very fond of her when she was
a child—and, for that matter, he was still fond of her—
but now she had arrived at what seemed to him a very
silly awkward age. She had a way of acting, of looking,
of talking, all acquired fairly recently, that irritated
him. An outsider might have come to the conclusion
that Edna looked like a slightly soiled and cheapened
elf. She was between seventeen and eighteen, a smallish
girl, thin about the neck and shoulders but with sturdy
legs. She had a broad snub nose, a little round mouth
that was nearly always open, and greyish-greenish-
blueish eyes set rather wide apart; and scores of faces
exactly like hers, pert, pretty-ish and under-nourished,
may be seen within a stone’s throw of any picture theatre
any evening in any large town. She had left school as
soon as she could, and had wandered in and out of
various jobs, the latest and steadiest of them being one
as assistant in a big draper’s Finsbury Park way. At
home now, being neither child nor an adult, neither
dependent nor independent, she was at her worst;
languid and complaining, shrill and resentful, or sullen

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 73

and tearful; she would not eat properly; she did not
want to help her mother, to do a bit of washing-up, to
tidy her room; and it was only when one of her silly
little friends called, when she was going out, that she
suddenly sprang into a vivid personal life of her own,
became eager and vivacious. This contrast, as sharp as
a sword, sometimes angered, sometimes saddened her
father, who could not imagine how his home, for which
he saw himself for ever planning and working, appeared
in the eyes of fretful, secretive and ambitious adoles¬
cence. These changes in Edna annoyed and worried him
far more than they did Mrs. Smeeth, who only took
offence when she had a solid grievance, and turned a
tolerant, sagely feminine eye on what she called Edna’s
“airs and graces.”

There was a bustle and clatter, and Mrs. Smeeth re¬
turned to dump upon the table a little jug without a
handle. “I’m getting properly mixed up in my old age,”
she murmured breathlessly. “First I thought it was
there, in front of tt the bottom shelf. Then when I went,
I thought I couldn’t have made any, because it wasn’t
there. And then—lo and behold—it was there all the
time, right at the back of the second shelf. Oh, you’ve
given me too much, Dad. Take some back. I’m not a
bit hungry somehow to-night, haven’t been all day. You
know how you get sometimes, can’t fancy anything.
Here, Edna, you want more than that. Well, I dare say
you don’t, but you’re going to have it, miss. None of
this silly starving yourself, a girl of your age! Because
your mother doesn’t feel hungry for once in her life, it
doesn’t mean you’re just going to sit there, pecking
worse than a little sparrow.” And here she stopped, to
take breath, to snatch Edna’s plate and put some more

angel pavement

74

meat on it, to sit down, to do half a dozen other things,
aii in a flash.

According to all the literary formulas, the wife of Mr.
Smeeth should have been a grey and withered suburban
drudge, a creature who had long forgotten to care for
anything but a few household tasks, tire welfare of her
children, and the opinion of one or two chapel-going
neighbours, a mere husk of womanhood, in whom Mr.
Smeeth could not recognise the girl he had once courted.
But Nature, caring nothing for literary formulas, had
gone to work in another fashion with Mrs. Smeeth.
There was nothing grey and withered about her. She
was only in her early forties, and did not look a day
older than her age, by any standards. She was a good
deal plumper than the girl Mr. Smeeth had married,
twenty-two years before, but she was no worse for that.
She still had a great quantity of untidy brown hair, a
bright blue eye, rosy cheeks, and a ripe moist lip. She
came of robust country stock, and perhaps that is why
she had been able to conjure any amount of bad food
into healthy and jolly womanhood. By temperament,
however, she was a real child of London, a daughter of
Cockaigne. She adored oysters, fish and chips, an occa¬
sional bottle of stout or glass of port, cheerful gossip,
hospitality, noise, jokes, sales, outings, comic songs,
entertainments of any kind, in fact, the whole rattling
and roaring, laughing and crying world of food and
drink and bargaining and adventure and concupiscence.
She liked to spend as much money as she could, but
apart from that, would have been quite happy if the
Smeeths had dropped to a lower social level. She never
shared any of her husband’s worries, and was indeed
rather impatient of them, sometimes openly con-

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 75

temptuous, but she had no contempt, beyond that ex¬
perienced by all deeply feminine natures for the male,
for the man himself. He had been her sweetheart, he
was her husband; he had given her innumerable
pleasures, had looked after her, had been patient with
her, had always been fond of her; and she loved him and
was proud of what seemed to her his cleverness. She
knew enough about life to realise that Smeeth was a
really good husband and that this was something to be
thankful for. (North London does not form any part of
that small hot-house world in which a good husband or
wife is regarded as a bore, perhaps as an obstacle in the
path of the partner’s self-development.) Chastity for its
own sake made no appeal to her, and she recognised
with inward pleasure (though not with any outward
sign) the glances that flirtatious and challenging males, in
buses and shops and tea-rooms, threw in her direction.
If Mr. Smeeth had started any little games—as she
frankly confessed—she would not have moaned and re¬
pined, but would have promptly “shown him” what she
could do in that line. As it was, he did not require show¬
ing. He grumbled soihetimes at her extravagance, her
thoughtlessness, her rather slapdash housekeeping, but
in spite of all that, in spite, too, of the fact that for two-
and-twenty years they had been cooped up together in
tiny houses, she still seemed to him an adorable person,
at once incredible and delightful in the large, wilful,
intriguing, mysterious mass of her femininity, the
Woman among the almost indistinguishable crowd of
mere women.

“And if this pudding tastes like nothing on earth,”
cried Mrs. Smeeth, rushing it on to the table, “don’t
blame me, blame Mrs. Newark at number twenty-three.

ANGEL PAVE MENT

76

She came charging in, like a fire brigade, just as I was
in the middle of mixing it, and shrieked at me-you
know what a voice she has?—she said, ‘What d’you
think, Mrs. Smeeth?’ And I said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know,
Mrs. Newark. What is it this time?’ I slipped that in
just to remind her it wasn’t the first time she’d nearly
frightened the life out of me, breaking the news about
nothing. ‘Well,’ she said-just a minute, mind your
hand, Dad, that’s hot. Pass tire custard, Edna. Dad
wants it. That’s right.” And Mrs. Smeeth sat down,
flushed and panting.

“Bit on the heavy side, p’raps,” said Mr. Smeeth, who
had now tasted his pudding, “but Tve had worse from
you, Mother, much worse.” Another spoonful. “Not so
bad at all.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” his wife replied. “But if it isn’t,
it ought to be. I thought Mrs. Screaming Twenty-three
had done it in properly. ‘Well,’ she said, and nearly
bursting she was, ‘do you know, Mrs. Smeeth, I’ve had
a letter from Albert, and he’s been in hospital in Ran¬
goon, and now he’s all right, and the letter came not ten
minutes since.’ ‘You don’t say!’ I said. ‘Where’s he
been in hospital?’ And she said, ‘Rangoo-oon’-just
like that. Reminded me of that Harry Tate sketch, you
remember, Dad? Rangoo-oon! I nearly laughed in her
face. And talk about sketches! If you want a sketch
you couldn’t beat this Albert she’s making so much fuss
about. ’Member him, Edna?—teeth sticking out a yard,
and all cross-eyed. They saw something in Rangoo-oon
when they saw Albert.”

“Oo, he was sorful,” cried Edna, shuddering in a re¬
fined way.

“Still, we can’t all be oil paintings,” Mrs. Smeeth re-

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 77

marked philosophically. Then she looked mischievous.
“And we can’t all look like Mr. Ronald Mawlborough
either.”

“Who’s he when he’s at home?” Mr. Smeeth inquired.

“There you are, you see, Dad, you’re not up in these
things. You’re behind the times. Matter of fact, you
have seen him, ’cos I remember the two of us seeing him
together, in that picture at the Empire.”

“Oh, one of those movie chaps, is he?” Mr. Smeeth
was obviously more interested in pudding than in movie
chaps.

“I should think he is, isn’t he, Edna?”

“Oh, do shut up, Mother,” cried Edna, crimson now
and wriggling.

“What’s this about?”

“He’s the latest, isn’t he, Edna?” said Mrs. Smeeth
wickedly. “And I must say he’s a good-looking young
fellow—curly hair, dark eyes, and all that. Free with
his photographs too. Yours sincerely, Ronald Mawl¬
borough, that’s him. Nothing stand-offish about him
when he addresses his sweet young admirers—”

“Mother!” Edna screamed, nothing now but two
imploring eyes in a scarlet face.

“That’s what comes of not doing your bedroom out,
miss,” her mother retorted. “I go up to her bedroom,
Dad, and what do I find? Mr. Ronald Mawlborough,
hers sincerely, on a big photo. You can nearly count his
eyelashes. That’s the latest now. Not content with cut¬
ting ’em out of these movie papers, they send to Holly¬
wood for them. Darling Mr. Ronald, they write, I shall
die if you don’t send me your photo, signed in your own
sweet handwriting. Yours truly, Edna Smeeth, seventeen
Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, Englard.”

*8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

<

Mr. Smeeth looked severe. “Well, I must say, I'.dna,
I call that a silly game.”

“I only did it for fun,” she muttered, “just to see what
would happen, that’s all. Some of our girls have got
dozens—”

“Pity they’ve got nothing better to do,” was her
father’s comment.

“Oh, well, they might be doing worse,” said Mrs.
Smeeth, rising from the table. “It won’t do them any
good, but it won’t do them any harm either. We’ve all
been a bit silly in our time. I’m sure I was when I was
a girl. Girls are a bit silly, if you ask me, and it’s a good
job for the men they are. But that doesn’t mean they
can’t help to clear a table. Come on, Edna, get these
things away while I make the tea.”

“Oh, all ri-ight,” Edna sighed wearily, and rose in
slow-motion time. Ten minutes later, after gulping
down her tea, she rushed out of the room, leaving her
parents sitting at ease, Mrs. Smeeth over her second cup
of tea, Mr. Smeeth over his pipe.

The room was small and contained far too much
furniture and too many knick-knacks. Nearly every¬
thing in it was shoddy and ugly, manufactured hastily,
in the mass, to catch a badly-informed eye, to be bought
and exhibited for a brief season by the purchaser, and
then to be in the way and finally rot out of the way.
Nevertheless, the total effect of the room was not dis¬
pleasing, because it had a cosy, home-like atmosphere,
which Mr. Smeeth, whose imagination, heightened by
fear, perhaps told him that outside beyond the firelight
and the snug walls were stalking poverty, disgrace,
shame, disease, and death, enjoyed even more than Mrs.
Smeeth. It was probably this feeling, and not so much

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 79

the strain of the day’s work, that made him a man diffi¬
cult to rouse and get out of the house in the evening, as
his wife, who was all for going out somewhere, or, fail¬
ing that, inviting somebody in, knew to her cost.

“You’re an old home-bird, you are,” she said, with a
sort of affectionate contempt, as she saw him settling
deeper now into his chair. “Well, what’s been bother¬
ing you to-day? You started to tell me and then didn’t.”

“I got a real fright this morning, I don’t mind telling
you, Edie,” he began. “Not that I hadn’t seen it coming
the way things were going on,” he added, with a gloomy
pride.

“Now then, don’t start on,” she warned him, shaking
a teaspoon. “You see too much coming. Always look¬
ing into the middle of next week and noticing how
black it’s getting. Talk about depressions in Iceland!
They ought to give you the job, and then there’d be
plenty. However, go on, my dear. Mustn’t interrupt.”

“Well, somebody’s got to look, haven’t they?” he re¬
plied. “And if Mr. Dersingham had looked a bit harder,
we’d all be better off.”

“Do you mean to say you won’t get that rise at
Christmas he was talking about?”

“Rise at Christmas! I thought this morning I was
in for a rise outside. I tell you, Edie, when he started,
my heart went into my boots.” And he plunged into an
account of the scene in Mr. Dersingham’s room that
morning and then discussed the mysterious events that
followed it, all of which Mrs. Smeeth punctuated with
nods and ejaculations, such as “Did he really?” “Well,
1 never!” and “Silly old geezer!” She gave him more
of her attention than she usually did, because she could
see that he was seriously concerned, but at the same

8 o

' ANGEL PAVEMENT

time she did not really bother her own head about it,
as he knew very well. To her it was all rather unreal,
and he was convinced that the idea that he might lose
his job, be thrown into the street with only the gloomiest
prospect of getting anything half as good, never really
entered her head. And this indifference, this child-like
confidence in his ability to produce the usual six or
seven pounds every week, did nothing to restore his own
self-confidence, at least not at such moments as these,
but only made him feel that he had to think for two,
and in the end left him lonely with his fear.

“All I’m hoping now,” he went on earnestly, “is that
this chap who called has got something up his sleeve.
It’s so funny Goath going like that. Looks to me as if
this chap, Golspie, thought Goath wasn’t any good-and
I’ve thought so once or twice myself lately-and worked
it so that Mr. Dersingham got rid of him. Perhaps he’s
going to take his place. I must say, it’s a funny business.
In all my experience—”

“Don’t you worry, it’ll be all right,” cried Mrs.
Smeeth. “We’re going to be lucky, we are. I don’t care
if Mr. Dersingham goes mental, we’re going to be lucky.
Soon, too! I don’t think I told you, but Mrs. Dalby’s
sister—the one with the fringe and the jet ear-rings, who
reads the cards—told me my fortune the other afternoon,
and she said luck was coming, money and good luck,
and all through a stranger, a middling-coloured man
in a strange bed. Is this man you’re talking about
middling-coloured? ’ ’

Don t ask me, I never noticed what colour he was.
He hadn’t my colour. He’d got a big moustache, if
that’s any use to you. But what puzzles me is this, why
did Mr. Dersingham—”

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

81

“Don’t you worry yourself, Dad, why Mr. Dersing-
ham did anything,” his wife interrupted. “Think he’s
spending his time worrying about you? Not him! And
don’t you bother your old head about him, either. Let’s
have a bit o’ music. It’ll cheer us up.” She bounced
over to the corner in which George, who had a head foi
these things, had fixed up that tangle of wires which still
passes by the name of “wireless,” a loud speaker appa¬
ratus. “What starts it? I can never remember,” she
said, with one hand hovering over the various knobs.
“Is it this thing you pull out?”

It must have been, for she pulled it, and immediately
a loud, patronising voice filled the room. “Let us turn to
anothuh aspect of this problam,” it shouted. “As we have
already seen—ah—a company cannot barrow unless it is
aixpressly authorised—that is, authorised by its memo¬
randum of association—ah—to do so. Let us see what
this invalves. Suppose a companay has been formed
for the purpose—we will say—ah—of discounting cam-
mercial bills—”

“Oh, help!” cried Mrs. Smeeth, and promptly turned
the voice out of the room. “A lot of cheering up you’ll
do!” she told the loud speaker severely. “Look in the
paper and see when the singing and playing comes
on.”

There was a glimpse of Edna, all dressed up, very
white about the nose, very red about the lips.

“Where’re you going, Edna?” her mother shrieked.

“Out.”

“Who with?”

“Minnie Watson.”

“Well, don’t be late then, you and your Minnie
Watson.” A bang of the front door was Edna’s only

83

ANGEL PAVEMENT

reply. “It’s Minnie Watson ev’ry night now,” said
Mrs. Smeeth. “Next month it’ll be all somebody else.
I said to her last night. Where’s Annie Frost now you
used to be so friendly with?' ”

“Is that Frost’s girl?” inquired Mr. Smeeth. “The
chap who keeps the Hand and Glove*

“That’s right, Jimmy Frost. So when I said that to
her, the little madam turns up her nose at once and says,
‘Catch me going with Annie Frostl’ Just like that. And
it doesn’t seem a minute since they were as thick as
thieves. I could have died laughing. Just the same, I
was, at her age.”

“You won’t make me believe that,” said Mr. Smeeth
sturdily. “You’d more sense. Seems to me these young
girls now haven’t a scrap of sense. The bit they leave
school with is knocked out of them by pictures nowa¬
days. They think about pictures-movies and talkies—
from morning till night. They’re getting jazzed off their
little heads.”

“That sounds like Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, start¬
ing up. “I’ll go and get his dinner out of the oven.
Come on, boy, hurry up if you want any dinner to-night.
It’s nearly cinders now.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth slowly knocked out his
pipe in the coal-scuttle and then stared into the fire,
brooding. He was always catching himself grumbling
about the children now, and he did not want to be a
grumbling father. He had enjoyed them when they
were young, but now, although there were times when
he felt a touch of pride, he no longer understood them.
George especially, the elder of the two, and once a very
bright promising boy, was both a disappointment and a
mystery. George had had opportunities that he himself

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 83

had never had. But George had shown an inclination
from the first, to go his own way, which seemed to Mr.
Smeeth a very poor way. He had no desire to stick to
anything, to serve somebody faithfully, to work himself
steadily up to a good safe position. He simply tried one
thing after another, selling wireless sets, helping some
pal in a garage (he was in a garage now, and it was his
fourth or fifth), and though he always contrived to earn
something and appeared to work hard enough, he was
not, in his father’s opinion, getting anywhere. He was
only twenty, of course, and there was time, but Mr.
Smeeth, who knew very well that George would continue
to go his own way without any reference to him, did not
see any possibility of improvement. The point was, that
to George, there was nothing wrong, and his father was
well aware of the fact that he could not make him see
there was anything wrong. That was the trouble with
both his children. There was obviously nothing bad
about either of them; they compared very favourably
with other people’s boys and girls; and he would have
been quick to defend them; but nevertheless they were
growing up to be men and women he could not under¬
stand, just as if they were foreigners. And it was all very
perplexing and vaguely saddening.

The truth was, of course, that Mr. Smeeth’s children
were foreigners, not simply because they belonged to a
younger generation, but because they belonged to a
younger generation that existed in a different world.
Mr. Smeeth was perplexed because he applied to them
standards they did not recognise. They were the pro¬
duct of a changing civilisation, creatures of the post¬
war world. They had grown up to the sound of the Ford
car rattling down the street, and that Ford car had gone

84 ANGEL PAVEMENT

rattling away, to the communal rubbish-heap, wnh a
whole load of ideas that seemed still of supreme import¬
ance to Mr. Smeeth. They were the children of the
Woolworth Stores and the moving pictures. Their
world was at once larger and shallower than that of
their parents. They were less English, more cosmo¬
politan. Mr. Smeeth could not understand George and
Edna, but a host of youths and girls in New York, Paris
and Berlin would have understood them at a glance.
Edna’s appearance, her grimaces and gestures, were tem¬
porarily based on those of an Americanised Polish
Jewess, who, from her mint in Hollywood, had stamped
them on these young girls all over the world. George’s
knowing eye for a machine, his cigarette and drooping
eyelid, his sleek hair, his ties and shoes and suits, the
smallest details of his motor-cycling and dancing, his
staccato impersonal talk, his huge indifferences, could
be matched almost exactly round every corner in any
American city or European capital.

Mrs. Smeeth returned with the food, and a minute or
two later, George descended from his bedroom, shining,
sleek, brushed. He was better looking, better built,
tougher in body, than his father had ever been, and he
owed far more to his mother, though there was about
her a certain generosity of the blood, a suggestion of
ruddy mounting sap, that was absent in him: he was
drier, more compressed and blanched; and though he
was a good-looking youth, who moved easily, quickly, he
had hardly any more of the bloom of twenty than had
the moving pictures of Mr. Ronald Mawlborough and
his kind. In short, he looked too old for an English boy
of that age. It was as if the Americanised world he had
grown up to discover about him, had contrived to intro-

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 85

duce into North London the drying and ageing Ameri¬
can climate.

“You’re late to-night, George,” said his father.

“Been busy,” he replied, dispatching his dinner
quickly, quietly, efficiently, but with no signs of taking
any pleasure in his food. After a few minutes’ silence,
he continued. “Feller came in with an old Lumbden ,
twelve horse. Could have had it for fifteen quid.
Nothing much wrong with it. Wanted new plugs and
mag. and brakes re-lining and something doing to the
differential, and just cleanin’ up a bit. All right then.
Take you anywhere. Thought once of sellin’ the ol’
bike and having a shot at this Lumbden."

“I wish you would, Georgie,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.
“You could take us all out then. See us going out in
style, eh, Dad? Besides, I hate that stinking rattling ol’
bike of yours. Nasty dangerous things they are, too.
Get rid of it, Georgie, before it gets rid of you.”

“That’s all right,” said George, “but the ol’ bike goes
—travels like a bird. This Lumbden couldn’t look at
her. No, me for the little ol’ bike, till I can put my
hand on something in the super-sports style. And don’t
worry, I shan’t do that in a hurry—costs too much.
Doesn’t matter, though—Barrett’s buying this Lumb¬
den. We’ll do her up a bit, paint her up, and sell her.
There won’t be any hurry either, so when we’ve put a
few works in her, if you want a ride, pass the word on,
and we’ll have a run in her.”

“We’ll go down to Brighton and see your aunt Flo,”
cried Mrs. Smeeth, her eyes brightening at the thought
of an outing. “Now don’t forget, Georgie boy. That’s a
promise to your old mother. Don’t go spending all your
time taking the girls out in it. Give your mother a

86 ANGEL PAVEMENT

chance. She can enjoy a ride as well as the next.”

“Righto,” said George briskly. He rose from the
table.

“Here, you want some pudding.”

“Not to-night. Off pudding to-night. Couldn’t look
it in the face. ’Sides, I haven’t time.”

“Time!” cried his mother. “You’re never in. Where
you going.”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Just knocking about with some of the fellers.”

Mr. Smeeth looked at him, rather gravely. He felt
it was his turn to speak now. “Just a minute,” he said
sharply. “What does ‘knocking about’ mean exactly, may
I ask?”

At this, George looked a shade less confident, a trifle
younger, as he stood there tapping his cigarette. “I
dunno. Might do one thing, might do another. Might
have a game of billiards at the Institute, or look in at
the pictures, or go down to the second house at Fins¬
bury Park. Depends what everybody wants to do. No
harm in that, Dad.” He lit his cigarette.

“Course there isn’t,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “Your father
never said there was.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly. “That’s all
right, George. Only don’t take all night about it, that’s
all. Oh!—there’s just another thing.” He hesitated a
moment.' “Somebody told me he’d seen you once or
twice with that flash bookie chap—what’s his name?—
y’know—Shandon. Well, you keep away from that chap,
George. I don’t interfere-and you know I don't—but
that chap’s a wrong ’un, and I don’t want to see a
boy of mine in his company.”

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 87

“Shandon’s no friend of mine,” said George, flush¬
ing. “I don’t knock about with him. He comes into
the garage sometimes, that’s all. He’s a friend of
Barrett’s.”

“Well, if half of what I hear’s true,” Mr. Smeeth re¬
marked, “he’s a friend to nobody, that chap. And you
just keep out of his way, George, see?”

“First I’ve heard of this,” said Mrs. Smeeth, looking
severely at her son.

“All ri’, Dad,” George muttered, nodding. “So long.
Ma.” And he was oft'.

Mrs. Smeeth promptly rushed the remaining dirty
plates into the kitchen, and then returned, five minutes
later, to find her husband looking at a battered copy of
a detective story that had somehow found its way into
the room. You could not say he was reading it. So
far, he was merely glancing suspiciously at it. Mrs.
Smeeth took up the evening paper, pecked at it here and
there, then pottered about a minute or two, then turned
on the wireless, which only let loose another patronising
gentleman, switched it off, brought two socks and some
darning wool from the top of the little bookcase, ex¬
amined them with distaste, looked across at her husband,
then said: “I can’t settle down to anything to-night,
somehow. How d’you feel about a little walk round?
We might look in at Fred’s for an hour. What d’you
say? Oh, no, I thought not—won’t stir, the old stick-
in-the-mud. One of these days I’ll be finding a nice
young man to take me .to the pictures. Well, if you
won’t stir, I will. I think I’ll just slip round to Mrs.
Dalbv’s for an hour. She asked me if I would.”

“You do,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m all right here.”

He lit his pipe again, made up the fire, and tried to

ANGEL PAVEMENT

settle down with the detective story, which at once
hustled him into the library of the old Manor House,
where the baronet’s body was waiting to be discovered.
But he did not make much headway with it. Goath
and Mr. Dersingham and this Golspie kept appearing in
that library. Angel Pavement was just outside the old
Manor House. So he put the book away and tried the'
wireless. This time the patronising gentlemen had all
gone home, and in their place was a rich and adven¬
turous flood of sound. It was not unfamiliar to Mr.
Smeeth, and after a pleasant tussle with his memory,
he recognised it as something by Mendelssohn, an over¬
ture it was, a sea piece, either What’s-It’s Cave or
Hebrides or something. Unlike his wile and children
and most of his friends, Mr. Smeeth had a genuine, if
unambitious, passion for music, and this was the kind
of music he knew and liked best. He sank into his chair,
and the sharp lines on his face softened as the music
came swirling out of the little cone and there arrived
with it the old mysterious enchantment of the ear. A
phantom sea rolled about his chair: the room was filled
with foam and salt air, the green glitter of the waves,
the white flash and the crying of great sea birds. And
Mr. Smeeth, a magically drowned man, worried no
longer, and for a brief space was happy.

3

The next day Mr. Smeeth struggled out of sleep to find
himself faced with one of those dark spouting morn¬
ings which burst over unhappy London like gigantic
bombs filled with dirty water. At the first sign ot the

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 89.

approach of one of these outrages, all clocks ought to
be put back three hours, so that everybody might stay
in bed until their fury is spent. There is no end to their
malice. They sweep, lash, and machine-gun the streets
with rain; they send up fountains of mud from every
passing wheel; they contrive that fires shall not burn
nor wafer boil, that tea shall be lukewarm, bacon fat con¬
gealed, and warranted fresh eggs change in their very
cups to mere eggs and dubious; they make the husband'
turn on the wife, the father on the child, and thus help
to ruin all family life; and they lavishly sow all the
ills that townsmen know, colds, indigestion, rheumatism,,
influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia, and are indeed the in¬
dustrious hirelings of death.

“Got your umbrella?” said Mrs. Smeeth. She had!
been out of bed for an hour, but somehow looked as if
her real self was still there, as if this was a mysteriously
wrapped wraith of herself she had projected downstairs.
“Goo’-bye, then. You’ll have to run for it, Dad.”

Dad did not run for it, but he managed to trot down
Chaucer Road and then along the neighbouring street,
but after that he had a pain over his heart and was re¬
duced to a sort of quick shamble. Before he reached
the High Street and his tram, the bottoms of his trousers
were unpleasantly heavy, his boots (one of Mrs. Smeeth’s
bargains and made of cardboard) gave out a squelching
sound, and the newspaper he carried was being rapidly
reconverted into its original pulp. The tram, its
windows steaming and streaming, was more crowded
than usual, of course, and carried its maximum cargo
of wet clothes, the wearers of which were simply so many
irritable ghosts. After enormous difficulty, Mr. Smeeth
succeeded in filling and lighting his morning pipe of

D

go ANGEL PAVEMENT

T. Benenden’s Own, and then—so stubborn is the spirit
of man-succeeded in unfolding and examining his
pulpy newspaper. Before he had reached the end of City
Road, he had learned that the cost of a public school
education was too high, that the night clubs on Broad¬
way were not doing the business they had done, that a
man in Birmingham had cut his wife’s throat, that
students in Cairo were again on strike, that an old
woman in Hammersmith had died of starvation, that a
policeman in Suffolk had found six pound notes in the
prisoner’s left sock, and that bubonic plague is con¬
veyed to human beings by fleas from infected 'rats. And
Angel Pavement, when he arrived there, looked as if it
had been plucked, grey and dripping, from the bottom
of an old cistern.

It was an unpleasant morning at the office. To begin
with, the situation was more puzzling than ever. Once
more, Mr. Dersingham did not appear, but telephoned
about half-past ten to say that he would not be there
until late afternoon and would Mr. Smceth “just cany
on.” Goath did not reappear, and Mr. Smeeth felt sure
now that he had vanished for ever. Then Miss Matfield
was haughtier than usual, and very cross. Young
Turgis, who had contrived to get wetter than anybody
else on his way up to the office, went slouching about
with a long pale face, and every now and then startled
and intimidated everybody by sneezing explosively.
Stanley, at odds with the weather, the world, and his
present destiny, hung about and got in people’s way, and
when told to get on with his work, pointed out, not very
respectfully, that he hadn’t any work, and Mr. Smeeth
did not find it easy to supply him with any. Several
inquiries by telephone could not be properly answered,

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED 91

always an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Mr. Smeeth
had sufficient routine work to carry him through the
morning, but he felt queerly insecure, not at all happy
with his books, his neat little figures, his pencil, rubber,
blue ink and red ink, now that he no longer knew what
was happening to the firm. It was like trying to post a
ledger swinging above a dark gulf.

Lunch time found him at his usual teashop, sitting
at a wet marble-topped table and waiting for his poached
egg on toast and cup of coffee. The wet morning had
perished outside, where there was even a faint gleam of
sunshine, but it had found a haven in this teashop,
which seemed to be four hours behind the weather in
the street, for it was all damp and steaming. Mr. Smeeth
was jammed into a corner with another regular patron, a
man with a glass eye, bright blue and with such a fixed
glare about it that the thing frightened you. Mr. Smeeth
was sitting on the same side as the glass eye, and as the
owner of it, who was busy eating two portions of baked
beans on toast and drinking a glass of cold milk, never
turned his head as he talked, the effect was disconcerting
and rather horrible.

“Firm we’ve been doing business with,” said the man,
disposing of a few beans that had quitted their toast,
“has come a nasty cropper-a ve-ery nasty cropper.
Claridge and Molton—d’you know ’em? Oh, very nasty.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth politely, looking from
his poached egg at the glaring blue eye and then looking
away again. “Don’t think I know die firm.”

“No, well, you mightn’t,” the eye continued, as if it
had its doubts about that, though. “But they’ve been
a well-known house in the wholesale umbrella trade for
donkeys’ years, specially for ribs, handles, and tips. I

y*

ANGEL l’AVE M E N i

remember the time when they carried a line of ribs
nobody else could touch—same with the tips. If you’d
come to us ten years ago, or five years ago, or even three
years ago and said, ‘We can offer you a line in ribs and
tips that’ll make Claridge and Molton look silly,’ if you'd
said that, we’d have laughed at you."

“No doubt,” said Mr. Smeeth, quite seriously.

“And up to eighteen months ago, I'd have told you
that Claridge and Molton was one of the soundest con¬
cerns in the business. And look at ’em now. Properly
in Queer Street. Absolutely down the river.”

Mr. Smeeth manfully faced the blue glare. “How
d’you account for it?” he inquired, not out of mere
politeness but because he really wanted to know.

“This milk doesn’t taste right this morning,” his
neighbour remarked mournfully. “They’ve had it near
something. I’m giving it a miss. What was that?"
And here the eye turned balefully. “Oh, about Claridge
and Molton. Well, young Molton’s the one that’s upset
their little apple-cart. He took charge about a couple
of years ago, then began staying array all day-likes his
whisky, y’know—drew heavily on the firm—sacked their
oldest man, old Johnny Fowler, for something and
nothing. Probably tight at the time—young Molton, 1
mean, not Johnny Fowler-he never took a drop. And
there you are! You can’t do it, y’know, you can’t do it
Can you?”

“No,” said Mr. Smeeth sadly, “you can’t.”

“Course you can’t,” the eye concluded. “Not nowa¬
days. It’s all too keen, too much competition. You've
got to watch yourself all the time. Isn’t that so? Eh,
miss, miss? My check, miss. And. I say, what about this
milk?”

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

93

Mr. Smeeth finished his coffee, mechanically filled and
lit his pipe, then pushed his way out of the place. He
felt miserable. For all he knew to the contrary, Mr.
Dersingham might be following the example of this
young Molton. Hadn’t Mr. Dersingham just started
staying away from the office all day? Hadn’t he just
sacked their oldest man, Goath? As he moved slowly
along, sometimes staring into the windows of shops that
meant nothing to him, Mr. Smeeth found himself going
over all the possible ways in which a firm might come
a nasty cropper, arrive at Queer Street, down the
river, and they seemed so numerous, so inevitable, that
he saw himself joining the wretched army of the hangers-
on, the dispossessed, at any moment. And, at the corner
of Chiswell Street, he gave a man twopence for a box of
matches.

When he let himself quietly into the office, he heard
loud voices, and thought for a moment that something
exciting was happening. But then he caught the words.

“I shaddered him all down Victoria Park Road,”
Stanley was saying triumphantly, “and he never knew.”

“Well, why should he?” Turgis demanded, contempt
tuously. “He didn’t know you were following him, you
little chump.”

“I know he didn’t,” cried Stanley. “That’s it. That’s
where shadderin’ comes in—”

“Well, shadowing can come out,” Mr. Smeeth
announced. “And if you don’t get on with some work,
my boy, you’ll be finding yourself shadowing down those
steps. Come on, Turgis, you ought to know a bit better.
Standing there talking a lot of nonsense!”

“I was telling him it was nonsense,” saidTurgis, rather
sullenly. “He’s got this shadowing on the brain. He

ANGEL PAVEMENT

94

goes following some chap for miles, and then because
this chap doesn’t take any notice of him-he doesn’t
know he’s there, of course, and doesn’t care, anyhow-
he thinks he’s a little Sexton Blake.’’

“No, I don’t,” said Stanley, wrinkling up his freckled
race until it achieved a look of intense disgust.

“The best thing you can do, Stanley,” said Mr.
Smeeth, sitting down at his desk, “is to drop these silly
tricks. They’ll get you into trouble one of these days.
Why don’t you do something sensible in your spare
time? Get a hobby. Do a bit of fretwork or collect
foreign stamps or butterflies or something like that.”

"Huh! Nobody does them things now. Out of date,”
Stanley muttered.

“Well, work’s not out of date, not here, anyhow,”
Mr. Smeeth retorted, in time-old schoolmaster fashion.
“So just get on with a bit.”

Miss Matfield arrived, quarter of an hour late, as
usual. “Don’t talk to me, anybody,” she commanded.
“I’m furious. Of all the foul lunches I’ve ever had in
this City, to-day’s was the foulest. It makes me sick to
think about it. Look here, is Mr. Dersingham ever
coming here again? It’s absurd-Tve got umpteen things
for him to sign. Can you do anything with them, Mr.
Smeeth?”

“I’ll have a look at them, Miss Matfield,” said Mr.
Smeeth wearily.

The afternoon dragged on.

4

At five o’clock, Mr. Dersingham arrived, bursting in
like a large pink bomb. He was breathless, perspiring.

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

95

and all smiles. “Afternoon, ev’rybody,” he gasped.
“Is there a late spot of tea goin’? Doesn’t matter if
there isn’t. I say, Miss Matfield, just drop ev’rything,
will you, and bring your notebook to my room. I want
to dictate some letters and a circular. Stanley, you get
ready to copy the circular. And, Turgis, you ring up
Brown and Gorstein and say I want to speak to Mr.
Gorstein. And Smeeth, I shall want you when I’m
through with these letters, about a quarter of an hour's
time, and will you bring that statement of the outstand¬
ing accounts right up to date and let me know all about
Gorstein’s and Nickman’s payments this last year?
Good man!”

Mr. Dersingham liked to signalise his arrival in this
fashion—it looked as if he was starting the day for every¬
body, and it still looked like that even if he did it at five
o’clock—but now there was a difference. His voice had
a triumphant ring, in spite of the fact that he was short
of breath. There was about his whole manner a Napo¬
leonic abruptness and self-confidence. He presented the
spectacle—rare enough too—of an Old Worrelian in big
business. At one bound the temperature of the office
rose about ten degrees, and Mr. Smeeth, as he investi¬
gated the firm’s somewhat melancholy relations with
Brown and Gorstein and Nickman and Sons, was visited
once more by quite wildly optimistic fancies. Undoubt¬
edly, something had happened.

When at last he was called into Mr. Dersingham’s
room, he soon learned what it was that had happened.
It was, as he had suspected more than once, this Mr.
Golspie.

“And the position is this, Smeeth,” Mr. Dersingham
continued. “He’s got the sole agency for all this new

ANGEL pavement

Baltic stuff. They won’t sell it to anybody here but
Golspie. It’s good wood, all of it, quite up to standard,
and he can get it at prices thirty, forty and fifty per cent
lower than we’ve been paying. I don t mind telling you
that when he first explained what he was aftei, I wasn t
keen at all, not a bit keen. It sounded fishy to me.”

“Does seem a bit queer he should come along like
that, doesn’t it, sir?”

“It does, Smeeth, and that’s what I thought. But
we’ve been going round with some of his samples at
prices we could sell the stuff at on his figures, and they’ve
been absolutely leaping at them. We can cut everybody
out, absolutely clean out. We can do more business,
Smeeth, with this new stuff in a fortnight than the firm’s
* ever done, even in its best days, in a month. And you
know what business we’ve been doing lately? Awful!
A ghastly show! By the way, Smeeth, Goath was paitly
to blame for that. Oh, yes he was. Thirty years in the
trade and all that-but the fact is, they were all tired
of seeing his depressing old mug, and he’d given up try¬
ing. Golspie soon showed me that, though I must say
I’d had my suspicions for some time.”

“So had I, sir.”

“Exactly! Goath had to be booted out, and as it was
he booted himself out. He’ll be feeling very sorry for
himself soon. Now then, this is what’s happening.
Golspie came along here to see me quite by chance.
He’d got this contract, but he wanted some firm already
in the trade to join up with. All this is—er—in—y’know
—between ourselves, Smeeth.”

“I understand, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, flattered and
delighted.

“Golspie-Mr. Golspie—doesn’t want a partnership.

MR. SHEET H TS REASSURED 97

can’t be bothered with it. He’s coming in here as a sort
of genera] manager, working on a jolly good commission.
You’ll have to know all about that, of course, because of
the books. It’s a hefty commission all right, but then
he’s bringing all the business really, and he’ll be respon¬
sible for getting the wood over and all that side of it.
And the two of us will be working together, running
things here. I’ll go out a good deal myself for the next
few months, and we’ll have to get some fellow—some'
body young and keen—to take Goath’s place.”

“You won’t be cutting down the office staff then?”
said Mr. Smeeth, greatly relieved.

“Cutting it down! We’ll have to jolly well increase
it, and quickly too. That far sample room will have to
be cleared out and tidied up this week, we shall want
that. You’d better get another typist to help Miss Mat-
field—a young girl will do—as soon as possible. This,
next week or two, Smeeth,” and here Mr. Dersingham
sprang up and clenched his fists, just as if he had never
seen a decent public school, “we’ve got to drive it hard,
gG all out, and I’m depending on you for the office side
of it. You people have got to stand behind me in this.
It’s a great chance for all of us, and, of course, a
tremendous stroke of luck, Golspie’s coming here. He’s
going all out himself on this—he’s that sort of chap, very
keen and all that—and we’ve got to keep pace.”

"You can count on me doing my best, Mr. Dersing¬
ham,” Mr. Smeeth assured him fervently. “There’s one
or two things I’d like to know about, of course. F’r’in-
stance, what’s his arrangement with these foreign people-
of his about payments?”

“He’s going to talk to you about that, Smeeth. We’vet-
only just touched on that, so far.”

D*

g8 ANGEL PAVEM K N T

“And another thing, sir,” Mr. Smeeth continued
more hesitantly now. “You know how we stand at the
bank just now. If we’re branching out, we’ve got to
have something behind us there.”

“I’ve been looking into that this afternoon,” said Mr.
Dersingham. “We can’t do anything more with the
bank at present, but I think I can borrow a bit to see
us through. We’ve got to have something to jolly well
play with, this next month or so, particularly as Mr.
Golspie talks about wanting some of his commission in
advance, so to speak.”

Mr. Smeeth looked grave, then coughed. “Do you
think that would be wise, Mr. Dersingham? I mean¬
er-after all, you’ve no guarantee—”

“You mean—the whole thing may be just a swindle.
Come on, isn’t that it?” cried the other, grinning. “Well
of course I thought of that. I thought of God knows
how many swindles yesterday morning, because, as I
said, the whole thing seemed fishy to me, and, between
ourselves, I thought Golspie himself a terrible outsider
at first, But I’ve gone into all that. He doesn’t draw
his commission until the stuff has been delivered to our
people, of course, but he wants his money then, without
waiting until the account’s finally settled. Though, by
the way, Smeeth, we’re not going to give these fellows so
much rope in future. With this new stuff on our hands,
we can' afford to tighten it up a bit, don’t you think?”

Thats so, Mr. Dersingham. I’d like to see one or
two of these accounts closed altogether. They’re more
bother than they’re worth.” Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “I'm
not quite clear yet about this Mr. Golspie, sir. Is he
going to be in charge of the office?”

‘In a way, yes,” the other replied, with the air of a

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

99

man who had given this question a great deal of thought.
“You can take it, he is. Though of course it’s still my
show—”

“Oh course, Mr. Dersingham.”

“Suppose, by any chance, you disagree violently with
anything he suggests, you’ll come to me,” said Mr. Der¬
singham, looking at that moment like a large pink con¬
spirator. “But you needn’t tell that to the other people
out there.”

“I see what you mean, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who felt
that he would see in time.

“Mr. Golspie has a good deal to learn, of course,”
Mr. Dersingham continued airily. “He doesn’t know
the trade, and he doesn’t know the City. But—he seems
to have knocked up and down all over the place in his
time, and he’s got ideas, y’know, and colossal push.
Rum sort of chap, I must say.” Then he became busi¬
nesslike again. “Now look here, Smeeth, I want to push
ofE as soon as I can because I want that money—or some
of it—into the bank by to-morrow afternoon. Ask Miss
Matfield to hurry up with those letters so that I can sign
’em. And just see those circulars get away to-night, will
you?”

“I will, Mr. Dersingham.” And Mr. Smeeth turned
away, but stopped before he reached the door. “And
if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I’m very pleased
things are looking up like this. I was beginning to feel
worried, very worried, sir.”

“Thanks, Smeeth! Good man!” You could not mis¬
take the Old Worrelian now. “Things will be hum¬
ming here soon, you’ll see. Colossal luck, of course, his
turning up like this! Oh, by the way, he’s probably
coming in soon.”

100 ANGEL PAVEM E N T

Mr. Golspie did come in, but only after Mr. Dersing-
ham had gone and for about half an hour so so, during
which he merely asked Mr. Smeeth a few questions.
He came again the next morning, and Mr. Smeeth had
to join him and Mr. Dersingham in a little conference.
Mr. Golspie then returned about half-past four, dictated
some letters, nosed about the office, examined the far
room, and did some telephoning at Mr. Dersingham’s
table, Mr. Dersingham himself being out visiting Nick-
man and Sons. The others had gone, and Mr. Smeeth
was putting away his books for the night, when Mr.
Golspie came out of the private office and began asking
more questions, chiefly about accounts. The two of them
stayed there another twenty-five minutes, at the end of
which Mr. Golspie suggested they should round off the
proceedings by having a drink.

When they were at the bottom of the stairs, Mr.
Smeeth remembered that he was nearly out of tobacco
(he smoked two and a half ounces of T. Bcncnden’s Own
Mixture every week) and said he would slip in for some.
Mr. Golspie followed him in, and T. Bencnden was so
surprised to see this massive and large-moustached
stranger again, in company with Mr. Smeeth this time,
too, that he weighed out the tobacco and put it in the
pouch without saying a word.

“You ( got any good cigars, good cigars?” Mr. Golspie
demanded in his resonant bass, at the same time staring
hard, even harder than the tobacconist had stared at
him.

“Certainly, I have,” replied T. Benenden with
dignity. And he produced two or three boxes.

Mr. Golspie chose two cigars, cut them, then popped
one into his own mouth, stuck the other into Mr.

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED

10 1

Smeeth’s and lit the pair of them, without a word. Then,
after blowing a stream of smoke at Benenden, he said:
“How much?”

“Three shillings, for the two.”

Mr. Golspie slapped down two half-crowns on the
counter. This was the tobacconist’s opportunity.

“What about this big cement slump, gentlemen?” he
began. “Where’s that going to land us—?”

“It’s not going to land me anywhere,” said Mr.
Golspie. “Where’s it going to land you?”

T. Benenden looked rather pained, and still nursed
the two shillings change in his hand. “Well, what I
mean is this. That’s a big combine, isn’t it? A year
ago, they were bang at the top, like nearly all the big
combines. All right. But what’s happening now? A
slump. And why—?”

“I don’t know, and I’ll bet you don’t know,” said Mr.
Golspie heartily. Then he gave a short bellow of a laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he roared, “I’ve been puzzling
my head for the last five minutes wondering what was
wrong with you.”

“Me?” T. Benenden was startled.

“Yes, you. Didn’t you notice I was staring at you?”
He turned to Mr. Smeeth. “Couldn’t make it out. I
knew there was something wrong. You see it, don’t
you?” He now returned to Benenden, at whom he
pointed a thick brutal finger. “Why, man, you’ve for¬
gotten to put your tie on. Have a look at yourself. I
knew there was something. Is that my change? That’s
correct—two shillings.”

Mr. Smeeth followed him out of the shop, gasping.
He had been visiting Benenden’s shop two or three
times a week, year after year, and never once had he

102

ANGEL PAVEMENT

dared mention the word “tie.” And now this chap
comes along with his “You've forgotten to put your tie
on.” Mr. Smeeth began to chuckle softly.

Mr. Golspie piloted him across the road and into the
private bar of the White Horse.

“Give it a name,” said Mr. Golspie.

“Thanks, Mr. Golspie. Oh-er—just a glass of bitter,”
said Mr. Smeeth modestly, from behind his large cigar,

“Don’t have a glass of bitter. Too cold a night like
this and after a hard day’s work too. Have a whisky.
That’s right. Two double whiskies and some soda.”

It was quiet and cosy in the White Horse. Mr.
Smeeth had not been in for a long time, and he was en¬
joying this. The fire winked cheerfully over the grate;
the rows of liqueur bottles glimmered and glittered; the
glasses shone softly; there was a pleasant hum of talk;
the cigars plunged them at once into an atmosphere of
rich, fragrant, luxurious conviviality; the whisky tasted
good, and washed away that foggy, smoky, railway
tunnel flavour of Angel Pavement; and Mr. Golspie, still
mysterious and masterful but genial now too, was obvi¬
ously anxious they should be on friendly terms.

“You’ve got a fellow working in the Midlands and
the North, haven’t you?” Mr. Golspie inquired, after
they had both taken a pull at their whiskies. “What’s
he like?”

“Dobson? He’s a decent young chap, and he’s got
a good connection up there. He’s not sold much lately
but it’s not been for the want of trying.”

“We ought to be hearing from him soon, then," said
Mr. Golspie. “If he can’t sell these new veneers, he’d
better be walking. They sell themselves. We’ve orders
pouring in, just pouring. But, mind you, Smeeth,

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED lOg

we’ve got to get a move on. We’ve got to pile up the
orders now—make hay while the sun shines. We want
another man for London and district, soon as we can get
one. And one that’s alive, too, not like that dreary old
devil I booted out the first day. You might as well send
the dustbin round looking for orders. There ought to
be three of us, me, Dersingham, and this other man,
whoever he is, doing London and neighbourhood
these next few months. Rush ’em. That’s the way,
isn’t it?”

Mr. Smeeth, taking out his cigar and trying to look
keen and aggressive, said it was.

“I’ll tell you what I believe in,” Mr. Golspie con¬
tinued, not troubling to lower his voice, or rather to
moderate it, for it was low enough. “I believe in work¬
ing like hell and in playing like hell. If you’re going
to work, for God’s sake—work. And if you’re going to
enjoy yourself, well, for the love of Mike, enjoy your¬
self, get on with it.”

At this point, Mr. Smeeth started back, for suddenly
a head, a large head wearing a very dirty cap, but only
, about the height of his shoulder, stuck itself between
him and Mr. Golspie. “That’s all very well, gents,” it
said, with an impudent whine, “but what if yer can’t
get work, ’ow yer goin’ ter enjoy yerself then, eh?
Wotcher goin’ ter do then, eh?”

“There’s one thing you can do,” said Mr. Golspie
promptly.

“Wha’s that?”

“You can mind your own bloody business,” said Mr.
Golspie, pushing his face out in a most intimidating and
disagreeable fashion. The intruder shrank back at once.
“Here y’are,” Mr. Golspie said, in a milder, contemp-

104

ANGEL P A V E ME NT

tuous tone, “here’s threepence. Go away and buy your-
seit something.”

“Thank yer, mister.” And the head vanished.

“This City’s got more and more rats like that in it
every time I come back to it.”

“There isn’t the work, you know,” said Mr. Smeeth
earnestly. “I don’t say they all want it, but there isn’t
the xvork. I’ll tell you candidly, Mr. Golspie, it frightens
me sometimes to see all the chaps looking for work. If
we’ve to take on a few new people, and we advertise for
them, you’ll see what I mean. Crowds and crowds-
ready to work for next to nothing. It’s a heart-breaking
job interviewing them.”

“I dare say,” Mr. Golspie replied, in the tone of a
man whose heart is not easily broken. “But I know
this. A man who's ready to xvork for next to nothing
is no good to me. I xvouldn’t have him as a gift. And
that reminds me, Smeeth. What’s this firm paying
you?”

Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment, then told him.

“And do you think that’s enough?”

Mr. Smeeth hesitated again. “Well, if business was
good, I xvas going to ask for a rise this Christmas, but,
as you knoxv, it’s not been good.”

“No, but it’s going to be good, don’t make any mis¬
take about that,” cried Mr. Golspie. “It’s going to be
a dam’ sight better than Txvigg and Dersingham have
ever seen it before. Who the devil was Txvigg? Never
mind about him, though. I’m going to tell you straight
out, I don’t think you’re getting enough. I knoxv a good
man when I see one, and xvhen people stand by me-
you know what I do?-that’s right—I stand by them
And I’m going to stand by you.”

MR. SMEETH IS REASSURED IO5

'‘Very good of you, Mr. Golspie,” muttered the em¬
barrassed Smeeth.

“The minute these orders that are coming now are
turned into solid business—and, mind you, it means
more work and responsibility for you all along the line
—the minute they do, you’re going to get a rise, a good
rise, a hundred or two a year right off, or I’m not Jimmy
Golspie. And we shake hands on that.”

Mr. Smeeth, overwhelmed, found himself shaking
hands on it.

“And now,” Mr. Golspie added masterfully, “we’ll
just sign and seal that by having a little quick one.”

“All right. But-er-it’s my .turn.”

“Not a bit of it. Not to-night. You haven’t a turn
to-night. Wait till the big rise comes. Two singles,
please. Married man, aren’t you, Smeeth?”

“I am. Wife and two children, boy just out of his
teens and girl nearly eighteen.”

“All I’ve got’s a girl. I’m expecting her over soon.
Does this girl of yours take much notice of you?”

“Not much. Seems to me they don’t, nowadays.”

“You’re right there. That girl of mine doesn’t—the
wilful, artful little devil. She’s been spoilt all her life,
and always will be. Too good-lookin’, that’s her trouble.
Doesn’t take after her father, y’know,” and here Mr.
Golspie disturbed the whole bar with a sudden deep
guffaw. “Well, here’s the best! This is a dam’ rum
business, y’know, Smeeth, when you come to think of it.
I’ve had a finger in all sorts of trades, all over the place,
and this is a bit more respectable than some of ’em. But
when you think of it-it’s a dam’ rum trade-selling
thin bits of wood to glue on to other bits of wood, eh?”

“I’ve often thought that,” said Mr. Smeeth eagerly,

106 ANGEL PAVEMENT

the philosopher waking in him too. “I vc often thought
-well, I dunno-but this trade’s like a good deal of the
rest of life. Veneers? Well, Mr. Golspie, just think
of them. They’re only there to make a piece of furniture
look as if it was made of better wood than it is made of,
a sort of fake. But everybody knows about it. There’s
no deception. And I’ve often thought a lot of life’s like
that, particularly when I’ve gone into company. You
know, everybody setting up to be mahogany and walnut
through and through—”

“And the lot of ’em veneered to hell,” cried Mr.
Golspie jovially. “Never mind, let’s see if tee can’t slap
all our stuff on to their rotten chairs and wardrobes and
sideboards, and make money and enjoy ourselves.
That’s the game.”

With that, they swung out into the little night of
Angel Pavement, where the diapason of Mr. Golspie
could be heard thundering out again that it was the
game. With rich Havana still in his nostrils, the golden
liquor of the glens wandering round his inside like an
enchanted Gulf Stream, and Mr. Golspie’s promises
singing their madrigals in his head, Mr. Smeeth felt for
once that it really might be all a game.

Waiting for his tram that night, he bought two even¬
ing papers instead of one, and read neither of them.

Chapter Three

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME

1

B Y the middle of the following week, there were
several changes at Twigg and Dersingham’s. The
greatest change was in the atmosphere of the
place. Even if you had merely opened the outer door,
remaining on that side of the frosted glass partition,
you would have felt the difference at once. No doubt
the typewriters rattled and pinged } the telephone bell
rang, voices came through, all in a new and bustling,
optimistic fashion. The very chair you were invited to
sit on, when you waited behind that partition, had been
dusted. Mrs. Cross had not found herself immune from
this new influence: she had given the general office a
thorough cleaning. There was no question now of any¬
body not having enough work to do. Stanley still went
out, indeed he went out more than ever, but he was
compelled to speed up his “shaddering” methods and
was only able to follow men who were in a tremendous
hurry. Mr. Smeeth among his little figures was as busy
and happy as a monk at his manuscript. Turgis, whose
duty it was to see that goods were duly forwarded to and
from Twigg and Dersingham’s, became both hoarse and
haughty down the telephone to all manner of forward¬
ing agents, and spoke to railway goods clerks as if they
were strange and unwelcome dogs. Miss Matfield rattled

107

io8 angel pavement

of! her letters with slightly less contempt and disgust,
rather as if they were no longer the effusions of complete
lunatics but were now merely the work of village idiots.
And she had acquired an assistant. The staff of Twigg
and Dersingham had been enlarged at the beginning
of this week by the appointment of a second typist. Miss
Poppy Sellers had arrived.

The girls who earn their keep by going to offices and
working typewriters may be divided into three classes.
There are those who, like Miss Matfield, are the
daughters of professional gentlemen and so condescend
to the office and the typewriter, who work beneath them
just as girls once married beneath them. There are
those who take it all simply and calmly, because they are
in the office tradition, as Mr. Smeeth’s daughter would
have been. Then there are those who rise to the office
and the typewriter, who may not make any more money
than their sisters and cousins who work in factories and
cheap shops—they may easily make considerably less
money-but nevertheless are able to cut superior and
ladylike figures in their respective family circles because
they have succeeded in becoming typists. Poppy be¬
longed to this third class. Her father worked on the
Underground, and he and his family of four occupied
half a house not far from Eel Brook Common, Fulham,
that south-western wilderness of vanishing mortar and
bricks that are coming down in the world. This was
not Poppy’s first job, for she was twenty and had been
steadily improving herself in the commercial world since
she was fifteen, but it was easily her most important
one. She had been chosen out of a large number of
applicants, had been started at two pounds and ten
shillings a week, and had been told confidentially by

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME log

Mr. Smeeth, who seemed to her a terrifying figure, that
she had good prospects if she would only learn and work
hard. This Poppy fully intended to do, for—as her
testimonials were compelled to admit—she was a very
industrious and conscientious girl. She was not suffi¬
ciently plain to escape entirely the attentions of the
youths who hung about the entrance to the Red Hall
Cinema in Walham Green (and Poppy frequently
visited the Red Hall with her friend, Dora Black, for she
liked entertainment), but nobody yet had said that she
was pretty. She was small and slight, had dark hair
and brown eyes, and she aimed, rather timidly, at a
Japanese or Javanese or general Oriental effect, wearing
a fringe and all that, but only succeeded in looking
vaguely dingy and untidy. Whenever she despairingly
made a special effort, plying hard the lipstick, being
lavish with the Oriental-effect face-powder, and raising
and keeping her eyebrows so high that it hurt, people
asked her if she wasn’t feeling very well. This failure
to achieve the exotic beauty that was—as both she and
Dora Black believed—“her type,” tended to keep poor
Poppy slightly depressed and out of love with herself.
During her first few days at Twigg and Dersingham’s,
she was like a mouse. She was overawed by the new¬
ness and importance of everything, and she saw that it
would be impossible for her to make a friend of the
large, superior, infinitely knowledgeable, tremendously
condescending Miss Matfield. But, like a mouse, she
kept her eyes open, missing nothing, with her busy little
Cockney mind fastened on every crumb of information
and gossip. After three days, Miss Dora Black, of
Basuto Road, Fulham, knew more, though at second¬
hand, about the office staff of Twigg and Dersingham

110

ANGEL PAVEMENT

than Mr. Dersingham himself had learned in three years,

One of Miss Poppy Sellers’ first tasks had been to copy
out replies to the letters answering Twigg and Dersing-
ham’s advertisement in The Times and the Daily Tele¬
graph. This was for another man, to take Goath’s place,
though he would have to spend much of his time farther
afield. He had to be as unlike Goath as possible in char¬
acter, but not unlike him in experience. In short, he
had to be “young, keen, energetic,” and “with some con¬
nection in furnishing trade and knowledge of veneers
and inlays.” And the change brought about by Mr.
Golspie was such that Twigg and Dersingham were able
to declare that for the right man there was “a good
opening.”

It has been said that the modern English do not like
work. It cannot be said that they do not look for it and
ask for it. The day after this advertisement appeared,
the postal heavens opened and a hurricane of letters fell
upon Twigg and Dersingham. Into Angel Pavement
all that day there poured a bewildering stream of replies.
It seemed as if street after street, whole suburbs, had
been waiting for this particular opening. There were,
it appeared, dozens of men with vast connections in the
furnishing trade and the most thorough, the most inti¬
mate knowledge of veneers and inlays, and most of these
men, though they had apparently refused scores of offers
recently, were only too xvilling to assist Messrs.' Twigg
and Dersingham. Then there were men who had not
perhaps exactly a connection but had been for years, so
to speak, on the fringe of the furnishing trade, men who
had sold pianos, who had given removing estimates, who
had done a little valuing, who knew something about
upholstering. Then there were older men, ex-officers

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 111

many of them, who knew about all kinds of things and
were ready to enclose the most astonishing testimonials,
who admitted that the furnishing trade and veneers and
inlays were all new to them but who felt that they
could soon learn all there was to know, and in the mean¬
time were anxious to show how they could command
men and to display their unusual ability to organise.
And, last of all, there were the public school men, fellows
who knew nothing about veneers and inlays and did not
even pretend to care about them, but pointed out that
they could drive cars, manage an estate, organise any¬
thing or anybody, and were willing to go out East, being
evidently under the impression that Twigg and Der-
singham had probably a couple of tea plantations as well'
as a business in veneers and inlays. These corre¬
spondents expressed themselves in every imaginable sort
of handwriting and on every conceivable kind of note-
paper, from superior parchment to dirty little pink bits
that had been saved up in a box on the mantelpiece,
but in one particular they were all alike: they were all
keen, all energetic.

“This tells you something about the old country,
doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie, who always talked as if
he came from some newer one. He and Mr. Dersing-
ham and Mr. Smeeth had been going through the
pile.

“It’s only the slump,” said Mr. Dersingham, who was
feeling optimistic these days. “It’s not so bad as it was,
is it, Smeeth?”

“I suppose it isn’t, really, Mr. Dersingham.” But
Mr. Smeeth sounded rather doubtful. These letters had
given him another glimpse of the dark gulf. It was a
sight that left him feeling shaky.

n 2

ANGEL P a V E M r. N T

Mr. Golspie grunted. “Far as I can see from this lot,
you can have the pick of England’s talent for four or
five quid a week. There isn’t a dam’ thing these fellows
can’t do—except find work. Well, I’ve got about four
likely ones here. What have you chaps got?”

After a good deal more trouble ami talk, they finally
narrowed the possible applications down to ten, and
these ten were asked to appear at the office in the early
afternoon, two days later. They all came at once, and
so had to wait their turn on the landing outside, while
Stanley, enjoying himself hugely, clashed in and out to
summon them. Mr. Smeeth, going round to the bank,
had to make his way through this little crowd, and at
the first moment, when he stepped outside the office and
the two or three of them nearest the door made way
for him with almost ostentatious smartness, he felt
triumphant, proud, a solid and successful man among a
lot of failures. But the very next moment, this feeling
disappeared. They were all very well brushed, in their
best clothes, and were already looking keen and
energetic, especially those nearest the door, who looked
the keenest and most energetic, their faces having
already taken on the expression most likely to impress
the mysterious powers within the office. A lew of them
were young and had an easy confident look, that of men
merely seeking a change of job. Others were older, less
confident, tense or wistful. Mr. Smeeth bumped into
one, the last in the group, who was standing at the
corner near the top of the stairs.

“I beg your pardon,” the man cried, eagerly,
anxiously. He was indeed an anxious man, about Mr.
Smeeth’s age and not unlike him, greyish, lined, brittle;
a man with a wife and family and vanishing possessions;

THE DF.RSINGHAMS AT HOME 113

a man who time after time had found himself the last in
the group, waiting at the corner, with the hope inspired
by the letter, the letter that came thunderingly, trium¬
phantly, that morning, like an act of deliverance, now
dying in him.

“My fault,” Mr. Smeeth assured him, stopping, and
offering the smile of a polite culprit. But when their
eyes met fairly, this smile trembled, then fled, leaving
Mr. Smeeth himself grave, anxious. He suddenly felt
for this man a swelling sympathy, a deep stir of pity,
that he had not known for many a month. They might
have been brothers; and, indeed, brothers they were for
a second or so, peering at one another in some darkened
house of tragedy.

“Good luck!” Mr. Smeeth heard himself saying.

“Thanks,” and there came the ghost of a smile.

Mr. Smeeth never saw him again. He had no luck.
The successful applicant was very different, much
younger, a tall fellow with a remarkably small head, an
inquisitive pink nose, and a very wide mouth that
opened to show about twice the ordinary number of
teeth. His name was Sandycroft, and he knew the trade,
for though he had never sold veneers and inlays, he had
bought them, having been at one time with Briggs
Brothers. This set him apart from all the other appli¬
cants. Moreover, he appeared to be all keenness and
energy, and threw the most passionate emphasis into the
slightest remark he made.

“Mr. Twigg,” he cried, addressing Mr. Golspie, "and
Mr. Dersingham, you can rely on me. I know the trade.
I know the people. I know the ropes, if you don’t mind
me saying so.”

“All right,” said Mr. Golspie, with his usual genial

ANGEL P A V EMENT

114

brutality. “But don’t go knowing too many ropes. Eh,
Dersingham?"

“Oh, quite!” replied Mr. Dersingham, who did not
quite follow this, but looked knowing all the same.

“I understand, sir. I know what you mean. I
couldn’t do it, sir. It’s not in my character. Honesty
isn’t everything, but I believe it’s the first thing. And
I’m straight. I believe in being straight, sir.”

“Good!” said Mr. Golspie heartily, for he, too,
believed in Sandycroft and his like being straight.

“And if it’s possible, gentlemen,” Sandycroft con¬
tinued, looking from one to the other of them, “I’d like
to stay on now and just pick up the threads, so that I
can start right away on the road to-morrow morning.
I’m keen to get going, desperately keen. You know
what it is, sir. After only a week or two doing nothing
much, a man like me feels rusty. I want to get on with
it. My wife laughs at me. ‘Have a rest,’ she says. But
no, I’m not like that. I must be getting on with some¬
thing.”

“Goodman,” said Mr. Dersingham approvingly.

“Well, I think we’ll have to be getting on with some¬
thing too,” said Mr. Golspie. “He’d better come round
here in the morning and learn what there is to know
about it then, before we send him out.”

“I think he had,” replied Mr. Dersingham. “Look
here, you’d better go home now—break the news to your
wife and that sort of thing, eh?—and then be down
about nine or so in the morning. If were not here then,
you have a talk to Smeeth-that’s the cashier, out there
—and he’ll be able to tell you something.”

“Very good, sir.” and you would have thought the
speaker was about to salute smartly before retiring. He

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 115

did not, however; but threw a keen and energetic glance
at Mr. Golspie (whom he had recognised at once as the
dominant partner), then a keen and energetic glance at
Mr. Dersingham, picked up his hat (and in such a
manner as to suggest that he could do some wonderful
things even with that, if he wished to), brought his hat
in front of the second button of his overcoat, gave three
brisk nods, then wheeled about and made an exit like a
torpedo from its tube.

Actually, what Mr. Dersingham and Mr. Golspie did
get on with was an invitation to dinner, delivered by
Mr. Dersingham and accepted by Mr. Golspie. It had
come to that. There were things about Golspie that did
not please Mr. Dersingham, for he was dogmatic, rough,
domineering, and was apt to jeer and sneer in a way that
left Mr. Dersingham’s mind bruised and resentful. A
few terms at Worrell would obviously have made a great
difference to Golspie, who now, in his middle age,
showed only too plainly both by word and deed that he
was not a gentleman. From that there was no escape:
Golspie was not a gentleman. But Dersingham did
not think of him as an Englishman who is not a gentle¬
man, a bit of a bounder, an outsider (and there can be
no doubt that Golspie at times did talk and act like a
bounder, a complete outsider); he contrived to think of
him as a kind of foreigner who had acquired an extra¬
ordinary command of the English language. This was
not difficult, because Golspie did seem to have spent
most of his time outside England and to have no roots
in this country. And the fact remained that he had
presented the firm of Twigg and Dersingham with a new
and glorious lease of life, as if he were a god, a com¬
mercial god with a baldish head and a large moustache.

n6 angel pavement

So the Dersinghams had talked it over and decided that
he must be asked to dinner, properly asked to dinner
and not merely invited to take pot-luck some Sunday.
And this meant something, for though your Old
Worrelian who has to hack out his living in the City
will smoke a cigar and drink a whisky or share a couple
of club chops, if necessary, with any fairly decent sort of
fellow he meets in the way of business, he draws the line
-his own words-at inviting most of these fellows into
his home, to meet his wife and possibly another Old
Worrelian or two. Thus it says something for Mr.
Golspie’s standing that, in spite of certain pronounced
defects, he received such an invitation, which, by the
way, he accepted calmly enough, with no show of sur¬
prise or gratitude.

“There’ll be some other people I think you’d like
to know,’" said Mr. Dersingham, “but we won't make
it too formal. Just a black tie, y’know, black tie.” He
said this as people always say it, that is, as if a white tie
weighed a ton and they are letting you down lightly.

“What do you mean? Wear a dinner jacket?”

“That’s the idea,” said Mr. Dersingham, telling him¬
self that really Golspie was extraordinarily out of touch.
“And-er-eightish then, next Tuesday, eh?"

“Right you are,” replied Mr. Golspie. “Very
pleased.”

2

The Dersinghams occupied a lower maisonette in that
region, eminently respectable but a trifle dreary, be¬
tween Gloucester Road and Earl’s Court Road: 34A,

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 117

Barkfield Gardens, S.W.5. Nearly all the people who
live in that part of London have the privilege, as the
estate agents point out in all their advertisements, of
“overlooking gardens,” which means that their windows
stare down at iron railings, sooty privet and laurel
hedges, and lawns and flower-beds that look as if they
are only too willing to give up the unequal struggle.
Some of these gardens are better than others, but Bark-
field Gardens is not one of them. It is one of the smallest
and dreariest of the squares, and is rapidly losing caste,
its houses slipping through the maisonette and large
flat era too quickly and already coming within sight of
the small flats, the nursing homes, the boarding houses,
the girls’ clubs. The Dersinghams did not like Bark-
field Gardens. They did not like their maisonette, all
the rooms of which seemed higher than they were long
or broad and were singularly cheerless. Mr. Dersingham
never did anything about it, because he was waiting—
as he always said-until he knew where he stood finan¬
cially. (From which you might gather that he knew
where he stood philosophically or socially or politically
or artistically.) Now and again, however, Mrs. Der¬
singham would read all the advertisement columns
devoted to desirable residences, rush round to some
agents, and even inspect a few houses, but as she Had
never really decided what it was she wanted, and her
husband never succeeded in knowing where he stood
financially, they remained at 34A, in the rooms that
made them seem like insects at the bottom of a test-
tube, grumbling, while a stream of cooks and house¬
maids, endlessly diverted from four local registries,
flowed through the dark basement, leaving as sediment
innumerable memories of glum looks, impertinent

]] 8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

answers, lying references, missing silk stockings, broken
crockery and ruined meals. For some women this state
of affairs, making comfort and tranquillity impossible,
would have had its compensations, for it would have
provided unlimited material for talk, but Mrs. Der-
singham prided herself on not being the sort of woman
who spends her time discussing the shortcomings of her
servants. Most of her friends prided themselves on this
fact too, and they told one another what they could have
said had they been that sort of women, and then gave
examples. “I know, but listen to this, my dear,” they
all cried at once.

At seven forty-five on the evening of the dinner-party
to which Mr. Golspie had been invited, Mr. Dersingham
was busy being his own butler, attending to the wines.
Fie poured some claret into one decanter, some Sauterne
into another, and some port into a third, then poured a
little gin and a great deal of French and Italian ver¬
mouth into a cocktail shaker, and carried the shaker and
some glasses into the drawing-room. Having done this,
he remembered the cigarettes and filled the silver cigar¬
ette box, a wedding present bearing the Worrell colours
in enamel, with Sahibs and some Turkish that his wife
always said she preferred to any other, no matter what
they happened to be. Then he presented himself with a
cocktail, looked at the fire, which was blazing cheerfully,
looked at the chairs, which were long, low, fat, and
brown, glanced round the room, which seemed to him
a very handsome and friendly place now that the two
shaded lights took away the attention from the great
bleak expanse of wall above, sipped the cocktail, tried
to hum a tune, and began to feel a certain warm glow, a
feeling proper to a host.

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 110

Mrs. Dersingham, who was in the bedroom, trying to
powder the space between her shoulder blades, was less
fortunate. She felt anxious. Cook had been rather
cross all day and might spoil everything, and even when
she tried, she was apt to make the soup greasy and forget
the salt in the vegetables. And Agnes, the new maid,
had pretended to understand all about serving, but she
was so stupid that she might easily go sticking vegetables
dishes under people’s noses anyhow, and there was
bound to be some awful confusion when it came to clear¬
ing the table for dessert. You could laugh it off, of
course, but you got so tired of laughing it off. It was a
pity this sort of thing couldn’t be done properly or
laughed off altogether. How terribly tiresome it was!
And then, too, all the time you were so worried and
anxious about the food and the serving, you were ex¬
pected to be keeping the conversation going, terribly
bright and hostessy.

“I wish,” said a silly girl at the back of Mrs. Dersing-
ham’s mind, a girl who had always been there but who
did not say much except when she was rather tired or
cross, “I wish I was a terribly successful actress who
lived in a marvellous little flat and had a terribly
devoted maid and a dresser and a huge car and nothing
much to eat before the performance and then went on
and was absolutely marvellous and everybody applauded
and then I put on a wonderful Russian sable coat and
diamonds and went out to supper and everybody stared.
No, I don’t. I wish I was a terrible successful woman
writer with a villa somewhere on the Riviera with
orange trees and mimosa and things and lunch in the
sunshine and. marvellous distinguished people coming
to call. No, I don’t. I wish I was terribly rich with a

120

ANGEL P A V E M K N T

housekeeper and about fifteen servants and a marvellous
maid of my own and umpteen Paris model gowns every
season and a house in Town and a place in the country
and a very attractive dark young man, very aristocratic
and a racing motorist or yachtsman or something like
that, terribly in love with me but just devoted and re¬
spectful all the time and coming and looking so miser¬
able and me saying, ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but you can see
how it is. I can never love anybody but Howard, but
we can still be friends, can’t we?”

This silly girl still went rambling idiotically on while
there returned into the rest of Mrs. Dersingham’s mind
various queries and worries about the sauce for the fish
and the creme caramel not setting properly and Agnes
spilling things. And all the time she was powdering
her back or neck, trying on the crystal beads and then
the amber, rubbing her cheeks with a tiny reddened pad,
and staring at her reflection in the Jacobean mirror
that she had bought at Brighton and that turned out to
be a poor mirror and not Jacobean at all. The one con¬
solation was that you always knew that you actually
looked better than you did in that stupid mirror. Re¬
membering this for the thousandth time, Mrs. Dersing-
ham switched off the light, stood outside the night
nursery a moment to discover if the children were quiet,
then joined her husband in the drawing-room.

“Oh, thank goodness, nobody’s here yet,” she said,
pulling a cushion or two about, then warming her hands.
"It’s sucb a ghastly rush. It’s wonderful to have a few
minutes’ peace and quietness.” She was already talking
as if company were present.

“Rather,” said Mr, Dersingham, loyally.

She stood in front of him now. “I suppose I look a

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 121

thorough mess/’ she continued, with a relapse into her
natural manner.

“Not a bit. Jolly fine,” Mr. Dersingham mumbled,
feeling awkward as usual. He always had a suspicion
that he ought to have said something first: “My word,
you’re looking jolly fine to-night,” something of that
sort. But somehow he never did.

“Don’t be too complimentary, will you, darling?
Well, I must say I feel a thorough mess to-night. What
I’d really like is early bed and a book. This rush and
seeing people all the time is so terrible.” Once more,
she was beginning to put on her company manner.

Mrs. Dersingham did not look a thorough mess, but
neither did she look as attractive as she hoped she did.
She looked like hundreds of other English wives in their
earlier thirties, that is, fair, tired, bright, and sagging.
She had pleasant blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and a
slightly discontented mouth. Her life, apart from the
secret saga of the kitchen and the nursery, where
creatures with the most astoundingly good references
were for ever turning out to be lazy, impudent, and
thieving, was really rather dull, for she had no strong
interests and very few friends in London. But this
she would not admit, not even to her husband, except on
rare occasions when she lost her temper, broke down,
and the truth came blazing through. She pretended
that her life was one exciting and multi-coloured whirl
of people and social events. She did not actually tell lies,
but she created at atmosphere in which every little occur¬
rence was instantly distorted and magnified, like objects
dropped into a glass tank full of water. A tea on Monday
and a dinner party on Friday were transformed into a
week’s feasting, a rushing here, there, and everywhere,

E

122

ANGEL PAVEMENT

not enjoyed but endured. If she met n person two 01
three times, then she had met whole crowds of him or
her, day and night. Two matinees (with an old school
friend or her mother up from Worcester) coming within
one week reduced her to the condition of a dramatic
critic at the end of a heavy autumn season. Even when
she admitted that she had not attended a certain func¬
tion, met a person, seen a play, read a book, she contrived
to give these confessions a positive instead of a negative
flavour, and so strong a positive flavour that somehow
she seemed to be in close contact with the function,
person, play, or book. She did this partly by throwing
the emphasis on the auxiliary verb: “No, I haven't seen
her,” or: “No, I haven’t seen it,” which suggested to
the listener that Mrs. Dersingham had attended a series
of important committee meetings, had thrashed it out,
and had decided with the rest that there should he
nothing done about these people, these plays, these
books, just yet. Thus, by this and other methods, she
created an atmosphere in which a few outings and en¬
counters were transformed into a rich and strenuous
social life, which, so strong are our dreams, frequently
left her genuinely fatigued. All this puzzled that simple
man, her husband, but he never said anything now.
The last time he had asked, after the company had gone,
why she had complained so much about having to rush
about, when he, for his part, could not see she had done
much rushing about, she had turned on him quite
fiercely and said that if it depended on him she would
be sitting moping in the flat, never seeing anybody or
anything, from one week’s end to another, and that the
less he said the better; an answer that left him com¬
pletely bewildered.

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 123

The Dersinghams, standing together now on their
bearskin rug, heard the first guest arrive. It must be
either Golspie or the Trapes. It could not be the
Pearsons, who, living in the maisonette above, always
waited until they heard someone else arrive below, be¬
fore they made their appearance. And Golspie it was,
looking strangely unfamiliar to Mr. Dersingham in a
rather voluminous dinner jacket and a very narrow
black tie. He had hardly been introduced to Mrs.
Dersingham before the Pearsons, who were just as
anxious not to be late as they were not to be first, came
in, breathless and smiling.

“A-ha, good evening!” cried Mr. Pearson, as if he
had found them out.

“And how are you, my dear?” cried Mrs. Pearson to
her hostess, in such a tone of voice that nobody would
have imagined that they had met less than four hours
ago.

The Pearsons were a middle-aged, childless couple,
who had recently retired from Singapore. Mr. Pearson
was a tallish man, with a long thin neck on which was
perched a pear-shaped head. His cheeks were absurdly
plump, a sharp contrast to all the rest of him, so that
he always appeared to have just blown them out. He
was both nervous and amiable, and consequently he
laughed a great deal at nothing in particular, and the
sound he made when he laughed can only be set down
as T ee-tee-tee-tee-tee. Mrs. Pearson, who was altogether
plump, had her face framed in a number of mysterious
dark curls, and looked vaguely like one of the musical
comedy actresses of the picture post-card era, one who
had perhaps retired, after queening it in The Catch
of the Season, to keep a jolly boarding-house. They

ANGEL PAVEMENT

124

were a lonely, friendly pair, who obviously did not know
what on earth to do to pass the time, so that this was
for them an occasion of some importance, to be looked
forward to, to be referred to, to be enjoyed to the last
syllable of small talk.

They were now all shouting at one another, after the
fashion of hosts and guests in Barkficld Gardens and
elsewhere.

"Found your way here all right then?” Mr. Dersing-
ham bellowed to Mr. Golspie.

“Came in a taxi,” Mr. Golspie boomed over his cock¬
tail.

"That’s the best way if you’re going to a strange
house in London, isn’t it?” Mr. Pearson shouted. “We
always do it when we can afford it. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“And how’s the little darling to-night?” Mrs. Pearson
inquired at the top of her voice, affectionately maternal
as usual.

“Oh, we took the infant’s temperature, and it was
normal. He’s all right,” Mrs. Dersingham screamed in
reply, elaborately unmaternal as usual.

“I’m so glad, so glad.” And as she said it, Mrs.
Pearson looked all beaming and moist. “I was so afraid
there might be something really wrong with the dear
kiddy. I was telling Walter that you thought it might
be a chill. I’m so glad it wasn’t, my dear. You can’t be
too careful with them, can you?”

“This Russian business looks pretty queer, doesn’t
it?” Mr. Dersingham shouted.

“Very queer. What do you make of it?” Mr. Pearson
shouted in reply. He made nothing of it himself yet,
because the evening paper had not told him what to
make of it and he had heard nobody’s opinion yet. On

THE DERSINGHAMS Al HOME 125

any question that had its origin west of Suez, Mr.
Pearson liked to agree with his company. When it was
east of Suez, he sometimes took a line of his own, and
when Singapore itself was actually involved, he had been
known to contradict people.

“Well, I’ll tell you, Dersingham,” said Mr. Golspie,
who as usual knew his own mind. “It’s all a lot of tripe,
bosh, bunkum. I know those yarns. Fellows up in Riga
trying to earn their money, they sent out that stuff.”

“That’s terribly interesting, Mr. Golspie,” Mrs. Der-
singham shrieked at him, suddenly looking like a woman
of the world who had wanted to get to the bottom of this
business for some time. “Of course, you’ve been up
there, haven’t you?”

“Round about.” And Mr. Golspie gave her a grin,
at once sardonic and friendly. It seemed to tell her
that she was all right, not a bad-looking girl, but she
mustn’t try to draw him, for that wasn’t her line at all,
not at all.

“It makes a difference when you’ve been there,
doesn’t it?” cried Mr. Pearson. “You know the facts.
Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“And where do you live now, Mr. Golspie?” Mrs.
Pearson inquired, rather archly and with her head on
one side.

“Just got a furnished flat in Maida Vale,” replied
Mr. Golspie.

“Now I don’t think I know that part,” Mrs. Pearson
said, girlishly reflective.

“There’s a lot of London we still don’t know. Tee-
tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“You’re not missing much if you don’t know Maida
Vale, from what I’ve seen of it,” Mr. Golspie boomed

126

ANGEL PAVEMENT

away. “Where I live seems to be full of Jews and music-
hall turns. Old music-hall turns, not the good-lookin’
young ’uns.”

“Tee-tee-tee,” Mr. Pearson put in, rather doubtfully.

“Oh, you men!” cried Mrs. Pearson, who had not
lived at Singapore for nothing: she knew her cues.

“Tee-tee.” Triumphant this time.

Miss Verever was announced, and very resentfully, for
already Agnes had had enough of the evening and she
had not liked the way this particular guest had walked
in and looked at her.

There is something to be said for Agnes. Miss Ver¬
ever was one of those people who, at a first meeting
demand to be disliked. She was Mrs. Dersingham’s
mother’s cousin, a tall, cadaverous virgin of forty-five
or so, who displayed, especially in evening clothes, an
uncomfortable amount of sharp gleaming bone, just as
if the upper part of her was a relief map done in ivory.
In order that she might not be overlooked in company
and also to protect herself, she had developed and
brought very near to perfection a curiously disturbing
manner, which conveyed a boundless suggestion of the
malicious, the mocking, the sarcastic, the sardonic, the
ironical. What she actually said was harmless enough,
but her tone of voice, her expression, her smile, her
glance, all these suggested that her words had some
devilish inner meaning. In scores of small hotels and
pensions overlooking the Mediterranean, merely by
asking what time the post went or inquiring if it had '
rained during the night, she had made men wonder if
they had not shaved properly and women ask them¬
selves if something had gone wrong with their com¬
plexions, and compelled members of both sexes to con-

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 12'/

sider if they had just said something very silly. After
that, she had only to perform the smallest decent action
for people to say that she had a surprisingly kind heart
as well as a terrifyingly clever satirical head. This was all
very well if people had booked rooms under the same roof
for the next three months, but on chance acquaintances,
wondering indignantly what on earth she had against
them , this peculiar manner of hers had an unfortunate
effect.

She now advanced, kissed her hostess, shook hands
with her host, and then, pursing her lips and screwing
up the rest of her features, said: “I hope you’ve not
been waiting for me. I’m sure you have, haven’t you?”
And, strange as it may seem, this remark and this simple
question immediately made the whole dinner party
appear preposterous.

“No, we haven’t really,” Mr. Dersingham told her, at
the same time asking himself why in the name of
thunder they had ever thought of inviting her. “Some¬
body still to come. The Trapes.”

“Oh, I’m glad I’m not the last then,” said Miss Ver-
ever, with a bitter little smile, which she kept on her
face while she was being introduced to the other guests.

A minute later, the Trapes arrived to complete the
party. Late guests may be divided into two classes,
the repentant, who arrive, perspiring and profusely
apologetic, to babble about fogs and ancient taxis and
stupid drivers, and the unrepentant, who stalk in
haughtily and look somewhat aggrieved when they see
all the other guests, their eyebrows registering their
disapproval of people who do not know' what time their
own parties begin. The Trapes were admirable speci¬
mens of the unrepentant class. They were both tab

128

ANGEL PAVEMENT

cold, thin, and rather featureless. Trape himself was
an Old Worrelian and a contemporary of Dersingham’s.
He was a partner in a firm of estate agents, but called
himself Major Trape because he had held that rank at
the end of the War and had become so soldierly training
the vast mob of boys who were conscripted then that he
could not bring himself to say good-bye to his outworn
courtesy title. He was indeed so curt, so military, so
imperial, that it was impossible to imagine him letting
and selling houses in the ordinary way, and the mind’s
eye saw him mopping up, with a small raiding party,
all flats and bijou residences, and sallying out with an
expeditionary force to plant the Union Jack on finely
timbered, residential and sporting estates. His wife was
a somewhat colourless woman, very English in type, who
always looked as if she was always faintly surprised and
disgusted by life. Perhaps she was, and perhaps that was
why she always talked with a certain ventriloquial effect,
producing a voice with hardly any movement of her
small iced features.

Leaving them all to shout at one another, Mrs. Der-
singham now slipped out of the room, for it was im¬
perative that dinner should be announced as soon as
possible. She returned three minutes later, trying not
unsuccessfully to look as if she had not a care in the
world, a sort of Arabian Nights hostess, and then, after
the smallest interval, Agnes popped her head into the
room, thereby forgetting one of her most urgent instruc¬
tions, and said, without any enthusiasm at all: “Please
m’. Dinner’s served.”

Mrs. Dersingham smiled heroically at her guests,
who, with the exception of Mr. Golspie, looked at one
another and at the door as if they were hearing about

THE DERSINGH AMS AT HOME UQ

this dinner business for the first time and were mildly
interested and amused. Mr. Golspie, for his part,
looked like a man who wanted his dinner, and actually
took a step or two towards the door. Then began that
general stepping forward and stepping backward and
smiling and hand-waving which take place at this
moment in all those unhappy sections of society that
have lost formality and yet have not reached informality.
There they were, smiling and dithering round the door.

“Now then, Mrs. Pearson,” cried Mr. Golspie in his
loudest and most brutal tones. “In you go.” And,
without more ado, this impatient guest put a hand
behind Mrs. Pearson’s elbow, and Mrs. Pearson found
herself through the door, the leader of the exodus. They
crowded into the small dining-room, where the soup was
already steaming under the four shaded electric lights.

“Now let me see,” Mrs. Dersingham began, as usual,
feeling that these guests were not people now but six
enormous bodies of which she, the wretched criminal,
had to dispose. “Now let me see. Will you sit there,
Mrs. Trape. And Mrs. Pearson, there.” And then,
having disposed of the bodies, she had time to notice
that the soup looked horribly greasy.

3

The soup was bad, and Miss Verever left most of hers
and contrived to be looking down at it very curiously
every time Mrs. Dersingham glanced across the table at
her. As there were eight of them, Mrs. Dersingham
was not sitting at the end of the table, opposite her

E*

I 30 ANGEL PAVEMENT

husband. Mr. Golspie was there, and very much at his
ease, putting away a very ungentlemanly quantity of
bread under that great moustache of his. On Mr.
Golspie’s right were Mrs. Dersingham, Major Trape,
and Mrs. Pearson, and on the other side were Miss
Verever, Mr. Pearson, and Airs. Trape.

“And how,” said Miss Verever to Mrs. Dersingham,
“did you enjoy your Norfolk holiday this summer?
You never told me that, and I’ve been dying to know.’’
The smile that accompanied this statement announced
that Miss Verever could not imagine a more idiotic or
boring topic, that you would be insufferably dull if you
answered her question and terribly rude if you didn’t.

“Not bad,” Mrs. Dersingham shouted desperately.
“In fact, quite good, on the whole. Rather cold, you
know.”

“Really, you found it cold?” And you would have
sworn that the speaker meant to suggest that the cold
had obviously been manufactured for you and that it
served you right.

At the other end of the table, Major Trape and his
host were talking about football, across Mrs. Pearson,
who nodded and smiled and shook her mysterious curls
all the time, to show that she was not really being left
out.

“Do you ever watch rugger, Golspie?” Mr. Dersing¬
ham demanded down the table.

“What, Rugby? Haven’t seen a match for years,” re¬
plied Mr. Golspie. “Prefer the other kind when I do
watch one.”

Major Trape raised his eyebrows. “What, you a
soccah man? Not this professional stuff? Don’t tell me
you like that.”

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 131

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Oh, come now! I mean, you can’t possibly—I mean,
it’s a dirty business, selling fellahs for money and so on,
very unsporting.”

“I must say I agree, Trape,” said Mr. Dersingham.
“Dashed unsporting business, I call it.”

“Oh, certainly,” Major Trape continued, “must be
amatahs—love of the game. Play the game for its own
sake, I say, and not as all these fellahs do—for monay.
Can’t possibly be a sportsman and play for monay. Oh,
dirty business, eh, Dersingham?”

“I’m with you, there.”

A sound came from Mrs. Trape’s face and it seemed
to declare that she was with him too.

“Well, I’m not with you,” said Mr. Golspie bluntly.
He did not care tuppence about it, one way or the other,
but there was something in Trape’s manner that de¬
manded contradiction, and Mr. Golspie was not the man
to ignore such a challenge. “If a poor man can play a
game well, why shouldn’t he allow that game to keep
him? What’s the answer to that? A man’s as much right
to play cricket and football for a living as he has to clean
windows or sell tripe—”

“Tripe indeed! How can you, Mr. Golspie?” cried
Mrs. Pearson, girlishly shaking her curls at him.

“My wife hates tripe,” said Mr. Pearson. “Tee-tee-
tee-tee-tee.”

“I disagree,” said Major Trape, stiffer than ever now.
“Those things are business, quite different. Games
ought to be played for their own sake. That’s the proper
English way. Love of the game. Clean sport. Don’t
mind if the other fellahs win. Sport and business, two
diff’rent things.”

1^2 £NGEL PAVEMENT

“Not if sport is your business,” Mr. Golspie returned,
looking darkly mischievous. “We can’t all be rich
amachures. Let the chaps have their six or seven pounus
a week. They earn it. If one lot of chaps can earn their
living by telling us to be good every Sunday—that is, if
you go to listen to ’em: I don’t—why shouldn’t another
lot be paid to knock a ball about ever)’ Saturday, without
all this talk of dirty business? It beats me. Unless it’s
snobbery. Lot o’ snobbery still about in this country.
It pops up all the time.”

“What is this argument all about?” Miss Verever in¬
quired. And, perhaps feeling that Mr. Golspie needed
a rebuke, she put on her most peculiar look and brought
out her most disturbing tone of voice, finally throwing
in a smile that was a tried veteran, an Old Guard.

But Mr. Golspie returned her gaze quite calmly, and
even conveyed a piece of fish, and far too large a piece,
to his mouth before replying. “We’re arguing about
football and cricket. I don’t suppose you’re interested.
I’m not much, myself. I like billiards. That’s one thing
about coming back to this country, you can always get a
good game of billiards. Proper tables, y’know.”

“I used to be very fond of a game of billiards, snooker
too,” said Mr. Pearson, nodding his head so that his fat
cheeks shook like beef jellies, “when I was out in Singa¬
pore. There were some splendid players at the club
there, splendid players, make breaks of forty and fifty.
But I wasn’t one of them. Tee-tee-tee—”

“We went to see Susie Dean and Jerry Jerningham
the other night,” said Major Trape, turning to Mrs.
Dersingham. “Good show. Very clevah, very clevah.
You been to any shows lately, Mrs. Dersingham?”

“That’s true,” Mrs. Pearson informed her host and

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 133

anybody else who cared to listen. “When we were out
in Singapore, my husband was always going over to the
club for billiards. And now he hardly ever plays. I
don’t think he’s had a game this year. Have you, Walter?
I’m just saying I don’t think you’ve had a game this
year.”

“And so what with one thing and another,” Mrs.
Dersingham told Major Trape, “I’ve simply not been
able to see half the plays I’ve wanted to see. Something
has to go, hasn’t it? We were out at the Trevors—I think
you know them, don’t you?-the shipbuilding people,
you know, only of course these Trevors are out of that—
they’re terribly in with all that young smart set, Mrs.
Dellingham, young Mostyn-Price, Lady Muriel Pag-
worth, and the famous Ditchways. Well, what with
that, and then going to Mrs. Westbury’s musical tea-
fight—Dossevitch and Rougeot ought to have been there
and were only prevented from coming at the last minute,
but Imogen Farley was there and played divinely. Oh,
and then on top of all that, I went to see that new thing
at His Majesty’s—what’s it called?—oh, yes —The Other
Man. And so I haven’t had a single moment for any
other show.”

“No, by Jove, you haven’t, have you?” said Major
Trape, with whom this miracle of the social loaves and
fishes worked every time. “You’re worse than Dorothy,
and I tell her she overdoes it. Mustn’t overdo it, you
know.”

Mrs. Dersingham, wondering how long Agnes was
going to be bringing up the cutlets, shrugged her
shoulders, and did it exactly as she had seen Irene Prince
do it in Smart Women at the ambassadors. “It is stupid,
‘1 know,” she confessed charmingly, “and I’m always

1$4 ANGEL PAVEMENT

saying I’ll cut most of it out—but—well, you know what
happens.”

Miss Verever, wearing her most peculiar smile, leaned
forward, caught the eye of her hostess, and said: “But
what does happen, my dear?”

Mrs. Dersingham was able to escape, however, by
plunging at once into the talk at the other end of the
table, as if she had not heard Miss Verever’s inquiry.
“Oh, have you been reading that?” she cried across the
table to Mrs. Trape, who did not look as if she had
spoken for weeks, but nevertheless had actually just
conjured out several remarks. “No, I haven't read it,
and I don’t mean to.” But did Agnes mean to bring the
cutlets?

The talk at Mr. Dersingham’s end, as we have guessed,
had suddenly turned literary. Mrs. Trape had just read
a certain book. It was, she added, apparently throwing
her voice into the claret decanter, a very clever book.
Mr. Dersingham had not read this book, and did not
hesitate to say that it did not sound his kind of book,
for after a jolly good hard day in the office he found such
books too heavy going and preferred a detective story.
Mrs. Pearson was actually reading a book, had been
reading it that very afternoon, had nearly finished it and
was enjoying it immensely.

“And I’m sure it’s a story you'd like, Mr. Dersing¬
ham,” she cried, “even though there aren’t any detectives
in it. I could hardly put it down. It’s all about a girl
going to one of those Pacific Islands, one of those lovely
coral and lagoon places, you know, and she goes there to
stay with an uncle because she’s lost all her money, and
when she gets there she finds that he’s drinking terriblv,
and so she goes to another man-but I mustn't spoil it

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 135

for vou. Do read it, Mrs. Trape.”

The claret decanter murmured that it would love to
read it, and asked what the name of the book was, so that
it might put it down on its library list.

“I’ll tell you the title in a moment,” and Mrs. Pear¬
son, bringing her curls to rest, bit her lip reflectively.
“Now how stupid of me! Do you know, I can’t re¬
member. It’s a very striking title, too, and that’s what
made me take it when the girl at the library showed it
to me. Now isn’t that silly of me?”

“I can never remember the titles either,” Mr. Dersing-
ham assured her heartily. “What was the name of the
chap who wrote it? Was it a man or a woman?”

“I think it was a man’s name, in fact, I’m nearly sure
it was. It was quite a common name, too. Something
like Wilson. No, it wasn’t, it was Wilkinson. Walter,
do you remember the name of the author of that book
I’m reading? Wasn’t it Wilkinson?”

“You’re thinking of the man that came to mend the
wireless set,” Mr. Pearson replied, shooting his long neck
at her. “That was Wilkinson. You know the people,
Dersingham—the electricians in Earl’s Court Road?”

“Oh, so it was. How silly of me!”

“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

Mrs. Pearson smiled vaguely but amiably, then said:
“So you see, I can’t tell you now , but I’ll tell Mrs. Der¬
singham in the morning and then she can tell you.”

A sudden silence fell on the table at that moment,
perhaps because there was a sort of scratching sound at
the door, which opened, but only about an inch or two.
That silence was shattered by the most appalling crash
of breaking crockery, followed by a short sharp wail.
Then silence again for one sinking moment. The cutlets

ANGEL PAVEMENT

136

and the vegetables had arrived at last, and a brown stam,
creeping beneath the door, told where they were.

"My God,” cried Mr. Golspie to Miss Verever, as Mrs.
Dersingham dashed to the door, “there goes our dinner.”

“Indeed!”

“You bet your life!” Mr. Golspie, earnest and un¬
abashed, assured her.

Miss Verever and Major Trapc exchanged glances,
which removed Mr. Golspie once and for all from decent
society and handed him over to the social worker and the
anthropologist.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Dersingham had disappeared
through the doorway, and Mr. Dersingham was trying
to follow her example, but could not do so because, what
with cutlets, vegetables, gravy, broken dishes and plates,
a weeping Agnes, and a panic-stricken Mrs. Dersingham,
there was no space for him. So he stood there, holding
the door open, with his body inside the dining-room and
his head outside.

“Oh. do shut the door, Howard," the guests heard
Mrs. Dersingham cry.

“All right,” the invisible head replied hesitatingly.
“But I say—can’t I—er—do anything? I mean, do you
want me to come out or-er—well, what do you want
me to do?”

“Oh, go-in-and-shut-the-door.” And there was no
doubt that in another moment Mrs. Dersingham would
have screamed, for this was the voice of a woman in an
extremity.

Mr. Dersingham closed the door and returned to his
chair. He looked at Major Trape, and Major Trape
looked at him, and no doubt they were both remember¬
ing the good old school, Worrelians together.

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME J^7

“Sorry, but—er—” and here Mr. Dersingham looked
round, apologetically at his guests—“I'm afraid there’s
been some sort of accident outside.”

Immediately, Mrs. Trape, Mrs. Pearson, Major Trape,
and Mr. Pearson began talking all at once, not talking
about this accident, but about accidents in general, with
special reference to very queer accidents that had hap¬
pened to them. Miss Verever merely looked peculiarly
at everybody, while Mr. Golspie finished his claret with a
certain remote gloom, as if he were a man taking quinine
on the summit of a mountain.

Then the door, which had not been properly fastened,
swung open again, to admit a mixed knocking and
gobbling and guggling noise that suggested that Agnes
was now lying on the floor, in hysterics, and drumming
her feet. Then came a new voice, very hoarse and re¬
sentful, and this voice declared that it was all a crying
shame, even if the girl was clumsy with her hands, and
that one pair of hands was one pair of hands and could
not be expected to be any more, and that while notices
were being given right and left, her notice could be
taken, there and then. In short, the cook had arrived
on the scene.

Mr. Dersingham arose miserably, but whether to shut
the door again or to make an entrance into the drama
outside we shall never know, for Mrs. Pearson, fired with
neighbourly solicitude, sprang up, crying, “Poor Mrs.
Dersingham! I’m sure I ought to do something,” and
was outside, with the door closed behind her, before Mr.
Dersingham knew what was happening.

And Mrs. Pearson, once outside, did not simply in¬
trude, did not gape and hang about and get in the way,
but took charge of the situation, for though Mrs. Pearson

i

ANGEL l’AVEM E N T

may have been a foolish table-talker, may have worn
mysterious curls, and been old-fashioned and mon¬
strously girlish and affectionate, she was a housewife
of experience, who had weathered the most fantastic
tropical domestic storms in Singapore.

“I knew you wouldn’t mind my coming out,” she
cried, “and I felt I must help, because after all we are
neighbours, aren’t we, and that makes a difference.”

“It’s too absurd,” Mrs. Dersingham wailed. “This
wretched girl’s smashed everything and ruined the
dinner and now she’s going off into a fit or something
out of sheer temper. And it’s all her own fault. I en¬
gaged her sister to come and help her to-night, and then
when her sister couldn’t come, at the last minute of
course, she wouldn’t let me get anybody else, she said
she could do it herself.”

Mrs. Pearson was looking at Agnes, who was still
guggling and drumming on the floor. “Only stupid
hysterics. Get up at once, you silly, silly girl. Do you
hear? You’re in the way. We’ll pour cold water over
her. That will soon bring her round, you’ll sec.”

The cook, who was standing in the hall, a few yards
away, and had been looking on with the air of a com¬
placent prophetess, now began to lose some of her
rigidity. The mournful triumph died out of her face.
She had no respect for Mrs. Dersingham, but for some
strange reason she had almost a veneration for Mrs.
Pearson, who was possibly a far more lady-like and com¬
manding figure in her eyes.

“That’s so," the cook hoarsely declared now. “A jug
of water’s what she wants. Accidents will happen and
one pair of hands can’t be two or three pairs of hands,
eight for dinner being out of all reason with them steps

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 139

and no service lift, but there’s no call to be lying there
all night, Agnes, having your hysterics and carrying on
silly when there’s all this mess to be cleared, let alone
anything else.”

This treacherous withdrawal of a stout ally, combined
with the talk of cold water, soon brought the hysterics to
mere choking and sniffing, and in a minute or two Agnes
was bending over the ruins. “I’ll clear these away,” she
announced between sniffs and chokes, “but I won’t bring
anything else and serve it, I won’t. I couldn’t if I tried,
I couldn’t. I haven’t a nerve in me body, not after what’s
happened, I haven’t.”

“But I shall have to give them something,” Mrs. Der-
singham was saying. Clearly she no longer included
Mrs. Pearson among the guests. Mrs. Pearson had
ceased to be one of “them.”

“Of course you will, my dear,” cried Mrs. Pearson,
her eyes gleaming with a happy excitement. “Not that
we’d mind, of course. It’s the men, isn’t it? You know
what the men are? Now then, what about eggs?”

“Eggs,” the cook repeated, hoarsely and gloomily.
“There’s two eggs, an’ two eggs only, in that kitchen.
Just the two eggs, and them’s for the morning.”

“Listen, my dear.” And Mrs. Pearson clutched at her
neighbour affectionately and imploringly. ‘‘Do leave it
to me and I promise you I won’t be ten minutes. I
won’t, really. Now not a word! Don’t bother about
anything. Just you leave it to me.” She hurried
towards the outer door, pulled herself up before she
reached it, and cried over her shoulder: “But warm
some plates, that’s all.”

During the subsequent interval, Mrs. Dersingham had
not the heart to return to the dining-room, though she

ANGEL PAVEMENT

140

did just look in, put her face round the door and smile
apologetically at everybody and say that it was too
absurd and annoying and that the two of them, she and
Mrs. Pearson, would be back again in a feu- minutes.
She spent the rest of the time superintending the salvage
work outside the dining-room door and helping cook
to find enough fresh plates to warm. She felt hot, dis¬
hevelled and miserable. She could have cried. Indeed,
that was why she did not slip upstairs to her bedroom
to look at herself and powder her nose, for once there,
really alone with herself, she was sure she would have
cried. Oh, it was all too hateful for words!

“There!" And Mrs. Pearson stood before her, breath¬
less, flushed, and happy, and whipped off the lid of a
silver dish.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Dersingham, in the very reek of
the omelette, a fine large specimen. “You angel! It’s
absolutely perfect."

“I remembered we had some eggs, and then .1 remem¬
bered we had a bottle of mushrooms tucked away some¬
where, and so I rushed upstairs and made this mushroom
omelette. It ought to be nice. I used to be good with
omelettes.”

“It’s marvellous. And I don’t know how to begin to
thank you, my dear.” And Mrs. Dersingham meant it.
From that moment, Mrs. Pearson ceased to be a merely
foolish if kindly neighbour and became a friend, worthy
of the most secret confidences. In the steam of the
omelette, rich as tire smoke of burnt offerings, this
friendship began, and Mrs. Dersingham never tasted
a mushroom afterwards without being reminded
of it.

Don’t think of it, my dear,” said Mrs. Pearson

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 141

happily, for her own life, after months of the dull routine
of time-killing, had suddenly become crimson, rich and
glorious. “Now, have you got the plates ready? You
must have this served at once, mustn’t you? Where’s
that silly girl? Gone to bed? All right, then, make the
cook serve the rest of the dinner. She must have every¬
thing ready by this time. Call her, my dear. Tell her
to bring up the plates.” And they returned at last to
the dining-room, two sisters out of burning Troy.

Alas, all was not well in there. Something had hap¬
pened during the interval of waiting. It was not the
women, who were all sympathetic smiles and solicitude:
Mrs. Trape even dropped the ventriloquial effect, actu¬
ally disturbed the lower part of her face, in order to
explain that she knew, no one better, what it was these
days, when anything might be expected of that class;
and Miss Verever, though retaining automatically some
peculiarities of tone and grimace, contrived to say some¬
thing reassuring. No, it was not the women, it was the
men. Mr. Golspie looked like a man who had already
said some brutal things and was fully prepared to say
some more; Major Trape looked very stiff and uncom¬
promising, as if he had just sentenced a couple of
surveyors to be shot; Mr. Pearson gave the impression
that he had been faintly tee-teeing on both sides of a
quarrel and was rather tired of it; and Mr. Dersingham
looked uneasy, anxious, exasperated. There was no mis¬
taking the atmosphere, in which distant thunder still
rolled. The stupid men had had to wait for the more
substantial part of dinner; they had felt empty, then
they had felt cross; and so they had argued, shouted,
quarrelled, not all of them perhaps, but certainly Mr.
Golspie and Major Trape. Probably at any moment.

142

ANGEL PAVE M ENT

they would begin arguing, shouting, quarrelling again.
Mrs. Dersingham, very tired now and with a hundred
little nerves screaming to be taken out of all this and put
to bed, would have liked to have banged their silly heads
together.

Cook came in, breathing heavily and disapprovingly,
and gave them their omelette. There was not a single
movement she made during the whole time she was in
the room that did not announce, quite plainly, that she
was the cook, that the kitchen was her place, that she
did not pretend to be able to wait at table and that if
they did not like it, they could lump it. Her heavy
breathing went further, pointing out that when she did
condescend to wait at table, she expected to find a better
company than this seated round it. Even Mrs. Pearson
had apparently lost favour, for she had her plate shoved
contemptuously in front of her, like the rest. Real ladies,
that plate said, don’t rush away and cook omelettes for
other people’s dinner-tables. “P’raps you’ll ring when
you want the next,” the cook wheezed, and then slowly,
scornfully, took her departure.

If you don t mind my saying so, Mrs. Dersingham,”
said Major Trape, “this omelette’s awf’ly good, awf’ly
good. And there’s nothing I like better than a jolly
good omelette.” J 1

A voice from Mrs. Trape’s direction said that it agreed
with him. °

. “TWre right there,” said Mr. Golspie to Mrs. Der¬
singham, as if the Trapes were not often ri°ht “It’s as
good an omelette as I’ve had for months and' months
and that s saying something, because I’ve been in places'
where they can make omelettes. They can’t make ’em
here m England.” And he said this in such a way as to

TIIE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 143

suggest that it was really a challenge to Trape, who was
nothing if not patriotic. Obviously, he and Trape had
been quarrelling.

Major Trape stiffened, then smiled laboriously at his
hostess. “Mr. Golspie seems to think we can’t make
anything in England. That’s where he and I diffah.
Isn’t it, Dersingham?”

“Well, yes, in a way, I suppose,” Mr. Dersingham
mumbled unhappily. He felt divided between Worrell
and Angel Pavement, between his old and respected
school friend, Trape, with whom he instinctively agreed,
and the forceful man who was now saving Twigg and
Dersingham and making it prosperous, his guest for the
first time, too; and it was a wretched situation. He
muttered now that there was a lot to be said on both
sides.

“There may be,” said Major Trape. “But I don’t like
to hear a man continually runnin’ down his own country.
Tastes diffah, I suppose. But I feel-well, it isn’t done,
that’s all.”

“Time it was done then,” said Mr. Golspie aggres¬
sively. “Most of the people I meet here these days seem
to be living in a fool’s paradise—”

“Now, Mr. Golspie,” cried his hostess, with desperate
vivacity, “you’re not to call us all fools. Is he, Mrs.
Trape? We won’t have it.” Then, saving the situation
at all cost, she turned to Miss Verever. “My dear, I
forgot to tell you, I’ve had the absurdest letter from
Alice. When I read it, I simply howled.”

“No, did you?” said Miss Verever. .

“A-ha!” cried Mr. Dersingham, doing his best.
“What’s the latest from Alice? We must all hear about

angel pavement

144

They were all listening now, all at peace for the
moment.

“Oh, it was too ridiculous,” cried Mrs. Dersingham,
despairingly racking her brains to remember something
amusing in that letter, or, failing that, something
amusing in any letter she had ever had from anybody.
“You know what Alice is-at least, you do, my dear, and
so do you. I suppose it isn’t really funny unless you
know her. You see, the minute I read a letter of hers,
of course I can see her in my mind and hear her voice
and all that sort of thing, and unless you can do that,
well, I dare say it isn’t so funny after all. But, you see,
Alice-she’s my youngest sister, I must explain; and they
live down in Devon—oh, miles from anywhere. Will
you ring, please, darling? Well, Alice has a dog, the
absu-u-urdest creature—”

She struggled through with it somehow, and fortun¬
ately cook made such a noise clearing and then serving
the sweet that most of the anecdote, presumably the
funniest part, was lost in the clatter. The cook had been
so noisy, so incredibly heavy in her breathing, and so
obviously disapproving, when she was serving the sweet,
that Mrs. Dersingham dare not have her up again to
clear the table for dessert, so as the fruit plates and the
finger-bowls, the port decanter and glasses, were all on
the sideboard, she made a joke of it—showing the last
gleam of vivacity she felt she would be able to show for
months-and she and Dersingham, assisted by Mr.
Pearson, who said—tee-tee-tee-tee-tee—that he was used
to clearing a table, having been well brought up, did
what they could to make the dinner look as if it were
coming to a civilised end. Mrs. Dersingham felt that
Mr. Golspie, plainly a porty sort of man, and Major

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 145

Trape might not want to argue so unpleasantly once
they had some port inside them. This was the longest
and most ghastly dinner she ever remembered. It tvas
not really very late, but it seemed like two in the morn¬
ing. As she tried to peel a very soft pear, she felt she
wanted to throw it at the opposite wall and then scream
at the top of her voice.

It was then they heard a ring at the outer door. Per¬
haps the postman, rather late and with something special
to deliver. A minute or so later, there came another and
longer ring.

“The only time we were there it rained for a whole
week,” said Major Trape, concluding his account of the
watering-places, “and so I said, ‘Nevah again.’ Can’t
imagine how these towns get their reputation. These
weathah reports they give out—”

Another ring, very determined this time.

“I’m sorry, but do go and see who that is at the door,
my dear,” Mrs. Dersingham cried, apologetically. “I’ve
just remembered. Agnes has gone to bed, and cook prob¬
ably can’t hear or won’t hear. I don’t suppose it’s any¬
body but the late post.”

Mr. Dersingham was absent several minutes, and
somehow during that time nobody appeared to want to
talk. Mrs. Dersingham did not press the fruit upon her
guests. The moment the last piece was eaten, she in¬
tended to rise from the table, and then—oh, thank
heaven!—the worst was over. The men could stay on
drinking port and quarrel like cats and dogs if they
liked. She would be out of it, among nice, silly, com¬
fortable women in the drawing-room, and so it would all
be over. And then, just as she was nearly succeeding in
consoling herself, her husband reappeared, and he was

14 (5 angel pavement

not alone. The idiot had brought a complete stranger
into the dining-room with him, a girl.

She was a very pretty girl, quite young, and on his
face was that fatuous smile which husbands always seem
to wear in the company of young and very pretty girls.
All wives recognise and detest that fatuous smile. It is
bad at any time, but when it accompanies a girl who is a
complete stranger into the dining-room at the conclusion
of a disastrous dinner, and brings her into the presence
of a wife who has not felt even decently presentable for
hours and hours and who has been ready to scream for
the last forty-five minutes, then it is a catastrophe and
a mortal injury. And so Mrs. Dersingham gave Mr.
Dersingham one look that sent that fatuous smile
trembling into oblivion. And then, half rising from her
chair, Mrs. Dersingham looked at the stranger, and de¬
cided at once that she had never before seen a girl she
disliked so much at sight as this one.

“I’m afraid—er—I don’t,” she began.

But the girl was not even looking at her. She was busy
having her left cheek brushed by the large moustache of
Mr. Golspie, who had flung an arm round her shoulders.

“Well, hang me, Lena girl,” Mr. Golspie was roaring,
“if I hadn’t forgotten all about you.”

“You would,” said the girl coolly. “You’re a rotten
father. I’ve told you that before. Now introduce me.”

4

“Now this is my fault,” Mr. Golspie boomed at the
Dersinghams, turning from one to the other, “my fault
entirely. I ought to have told you. I meant to, but I

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 147

forgot. This girl of mine wrote to say she was coming
from Paris to-day, but of course she didn’t say how and
when and what and where, just left it all vague, y’know,
as usual, all up in the air. When it got to be half-past
seven and she hadn’t turned up, I began to wonder.
What was I to do?” And as he asked this he stared
fiercely at Mr. Pearson, who happened to catch his eye.

“Quite so, Mr. Golspie,” Mr. Pearson, startled, jerked
out.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I did do. I left a message
with the caretaker of the flats, so that if she did come
she’d know where I was—”

“All right, my dear,” his daughter interrupted, “you
needn’t go on and on. Nobody wants to hear all about
it. I got the message. I wasn’t going to spend hours all
alone in that poisonous flat. So I took a taxi and came
here. And that’s that.” And having thus dismissed the
subject, Miss Golspie, who seemed an astonishingly cool
and composed young lady, smiled at Mrs. Dersingham,
who did not return the smile. Miss Golspie then pro¬
duced a small mirror from her handbag and carefully
examined her features in it.

And even Mrs. Dersingham would have been com¬
pelled to admit that they were very charming features.
Lena Golspie still remained, after closer inspection, a
very pretty girl. She had reddish-gold hair, large brown
eyes, an impudent little nose, and a luscious mouth.
She looked rather smaller than she actually was. Her
neck, shoulders, and arms were slenderly, even too deli¬
cately, fashioned, but she had strong, well-shaped legs;
and was indeed the complete attractive young female
animal. Only in a certain slant of the eye and some
movements of the mouth did she resemble her father,

angel pavement

148

though a very acute listener might have found some
likeness in their voices. Their accent, however, was
quite different, for Mr. Golspie spoke with a breadth of
vowel sound and roughness of consonants that suggested
the toned-down Lowlander or North-country English¬
man, whereas his daughter’s English did not properly
belong to any part of England, but seemed to be that
international English, of a kind that a clever foreigner
might pick up in the Anglo-Saxon colony in Paris and
that is sometimes spoken by both English and Americans
on the stage, a language without roots and background,
a language for “the talkies.” Indeed, in Lena’s company,
you might have felt you were taking part in a “talkie.”

“And I intended to tell you when I first came in,”
Mr. Golspie continued, determined to have his say.
“Just to warn you that this daughter 0’ mine—who
doesn’t behave herself as nicely as she looks, I can tell
you—might be landing herself on you.”

“Quite all right, of course,” said Mr. Dersingham. “I
mean-delighted!”

“Good! No harm done then.” And Mr. Golspie sat
down, grinned at his daughter, noticed the decanter
in front of him and promptly helped himself to another
glass of port.

“But I must say,” cried Lena, who had now con¬
cluded the examination of her own features and was
busy examining everybody’s else’s, “I thought you’d have
finished dinner hours ago. Did you begin late or have
you been wolfing an awful lot?”

“I think we’d better all go straight into the drawing¬
room,” said Mrs. Dersingham hurriedly, “unless you
men feel you must stay and drink some more port.”

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Golspie heartily. “I’m ready,

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 149

for one.” And to show that he was, he drained his glass
in one sharp gulp.

“Only too delighted, Mrs. Dersingham,” said Major
Trape, bowing and looking very severe, as if indirectly
to rebuke the uncouth Golspie.

“Good work!” said Mr. Dersingham, who obviously
felt that something was still wrong somewhere and was
trying in vain to appear hearty and enthusiastic. He
opened the door. “Much better if we all barge in to¬
gether now.”

“Come along, Miss Golspie,” and the patient little
smile that Mrs. Dersingham contrived to produce was
itself a studied insult. “We don’t mind a bit your not
being dressed. It doesn’t matter at all, I assure you.”

Miss Golspie turned wondering large brown eyes upon
her. “Oh, did you want me to change? I would have
done if I’d known—specially as I’ve brought over one
or two marvellous new dresses—but it didn’t seem worth
it. Sorry and all that!”

“Not in the least,” replied Mrs. Dersingham, pale with
weariness and vexation. Cheerfully—oh, so cheerfully!—
she could have murdered this girl.

They trooped rather silently into the drawing-room,
which did not seem particularly pleased to see them.
It had been neglected itself for some time—so that the
fire was low and ashy—and now it did not seem to
welcome visitors. Cook arrived with coffee, and put
down the tray with the air of a camel exhibiting the last
straw. She did not attempt to serve it. She put it down
on the rickety little table and immediately made that
table seem ten times more rickety. There was no cup
for Miss Golspie, who of course said at once that she
would have some coffee, and so Mr. Dersingham, with

ANGEL PAVEMENT

1 ‘)°

whaf. seemed to his wife a great deal of unnecessary fuss
and silliness, insisted that he should go without. And
then, having taken the tiniest sip of coffee, this Golspie
girl ostentatiously put the cup on one side, and, on being
asked by Mr. Pearson, who had also turned silly and
officious, if she would have some more, replied that she
did not really want any coffee.

“I’ll tell you what, though,” she declared, in a loud
clear voice, “I’d adore a cocktail, if there are any going.”

“Oh, would you, Miss Golspie?” Mr. Dersingham
began. “Well, I dare say I could rake up—” But he
was not allowed to continue.

“I’m afraid there aren’t any cocktails going,” said Mrs.
Dersingham, in a voice that was if anything louder and
clearer, and as frosted as the best Martini.

And the insensitive Mr. Golspie did not improve the
situation by chiming in with, “I should think not. Don’t
you take any notice of her, Mrs. Dersingham. I’ll give
her cocktails!”

“When you get her home, eh?” Mr. Pearson cried,
with rash facetiousness. “Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

It was easily his least successful “Tee-tee” of the
evening. Mrs. Pearson looked surprised at him. Mr.
Golspie gave him a glance that told him quite plainly
to mind his own business and not try to be funny. Lena
herself shot a furious glance at both her father and Mr.
Pearson, but did not cast a single look in Mrs. Derains:-
ham’s direction-a very ominous sign. As for Mrs.
Dersingham, she could not decide which was the more
awful, Mr. Golspie or his terrible daughter. She tried
to start a conversation with Mrs. Pearson, who was now
all embarrassed smiles, and Mrs. Trape, whose face had
been completely frost-bound for the last ten minutes.

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME lgl

Miss Verever, every feature in battle order, now bore
down on Lena, opening the engagement with a long-
range smile of the most sinister peculiarity. “Do I
understand, Miss Golspie,” she said, with the most
mysterious grimace and the most baffling inflections,
“that you have just come from Paris? Have you been
living there?”

“Hello, hello!” cried Lena’s startled expression.
“What have I done to you?” But all she actually said
in reply was: “Yes, I’ve just come from there, and I’ve
been living there?”

“Oh, you have been living there?”

“Yes, for the last eighteen months. With an uncle.
You see, he lives there, and I’ve been living with him.”

“Oh, your uncle lives there?”

“Yes, he’s lived there nearly all his life. He is half
French, anyhow. And my aunt’s completely French.”

“Then is your father—Mr. Golspie—half French?”
asked Miss Verever, in one of her strangest whispers.

“No, not at all,” said Lena, with a little impatient
shake of her head. “You see, this uncle’s my mother’s
brother, not my father’s.”

“Oh, your mother’s And now Miss Verever pro¬
duced her most famous glance of inquiry, awfully enig¬
matical in its final meaning and yet immediately chal¬
lenging. She followed it up with a new smile, crooked,
terrible. “Well, then, of course, your mother must be
half French, I suppose, just like your uncle?”

“Yes, she was.” And then Lena’s little nose wrinkled,
partly in bewilderment, partly in distaste. Then she
looked straight at Miss Verever, who was bending over
her and searching her with an unwinking gaze. “But
what about it? I mean, there’s nothing particularly

angel pavement

< 5 *

funny about that, is there? Lots of people are half
French, aren’t they?' 1

“Yes, I suppose so.” Miss Verever was taken aback.

“Well, then, what are you looking at me like that
for?” cried Lena, at once registering a direct hit. “1
mean, you look as if there was something terribly weird
about it all. There really isn’t, you know. It’s all quite
simple.” The shell crashed through and exploded some¬
where near the magazine.

Miss Verever was jerked upright by her surprise. Then
she turned glacial. “I beg your pardon.”

“Oh, I don’t mind, but—”

Miss Verever did not wait to hear, but turned away
at once and joined the other three women. Lena, after
staring after her for a moment, gave a tiny wriggle and
then broke into a duet of Old Worrelian talk between
Mr. Dersingham and Major Trape, who were merely
chivalrous at first, but very soon began to wear that
fatuous smile. And towards the three of them an icy
current began to flow from the group of women. Too
tired, too cross, even to pretend to be a good brisk
hostess, Mrs. Dersingham let the whole thing slide, and
merely prayed for the end. It was not long in coming.

“Shall I?” Miss Golspie was heard to cry to the two
men.

They nodded and smiled, a little doubtfully perhaps,
but still they nodded and smiled, men under a spell.

“All right, then, I will. Just to cheer us all up. We’re
getting terribly dismal.” And Miss Golspie, with a final
and coquettish nod and smile of her own at the other
two nodders and smilers, marched across the room,
puffing away at one of her host’s Sahibs. Then she sat
down at the baby grand.

THE D E R S I N G H A M S AT HOME I53

“That’s the way, Lena,” her father shouted approv¬
ingly. He had been talking in a corner to Mr. Pearsoa
"Let’s have a tune. Do us good.”

Before anybody else could say a word, Lena had begun
playing. She played some dance tunes, very sketchily,
but with great speed and noise. The first two or three
-minutes were bad, but the next two or three minutes
were much worse, for then her left hand, guessing wildly,
began hitting any note roughly in the neighbourhood of
the right one, and the very fire-irons joined in the din.
After ten minutes, she reached a grand fortissimo
Mrs. Dersingham could stand it no longer.

“Oh, do stop that noise,” she shrieked, rushing for¬
ward, white and trembling with fury.

Lena stopped at once. They were all fixed, rooted,
in a vast sudden silence.

Mrs. Dersingham bit her lip, recovered herself. “I’m
sorry,” she said, coldly and curtly, “but I really must ask
you to stop playing. I’ve—got a bad headache.”

“I see,” replied Lena, getting up from the piano.
“Sorry.” She walked forward a step or two, then looked
at Mrs. Dersingham. “Have you had it all the evening
or has it just come on now?” And this was not a polite
inquiry, but a challenge. The tone of voice made that
obvious.

“Does that matter?” And Mrs. Dersingham turned
away.

Into the silence that fell now there came the voice,
quavering a little, of Mrs. Pearson. “Now I really think
it’s time we were going,” it began. But nobody took any
notice of it.

For Lena burst into a torrent of speech. “No, it
doesn’t matter, of course. But I just asked because I

F

ANGEL PAVEMENT

l 5i

thought you might have started that headache since I
came, because you’ve just been as rotten as you could
be, and I didn’t ask to come-I’ve been travelling half
the day and I’m as tired as you are—and I wouldn’t
have come at all if my father hadn’t told me to, and I
thought you were friends of his, but from the minute I
came in, you’ve not said a decent word to me or given
me a decent look—”

“Hoy!” roared her father, seizing her by the arm and
shaking her a little. “What the blazes is all this?
What’s the matter with you, girl? That’s not the way
to behave—”

“No, and that’s not the way to behave either,” cried
Lena, shaking herself free. “What have I done? I didn’t
want to push myself into her beastly house.” And then
she grabbed her father’s arm and burst into tears. “I’m
going,” she sobbed. “Take me home.”

Mr. Golspie put an arm round her and she continued
her sobbing on his shoulder. “Sorry about this,” he said,
over her head. “My fault, I expect. I oughtn’t to have
told her to come. The kid’s a bit nervy—tired, y’know.”

“Yes, of course-travelling and all that,” said Mr.
Dersingham, feeling that some reply was expected.

This was Mrs. Dersingham’s chance, but she did net
take it. She might have accepted the apology if her
husband had not been so ready to accept it and make
an excuse for the girl. But now she turned her back on
Mr. Golspie and his terrible daughter, and said to Mrs.
Pearson: “Must you really go? It’s quite early, you

ST- ° h ’ Mrs - Tra P e ’ y° u ’ re not going, are you?
Why? And it was well done, bravely done, but it was
a mistake, perhaps the biggest mistake she ever made.

Mr. Golspie’s face changed its expression, all the good

THE DERSINGHAMS AT HOME 155

humour dying out of it at once. “All right,” he said
shortly. “Come on, Lena, shake yourself up a bit. We’re
going now. Good night all. See you in the morning,
Dersingham. Good night.” And immediately he
marched himself and his daughter out of the room,
and, a minute later, before Dersingham had followed
him up, out of the house.

Half an hour later, the Dersinghams were alone, and
Mrs. Dersingham was curled up in the largest chair,
crying. “I don’t care, I don’t care,” she sobbed. “They
were awful, both of them. The man was nearly as bad
as his terrible daughter. They were ghastly, and I hope
to Heaven I never see either of them again. Or any of
those people, except Mrs. Pearson. Oh, what a horrible,
ghastly evening!”

“I know, I know, my dear,” said her husband, hover¬
ing about vaguely and trying to be consoling. “Every¬
thing went wrong. I know.”

“No, you don’t, you can’t possibly know how awful
it was for me. No, don’t touch me, leave me alone. I
just want to go miles and miles away, and never see
anybody for months. Don’t ever let me see those vile
Golspies again. And I don’t care what I said or did. It
couldn’t be too bad for them. Next time, if you want to
invite anybody from Angel Pavement, invite the clerks
and the typists, anybody before those awful Golspies.”

“There, there,” said Mr. Dersingham, “there, there,
there.” And when dialogue is reduced to this, it is time
we quitted the scene.

Lena, in the taxi that carried them away from Bark-
field Gardens, had stopped crying and was now fiercely
resentful, like the spoilt child she was. “Well, they were
rotten snobs. And it wasn’t my fault that half her

ANGEL PAVEMENT

beastly dinner had been dropped outside tie door; I
didn’t even know until you told me; and it was prob¬
ably a good job for you, it was dropped, for I’ll bet it
was the most awful muck. But there wasn’t one of those
old cats who gave me a decent look or spoke a decent
word to me. You ought to have seen that long thin
boney one when I asked her what she was looking so
funny about! And you needn’t think it was only me
they didn’t like, either. They didn’t like you, I could
see that. They weren’t real friends, any of them.”

“Who said they were, young woman?” her father de¬
manded. “Don’t make such a palaver about it. I know
all about ’em. The best of the lot was that chap with
the long neck and the wobbly cheeks—Pearson, the chap
from Singapore—and he was only half baked. If Dersing-
ham’s wife doesn’t think we’re good enough for them,
let her go on thinking so. I’ll bet she thinks I’m good
enough to keep on putting some ginger in that half dead
concern of theirs. After what I’ve seen of the Dersing-
ham end of Twigg and Dersingham, all I can say is that
Twigg, whoever he was, must have been a dam’ smart
chap to have got the firm going at all.”

“You don’t mean to say you’re making money for those
blighters?” cried Lena, winding an arm round his.

“The people I’m going to make money for,” replied
Mr. Golspie grimly, at the same time squeezing the arm.
“are these people, these two here. Just you keep quiet
and leave it to me, Miss Golspie.”

Chapter Pour

TURGIS SEES HER

1

f a ^URGIS was not lazy, and while he was in the
I office he preferred doing something to doing
X nothing, but he did not share Mr. Smeeth’s
enthusiasm for office work and never regarded himself
as one of the firm. It was all very well for Twigg and
Dersingham to be suddenly busy again, indeed much
busier than they had ever been before, but Turgis did
not see the fun of going hard at it all day and every day
and frequently having to stay an hour later. No doubt
somebody was doing well out of it, but he, Turgis, was
getting nothing out of it but a great deal more work.
He grumbled about this to Mr. Smeeth. It was Satur¬
day morning; he had just received his fortnight’s pay,
six pound notes, one ten shilling note, and two florins;
and it was a time for such confidences.

“All right, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the
manner of a person who knew a great deal. “That’s
your point of view, isn’t it?”

Turgis, a little diffidently now, for he had a consider¬
able respect for Mr. Smeeth, if no particular liking for
him, replied that it was.

“Now let me tell you something, my boy,” Mr. Smeeth
continued gravely. “Just a week or two ago—I’ll tell you
exactly what day it was; it was the day Mr. Golspie first

157

1-8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

called here-Mr. Dersingham was talking things over
with me, in that room there. I’m telling you this in con¬
fidence, mind. And Mr. Dersingham said the office ex¬
penses were too big and somebody would have to go.
And it looked as if that somebody would be you.”

"Me!” Turgis’s mouth, always open a little, was now
wide open, for his jaw suddenly dropped.

‘‘You, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the satisfied air
of a man who has produced the desired effect. “It was
touch and go whether I told you that very day. I’m glad
I didn’t because you might have got a fright for nothing.
Now it’s all right, of course. We’re busy, and we need
everybody. But when you want to start grumbling about
a bit of extra work, my boy, just you remember that.
You might have been looking for work now, and I’ll bet
you wouldn’t have liked that, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t, Mr. Smeeth,” replied Turgis,
humbly enough.

“And I don’t blame you.” Feeling fairly confident,
for once, about his own job, Mr. Smeeth had a great
desire to enlarge upon this topic, which had for him a
terrible fascination. “Jobs aren’t easy to get, are they?”

“Not if you haven’t influence and you’re not in the
know, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis, who was a great believer
in the mysterious power of influence and being in the
know, and realised only too well that there were few
people in London who had less influence or were further
from the know than himself. “That’s the trouble. I
seen it myself. You can’t get a look in. I’d a packet-
my words, Ida packet—before I got taken on here.
Trailin’ round, queueing up, round again-oh dear!
You know what it’s like.”

“No, I don’t,” Mr. Smeeth returned sharply.

TURGIS SEES HER 159

“Beg your pardon, Mr. Smeeth. Of course, you don’t.
I do, though. Oo, it’s sorful,” cried Turgis earnestly.
“ ’S’not getting any better either. Well, I’m glad you
told me, Mr. Smeeth. I’d better keep my mouth shut
a bit, hadn’t I? It is all right, now, isn’t it?”

“Quite all right. You do your best for us,” Mr.
Smeeth added, sententiously, “and we’ll do our best for
you.”

Turgis came nearer, and lowered his voice when he
spoke. “D’you think, Mr. Smeeth, there’ll be any
chance of a rise, now I’m getting all this extra work?
Ought to be, oughtn’t there? I mean, I’m not getting
a lot really,’ am I?”

“You leave it alone a bit, Turgis, and just do your
best, and then I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I wish you would, Mr. Smeeth. You see, it’s not as
if I’d got anybody helping me with my work, ’cos this
new typist doesn’t really help me out much, does she?
And if you could—just—you know—say something to Mr.
Golspie or Mr. Dersingham, because, you know, Mr.
Smeeth, I am doing my best, and you mustn’t think I
want to grumble, ’cos I don’t.”

The new typist had been a great disappointment to
Turgis, not because she was of no assistance to him in
his work, but because she was not the attractive young
creature his heated fancy had conjured up to fill the post.
Miss Poppy Sellers, with her unfortunate Oriental effect
which merely resulted in dinginess and untidiness, did
not seem to him at all pretty. At the end of the first
morning, though he was flattered by her awe of him, he
had dismissed her as a very poor bit of girl stuff. When
he had heard that the firm was advertising for another
typist, a younger girl to help Miss Matfield, he had had

jg 0 angel pavement

instant visions of working side by side with one of those
really pretty ones he often noticed making their way
about the City. There were one or two good ones in
Angel Pavement itself: quite a pretty piece downstairs
with the Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co.; another not so
dusty who went up the stairs next door to C. Warstein:
Tailors’ Trimmings ; and a real beauty-one to make
your mouth water, a peach-at Dunbury & Co.: Incan¬
descent Gas Fittings, at the end of the street. And there
were two or three worth looking at, the flashy young
Jewessy type, at Chase ir Cohen’s Carnival Novelties
place at the end. Any one of these girls, walking into
Twigg and Dersingham’s, would have lit up the place
for him, and the day’s routine would have become an
adventure. But they must go and choose this dreary¬
looking kid with the fringe. It was just his luck. Two
girls working in the same office, and neither of them
any good. Miss Matfield was all right in her way, of
course, but then she was too big, too old, and far too
“posh” and bossy for him, even if she had ever showed
any sign—and, so far, she hadn’t—of being really in¬
terested in his existence. This other one, Polly Sellers,
was interested enough, quite ready to be friends, but
then, well—look at her.

The maddening thing about it—and it really was
maddening to Turgis-was that all these other ripe and
adorable girls (he thought of them as “fine bits”) were
all over the place, walking in and out of offices, sitting in
comers of tea-shops, elbowing him sometimes (and he
was always there to be elbowed) in buses and tube trains,
so that you might have thought they worked for every¬
body in the City but Twigg and Dersingham. And it
was no better, perhaps it was worse, when he was roaming

about for pleasure and not simply going to and from
the office. Everywhere he saw them, never missed seeing
them. His mind was for ever busy with their images,
for ever troubled by them. No matter where he went,
he was tantalised, the path underneath his feet a narrow
dusty track of wilderness, but all hung about with rich
forbidden clusters of feminine fruit, shrinking, wither¬
ing, vanishing at a touch.

Turgis was by temperament a lover. His thoughts
never left the other sex long; happiness had for him a
feminine shape; the real world was illuminated by the
bright glances of girls; and at any moment, one of them
might reveal to him an enchanted life they could share
together. It would be easy to see him as a lonely lad
seeking sympathy in that crowd in which he was lost.
It would be just as easy to see him as a figure of furtive
lusts, whose mind descended and there lived eagerly in
an underworld of tiny mean contacts, seemingly acci¬
dental pressures of the arm and the foot. Yet behind
both these figures was the lover. And this, in spite of
his shabbiness and unprepossessing looks, the shiny
baggy suit and the frayed tie, the open mouth, that slight
pastiness and spottiness, that faint grey film which
seemed to cover and subdue his physical self. He was
no dapper lady-killer. But then if Turgis, even within
his scanty means, did not try very hard to make himself
superficially attractive to the sex that despises crumpled
clothes, matted hair, pasty cheeks, youth that has lost
all vividness and glow, it was because he believed that
the cry from within, urgent, never ceasing, must receive
an answer. He knew that he had little to offer on the
surface, was nothing to look at, nobody in particular,
but he felt that inside he was different, he was wonderful.

lG2 angel pavement

and that sooner or later a girl, a beautiful and passionate
girl, caring nothing for the outside show, would recog¬
nise this difference, this wonder, within, would cry, “Oh,
it’s you,” and love would immediately follow. Then life
would really begin. So far it had not begun; in the
tangle, blather, jumble of mere existence, of eating,
sleeping, working, journeying, and staring, it had only
made a number of false starts. In other words, Turgis
had had his little adventures but was not yet in love, or
rather—for he was perpetually in love—had not yet
found the single outlet for all this flood, the one girl.

After returning to his own desk, Turgis thought about
these other girls who might so easily have come to work
by his side instead of continuing with the Kwik-Work
Razor Blade or Dunbury fa Co., and then, dismissing
them reluctantly, he began to tidy up his desk and finish
off the week’s work. It was after twelve, and the week¬
end was in sight. He leaned forward on his high stool,
and breathed hard over communications from the
London and North Easteiyr Railway and the City Trans¬
port Company. There was a girl at the City Transport
—he had never seen her, but she often answered the
telephone-who sounded nice, lovely voice she had, and
once or twice he had made her laugh. If he had been
in the office by himself, he would have talked to her
properly, perhaps suggested an appointment-on the
pictures they called it a “date,” but Turgis thought of it
as a “point”—but he was never alone, and even if there
was only that silly kid, Stanley, there, it would spoil it.
But it was fine to hear her laugh down the telephone.
Silvery, that was it-silvery laughter-her silvery laughter
—just like in a book.

He was interrupted by a touch on his arm, and he

TURGIS SEES HER

163

looked round to find the new typist at his elbow, looking
up at him with her biggish brown eyes. She had a lot of
powder on one side of her nose, and none at all, just
shiny skin, on the other side. No good.

“Please,” said Miss Sellers in her chirpy little Cockney
voice, “please, have you written to the Anglo-What’s-It
Shipping?”

“No, I haven’t,” he replied.

She merely stared.

“I haven’t written to the Anglo-What’s-It Shipping,”
he continued severely, “because I’ve never heard of the
Anglo-What’s-It Shipping. Don’t know them—see?”

“Oo, I’m sorry,” though she did not sound very sorry.
“Have I said something wrong? I can’t remember all
these names yet. Give me a chance. You know who I
mean, don’t you? It is Anglo-something, isn’t it?”

“If it’s the Anglo-Baltic Shipping Co. you’re talking
about,” said Turgis, with dignity, “then I have written to
them. Wrote yesterday, ’s’matter of fact. But to the
Anglo-Baltic, mind you. There’s no ‘What’s-it’ about it.”

The girl looked at him for a moment. “Oo,” she cried
softly, “squashed!” And then she promptly walked away.

Turgis glanced after her with distaste. “Getting
cheeky now,” he told himself. “That’s the latest—get¬
ting cheeky. And just because she can’t make up to me.
All right, Miss Dirty Fringe, you’ll have to be told off
soon, you will. Try it again, that’s all, just try it again.”
And he was filled with a righteous indignation, pointing
out to himself that these girls didn’t know their place in
an office, wouldn’t get on with their work properly, and
were always trying their little tricks on men who wanted
to do their job with no nonsense about it.

There was a familiar scurrying, as of some small

164 angel pavement

animal of the undergrowth that had got itself shod with
leather and iron tips; the door burst open; Stanley had
returned.

“Come on, boy, come on,” said Mr. Smeeth, looking
over his eyeglasses. “Get those letters copied, sharp as
you can. Don’t want us to be here all day, waiting for
you, do you?”

“I want to get the one-five from London Bridge, if I
can, Mr. Smeeth,” said Miss Matfield. “I’m spending
the week-end in the country, thank God.”

“You’ll get it all right, Miss Matfield,” Mr. Smeeth
told her. “Plenty of time. Now then, Stanley—bustle
about. Sharp’s die word, my boy.”

“Oo, Miss Matfield,” Miss Sellers began, staring at
her, “d’you reelly like the country this weather? I don’t
know how you can bear it. I couldn’t, not now, when it’s
winter. It’s not as if it was summer, is it?”

“Like it best in winter, if it’s not raining too hard.
Jolly good. Nothing like so filthy as London is in
winter.”

“Well, I’m sure it would give me the ’ump,” Miss
Sellers declared. “But I do like it in summer. It’s lovely
in summer, I think. You could almost see her looking
at the buttercups and daisies. “I like the seaside best°
though, don’t you, Miss Matfield? It’s lovely at the sea¬
side in summer, I think. I’ve never been in winter. It’s
nice in summer even when it rains at the seaside
isn’t it?”

Miss Matfield replied, shortly but amiably, that it was,
and then began clearing up her papers.

„ “ Here >” cried Stanley, in the middle of his copying,
“I seen a smash right in Moorgate.” He looked round
triumphantly.

TURGIS SEES HER

165

“I'll bet you didn’t,” said Turgis.

“I did, and I bet you I did. Anyhow, if I didn’t see it,
I was there just after, xvhen the bobby was taking names.
Oh, what a crowd! I got right to the front. Car and a
lorry it was. The lorry was all right, but you oughter
seen the car. Oh no, it wasn’t a mess—oh no!”

“And how many hours did you stand there, eh?” Mr.
Smeeth inquired. “That’s what takes your time, my boy
—doing your bit of nosy-parkering.”

“I had to go that way and I couldn’t get past, Mr.
Smeeth,” Stanley cried indignantly. “So I had to see
what was up, couldn’t help it. I thought the bobby
might take my name as a witness, but he didn’t. I wish
he had done,” he added wistfully. “I’d like to be a
witness.”

“If you don’t finish those letters in ten minutes,” said
Mr. Smeeth, wagging a finger at him, “you’ll be in the
dock, and never mind being a witness. How are you
getting on, Turgis?”

“Nearly finished, Mr. Smeeth,” Turgis replied. “I’ll
just give the City Transport a ring to see if they’ve heard
anything about that lot we sent to Norwich.” And he
promptly went to the telephone.

There was no silvery laughter this time from the City
Transport Company. The voice that answered him was
not only a masculine voice, but also an irritated,
badgered, weary, despairing voice, that of a man who
was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he would be
spending all Saturday afternoon answering idiotic in¬
quiries. “Yes, I know, I know,” it barked. “You rang
me up before about it. Well, we’re doing our best.
We’ve got the matter in hand. Yes, yes, yes, I’ve told
our Norwich people. I’ll let you know on Monday,

i6(> ANGEL PAVEMENT

The first thing, the very first thing, on Monday, I’ll let
you know.” It was pleading now. “Can’t do more than
that, can I?” And now it was tired of pleading, “All
right, all ri-ight, we’re doing what we ca-a-an. Ring you
on Mo-o-onday.”

“They’ve got through to Norwich about it, Mr.
Smeeth,” said Turgis, “but they say it’ll have to stand
over till Monday.”

“That’s all right then, Turgis. Give them a ring on
Monday.”

There was now a feeling throughout the office that
all manner of things would have to stand over until
Monday. This feeling was not confined to Twigg and
Dersingham, but could have been discovered operating
upstairs at the Universal Hosiery Co. and the London
and Counties Supply Stores, and downstairs at the
Kwik-Work Razor Blade Co., and at Chase & Cohen:
Carnival Novelties on the one side and at Dunbury ir
Co.: Incandescent Gas Fittings on the other side, in fact,
all up and down Angel Pavement, and far beyond Angel
Pavement, in all the banks and offices and showrooms
and warehouses of the City. Very soon the City itself
would be standing over until Monday: the crowds of
brokers and cashiers and clerks and typists and hawkers
would have vanished from its pavements, the bars would
be forlorn, the teashops nearly empty or closed; its trams
and buses, no longer clamouring for a few more yards
of space, would come gliding easily through misty blue
vacancies like ships going down London River; and the
whole place, populated only by caretakers and police¬
men among the living, would sink slowly into quietness;
the very bank-rate would be forgotten; and it would be
left to drown itself in reverie, with a drift of smoke and

TURGIS SEES HER 16?

light fog across its old stones like the return of an army
of ghosts. Until—with a clatter, a clang, a sudden raw
awakening—Monday.

Papers were swept into drawers, letters were stamped
in rows, blotters were shut, turned over, put away,
ledgers and petty cash-boxes were locked up, typewriters
were covered, noses were powdered, cigarettes and pipes
were lit, doors were banged, and stairs were noisy with
hasty feet. The week was done. Out they came in
their thousands into Angel Pavement, London Wall,
Moorgate Street, Cornhill and Cheapside. They were
so thick along Finsbury Pavement that the Moorgate
Tube Station seemed like a monster sucking them down
into its hot rank-inside. Among these vanishing mites
was one with a large but not masterful nose, full
brown eyes, a slightly open mouth, and a drooping
chin. This was Turgis going home.

He had to stand all the way, and though there were
at least five nice-looking girls in the same compartment
—and one was very close to him, and two of the others
he had noticed several times before—not one of them
showed the slightest interest in him.

2

When Turgis returned again to the earth’s surface, he
plunged at once into the noise and litter of High Street,
Camden Town, and then turned up the Kentish Town
Road, for he lodged in Nathaniel Street, which lies in
that conglomeration of short streets between the
Kentish Town Road and York Road. He was rather
later than usual, for this new Golspie business was

j£3 angel pavement

having its effect even on Saturday morning, and so he
walked quickly for once. He was ready for dinner and
he knew that dinner would be ready for him. On Satur¬
days and Sundays, his landlady provided dinner as well
as breakfast, and, indeed, was not averse to laying out
a bit of tea, too, if that should be called for, Turgis
having been with her now for eighteen months and
having proved himself to be-by Nathaniel Street
standards, which are based on a bitter knowledge of this
world—a good quiet lodger, sober, and punctual in his
payments. During the week, he had, officially, nothing
but breakfast in the house, and had to shift for himself
for his other meals, which followed a descending scale
of luxury every fortnight, beginning with the alternate
week-ends when he was paid. Thus, every other
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Turgis was well fed,
and every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he was
comparatively half starved. At a pinch, however, his
landlady would always give him a little supper. They
were all friendly together. They had to be, for they all
used the same back room for meals. The bed-sitting
room that Turgis had at the top of the house, so small
that the iron bedstead, the yellow washstand, the three
deal drawers, the lopsided and groaning basket chair,
and the little old gas-fire, a genuine antique among
gas-fires, made it seem uncomfortably crowded with
furniture and fittings, was no place in which to feed.
It did not like being sat in, resented the sight of a cup
of tea and a biscuit, and the presence of one good plate¬
ful of roast beef, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and gravy,
would have completely finished it.

Number Nine, like all the other houses in Nathaniel
Street, was small and dark, and its gloomy little hall

TURGIS SEES HER

i5g

war. haunted by a mixed smell of cabbage, camphor, and
old newspapers. Turgis never noticed this smell, but
on the very rare occasions when he visited some other
and less odorous house, then he noticed the absence of
it, his nose declaring at once that it had found itself
in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Now he hung up his hat
and coat and marched straight into the back room.
There he discovered his landlady, who, having finished
dinner, was enjoying a cup of tea by the fire. She was
not enjoying this cup of tea, however, in an easy leisurely
fashion; she was sitting, almost tense, on the very edge
of the chair; and she had something of the air of a
cavalry general between two phases of a battle.

Mrs. Pelumpton had every right to such an air. She
was a short and very broad woman, with a mop of untidy
grey hair and a withered apple face, and it was easy to
see that all her adult life had been one long struggle,
and that unless she suffered a paralytic stroke or was
driven out of her wits, she would die fighting. In her
presence, progress seemed the most absurd myth. If
Mrs. Pelumpton could have been turned into the wife of
a marauding Viking or one of the women following
Attila’s horde, she would have felt she had been given
a well-earned rest and would have been astonished at,
perhaps horrified by, the sudden colour and gaiety of
life.

As soon as she saw Turgis she put down her cup and,
as it were, jumped into the saddle again. She placed
on the table two covered plates, her lodger’s dinner,
meat and vegetables under one cover, pudding under
the other.

“I’m a bit late to-day, Mts. Pelumpton,” said Turgis,
settling down.

1-0 ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Well, I said to myself you might have been or you
might not, according to whether that clock’s gone and
got fast again, and it might well have done that, the
way he’s been playing about with it.”

“About a quarter of an hour fast, I make it—might
be twenty minutes.”

“And that,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, very decisively, “is
what comes of messing about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’
I told him. ‘Clocks isn’t in your line.’ Not that quarter
of an hour’s going to hurt anybody in this house—
except Edgar, and he’s got his own watch with proper
railway time on it.” Edgar, her son, who also lived in
the house, worked on the railway down at King’s Cross.
Turgis rarely saw him.

“That’s a nice bit o’ meat you’re having there, Mr.
Turgis, isn’t it?” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, after
taking a noisy sip of tea and then staring over the cup
at him. “Chilled, that is. You’d have thought that was
English if I hadn’t told you, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would, Mrs. Pelumpton.”

“Well, I won’t deceive you. It isn’t. It’s chilled.
And it all depends on the picking. Take what they
offer, and you don’t know where you are. You’ve got
to look about a bit and pick it yourself. They know me
now.” And here Mrs. Pelumpton produced a short
triumphant laugh. “They know me all right. ‘Pick
where you like, Ma,’ he always says to me. ‘Oh, I’ll
watch it,’ I tells him. ‘I’ll watch it.’ And I do.”

“That’s the style. It’s a very nice dinner, Mrs.
Pelumpton.”

A certain shuffling noise indicated that the master of
the house, the messer-about with clocks, Mr. Pelumpton,
was now approaching. Mr. Pelumpton moved very

TURGIS SEES HER 1^1

slowly, partly because he suffered from rheumatism, and
partly because he was a man of great dignity. To look
at him, at his slack and dingy figure, at his watery eyes,
bottle nose, ragged and drooping grey moustache, to
mark his leisurely air, was to imagine at once that Mr.
Pelumpton was one of those men who do not work
themselves, but merely see that their wives and children
work for them. But this was not the truth. Mr. Pelump¬
ton did work, as his talk would quickly inform you.
He was a dealer. He had no shop of his own, but he had
some vague connection with a shop, where an astonish¬
ing variety of second, third, or fourth hand goods were
sold, owned by a friend of his. He passed his time in a
dusty underworld in which battered chests of drawers
and broken gramophones changed hands and the deals
were in shillings and the commission in pence. He
interviewed parties who had for sale a cracked toilet set
or an old bicycle or five mildewed volumes of The
Stately Homes of England. He could sometimes be
found in the humblest auction rooms, ready to bid up
to half a crown for the odds and ends. Every Friday
he became a bona fide merchant by making an appear¬
ing in Caledonian Market, where, on that grey and
windy height, he stood beside a small but very varied
stock, consisting perhaps of a Banjo Tutor, two chipped
pink vases, a silk under-skirt, a large photograph of
General Buffer, five dirty tennis balls, a zither with
most of the strings missing, and the Letters of Charles
Kingsley. Dealing thus in things that were only one
remove from the dust-bin. Mr. Pelumpton did not con¬
trive to make much money, and indeed he had been
dependent for some time on Mrs. Pelumpton and
Edgar; but, on the other hand, you could not say he

1^2 ANGEL PAVEMENT

did not work. He was in the second-hand trade, in the
buying and selling line, a legitimate dealer, and took
himself and his mysterious business with enormous
seriousness. If he was not doing very well, that was
because trade was so bad. Mr. Pelumpton had all the
deliberation and dignity of an antique merchant prince.
He smoked a foul little pipe, liked a glass of beer, was
a great reader of newspapers, and always talked in a very
solemn and confidential manner. Like many dealers
and Caledonian Market men, who have drooping
moustaches, very few teeth, and a confidential manner,
he softened all the sibilants, putting an “h” behind
every “s.” There is no doubt that a dealer who can
only say “Yes” is not in such a strong position as the
dealer who can draw it out into a mysterious “Yersh.”
Mr. Pelumpton was essentially a “Yersh” man.

He now advanced very slowly into the room, carefully
seated himself by the fire, took out his evil little pipe,
looked at Turgis in a watery fashion, nodded solemnly,
put back his pipe, and waited for somebody to ask him
something.

“Well, did you catch him in?” his wife inquired. Mr.
Pelumpton was always having to slip round the corner
to catch somebody in, even if he had only just finished
his own dinner.

“Out till five,” replied Mr. Pelumpton. “And a
shaushy ansher for me trouble.”

“Who’s bin giving you a saucy answer?”

“Hish mishish,” said Mr. Pelumpton, “if it ish hish
mishish. 'Can’t expect to find ’im in on Shaturday
arfternoon,’ she shaysh to me. ‘You’ll excuse me,
mishish,’ I told her, ‘but in my bishnish, you’ve got to
work Shaturday arfternoon shame ash any other arfter-

TURGIS SEES HER

*73

noon. Yersh,’ I told her, ‘an’ Shunday arftemoon too,
if you’re not careful’ Jusht telling her politely, shee?
All right, what doesh she shay to that? She shaysh,
‘Well, we’re diff’rent ’ere, shee?’ and then shlamsh the
door in me faysh.”

“The cheeky monkey!” cried Mrs. Pelumpton indig¬
nantly. “I’d slam it in her face if I’d anything to do
with her. It’s downright ignorance, that’s what it is.
There’s people round here has no more idea ’ow to
behave than a—a—a parrot.”

“Ar, well,” Mr. Pelumpton continued, philosophi¬
cally, “we’ve got a lot to put with in our bishnish. And
you can take that from me, Mishter Turgish. But if
the shtufE’s there, we don’t mind. All in the day’sh
work, shee?”

“After something good, Mr. Pelumpton?” Turgis
inquired.

“That’sh right. A lovely piesh he’sh got to shell-a
shide board-oh, a lovely piesh, it ish-only wantsh a
bit of polishing and it’sh good enough for anybody, that
piesh ish, fit for a palash. I can’t ’andle it myshelf, not
ash trade ish now, but I know who can. It’sh a com¬
mission job.”

“That’s the idea,” said Turgis, with vague approval.
He was a youth who liked to agree with his company,
not because he felt kindly disposed towards other people
but simply because it was less trouble to agree and
applaud. He really thought Mr. Pelumpton a ridiculous
old bore.

“Now that’s one thing I’ve always wanted,” cried Mrs.
Pelumpton. “A sideboard, a proper nice sideboard, cup¬
boards and all, and room for everything. Mahogany,
I’d like.”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

174

“Ar, that’sh what a lot 0’ people would like. They’re
fetching good money them thingsh are. Show me a good
shideboard, a sholid piesh-not sho much of your shtuff
about it, Mishter Turgish—”

"What’s his stuff, for Heaven’s sake?” Mrs. Pelump-
ton demanded. “He hasn’t got any stuff, have you, Mr.
Turgis? What are you talking about, Dad?”

Mr. Pelumpton took out his pipe for this, and looked
very reproachfully at his wife. “What am I talking
about? I’m talking about what I know, that’sh what
I’m talking about. ’Ow many pieshesh of furnisher
have been through my handsh? Thoushandsh. All right
then. Don’t I know the trade? Ho, no! Ho, no! I don’t
know the trade.” Then he pointed his pipe at Turgis,
who was very busy with his treacle pudding, and then
said very slowly, very solemnly: “Veneersh. You know
what them are. Well, that’sh hish shtuff. Am I right,
Mishter Turgish?”

“That’s right,” said Turgis. “That’s what we sell at
our place, Mrs. Pelumpton. Veneers for furniture and
inlays, and all that. ’S’matter of fact, I don’t have any¬
thing to do with ’em personally, ’cos it isn’t my par¬
ticular job, but that’s what we sell all right.”

“Well, I never did!” Mrs. Pelumpton was filled with
honest wonder at a world in which so many different
things were bought and sold. “And I never knew that.
Thought you was in an office, down in the City, y’know
—a clurk.”

“Sho he ish,” her husband assured her, “but that’sh
what hish firm shellsh. He told me long shinsh, didn’t
you, Mishter Turgish. Well, ash I wash shaying, show
me a good shideboard, a sholid piesh, and I’ll get you
what you like for it—in reashon, in reashon, y’know.

TURGIS SEES HER

175

Trade may be bad. Trade ish bad. But for shome
thingsh you ’ave a shteady demand, that’sh what you
’ave—a shteady demand. Where we’re feeling it in our
bishnish ish in the shmall thingsh—” Mr. Pelumpton
was now settling down to a good long monologue, but
he reckoned without his audience, both of whom knew
these monologues too well. His wife, seeing that
Turgis had finished, pounced upon his used plates and
bore them off, with a bustle and clatter that brought a
frown to her husband’s face. He now tried to button¬
hole Turgis, who was lighting a cigarette. “Now you
take me, Mishter Turgish,” he began.

But Turgis refused to take him; he had taken him too
often before; and now he promptly escaped upstairs,
to his own room. It is difficult for a room to be both
stuffy and cold, but this room contrived it somehow, and
offered you the choice, if you chose to interfere with it,
of being still stuffier or still colder. Turgis, who pre¬
ferred stuffiness to cold, lit the gas-fire, that tiny
antique, which so deeply resented being called into
service again that it exploded with an indignant bang
and then wheezily complained every other second. After
the last breath of raw November had been driven out of
the room, Turgis took off his collar and his shoes and
stretched himself out on the bed. First, he read all the
advertisements in his newspaper, which specialised on
Saturdays in the mail-order business. There was a
whole page of these advertisements, offering everything
from Orientally perfumed cigarettes to electric belts for
rheumatism, and Turgis carefully read them all. In
public he pretended to be very knowing and cynical
about advertisements, but in private he was still their
willing victim, and nearly every shilling he spent,

angel pavement

176

whether on clothes, drink, tobacco, or amusement, was
conjured out of his pocket by the richest and most art¬
ful advertising managers. Perhaps that is why his suits
bagged so soon, his shoes soaked up the rain, his cigar-
ettes shredded and split, and his amusements failed to
amuse.

When he had done with the newspaper, he took from
the mantelpiece (and he could do this without getting up
from the bed) the latest issue of a twopenny periodical
that was devoted to the films, though more especially
to the film actors with the longest eyelashes and the
actresses with the largest eyes. He spent the next half
hour staring at the photographs in this paper and
reading its scrappy paragraphs, not with any particular
enthusiasm. Turgis was not really a film enthusiast. He
knew nothing about camera angles and “cutting” and
all the intricacies of crowd work, and never in his life
had he seriously compared one film with another. He
could laugh at the comic men with the rest, but he did
not fully appreciate the clowning on the screen, simply
because he had not a very strong sense of humour. No,
what drew him to the films was the fact that he and
they had a common enthusiasm, they had both a
passionate interest in sex. In those dim sensuous
palaces, filled with throbbing music and shifting
coloured lights, Turgis the lover entered his dream
kingdom. You could say that the money he paid at their
doors was silver tribute to Aphrodite, to whose worship
the Phcefticians of the Californian coast have built more
temples than ever the old Phoenicians of Cyprus did;
and for a few moments, as he sat in the steep darkened
galleries, Turgis would be shaken and then intoxicated
by the golden presence of the goddess as she flashed

TURGIS SEES HER 177

through with her train, Eros and the Hours and the
Graces, though of all that retinue only two remained
with him, to see him home, Pothos and Himeros, shapes
of longing and yearning.

, The paper slipped from his fingers. His eyes closed;
his jaw dropped a little; and his head turned on the
pillow, so that the light of the gas-fire, now coming to
life in the dwindling daylight, for the window was no
brighter than a slate, played faintly but rosily on his
features, the pleasant width of brow, the nose that had
missed masterfulness, the round chin that fell away, and
as his breathing grew more regular and he slipped into
unconsciousness, that light brought something at once
grotesque and sad, the red gleam and deep shadow of
some Gothic tragedy, into the little room. And for an
hour or so Turgis slept, while Saturday went rattling
and roaring on, gathering momentum, through the dark
little abysses of brick and smoke outside, the streets of
London.

3

The Turgis who came out of 9, Nathaniel Street, later
that Saturday afternoon, was quite different from the
youth we have already met. He was washed, brushed,
conscientiously shaved, and he moved briskly. This was
for him the best time of all the week. Saturday sang in
his heart. If the Great Something ever happened, it
would happen on Saturday. The trams, buses, shops,
bars, theatres, and picture palaces, they all gleamed and
glittered through the rich murk to-day for him. Even

r

pS ANGEL PAVEMENT

i

now, Adventure-in high heels and silk stockings—
might be moving his way. He was making for the West
End, for on Saturdays, especially the alternate Satur¬
days when he received his pay, he despised Camden
Town and Islington and Finsbury Park, those little
centres that broke the desert of North London with
oases of flashing lights and places of entertainment.
These were good enough in their way, but if you had a
few shillings to spend, the West was a great deal better,
offering you the real thing in giant teashops and picture
theatres. For this was his usual Saturday night pro¬
gramme, if he had the money: first, tea at one of the big
teashops, which were always crowded with girls and
always offered a chance of a pick-up; then a visit to one
of the great West End cinemas, in which, once inside, he
could spin out the whole evening, perhaps on the edge
of adventure all the time. And this was his programme
for this night, too, though, of course, he was always
ready to modify it if anything happened in the teashop,
if he found the right sort of girl there and she wanted
to do something else.

At the very time he was setting out, hundreds and
hundreds of girls, girls with little powdered snub noses,
wet crimson mouths, shrill voices, and gleaming calves,
were also setting out-nearly all of them, unfortunately,
in pairs-to carry out the very same programme.
Turgis knew this, or perhaps only a hunter’s instinct led
him to where the game were thickest; but he did not
visualise them, luckily for him, for the tantalising image
would have driven him nearly to madness. But there
they were, tripping down innumerable dark steps, chirp¬
ing and laughing together in buses and trams without
end, and making for the same small area, the very same

TURGIS SEES HER 179

building, perhaps to jostle him as they passed. It
would have been easier for Turgis, as he knew only too
well, if he too had had a companion, to match all these
pairs of girls, but he had only a few acquaintances, no
friends, and, in any event, he preferred to hunt in soli¬
tude, to thread his way through the brilliant jungle
alone with his hunger and his dream.

A bus took him to the West End, where, among the
crazy coloured fountains of illumination, shattering the
blue dusk with green and crimson fire, he found the cafe
of his choice, a teashop that had gone mad and turned
Babylonian, a white palace with ten thousand lights.
It towered above the older buildings like a citadel,
which indeed it was, the outpost of a new age, perhaps
a new civilisation, perhaps a new barbarism; and behind
the thin marble front were concrete and steel, just as
behind the careless profusion of luxury were millions of
pence, balanced to the last halfpenny. Somewhere in
the background, hidden away, behind the ten thousand
lights and acres of white napery and bewildering glitter¬
ing rows of teapots, behind the thousand waitresses and
cash-box girls and black-coated floor managers and
temperamental long-haired violinists, behind the
mounds of shimmering bonbons and multi-coloured
Viennese pastries, the cauldrons of stewed steak, the
vanloads of harlequin ices, were a few men who went to
work juggling with fractions of a farthing, who knew
how many units of electricity it took to finish a steak-
and-kidney pudding and how many minutes and
seconds a waitress (five feet four in height and in average
health) would need to carry a tray of given weight from
the kitchen lift to the table in the far corner. In short,
there was a warm, sensuous, vulgar life flowering in the

l8o ANGEL PAVEMENT

upper storeys, and cold science working in the base¬
ment. Such was the gigantic teashop into which Turgis
marched, in search not of mere refreshment but of all
the enchantment of unfamiliar luxury. Perhaps he
knew in his heart that men have conquered half the
known world, looted whole kingdoms, and never
arrived at such luxury. The place was built for him.

It was built for a great many other people too, and, as
usual, they were all there. It steamed with humanity.
The marble entrance hall, piled dizzily with bonbon:
and cakes, was as crowded and bustling as a railway
station. The gloom and grime of the streets, the raw air,
all November, were at once left behind, forgotten: the
atmosphere inside was golden, tropical, belonging to
some high midsummer of confectionery. Disdaining
the lifts, Turgis, once more excited by the sight, sound,
and smell of it all, climbed the wide staircase until he
reached his favourite floor, where an orchestra, led by a
young Jewish violinist with wandering lustrous eyes and
a passion for tremolo effects, acted as a magnet to a
thousand girls. The door was swung open for him by a
page; there burst, like a sugary bomb, the clatter of
cups, the shrill clatter of white-and-vermilion girls, and,
cleaving the golden, scented air, the sensuous clamour
of the strings; and, as he stood hesitating a moment, half
dazed, there came, bowing, a sleek grave man, older than
he was and far more distinguished than he could ever
hope to be, who murmured deferentially: “For one,
sir? This way, please.” Shyly, yet proudly, Turgis
followed him.

That was the snag really, though. This place was so
crowded that you had to take the seat they offered you;
there was no picking and choosing your company at the

TURGIS SEES HER l8l

table. And, as usual, Turgis was not lucky. The
vacant seat he was shown, and which he dare not refuse,
was at a table already occupied by three people, and not
one of them remotely resembling a nice-looking girl.
There were two stout middle-aged women, voluble, per¬
spiring, and happy over cream buns, and a middle-aged
man, who no doubt had been of no great size even before
this expedition started but tvas now very small and
huddled, and gave the impression that if the party stayed
there much longer, he would shrink to nothing but
spectacles, a nose, a collar, and a pair of boots. For the
first few minutes, Turgis was so disappointed that he
was quite angry with these people, hated them. And of
course it was impossible to get hold of a waitress. After
five minutes or so of glaring and waiting, he began to
wish he had gone somewhere else. There was a pretty
girl at the next table, but she was obviously with her
young man, and so fond of him that every now and then
she clutched his arm and held it tight, just as if the
young man might be thinking of running away. At
another table, not far away, were three girls together,
two of whom looked very interesting, with saucy eyes
and wide smiling mouths, but they were too busy whis¬
pering and giggling to take any notice of him. So Turgis
suddenly stopped being a bright youth, shooting
amorous glances, and became a stern youth who
wanted some tea, who had gone there for no other pur¬
pose than to obtain some tea, who was surprised and
indignant because no tea was forthcoming.

“And mindjew,” cried one of the middle-aged women
to the other, “I don’t bear malice ’cos it isn’t in my
nature, as you’ll be the first to agree, my dear. But when
she let fly with that, I thought to meself, ‘All right, my

lS2 ANGEL PAVEMENT

lady, now this time you’ve gone a bit too far. It’s my
turn.’ But mindjew, even then I didn’t say what I
could have said. Not one word about Gravesend crossed
my lips to her, though it was there on the top of my
tongue.”

Turgis looked at her with disgust. Silly old geezer!

At last the waitress came. She was a girl with a nose
so long and so thickly powdered that a great deal of it
looked as if it did not belong to her, and she was tired,
exasperated, and ready at any moment to be snappy.
She took the order—and it was for plaice and chips, tea,
bread and butter, and cakes: the great tea of the whole
fortnight—without any enthusiasm, but she returned in
time to prevent Turgis from losing any more temper.
For the next twenty minutes, happily engaged in grap¬
pling with this feast, he forgot all about girls, and when
the food was done and he was lingering over his third
cup of tea and a cigarette, though no possible girls came
within sight, he felt dreamily content. His mind swayed
vaguely to the tune the orchestra was playing. Adven¬
ture would come; and for the moment he was at ease,
lingering on its threshold.

From this tropical plateau of tea and cakes, he de¬
scended into the street, where the harsh night air
suddenly smote him. The pavements were all eyes and
thick jostling bodies; at every corner, the newspaper
sellers cried out their football editions in wailing voices
of the doomed; cars went grinding and snarling and
roaring past; and the illuminated signs glittered and
rocketed beneath the forgotten faded stars. He arrived
at his second destination, the Sovereign Picture Theatre,
which towered at the comer like a vast spangled wed-
ding-cake in stone. It might have been a twin of that

great teashop he had just left; and indeed it was;
another frontier outpost of the new age. Two Jews,
born in Poland but now American citizens, had talked
over cigars and coffee on the loggia of a crazy Spanish-
Italian-American villa, within sight of the Pacific, and
out of that talk (a very quiet talk, for one of the two
men was in considerable pain and knew that he was
dying inch by inch) there had sprouted this monster,
together with other monsters that had suddenly ap¬
peared in New York, Paris, and Berlin. Across ten
thousand miles, those two men had seen the one-and-
sixpence in Turgis’s pocket and, with a swift gesture,
resolving itself magically into steel and concrete and
carpets and velvet-coloured seats and pay-boxes, had set
in motion and diverted it to themselves.

He waited now to pay his one-and-sixpence, standing
in the queue at the Balcony entrance. It was only a
little after six and the Saturday night rush had hardly
begun, but soon there were at least a hundred of them
standing there. Near Turgis, on either side, the sexes
were neatly paired off. There were one or two middle-
aged women but no unaccompanied girl in sight in the
whole queue. The evening was not beginning too
well.

When at last they were admitted, they first walked
through an enormous entrance hall, richly tricked out
in chocolate and gold, illuminated by a huge central
candelabra, a vast bunch of russet gold globes. Foot¬
men in chocolate and gold waved them towards the two
great marble balustrades, the wide staircase lit with
more russet gold globes, the prodigiously thick and
opulent chocolate carpets, into which their feet sank as
if they were the feet of archdukes and duchesses. Up

ANGEL PAVEMENT

iS 4

they went, passing a chocolate and gold platoon or <wo
and a portrait gallery of film stars, whose eyelashes
seemed to stand out from the walls like stout black
wires, until they reached a door that led them to the
dim summit of the Balcony, which fell dizzily away in a
scree of little heads. It was an interval between pictures.
Several searchlights were focussed on an organ-keyboard
that looked like a tiny gilded box, far below, and the
organ itself was shaking out cascades of treacly sound,
so that the whole place trembled with sugary ecstasies.
But while they waited in the gangway, the lights faded
out, the gilded box dimmed and sank, the curtains
parted to reveal the screen again, and an enormous
voice, as inhuman as that of a genie, announced that
it would bring the world’s news not only to their eyes
but to their ears.

“One? This way, sir,” and the attendant went down,
flashing his light. This was always an exciting moment
for Turgis. He might find himself next to some wonder¬
ful girl, as lonely as he was, who would talk to him,
squeeze his hand, let him take her home, and kiss him in
the darkness of some mysterious suburb. The great
adventure might begin at the end of that pointing
pencil of light. On the other hand, he might find him¬
self miserably wedged in between two fat middle-aged
people. It was all a gamble, with the odds heavily
against the wonderful girl, as he knew too well. But
still, there was always a chance, and he never walked
down these dark steps behind the electric torch with¬
out feeling a mounting excitement.

The light pointed along a row, and he followed it,
pushing past a dozen indignant knees. The last pair
was very stubborn, and he negotiated them without en-

THPG IS SEES HER

185

tnuMasm. He had no luck. Here, on one side ot 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 f 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
most 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,
md though the rooms in these flats were three hundred

igg angel pavement

feet long and two hundred feet broad, the parties them¬
selves were undoubtedly intimate affairs, at which a girl
was able to express herself by dancing on the table and
throwing off some of her clothes. Everything this girl
wore, every movement she made, only called the atten¬
tion of these leering fellows to some part of her ravish¬
ing figure; and even when she herself had stopped
making eyes and smiling at them and' undulating
round them, with a champagne glass in her hand, her
charming legs still insisted on claiming their notice. It
was obvious that at any moment these rich cads would
make their old mistake, they would assume that she
was not a virtuous girl and would act accordingly, to
her astonishment and indignation and shame at being
so misunderstood, so treated. Meanwhile, the young
inventor had received a letter (and you heard him tear
it open) asking him to come to New York to meet three
heavy men who had just been barking at one another
about him in the previous scene. It was, as he himself
admitted, his “beeg chaince.”

His train was still roaring across the screen when
Turgis, whose interest had been thoroughly roused,
heard a voice say, “ ’Scuse me,” and saw a dim feminine
shape that was obviously trying to get past.

“ ’S’quite all right,” he said affably, withdrawing his
knees to let her pass.

She dropped into the seat on his left, taking the place
of the man with the foul pipe, who must have crept out,
towards the other gangway, without Turgis noticing
him. This girl who had just arrived was still only a dim
shape, but he felt sure she was young and pretty.

“’Scuse me," she whispered again, “but is this the
big picture?”

TURGIS SEES HER

I 87

“Yes, it is,” he replied eagerly.

“Has it been on long?”

“Not, not so long. Is isn’t half through yet, I’m sure,”
he told her, trying to talk as if he were a confidential old
friend. “I’ll bet the best’s coming on.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” she said, settling herself
in the rather narrow seat and then giving her attention
to the screen.

A faint sweet whiff of scent had come his way. His
senses did not wait for any more evidence; they reported
at once to his imagination, which immediately dowered
the vague dark figure beside him with all sweetness and
prettiness, not unlike that of Lulu Castellar, who was at
the moment absent from the screen, the young inventor,
having arrived in New York, being barked at by the
three heavy men. Turgis took in all that the film had to
offer him, but now he was no longer lost in it; he was
living intensely in the tiny darkened space between him
and the girl. Instinctively, he edged a little her way.
Their elbows touched on the arm of the seat, and even
that trifling contact sent a thrill through him. A little
later, his left leg encountered something at once firm
and soft, another leg, a beautifully rounded feminine
leg, and the two remained in contact. This, like the
other, may have been casual, but to Turgis the effect was
electric. And then it chanced that his hand, hanging
loose bv his side, touched another hand, which was not
withdrawn when it was touched again, this time de¬
liberately. The two hands now met fairly; they grasped
one another, squeezed; their fingers were intertwined;
they sent and received messages in the dark. Turgis
could now regard the graceful antics of Lulu Castellar
with a benevolent detachment. The dream life of the

i88

ANGEL PAVEMENT

screen was nothing compared with the pulsating real life
of those contacts in die warm gloom, those little pressures
and squeezes that were signals from that other en¬
chanted world. He did not try to talk to her again.
That would come later. He said nothing, hardly looked
her way, afraid lest he should break the spell.

When the film ended and a kind of soft russet dawn
broke as the screen disappeared behind the curtains,
they moved away from one another, and he did not even
catch a glimpse of her face. A great many people went
and, and a great many others came in, but they were not
disturbed. Then the curtains moved again; a soft russet
twilight came, only to fade into darkness; and the pro¬
gramme artfully continued. But would this other and
far more exciting programme continue? His heart
bounded in the new darkness. He leaned towards her
again; she did not evade him; and hand clasped hand
again, stickily perhaps now but still exquisitely, thrill-
ingly. Turgis had not been so happy for months.

It was not until the young inventor’s train to New
York was again roaring across the screen, after the pro¬
gramme had gone round its full circle, that the girl
loosened her hand and began to put on her gloves.
Turgis had been waiting for this moment for some time.
When she rose, he rose too; and she followed him past
the indignant knees and up the stairs. It was when they
reached the exit steps, descending into the real world,
that he turned and spoke to her. And he knew instinc¬
tively that they were not now the two people who had
been holding hands for so long in the darkness inside;
those two intimates were ghosts now; these two on the
steps, In the light, were strangers and would have to
Begin over again. When he spoke he acted upon this

TURCI6 SEES HER

189

instinctive or intuitive knowledge.

“How did you like the picture then?” he asked,
casually.

“I didn’t think it was so very good,” she replied, just
as casually. “I don’t like that Lulu Castellar. Pulls
herself about a bit too much, she does, if you ask me.
Might as well have Saint Vitus dance and have done
with it. Do you like her?”

“Oh—I dunno—she’s all right,” he muttered. He
was recovering from a horrible shock. This girl was
not pretty at all, not even reasonably good-looking. She
was years older than he was, and she was hideous. He
had just caught sight of her face properly for the first
time. Her nose was all twisted and she had a bit of a
squint. She was thirty if she was a day. Oh, hell—
what a wash-out! She was still talking, but he could
not bother listening to what she was saying. Sheer
vexation made his eyes smart. He kept pace with her
down the steps, mumbling an occasional “Yes” and
“No,” but somewhere inside him was a hot little angry
man who screamed and cursed at everything.

“Well,” she said, when they reached the bottom door,
“I’ve got my sister to meet, so I’ll say good night to
you.”

“Good night,” said Turgis miserably.

Saturday night was roaring away outside, but for him
the heart had gone out of it. He walked on mechani¬
cally, so sorry for himself, so angry with everything, that
he could have cried. His head ached from being in that
rotten balcony so long. There were queer aches in his
body too. Where could he go now? Nowhere worth
going to. If you had plenty of money; evening dress;
and all that, you could go to restaurants and night clubs,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

igO

and dance with beautiful girls with fine bare arms. But
he wasn’t in that seam. He’d no evening dress; no
money; and anyhow he couldn’t dance. He couldn’t do
anything. No, perhaps he couldn t, but he was as good as
most of those fat rotten blighters who had the money,
who just went chucking it away while he had to count
every penny. Look at that lot in the big car, with their
fur coats and diamonds and white shirt fronts, probably
going somewhere to dance and get boozed up and God
knows what before they’d finished! Swine! He was as
good as them any day. And better-he did do some
work. What did they do? It was enough to make any
chap turn Bolshie. He didn’t like the other chap who
lodged at Mrs. Pelumpton’s very much; Park was a
dreary, unfriendly sort of devil, and a Sheeny at that;
but he didn’t blame Park for turning Bolshie. For
two pins, he’d turn Bolshie too. Yes, but what was the
good of that?

All this time he had been walking on and on, through
a Saturday night with the bottom dropped out of it,
and now he had left the spangled West End behind him.
He stopped at a coffee stall, where several fools were
arguing about nothing as usual, and had two buns and a
cup of coffee—poor stuff it was too, too sweet and nearly
cold. As he turned his back to the counter, he saw a
girl, a really nice kid with a red hat and big dark eyes,
smiling in his direction, and he smiled back at her hope¬
fully, but then he saw her eyes move slightly and the
smile instantly vanish. She had not been looking at
him before, when she smiled; she had been looking at
the chap standing next to him, who was ordering two
coffees. And what a chap to be out with, to be smiling
at! If that’s what she wanted, she could have him.

TURGIS SEES HER

19 1

One vast sneer, Turgis moved away, and boarded the
first bus he found that would take him to Camden
Town, back to Nathaniel Street with the ruins of his
evening.

“ ’Ad a good time, boy?” said Mr. Pelumpton, now
mellow with beer, as Turgis looked into the back room.
“That’sh the way. Yersh. Enjoy yershelf while you’re
young, I shay, and while you can enjoy yershelf. I did
when I wash your age an’ don’t ferget it, boy.” Here
Mr. Pelumpton chuckled and then coughed. “I ’ad a
good time and nobody could shtop me ’aving one.”

“What’s this about you and your good times?” said
his wife, popping out from nowhere.

“I’m jusht telling our friend ’ere that I don’t blame
him for enjoying himshelf while he’sh young, ’cosh I
did the shame thing when I wash young.”

“Ar, you was a wicked devil you was,” said Mrs.
Pelumpton, with reluctant admiration.

“Oh dear, oh dear!" Mr. Pelumpton chuckled.
“Lishen to that. Ar well, boy, I don’t blame yer. Good
old Shaturday night. I’ve ’ad ’em. I know.”

“I’ll bet you never had, you silly old fathead,”
Turgis muttered under his breath.

“Only jusht remember thish, boy. Don’d overdo it,
that’sh all. Don’d overdo it. You’re only young wunsh,
Enjoy yershelf, if yer like, but don’d overdo it.”

Turgis looked at him in disgust. “Good night all,”
he said, mournfully, and climbed the chilling stain to
his room.

So much for Saturday.

192

angel pavement

4

Sunday was fine, that is, there was no rain, sleet, or
snow falling. There was also very little sunlight falling,
and the streets of Camden Town and Kentish Town
were like echoing slaty tunnels. Turgis saw them when
he went out to buy a paper and a packet of cigarettes,
and as usual he disliked the look of them. They were
not very cheerful on a weekday, but they were a panto¬
mime and a beanfeast then compared to what they were
on Sunday. It was on Sunday that Turgis felt his lone¬
liness most keenly.

It must be admitted, though, that on this particular
Sunday morning he had received and refused two invi¬
tations. The first was from Mr. Pelumpton, who had
decided that he must pay a visit to Petticoat Lane—
“jusht to shee ’ow the shtuff’s goin’,” he said, with an
impressive professional air. He had suggested, with
some condescension, that Turgis might like to go with
him. Turgis had promptly declined. He had been to
Petticoat Lane before, and he saw quite enough of old
Pelumpton in Nathaniel Street and had no desire to go
to Whitechapel with him, merely to provide him with a
listener and some free beer.

The other invitation came from his fellow lodger,
Park, the Bolshie. Park, a neat dark Jewy sort of chap,
quiet and civil enough but with something machine-like
and vaguely menacing about him, just as if he was not
quite human, worked in the printing trade and appa¬
rently had to go at all hours, so that Turgis hardly
ever saw him. Moreover, he was a tremendous com¬
munist worker, for ever attending meetings and con-

TURGIS SEES HER 193

ferences and addressing envelopes to distant comrades
and circulating what seemed to Turgis, who had in¬
spected it, some terribly dreary literature. The two
young men did not like each otner very much, but Park
always saw in Turgis, who had the depressed look of a
faintly class-conscious proletarian, a possible convert.
Hence the invitation, which this time was for some com¬
munist affair, a meeting or two and coffee and cake for
the comrades, somewhere out at Stratford or West Ham..
Turgis turned it down, though not ungraciously, for
though he did not care much for Park, he had a vague
kind of respect for him. But he did not see himself
with the comrades. Perhaps the real reason was that he
could not imagine any girls, real nice girls, not glaring
female comrades, in the picture. He did not tell Park
so, did not even admit it to himself; and when Park,
with the drab innocence of his kind, accused him of
being a timid slave to the bourgeois classes, a would-be
bourgeois himself, he had no defence but a grin and a
jeering noise.

The paper kept him amused until dinner time. After
dinner he went for a walk, which chiefly consisted of
penny bus rides. They finally landed him, as they had
landed a few thousand other people, at the Marble Arch
corner of Hyde Park, where the Sunday orators con¬
gregate. Turgis often visited this forum and listened
to the orators. He had no intellectual curiosity and
never really attended to the arguments, such as they
were, but he had a sort of genial contempt for the
speakers that was a warming, comforting feeling. He
felt that they were a great deal sillier than he was, and
that was pleasant. Moreover, any leisurely crowd
always had an attraction for him, because there was

G*

A N G £ L PAVEMENT

194

always a chance that there might be, somewhere in the
middle of it, bored and lonely, a wonderful girl who
would suddenly smile back at him.

He drifted from speaker to speaker with the crowd,
which was largely composed of youths like himself, all
feeling pleasantly superior, with a sprinkling of aggres¬
sive dialecticians and religious and political fanatics.
There was a fantastic old man in a greenish frock-coat
who banged a large chart and talked in a high sing-song
that left five words out of six quite unintelligible. His
subject—of all things—was shorthand. Turgis stared
at him for a minute or two, concluded that he was mad,
and moved on. The next meeting, a large one, was
political, and the only words Turgis caught—“What
about Russia, where your socialism, my friends, has been
put into practice?”—drove him away at once. Then
there was a tiny group of people round a harmonium,
played by a young man with bulging eyes and a strag¬
gling beard. They were drearily singing a hymn, and
nobody was taking any notice of them. Next to them,
one of those involved discussions, typical of the place,
was in heated progress, and the audience, in its own
ironical fashion, was enjoying it. All that Turgis, at
the back, could hear was the speaker himself, a young
man with spectacles and long yellow hair who had some¬
thing to do with the Catholic Church, who kept crying:
“One mewment, my friend, just one mewment! Kindly
allow me to speak. Yes, yes, but one mewment! You
have asked me if I would considah such a person insane.
Now, one mewment!” Turgis lingered for some time at
this meeting. There were one or two nice girls in the
crowd, but not one of them was by herself. It was no
good. He would have to fin’d a pal.

TURGIS SEES HER

195

The speaker on the right was being heckled by a
woman who looked rather like Mrs. Pelumpton. He
was an elderly man, dressed in an old-fashioned black
suit, and he was shaking a Bible almost in her face.
“Well, what do Ah do?” he cried, his eyes gleaming.
“Ah turn once mo-ore to the graa-aate boo-ook. Yes,
Ah’ve a bahble text for tha-at.” Turgis did not learn
what the text was, for there came a tremendous bellow
from this man’s neighbour’s, a dirty little fellow with a
broad flat nose and an indiarubber mouth, who looked
like a nasty compromise between Hoxton and Man¬
churia. “What is thee yighest idee-al of thee yole
universe, my friends?” he was screaming, in a lather of
oratory. “I’ll tell you. Thee yighest idee-al of thee
yole universe is Man—Man.”' And he thumped him¬
self on the chest. Turgis did not like the look of him at
all. He also did not like the look of the Salvation Army
lasses who were conducting the service on the other side.
They were all so pimply. They looked as if they were
always eating things that disagreed with them.

Next to the Army was a bony, shabby chap, a Bolshie,
possibly one of Park’s pals. Turgis had heard him
before, and only stayed long enough to make sure
that he was on the same tack. He was. “Noo where
did communism firrst appearr, ma frien’s?” he was
asking. “Noat in Russia—oh no! Noat in England—
oh no! Noat in Frrance—oh no! Bu’ in Grreece, ma
frien’s, in ancient Grreece, where a mon called Playto
wrote a buik called The Repuiblic. Yes, Ah know that
this mon should rightly be called Plarto, but if Ah said
Plarto, Ah know everybody would be staring at it an’
wondering who this Plarto was, so Ah call him Playto.
An’ he was the firrst communist.” It was like listening

ANGEL PAVEMENT

196

to a Scots comedian who had gone sour. Turgis moved
on, passing with the merest glance a very tiny group
that everybody had ignored. There were three of them,
two bearded and bare-headed men and a faded woman,
and they were standing close together, apparently pray¬
ing. Nobody was taking any notice of them, except a
battered and boosy old actor (he recited a sort of story
that introduced the names of all the successful plays
running at the time, and Turgis knew him of old) who
was waiting to claim the pitch. Why did these people
come here? Who were they? What did they do at
home? Once more, Turgis concluded they were all
mad, but this time the thought did not give him any
pleasant feeling of superiority. It depressed him. Sup¬
pose he was suddenly taken that way!

But there were roars of laughter coming from the
crowd on the right, and above it Turgis recognised
another familiar figure, an atheist chap, and quite a turn
too. He was a fat young man, with a glittering squint
and a nose so resolutely turned up that it could be
described as a snout; and he had a very self-confident
perky manner and a shrill voice. Turgis edged him¬
self into the audience. “Now, where was Oi? Losing
me plice, wasn’t Oi?” he cried humorously. “Ow,
Oi know. Fish on Froiday, thet was it. Whoi dew
the Catholics eat fish on Froiday? They down’t know.
They down’t-strite! Yew arsk ’em an’ see. They
down’t know. But Oi know.” Here the crowd roared
its approval. “It’s in nonner of the old 1 *'goddess,
Froiyer, goddess of plenty. Froiyer-Froiday—see?
Thet’s whoi they eat fish on Froiday. It is-strite.”
The crowd roared again. “Then there’s the Trinity.
What’s thet? Yew arsk ’em. They down’t know.

TURGIS SEES HER

*97

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

ip8 angel pavement

him that the Higher Thought Alliance, London Circle,
was meeting in that hall, to hear a lecture by Mr. Frank
Dadds of Los Angeles, and that admission was free and
that all would be heartily welcome. He lingered on the
steps, where he was sheltered from the thickening
drizzle, and wondered whether to go in or not. Now
and again, on Sundays, he looked in at various services
and meetings (though he had never tried the Higher
Thought Alliance before, and had never heard of it),
partly for want of something better to do, and partly
because he always hoped he might strike up an acquaint¬
ance with a girl there, perhaps share the same hymn-
book or programme. As he was hesitating, a large
middle-aged woman in a fur coat, who had been fussing
about in the entrance, noticed him and said: “Do come
inside. Everybody is welcome.” So he shook the rain¬
drops from his overcoat, clutched at his hat, and,.shyly,
awkwardly, with his mouth wide open, he entered the
hall. There, of course, before he had time to look round
and see if there were any vacant seats near any nice-
looking girls, an officious little man insisted on showing
him to a seat. There were only about four men in the
hall, but about two or three hundred women, mostly
middle-aged and very dull. His own uncomfortable
cane chair was between two of the dullest. On the plat¬
form, two women with short grey hair and a strained,
gulping sort of expression, played the violin and the
piano, and went on playing for the next ten minutes.
Turgis began to feel sorry he had come, even though
the place was warm and dry and the affair would not
cost him anything.

Then the middle-aged woman in the fur coat, who
had spoken to him outside, mounted the platform, and

TURGIS SEES HER

199

announced that they would begin with a hymn. It was
not an ordinary sort of hymn—even Turgis could see
that—and unfortunately nobody seemed to know the
tune. Even the violinist had some difficulty in arriving
at it. When the hymn finally trailed away into silence,
they all remained standing, and then the woman in the
fur coat said: “We affirm health, which is man’s divine
inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple,” and
everybody else, except Turgis, looked down at slips of
paper and repeated it after her:,-“We affirm health,
which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his
holy temple.” Several of the people near Turgis had
some trouble in affirming this, because they were inter¬
rupted by fits of coughing, but they did their best. After
that, they affirmed all sorts of things, divine love and
power and truth and a general sort of oneness in the
universe. Then they sat down, and nothing happened
for a minute or two, during which time the universe had
an opportunity of taking stock of their attitude towards
it. Turgis was bewildered and not too happy, for the
chair was very uncomfortable and his feet were cold.

He did not listen to what the woman in the fur coat
said when she began talking again. She seemed to be
reading a poem by a friend of hers, and then leaving a
thought with them all. Turgis heard this remark
because she repeated it several times and looked straight
at him, the last time she said it. “And I’ll just leave
that great thought with you,” she cried, and stared hard
at Turgis, who felt embarrassed. The next moment,
the two women with short grey hair were playing th,e
violin and piano like mad, and the fussy little man and
two others were rushing round with collection boxes.
Two hundred and fifty women dived into handbags and

ANGEL PAVEMENT

fcf

1K>0

then sat bolt upright, trying to look as if they did not
know that their right hands were all clutching six¬
pences. Turgis left his pocket alone, and when the
collection box came his way, he gave it a mysterious
shake and then passed it on very quickly.

“A few minutes’ silent meditation,” the woman in the
fur coat announced, composing her face meditatively.
All the other women composed their faces meditatively
too, and then looked down at their shoes. Turgis looked
down at his, and noticed that one of them was splitting
at the side. He wanted to waggle his toes to warm his
feet, but if he began waggling the shoe might split still
more. They were rotten shoes. Everything he ever
bought always turned out to be rotten. He was always
being taken in. What he ought to buy was a pair of
good thick Army boots; there were still some about in
those ex-government stores shops; and they were cheap
and they would last. But there again, what was a girl
going to think of him if she found him clumping about
in boots like a navvy’s? What girl, though? “Where
d’you get your girls from?” he asked himself, with a
sneer. There was a rustle and a shuffle: the silent medi¬
tation was over.

“And I’m sure Mr. Frank Dadds needs no introduc¬
tion from me,” the woman in the fur coat was saying.
“We are delighted to have him here with us again. We
remember the inspiring talks he gave us last time, and
we realise that we have a treat in store.” And there was
an appreciative murmur.

Mr. Frank Dadds of Los Angeles suddenly shot up
as the woman in the fur coat sat down. He was a tallish,
fattish, fairish American in a light brown suit and a
pink tie. He clasped his hands, then rubbed them

TURGIS SEES HER

201

together. He smiled at them all. He was obviously at
home in the universe, and filled with divine love and
power and truth and a general sort of oneness. Even
Turgis was impressed by him, and all the women sat up
and gazed at him with adoration. Then Mr. Frank
Dadds burst into speech.

'‘My friends,” he began, without any hesitation, “the
title of my lecture this evening is Understainding and
Yew. Let me commence by talking about Yew, jast
Yew. Perhaps yew don’t think much of yourselves. Life
doesn’t seem to yew to offer very much. There are
people—and there may be some of them here with us
to-night—who jast haven’t got livingness. They think
that life is always jast the same old thing. They can
even talk of killing time. Killing time!—when every
noo moment of time is diamonded with the greatest
passibilities of lahv and trewth and bewdy. Once we
have got livingness—once we have got understainding—
once we are in toon with the in-fy-nyte—then there is
a power within us, yes, within every one of us, that
can cree-ate the world anoo. Our external selves can
easily be fladdered. It is easy to make too much of what
we’ve done. But it is com-pletely im-passible for any
words—no matter if the greatest poets utter those words
—to fladder what we have within us, our po-tentialities
in baddy, mind, and spirrut. We’ve got to get rid of
what some people like to call our in-feriority camplexes.
We’ve got to realise that power within us. That doesn’t
mean—as some people seem to think—that we should
develap sooperiority camplexes. And why? Bee-cause,
as Noo Thought shows us, there is a Oneness in the
Universe and we are all united in that Oneness. It
isn’t jast the potes who sing lahv songs. The whole

202

ANGEL PAVEMENT

Universe sings a laliv song. The whole Universe is a
lahv song. If it isn’t, the very atoms of which we are
composed would disintegrate. I tell you, my friends,
there is radiant health, there is power, there is wander¬
ful bewdy, there is lahv, all without stint, without
measure, eternal, awaiting all of us, and if we only open
our eyes, find tire way, develap understainding, get in
toon, get livingness, there is not only a heaven above
but a heaven here upon earth'. . .”

‘ For some twenty-five minutes more, the voice went
sounding on, offering them radiant health, power, truth,
beauty, and love, without ever once faltering. Turgis
could not understand it all, but he listened in a happy
dream, forgetting that his chair was uncomfortable and
his feet were cold. He realised that he had only to do
something or other, get this livingness, and oneness and
understanding, just turn a comer, and everything would
be different, everything would be marvellous. Vaguely
he saw himself trim and sleek, with evening clothes, a
huge overcoat, white trousers for summer, money in his
pocket, money in the bank, an office of his own perhaps,
a flat with shaded lights and big chairs and a gramo¬
phone and a wireless set, even a car, and by his side,
worshipping him, the loveliest and kindest of girls. It
was wonderful.

“Come again, young man,” said the fussy .little man,
at the door. “Always glad to see you here.”

“Thank you very much,” said Turgis earnestly, still
glowing.

And then, somehow, outside in the wet streets, among
the black figures hurrying home, it all went. Angrily
he tried to recapture the glow and the dream, but they
would not return. Inside the steaming bus, swayin-

TURGIS SEES HER

203

with the strap he held, he found there was nothing left.
He did not know how to get understanding or livingness
or oneness or any of those things, could not even
imagine what they were. Neither radiant health nor
power, truth nor beauty, was coming his way. As for
love, well, he had better chuck thinking about it. There
was a girl standing next to him, not a bad sort of girl,
but every time the bus went swaying round a corner, he
bumped into her, not hurting her but just gently bump¬
ing into her. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but the
third time it happened, she drew back and looked
daggers at him—silly little idiot! Oh, yes, the universe
was a love song all right!

Park was having a cup of tea and a bite of bread-and-
butter with Mrs. Pelumpton in the back room when he
got back, and he joined them, telling them where he had
been and what he had heard.

“•Dope, my friend, that’s all you’ve had,” said Park
contemptuously, “nothing but dope! Comes from
America, doesn’t it? Yes, and why? Because the
masses there have got to be doped, that’s why. You
come with me next time and you’ll hear something
that’ll open your eyes a bit; no dope, but the real thing.
What’s the matter with you, Turgis, is that you don’t
see how your leg’s being pulled, you’re not properly
class-conscious yet.”

Turgis disliked this contemptuous tone. “Are you
what-is-it—class-conscious, Park?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, you can have it,” Turgis retorted, in a voice
that told Park pretty plainly that he was a dreary devil.

“All right then, my friend, all right. I will have it.
And you keep on with the dope.”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

204

"I don’t want any dope. Don’t believe in it.”

“Well, what do you want then?” demanded Park, who
thought he saw in this a chance of a fine long argument.

“I dunno,” said Turgis, finishing his tea. “Yes, I do,
though. I want to go to bed.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Pelumpton approvingly.
“Bed. You couldn’t go to a better place. I’m sure I’m
ready for mine. We’re all in now, except Edgar, and
I’m not waiting for him.”

And then all that was left of Sunday was a walk
upstairs.

5

Then, the very next day, on Monday of all days, it
happened. It happened in the afternoon. Somebody
came in, and, as Stanley was out, Turgis dashed to the
other side of the frosted glass partition to see who it was.
There, like a being from another world, stood a girl all
in bright green, a girl with large brown eyes, the most
impudent little nose, and a smiling scarlet mouth, the
prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“Good afternoon. Is my father here, please?” She
had a queer, fascinating voice.

“Your father?”

“Yes. Mr. Golspie. This is the place, isn’t it? He
told me to call for him here.”

“Oh yes, he is, Miss-Miss Golspie,” cried Turgis
eagerly, his eyes devouring her all the time. “He’s in
that room there. But I think there’s somebody with
him. Shall I tell him you’re here?”

TURGIS SEES HER

20S

“You needn’t yet if he’s busy with somebody,” said
the glorious creature, smiling at him. “I can wait.”

“I can tell him now, if you like.” He was trembling
with eagerness to help,- to serve.

“No, it doesn’t matter. I know he hates being inter¬
rupted. I’ll wait tor him. I don’t suppose he’ll be long,
will he?”

“I’m sure he won’t,” he told her fervently. “Will you
wait here or in the office? It’s warmer in the office.”

“This will do,” and she made a movement towards
the chair.

“Excuse me, Miss Golspie.” He brought it stumbling
out somehow, and at the same time he dusted the seat
of the chair with his handkerchief. “It—it—might be
dirty, y’know.”

She looked him full in the eyes, deliciously, drowning
him in sweetness, and then smiled. “Thank you. I’d
hate to spoil my new coat. Everything looks a bit grimy
here, doesn’t it? It’s such a frightfully dark place, too,
isn’t it?”

He supposed it was, and tried to imagine her walking
up Angel Pavement outside. He still lingered. “Is
there anything else,” he began vaguely, hovering,
adoring her.

“Quite happy, thanks.”

There was no excuse possible to stay a moment longer.
Reluctantly he returned to his desk, with his heart swell¬
ing with excitement. The others looked at him inquir¬
ingly, but he pretended to be busy with something. He
did not even want to explain about a girl like that. He
wanted to keep the very thought of her being there to
himself. Meanwhile, he was determined to listen hard.
The moment that he heard Mr. Golspie’s visitor going,

206 angel pavement

he would rush out, tell Mr. Golspie she was there, and
thus see her again.

But he was not able to manage it. Mr. Golspie must
have shown his visitor out, for immediately after the
door was opened, Turgis heard Mr. Golspie’s voice boom¬
ing behind the partition. “Hello, Lena girll” he heard
him say. “Forgotten about your coming. Won’t keep
you a minute.”

Mr. Golspie then came into the office. “I’ve got to
go out,” he told Mr. Smeeth, “and I shan’t be coming
back to-day. Be in about eleven in the morning though,
if anybody wants me. Mr. Dersingham’ll be back to¬
morrow afternoon, if anybody wants him. And I say,
what’s your name—Turgis—”

“Yes, sir,” replied Turgis smartly.

“Get hold of the Anglo-Baltic—Mr. Borstein, nobody
else, mind, Mr. Borstein—and tell him from me that if
we’ve any more delays like that with the stuff, there’s
going to be heap big trouble. They said they wouldn’t
let us down, and they’re letting us down like hell. And
you can tell him that from me.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Did you say Mr. Borstein?” And
Turgis stared at Miss Lena Golspie’s father, at his
massive bald front, at his great moustache, at his big
square shoulders. Mr. Golspie had never seemed an
ordinary man, but now he had for Turgis the power and
fascination of a demi-god. • Already his very name spelt
sweetness and wonder.

“That’s the chap,” Mr. Golspie grunted. “After¬
noon, everybody.” And he departed.

“That was Mr. Golspie’s daughter then who came to
the door, was it?” said Mr. Smeeth.

His daughter, eh?” Miss Matfield raised her eye-

4

I

TURG1S SUS HER 20j

brows, then looked at Turgis, and said casually: “What
was she like? Pretty?”

“Yes,” Turgis mumbled, “she was,” And he would
say no more. He was not going to talk about her. He
preferred to think about her. Lena Golspie.

Then, with something like amorous urgency, he went
to the telephone, rang up the AngloBaltic, and sternly
demanded Mr. Borstein. He would tell Mr. Borstein
something! He would show him whether he could let
them down like hell! Lena Golspie. Lena Golspie,
Lena, Lena, Lena. “Hello, is that Mr, Borstein? This
is Twigg and Dersingham. Yes, Twigg and Dersing-
ham, Mr, Golspie asked me to ring you up-Mr,
Gols-pie, Mr. Gol-spie,,Lena’s father. Lena, Lena,
lm.

Chapter Five

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

I

Mr. Golspie took the typewritten sheets from Miss
Matfield and then spread them out on her table. “All
six letters alike, eh? That’s the style, Miss Matfield.
Hello, is this exactly what I said?”

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” And Miss Matfield
raised her eyes and gave him a steady level glance.

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t, eh? Then what is it, as a
matter of fact? Just a little improvement, eh?”

Miss Matfield coloured slightly. “Well, if you want
to know, Mr. Golspie, all I’ve done is to change was
into were twice, simply for the sake of making it more
grammatical. That’s all.”

“Half a minute, half a minute,” Mr. Golspie boomed
at her. “Not more grammatical. Just grammatical.
You made it grammatical when before it wasn’t gram¬
matical. Either it’s grammatical or it isn’t, d’you see?
And now I’m being more grammatical, eh?” He
guffawed, suddenly, dreadfully.

“I don’t pretend to be particularly marvellous about
grammar,” she replied, trying to be severe, “but I do
happen to know when to use was and when to use were.
It’s one of the few things they taught me. And so I
thought you wouldn’t object if I changed them.”

“Much obliged.” He regarded her amiably. “By

208

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 20Q

the way, what is it you do pretend to be particularly
marvellous at?”

“Does that matter?” This in her best haughty
manner. Everybody in the office knew it and respected

it.

But Mr. Golspie only gave her a friendly leer. “Of
course it matters,” he declared heartily. “Now I like
to know these things. Take me. I used to play a good
game at billiards, and I can still play poker with the
best, bridge, too. Oh, and I can crack walnuts between
my finger and thumb—fact!” He held up a very large
thick hairy finger and thumb that matched it. “And
that’s not all either. Still—we are a bit busy, aren’t we?”

“I am.” Miss Matfield looked at her typewriter.

“And so,” he continued cheerfully, “for the time
being, we’ll say it doesn’t matter. I’ll take these nice
grammatical letters away with me. You’ve addressed
the envelopes, have you? Right.” He turned his broad
back on her, gave Mr. Smeeth a wink, whistled softly,
and departed for the private office.

Miss Matfield drew her full lower lip between her
teeth and frowned at her typewriter. As usual, she was
left with a vague sense of defeat. It was, of course, the
man’s insensitiveness-and she saw again that large
thick hairy finger—that made him so difficult to snub.
Nobody else in the office had dared to talk to her as he
did, not after she had spent her first hour in the build¬
ing. It was a nuisance, not being able to put him in his
place, as Mr. Dersingham, Mr. Smeeth, and the others
had been put in their places. It was annoying to think
that the very next time he spoke to her, he would prob¬
ably talk in the same strain, not altogether an un¬
friendly strain, but disrespectful, jeering, humiliating

210

ANGEL PAVEMENT

m a fashion. She could not really stand up to it, but
found herself wanting to lower her eyes, turn her head
away, and almost retreat in maidenly blushes—oh, gosh!
Lilian Matfield feeling like that! How her friends
would howl if they knew! Yet she didn’t really dislike
him, not now.

A little later, when they were clearing up for the
night, she was presented with this problem of Mr.
Golspie again by some artless questions from the little
Sellers girl, who still treated Miss Matfield with great
deference and thus was still in favour.

“He’s funny, isn’t he?” said Miss Sellers, referring
to Mr. Golspie.

“A bit weird.”

“I wish you’d tell me, Miss Matfield,” Miss Seilers
continued, earnestly and deferentially, “d’you reelly like
him?”

Miss Matfield raised her thick black brows and pro¬
duced a long mmm sound that went up and then down
again. Having gone through this litt!* performance,
she said, “Do you?”

“Well,” said Miss Sellers, wrinkling her little nose
in an agony of mental effort, “I do an’ I don’t-if you
see what I mean.”

Miss Matfield knew exactly what she meant, but did
not say so. She merely gave the other girl an encourag¬
ing glance.

“Sometimes I think he’s nice,” Miss Sellers went on,
staring at nothing, “an’ sometimes I don’t like him a
bit. Not that he ever says anything, or does anything,
y’know—course I don’t see as much of him as you do,
Miss Matfield-but sometimes I catch a crool look—”

“A what?”

MISS HATFIELD WONDERS

211

Miss Sellers’ voice had dropped to a whisper. “A
crool look,” she repeated, her eyes enormous. "An' a
reel nasty tone of voice he’s got too, sometimes. And
then I think, ‘Well, I don’t like you, and I wouldn’t like
to cross your path, that I wouldn’t.’ And then the next
time, he’s as nice as anything. But I don’t like him as
much as I like Mr. Dersingham. Do you, Miss Mat-
field? Mr. Dersingham’s a reel gentleman, isn’t he? I
like him best.”

“I don’t.” This came in a hoarse whisper. It was
from Stanley, who, free from his letter-copying for a
minute, had quietly joined them.

“Now who asked you your opinion?” Miss Sellers
demanded. “You go away.”

“I like Mr. Golspie best,” said Stanley, contriving to
introduce an enthusiastic note into his hoarse whisper.
“An’ I’ll tell you why. He’s what they call a man’s man.
I’ll bet he’s had advenshers.”

“You an’ your advenshers!” Miss Sellers was very
contemptuous. “What d’you know about it?”

“I’ve heard things, I have,” said Stanley, very slowly
and impressively.

“What have you heard?”

“Shan’t tell you.”

“No, because you’ve got nothing to tell. You run
away and get your work done, little boy.”

“I’m as big as you are.”

“Cheeky! Here, you want to go an’ shadder a few
manners the next time you go shaddering,” Miss Sellers
jeered, singling out, with feminine swiftness and
accuracy, the weak joint in the other’s armour.

“Huh! Shan’t learn ’em from you.”

“Oh, be quiet, the pair of you,” cried Miss Matfield,

2 ] 2 ANGEL PAVEMENT

and began tidying her table. Nothing more was said
about Mr. Golspie, but on her way home Miss Matfield
could not help thinking about him. She always had a
book with her for the journey on the 15 bus to and from
the office, but the jogging and the crowding and the
changing lights did not make reading easy, especially on
the return journey to West Hampstead, and frequently
she spent more time with her own thoughts than she did
with those of her author. On this particular evening,
Mr. Golspie claimed her attention, almost to the exclu¬
sion of anybody or anything else. She could not make
up her mind about him, had no label or pigeon-hole
ready for him, and this annoyed her, for she liked to
know exactly what she felt and thought about people;
to be able to dismiss them in a phrase. The fact that
Mr. Golspie spoke to her every day, if only for a few
minutes, gave her work to do, was sufficient to make her
anxious to determine her attitude towards him, Men,
with their thick skins and yawning indifference, might
be able to work with people for years and not know or
care anything about them as persons, but this drab stuff
about “governors” and “colleagues” could find no place
to stay in Miss Matfield’s mind. In the talk among the
girls at the Club, all the men who dictated letters to
them became immense characters, comic, grotesquely
villainous, or heroic and adorable. Their femininity,
frozen for a few hours every day at the keyboard of their
machines, thawed and gushed out in these perfervid
personalities. Behind their lowered eyes, their demure
expressions, as they sat with their notebooks on hard
little office chairs, these comic and romantic legends
buzzed and sang, to be released later in the dining-room,
the lounge, the tiny bedrooms, of the Club. Thus, some-

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 213

thing had to be done about Mr. Golspie, who would
have appeared to most of the girls, as Miss Matfield knew
only too well, a gigantic find, a mine of glittering
material. So far he had merely passed as “weird,” but
that would not do. It had not sufficed in Miss Mat-
field’s private thoughts since the first two days.

She knew exactly what she thought about the others
at the office. Mr. Dersingham she neither liked nor dis¬
liked; she merely tolerated him, with a sort of easy con¬
tempt; he was “sloppy and a bit feeble,” and a familiar
type, with nothing at all weird about him. Smeeth
seemed to her a vaguely pathetic creature who lived a
grey life in some grey suburb; the pleasure he got from
what seemed to her his drudgery sometimes irritated
her, but at other times it roused something like pity;
and when she was not despising him, she liked him.
Turgis she despised and occasionally resented. She
resented his shabbiness and dinginess, his unhealthy
skin and open mouth, his whole forlorn air, simply be¬
cause these things, which were always there in the office,
beside her, hurt her own pride by indicating the in¬
dignity of her situation. Occasionally, perhaps after a
week-end in the country, when the thought of going
back to Angel Pavement almost-as she said—made her
feel sick, there flashed through her mind an image of
Turgis. There had been moments when she had felt
sorry for him, but they were very rare. Stanley and the
funny little Cockney girl she tolerated and even liked,
so long as they behaved themselves, and they might have
been a couple of amusing little animals, a pair of
spaniels perhaps, inferior and somewhat neglected. All
these people were securely in their places. But not Mr.
Golspie, the mysterious, large, jocular, brutal man, who

angel PAVEMENT

214

always contrived-and for the life of her she could not
discover how he did it-to get the best of her in any talk
between them, who irritated one half of her, the sensible
half, by making the other half feel fluttered and foolish,
all girlish—ugh! How she had loathed him at first!
Well, she still loathed him, or at least she disliked him,
despised him, because he was nothing but a middle-aged
bullying lout. He had a ridiculous moustache. He
reeked of cigars and whisky, bar parlours. He was at
once comic and awful.

As the bus rattled and roared up the long straight
slope of Finchley Road on its way to Swiss Cottage, she
told herself several times that Golspie was comic and
awful and found something comforting in this conclu¬
sion. It was not, however, much of a conclusion; it only
remained one for a few minutes, for Mr. Golspie, even
in memory, even as an image, a faintly illuminated leer
in the dark of her mind (like the Cheshire Cat in Alice),
refused to stay in his place and wear his label. He
escaped, and mocked her; It was all too stupid, and
when she got up to leave the bus she determined to leave
Mr. Golspie behind her too. She found another girl
from the Club waiting for the bus to stop, and when it
did stop, they smiled at one another and walked up from
the Finchley Road together. Mr. Golspie faded away.

“Do you come all the way from the City in that bus.
Matfield?” the other girl inquired languidly. She was
a very languid girl, rather affected, and her name was

Morrison.

“The whole way.”

“How revolting!”

“It is. Absolutely foul! Where do you get it,
Morrison? You don’t work in the City, do you?”

MISS MAT FI ELD WONDERS *>5

"No, Bayswater,” Miss Morrison sighed. “I get it jus!:
in Orchard Street. I have to take another bus first along
Bayswater Road. Unless I walk, and I loathe walking,
specially on these beastly dark nights. Even then, it
seems an awfully long way.”

“Nothing to the way I have to come,” said Miss Mat-
field sternly. When there was any grumbling about, and
there usually was some about, she liked to have her
share. “Sometimes it takes hours and hours.”

“I know! I took a job in the City once and I only
stuck it a week.” Miss Morrison groaned in the dark¬
ness at the thought of it. “I nearly died. Honestly,
Matfield, if I’d to go to the City every day and come
back here, I’d die, I’d absolutely pass out, I would really.

I don’t know how you stick it. But then you’re so
energetic, aren’t you?”

Miss Matfield at once denied this terrible charge, and
told herself that the Morrison girl was pretty awful.
“I’m worn out now,” she continued. “Only I’d rather
have the City because I can’t bear those private secretary
jobs. Yours is one of them, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” with another sigh. “And pretty ghastly. The
woman I’m working for now means well, but she’s an
idiot, she really is, Matfield, a full-sized idiot. No man
in any office could ever be such an idiot. She’s just
dotty.”

“Well, here we are at our beautiful home,” said Miss
Matfield, looking up at the Club entrance.

“I know. Isn’t it revolting?”

“Absolutely vile,” she replied mechanically, as they
walked in. “I don’t suppose there are any letters for
me. No, of course not. There wouldn’t be.”

“Mine’s a bill,” Miss Morrison groaned. “Are vou

216

ANGEL PAVEMENT

always getting bills? I never seem to get anything else.
Just millions of foul bills ”

“Foul! Cheerio.”

“Oh—er—cheerio.”

2

The Burpenfield Club, called after Lady Burpenfield,
who had given five thousand pounds to the original fund,
was one of the residential clubs or hostels provided for
girls who came from good middle-class homes in the
country but were compelled, by economic conditions
still artfully adjusted to suit the male, to live in London
as cheaply as possible. Two fairly large houses had been
thrown together and their upper floors converted into
a host of tiny bedrooms, and there was accommodation
for about sixty girls. For twenty-five to thirty shillings
a week, the Club gave them a bedroom, breakfast and
dinner throughout the week, and all meals on Saturday
and Sunday. It was light and well ventilated and very
clean, offered an astonishing amount of really hot water,
and had a large lounge, a drawing-room (No Smoking),
a small reading-room and library (Quiet Please), and a
garden stocked with the hardiest annuals. The food
was not brilliant-and no doubt it returned to the table
too often in the shape of fish-cakes, rissoles, and shep¬
herd’s pie-but it was reasonably wholesome and could
be eaten with safety if not with positive pleasure. The
staff was very efficient and was controlled, as everybody
and everything else in the Club was controlled, by the
Secretary, Miss Tattersby, daughter of the late Dean of
Welborough, and perhaps the most respectable woman

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 2 iy

in all Europe. The rules were not too strict. There
were no compulsory religious services. Male visitors
could not be entertained in bedrooms but could be
brought to dinner and were allowed in the lounge,
where they occasionally might be seen, sitting in abject
misery. Intoxicants were not supplied by the Club, but
could be introduced, in reasonable quantities, into the
dining-room when guests were present. Smoking was
permitted, except in the dining- and drawing-rooms.
There were a good many regulations about beds and
baths and washing and so forth, but they were not
oppressive. In the evenings, throughout the winter
months, fires, "quite large cheerful fires, brightened all
the public rooms. The lighting was good. The beds and
chairs were fairly comfortable. Dramatic entertainments
and dances were given two or three times a year. All
this for less than it would cost to live in some dingy
and dismal boarding-house or the pokiest of pokey
flats.

What more could a girl want? Parents and friend?
of the family who visited the Burpenfield found them •
selves compelled to ask this question. The answer was
that there was only one thing that most girls at the
Burpenfield did want, and that was to get away. It was
very odd. You were congratulated on getting into the
Burpenfield when you first went there, and you were
congratulated even more heartily when you finally left
it. During the time you were there, you grumbled,
having completely lost sight of the solid advantages of
the place. The girls who stayed there year after year
until at last they were girls no longer but women
growing grey, did stop grumbling and even pointed
out to another these solid advantages, but their

H

2l8 angel pavement

faces always wore a resigned look.

There was, to begin with, that institution atmosphere,
which was rather depressing. The sight of those long
tiled corridors did not cheer you when you returned,
tired, rather cross, head-achy, from work in the evening.
The food was monotonous and the dining-room too
noisy. Then, if you were not going out, you had to
choose between your little box of a bedroom, the lounge
(usually dominated by a clique of young insufferable
rowdies), or the silent and inhuman drawing-room.
Moreover, Miss Tattersby, known as “Tatters,” was
terrifying. Very early, Miss Tattersby had arrived at
the sound conclusion that a brisk rough sarcasm was
her best weapon, and she made full use of it. You felt
the weight and force of it even in the notices she was so
fond of pinning up: “Need residents who have First
Dinner take up so much time . . “Some residents
seem to have forgotten that the Staff has other duties
besides . . “Is it necessary again to remind resi¬
dents that washing stockings in the bathrooms . .
that is how they went. But this, after all, was only a
pale reflection of her method in direct talk, and some
girls, finding themselves involved in an intricate affair
concerning a pair of stockings or something of that kind,
preferred to conduct their side of the case by correspond¬
ence, in the shape of little notes to Miss Tattersby
hastily left in her office when she was known to be out.
Many a girl, after a little brush with “Tatters,” who was
immensely tall and bony and staring, and looked like a
soured Victorian celebrity, had faced the most infuriated
director at her office with a mere shrug. The confident
Burpenfield manner in commercial life, of which we
have seen something in Miss Matfield in Angel Pave-

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 219

raent, was probably the result of various encounters with.
Miss Tattersby.

But what Miss Matfield, who was cursing the place
all over again as she left Miss Morrison and went up¬
stairs to her room, disliked most about the Burpenfield
was the presence of all the other members, whose life
she had to share. There were too many of them, and
their mode of life was like an awful parody of her own.
The thought that her own existence would seem to an
outsider just like theirs infuriated or saddened her, for
she felt that really she was quite different from these
others, much superior, a more vital, splendid being.
Those whose situation was not at all like her own only
annoyed her still more. There were the young girls, all
rosy and confident, many of whom were either engaged
(to the most hopelessly idiotic young man) or merely
filling in a few months of larking about, trying one
absurd thing after another, while their doting fathers
forwarded generous monthly cheques. Then there were
the women older than herself, downright spinsters in
their thirties and early forties, who had grown grey and
withered at the typewriter and the telephone, who
knitted, droned on interminably about dull holidays
they had had, took to fancy religions, quietly went mad,
whose lives narrowed down to a point at which washing
stockings became the supreme interest. Some of them
were frankly depressing. You met them drooping about
the corridors, kettle in hand, and they seemed to think
about nothing but hot water. Others were mechani¬
cally and terribly brisk and bright, all nervy jauntiness,
laborious slang, and secret orgies of aspirin, and these
creatures—poor old things—were if anything more de¬
pressing, the very limit. Sometimes, when she was

220

ANGEL PAVEMENT

tired and nothing much was happening, Miss Matiield
saw in one of these women an awful glimpse of her own
future, and then she rushed into her bedroom and made
the most fantastic and desperate plans, not one of which
she ever attempted to carry out. Meanwhile, time was
slipping away and nothing was happening. Soon she
would be thirty. Thirty! People could say what they
liked—but life was foul.

There was still half an hour before dinner, and, after
tidying herself, she sat on her bed trying to repair a
ladder in a second-best pair of stockings. She was inter¬
rupted by a knock at the door and the entrance of an
extraordinary figure. It had a greeny-brown face and
was dressed in what appeared to be Oriental costume,
and the general effect was that of a seasick Arab
chieftain.

“Help!” cried Miss Matfield, but only to her visitor.
“What is it? Who are you? It can’t be you, Caddie.”

The green face never moved a muscle, but a careful
voice came from it, and the voice, though muffled and
lacking its usual variety of tones, was undoubtedly that
of her neighbour, Miss Isabel Cadnam, otherwise
“Caddie.” She had put a mud pack on her face and
had wrapped her head in a towel.

“And you haven’t to smile or anything,” she an¬
nounced cautiously, “or it’ll crack. But I’ve come to
ask you a favour. Are you in to-night? I mean you’re
not dressing or anything grand? Well, can I borrow
your shawl, the reddy-black one? You promised to lend
it to me, if I wanted it terribly some night.”

Miss Matfield nodded.

“Well, this is the night. A great do. My dear, Ivor’s
got tickets for a new cabaret, dance and supper place,

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

221

opening night to-night, and we’re going. Marvellous!”
The face did not move but the eyes rolled and flashed
their appreciation.

“All right, you can have the shawl, Caddie,” said Miss
Matfield, lazily rising to stretch out a hand for it. That
is all you have to do to find anything in a Burpenfield
bedroom. “It sounds marvellous. But I thought you’d
had a row with Ivor, parted for ever for the umpteenth
time and all that. Why, it’s only last Friday you spent
hours and hours telling me about it.”

“We made it up this morning,” the green mask re¬
plied, rolling its eyes. “Started over the telephone, too,
my dear. Ivor tried to explain and then I tried to ex¬
plain and then about forty people in the office went off
the deep end, so I said I’d meet him for lunch. We met.
And there you are. And now we’re going on the razzle.”

“Lucky you!”

“I will say that for Ivor. He can be terribly, terribly
stupid, almost stupider than anybody I know, except
those foul brutes at the office—honestly, my dear, they
are the limit—but the minute we’ve made it up, he
always has tickets for something amusing. Free list, you
know.”

“I believe he waits until he has the tickets, then rings
you up that morning and makes it up,” said Miss Mat-
field. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“What a perfectly loathsome idea, Mattie! What a
foul mind you have! Still, he might do that. Rather
•sweet of him, really, when you think about it. Well, I
shall have to fly. I’ve got to get this stuff off. I’ve been
wearing it for hours and I feel I shall never be able to
s mil e aga'in. Thanks for the shawl, and, my dear, I’ll
take the greatest, the very greatest care of it, and you

223 ANGEL PAVEMENT

shall have it back in the morning.”

“Have a good time,” said Miss Matfield, with no
particular enthusiasm. “Give my love to Ivor.”

When her visitor had gone, she gave a little impatient
shake, sat down again, but threw the stocking on one
side. Caddie was really rather a silly creature, but never¬
theless she contrived to have quite an amusing, even ex¬
citing time. Ivor, a goggly-eyed young man who was
with a firm of publicity people, was even sillier than she
was, and Miss Matfield admitted to herself at once that
she could not possibly endure a single hour of his com¬
pany, but he pleased Caddie, took her out, quarrelled
with her, made it up, took her out more luxuriously,
created a continual excitement. It was possible to envy
Caddie’s state of mind while despising her taste. Miss
Matfield’s ripe mouth, which hardly needed lipstick,
took on a discontented curve. It was a pity that silly
young men did not amuse her, for there were plenty of
Ivors about, whereas there were very few real grown-up
men about, men who could make her feel she was still a
mere girl. She was beginning to like, definitely to
prefer, middle-aged men-and admitted as much to her
intimates—but the trouble was that the really nice attrac¬
tive ones were nearly always terribly domesticated, up
to the neck in wives and families, and had hardly more
than an occasional faint gleam of interest to spare for a
Miss Matfield. The middle-aged men who were in¬
terested were always the awful ones, with swollen faces
and little boiled eyes, dreary rotters. Mr. Golspie? No,
he wasn’t as bad as that, wasn’t quite that type. But
quite impossible, of course. Quite absurd.

The gong went clanging below, and as it sounded,
a head popped into the room. “You’re in, aren’t you,

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 22$

Mattie?” it said. “Come on then. I’ve got some news.
Very exciting.”

This head, which was decorated with a thick shock of
fair hair, horn spectacles, a freckled and turned-up nose,
and a wide and amusing mouth, belonged to Evelyn
Ansdell, who had had a room close to Miss Matfield’s
for the last two years, and who was one of the very few
friends she had made at the Burpenfield. She was a
slap-dash, untidy, scatter-brained sort of girl, younger
than Miss Matfield, and though she had all manner of
minor faults, she had the two outstanding virtues of
being good-hearted and extremely entertaining.

The two girls went down to the dining-room together
and were fortunate enough to get a little table to them¬
selves. There, amid the chatter and clatter that went
with the mutton stew and the prunes and custard, Miss
Ansdell broke the news, in a series of shrieks and gasps.

“I’m nearly dead,” she began, impressively. “No,
really nearly dead. I’ve been ringing up parents like
mad for the last hour and a half. Don’t I sound hoarse?
Honestly, I’ve been screaming and screaming down the
telephone.”

There was nothing novel about this. Miss Matfield
knew all about Evelyn’s parents. They were a queer
pair, and had been separated for the last four or five
years. Mrs. Ansdell roamed about the country, some¬
times trying her hand at odd things, while Major Ansdell,
no longer in the army but now the representative of
some mysterious imperial organisation, roamed about
the whole world, completely disappearing for months
on end. Now and then, each of them descended upon
London and the Burpenfield, and by some odd chance it
frequently happened that their London visits coincided,

224

ANGEL 1'AVEMENT

and then Evelyn had to work desperately hard to make
sure that they did not arrive at the Club together.
Evelyn herself, who had once been sent flying between
them like an amusecl shuttlecock, did not take sides,
except perhaps in certain minor differences, but pre¬
served an amiable detachment, not unlike that of a good
old referee. Everything was complicated by the fact that
all three of them were rather eccentric. All this was very
strange to Miss Matfield, whose parents adored one
another in their dull elderly fashion and were, anyhow,
far too sensible and too busy for such alarms and excur¬
sions; but the actual novelty of it had passed. So she
merely prepared herself to listen to yet another instal¬
ment of the Ansdell family row saga.

“It all began with a letter from Mother,” Miss Ansdell
continued excitedly. “It came this afternoon. My dear,
the maddest letter. But the point is, Mother’s going to
run a shop, selling antiques. I forget the name of the
place, but anyhow she’s actually got the shop and it’s a
marvellous place, all oak beams and bow windows and
all that, and rich motorists stopping every minute.
That’s not so crazy as it sounds, because Mother does
really know about antiques and old embroideries and
things like that, and could make anybody buy anything
if she wanted to. And she wants me to go and live with
her, and help her in the shop.”

Oh, lord! Miss Matfield groaned. “But you’re not
going, are you? She’s wanted you to go before, hasn’t

“Yes, but this is rather different. Quite different, in
fact. It really would be rather fun helping her in a shop.

I d much rather do that, swindling the rich motorists,
than go on with this secretary rot. You know how I

MISS MATFIiSLD WONDERS 225

loathe typing and shorthand. And this time she wants
me very badly—her own little darling girl by her side
sort of thing—you should have seen her letter. So I rang
her up—trunk call, my dear, and I’m absolutely broke—
to know all about it, and honestly it does sound rather
marvellous. Lovely shop, nice old town, lots of nice
people, and a car—you have to have a car in this antique
business. I must say—even though I know what Mother
is—I must say it sounds rather marvellous.”

“It does,” Miss Matfield admitted, grudgingly.

“But wait a minute, wait a minute, Mattie, my dear.
That isn’t all the excitement. Oh no. Before I rang off,
Mother gave me a message to Father about some money.
He’s in town, you know. So I rang him up and then,
after I’d given him the message, I told him what Mother
had suggested. Well, you should have heard him. I
thought every minute I should hear him going up in
sheets of flame. Then he was very quiet, and I knew
he was going to be pathetic. He can do it even better
than Mother. If he really gets going, I’d agree to any¬
thing—while he’s there. And he said he had a plan he’d
had in his mind for months, been thinking about
nothing else, and that he’d have mentioned it before
only he thought I was so happy here at the Burpen-
field. He’s going away again very soon on this Empire
rot, and he wants me to go with him as his secretary.
He’s going to America—Montreal and Toronto and
those places—and then on to Australia, and I’d go every¬
where with him. What do you think about that? He
said he’d been thinking about it for ages, but I believe
he’d invented the job five minutes before, just to do
Mother in the eye. And now they both want an answer
at once. Isn’t it crazy?”

oog ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Completely mad.” But why did nothing like that
ever happen to her? “What are you going to do?”

“My dear, I’m going to take one of them. Wouldn’t
you? But which, I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Let’s get our coffee,” said Miss Matfield. “Then we
can talk about it afterwards.”

This was a blow. Whether Ansdell went off to Canada
and Australia or joined her mother at the antique shop,
she was lost to the Burpenfield. Another decent and
amusing one gone! Something exciting happening to
somebody else, as usual! And Miss Matfield was so busy
feeling sorry for herself that if her advice had really been
demanded over the coffee, she would not have found it
easy to give it. Miss Ansdell, however, like many people
who ask to be advised, apparently only wanted a listener,
for she never stopped talking herself, and when she put
a question, promptly answered it without giving her
friend time to frame a reply.

When they came up from the dining-room, they saw
a tall figure standing just inside the entrance hall. “I
believe it is,” Miss Ansdell gasped. “Yes, it is. It’s
Father. Oh, help!”

And Major Ansdell it was. Miss Matfield had met
him, just for a few minutes, two or three times before.
He was still a handsome, soldierly looking man, though
quite elderly, and was immensely courteous in the Roger
de Coverley style to all Evelyn’s friends. But there was
in him an extraordinary theatrical strain. Quite fre¬
quently he behaved as if he were the hero of some old-
fashioned melodrama; and was very emotional, very
rhetorical, and absurd. He was quite capable of talking
just as men talk in bad stories in popular magazines, and
Miss Matfield had sometimes wondered whether it was

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 227

because he had read a great many bad stories or because
the stories were nearer the truth than one thought and
were worked up, on the fringes of Empire, out of men
like Major Ansdell.

Miss Matfield hung back and saw the Ansdells greet
one another and then go upstairs, obviously to Evelyn’s
room. There was no talking to Major Ansdell in a
public room; he was far too fond of a scene and was not
at all shy. Miss Matfield went into the lounge, to smoke
a cigarette, and spent an envious ten minutes glancing
through one of those illustrated weeklies that seem to be
produced simply to glorify that small section of society
which works only to keep itself amused. It showed her
photographs of these demigods and goddesses racing and
hunting in the cold places, bathing and lounging in the
warm places, and eating and drinking and swaggering
in places of every temperature. By the time she had
finished her cigarette, Miss Matfield quite understood
the temptation to start a revolution, and told herself
that these papers simply asked for one. Then she, too,
went upstairs to her room.

She had not been there more than a few minutes when
Evelyn Ansdell burst in, crying: “My dear, Mother’s on
the phone. Do go in and talk to Father until I come
back. If you don’t, he’ll come down and do something
absurd. I’ll be as quick as I can.” And off she went.

Evelyn’s bedroom seemed almost entirely filled by her
father, who welcomed his daughter’s friend—and Miss
Matfield felt herself thrust into the part of daughter’s
friend at once—with his usual grave and elaborate
courtesy. He was, she felt, enjoying himself, and was
probably the only man who ever had enjoyed himself
visiting the Burpenfield. He addressed her as “Miss

yoR ANGEL PAVEMENT

Mattie,” having heard Evelyn refer to her as “Mattie,”
and Miss Matfield did not feel like correcting him. This
only made everything more absurd. It was like taking
part in a charade.

“I think you know why I’m here, Miss Mattie,” he
began, in deep vibrating tones. “I want to persuade this
little girl of mine to go overseas with me, to help me
with the great v r ork I am doing and to be by my side.”

She nodded and made a vague affirmatory noise. It
was all she could do, but then he did not want anything
more.

“A father has his feelings, Miss Mattie. We don’t
hear much about them. He keeps them to himself.
He hides them, buries them,” he continued, with fine
emotional effect, clearly enjoying himself. “An English¬
man doesn’t like to make a display of these things. It’s
part of the tradition—the great tradition—of our race.
If we suffer, Miss Mattie, we like to suffer in silence.
Isn’t that so? The Britisher—now, just a moment. I
know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

“I do. You’re going to say that you don’t like that
word ‘Britisher.’ ”

“I don’t like it much, I must say,” Miss Matfield
confessed.

“I knew you didn’t. I didn’t at one time. I detested
the term. I wouldn’t have it at all. But my work, my
travels up and down the Empire have taught me better.
We must have something that describes not an English¬
man, not a Scotsman, or a Canadian or an Australian,
but simply a subject of the great Empire itself, and the
only word for that is ‘Britisher.’ Don’t resent it, Miss
Mattie. It stands for a great ideal. And I say that tire

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

220

Britisher doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. But he
feels deeply. He may have his work to do, taking him
away from his home into the loneliest places, and be
glad and proud to do it.” Here the Major made a fine
gesture and came within an ace of wrecking his
daughter’s toilet stand. So he sat down on the edge
of the bed, where he looked enormous and rather like
the White Knight in Through the Looking Glass.

“You’re my little girl’s friend, aren’t you, Miss
Mattie?” he asked.

Miss Matfield said she was, and added that she would
be very sorry to lose her.

“I understand that, I understand that,” and he
reached over and patted her lightly on the shoulder.
“She’s a very lovable child, isn’t she? And you can
understand a father’s feelings. I have my work to do,
Miss Mattie, and I have many acquaintances, friends if
you like, in all parts of the world, but fundamentally,
at heart, I’m a lonely man—yes, a lonely man. Evelyn’s
my only child, and I want her companionship, I want
her by my side, unless of course I should be called upon
to visit places where one’s womenfolk couldn’t be taken.
If it were a question of our tropical possessions, that
would be different, quite different. I don’t like to see
a white woman, especially a young girl, in such places.
They’re for men, for us rough fellows who like to clean
up some backward part of the globe. If you’ve any
influence with her—and I’m sure you have, and a very
good influence too, a steadying influence naturally,
being older—”

“Thank you, Major Ansdell,” said Miss Matfield
dryly. “You make me sound about fifty. It’s not very
complimentary of you.’’

ANGEL P A V E M E N1

2?0

“A thousand apologies, my dear Miss Mattie,” cried
die Major gallantly. “I know very well you’re under
thirty, a mere girl, and a very charming one, I assure
you. But Evelyn’s a mere child , you see, isn’t she?”

Miss Matfield said nothing, but thought that some
of the child’s antics and talk might possibly astonish
him.

“But what I was about to say is this. I want you to
use your influence with my little girl to persuade her to
come with her old father and join her life with mine.
There’s some ridiculous talk,” he continued hurriedly
and more naturally, “of her joining her mother in some
wild-cat scheme for selling old furniture and broken
crockery and silly knick-knacks down in the country
somewhere. You know the sort of place. Ye oldy antique
shoppy! Faked warming-pans'! Rubbish! Even if she
won’t come with me, I’d fifty times rather see the child
staying here and doing her typewriting than embarking
on such a gim-crack nonsensical scheme. Trying to sell
faked warming-pans to a lot of cads and old women!”

At this moment the door flew open and Evelyn joined
them, breathless. The little room was completely full
now, and Miss Matfield wanted to escape, to let them
talk it out together, but she could not manage it unless
she pushed Evelyn out of the way.

“Eve been talking to Mother,” Evelyn began.

The Major jumped up. “Don’t tell me she’s still try¬
ing to persuade you to bury yourself among her fenders
and warming-pans and go smirking behind a counter.
It’s the most preposterous idea I ever heard of. It won’t
even pay. All good money thrown away.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Father,” Evelyn pro¬
tested. ‘Mother really does know a lot about antiques.

MISS HATFIELD WONDERS Sgl

I know that, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t make
quite a lot out of it.”

Neither of them took any notice of Miss Matfield, but
nevertheless she could not very well leave the room until
she had a good opportunity to push past Evelyn.

“Your mother may or may not know a good deal
about antiques,” said the Major very impressively,
“though I seem to remember her being taken in every
day or so by some piece of faked-up rubbish. But she
knows nothing whatever about human nature and has
no head for business. And if you’re going to keep a
shop, my child, you have to know something about
human nature and business. Now I could keep a shop
and make a success out of it, if I wanted to, because I
understand people and know how to organise. Your
mother knows no more about organisation than a—a
prize rabbit.”

“Well, listen to me, Father, and never mind about
that. I’ve been talking it over with Mother, and I’ll tell
you what I’ve decided to do. I’m coming with you on
this trip—and, by the way, you’ll have to give me some
money for clothes, I haven’t a thing—and then after¬
wards, if I don’t like it, I shall try Mother’s scheme, if the
shop’s still in existence.”

“It won’t be. But that doesn’t matter. This is good
news, Evelyn. Just the two of us, side by side—”

It looked as if a magnificent parental embrace were
arriving. Miss Matfield, murmuring something about
letters, slipped out. The Ansdells were absurd, all three
of them, but she could not help envying Evelyn. Major
Ansdell might be ridiculous, but if he had asked her to
go roaming round the Empire with him, she would have
accepted like a shot. As it was, she stayed on in Angel

ANGEL PAVEMENT

232

Pavement and at the Burpenfield, and would soon have
lost an amusing Club neighbour too, almost the only one
left with whom she could be friendly and confidential
Foul.

The late post had arrived and there were two letters
for her. One was from her mother and was merely the
regular hasty bulletin. Dad was working too hard as
usual, looking after everybody for miles around except
himself, and not looking at all well. The Wesleys’ little
girl was down with pneumonia. Those new people, the
Milfords, the elderly people who had taken Rogerson’s
old house, had a son and his wife home from India,
quite nice. There was no chance of her getting up to
town this next month, but Dad said he might have to
come up and would let her know in good time. And
when did Lilian think she could manage another week¬
end at home? Oh-and Mary Fernhill, the quite plain
one who went out to South Africa last year and came
back so suddenly, well, she was engaged. There was
nothing very exciting in all that. Just the usual stuff.
Poor Mother, poor Dad! He did work too hard, and he
was beginning to have a terribly pinched look. That was
the trouble about being a doctor, you never bothered,
went on until you' dropped. That was pretty foul, too.
There didn’t seem to be much good luck going in life,
and what there was completely escaped the Matfield
family.

The other letter was more interesting, and she kept
it until she reached her own room again. It was dated
from the Chestervern Agricultural College:

Dear Lilian ,

- h ave l'° London to-morrow (the 16th) and am

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

233

wondering of you would care to spend the evening with
me, have dinner and then go somewhere. It would be
a great treat for me. I’m sorry the notice is so short, but
couldn’t help that. Will you let me know at once—c/o
Holborn Palace Hotel—and tell me what time to call for
you if you are free.

Yours sincerely,

Norman Birtley.

So Norman Birtley hadn’t forgotten her existence.
She sent a dashing note to him at his rather ghastly
Holborn Palace Hotel, telling him she was free and
could be called for at the Burpenfield at seven o’clock.
And after slipping out to post it, she felt slightly better.

Ansdell looked in, having disposed of her father, not
without first making him promise her a new outfit.
“And we sail in a fortnight, my dear,” she crowed. “And
to-morrow I give those beastly people the sack, after
which I hand out the same to Tatters, in person, too.
Yes, I am. That will probably close the dear old Burp
to me for ever, and not a bad thing too. Except I shall
be very sorry to leave you, Mattie. I will really. After
all, we’ve-had some great conferences in these queer little
dens, haven’t we? I’ll have to tell Father he must have
two secretaries, and then we’ll both go out, slip away
and marry big brown men from the West and the great
open spaces. What do you say?”

“I’d love it,” said Miss Matfield, forcing a smile. “I’m
terribly sorry you’re going. They’ll put some awful
creature into your room, either one of the old hot water
brigade or some devastatingly bright young person from
the lounge set. I suppose it’s nearly time I joined the
hot water school, the kettle fillers—”

234

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Don’t be absurd. You’re one of the very few people
here who are really alive—and look it. Let’s change the
subject. I believe it’s depressing you. Had any letters?”

“One from Mother, very dull, and one from a man
I’ve known off and on for years. He’s coming up to
town to-morrow and wants me to spend the evening with
him, seeing the sights.”

“A-ha! Is he a big brown man? Do you like him?”

“He’s not bad,” Miss Matfield replied indifferently.
“A bit feeble. He’s from my part of the world and used
to hang about a lot at one time, but we haven’t seen
much of one another for ages.”

“I scent a roam-a-ance,” cried Miss Ansdell. “His
sweetheart when a boy. And you have cared all these
yee-ars and I never knew—”

“Don’t be an ape. You’re making me feel sick.”

“But seriously, Mattie. Is he .going to ask you to
marry him, after the coffee has been served in a shaded
corner?”

Miss Matfield smiled, but thought this over. “He
might, you know,” she admitted, staring into nothing,
her eyes growing sombre. “And if I thought I was
doomed to stay in this place much longer, spending my
evenings washing stockings and pattering round with
kettles, I’d marry him next week. But I haven’t the
least desire to marry him. He’s quite decent, but—oh—
he’s just rather feeble. Most young men seem rather
feeble, these days. I suppose most of the other sort were
killed in the war. I hate feeble men, don’t you? I mean,
I like a man to have plenty of character, a solid lump of
it, and I don’t even care if it isn’t a terribly good char¬
acter so long as there’s plenty of it. There’s a man in my
office—”

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 235

“You don’t mean Mr. Dirty—Dersy—what‘s it?” Miss
Ansdell asked.

“No. He’s rather sloppy, too. Not a bit amusing.
But there’s a man who’s just come lately, Golspie—”

“I know. But you said he was awful.”

“So he is,” Miss Matfield admitted hastily. “I told
you about him, didn’t I? I don’t say I like him. He’s
rather a brute, and looks it, or at any rate looks weird.
But he has got some character, and could do something
without asking everybody’s permission. That’s all I
meant. Of course, from every other point of view, even
poor Norman Birtley, who really isn’t so bad, is worth
fifty of him. Imagine going out to dinner with Golspie!”
And she laughed aloud at the thought.

They talked of other things, yawned, stared, talked
again, more idly, yawned again, and then went to bed.

3

Miss Matfield awoke next morning with a vague feel¬
ing that something pleasant and rather exciting was
about to happen. Norman Birtley. So that was it. She
could think of nothing else, and was rather disappointed,
slightly cross with herself, when it all dwindled to
Norman. That showed the sort of existence she led,
these days. There had been a time when Norman
Birtley was only a joke. When he became serious she
had brushed him aside. After that, when he turned into
the attentive admirer, popping up at odd intervals and
popping down again wistfully, it is true she had liked
him better. But now, the very thought of an evening
with him could bring her out of sleep in a vague sense

236 ANGEL PAVEMENT

of excitement. It was absurd. It was pathetic. No, it
was simply revolting.

Before she reached the office, she had completely re¬
versed this judgment. There was nothing revolting
about it. Perfectly right and natural. Norman Birtley
was quite decent; he liked her, admired her, perhaps was
in love with her; and she had every right to look forward
to an evening with him, to an evening out with anybody
(except girls from the Club, sharing Pit seats and sand¬
wiches), for that matter. The 13 bus, grinding away
through the slight fog, agreed with this conclusion,
hinted that she was too proud, and seemed to say that
for its part it took all it could get, like the stout-hearted
Cockney it was. There was some fog too in the City,
and it was a raw yellow morning for Angel Pavement.
Everybody in the office yawned a good deal and was
rather irritable for the first two hours. It was that sort
of morning. The rest of the day was more comfortable,
but dull and slow, lumbering towards five-thirty like a
stupefied elephant. Miss Matfield had not much to do.
Mr. Golspie was out all day, and it was he who usually
kept her busy. Mr. Dersingham, who found himself
getting pink and flustered when Miss Matfield coolly
stared at him and waited, xvith a kind of ironic resigna¬
tion, for his next halting sentence, preferred to dictate
his letters, whenever possible, to little Poppy Sellers, in
whose eyes, as he rightly suspected, he was a large fine
gentleman. The only amusing thing that happened in
the afternoon was that poor Mr. Smeethj returning
importantly and fussily from the bank, tried to tell them
a funny story he had heard there and completely failed
to bring out the point. He was rather pathetic, Mr.
Smeeth. After that there were huge blank spaces,

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 237

during which yellow wisps of fog seemed to creep into
one’s mind. But she was able to get away early and
have a really good Burpenfield bath, tons of hot water,
before changing.

She was quite ready when the message came that Mr.
Birtley was waiting below. In the corridor she ran into
Kersey, one of the depressing old inhabitants who, as
usual, was trailing along with a kettle. She meant well
—poor old thing—but she had a horrid trick of saying
things that depressed you at once.

“Hello, Matfield,” she droned damply. “Going out,
are you? That’s the way. You have to enjoy yourself
sometimes, haven’t you? That’s right, dee-ar.”

This was Kersey’s usual speech if she saw that you
were dressed to go out. She had another speech ready
for you if she saw you were not dressed. “Not going out
to-night, eh, Matfield? No, I thought not. Well, you
can’t expect to go out every night, can you, dee-ar?”
And you left her drooping there, with her kettle, but not
before she had set your spirits drooping too, whether you
were staying in or going out. It was as if the horrible
future addressed a few remarks to you.

Norman Birtley was waiting in the lounge, looking
very tall, very awkward, very uncomfortable. Round the
fire was the usual set, two or three of the bright young
ones with Ingleton-Dodd lounging in the middle of
them. Ingleton-Dodd was a large woman, about forty,
with a curious white face, her hair plastered back, severe
mannish clothes, and a bass voice. She seemed to have
more money than anybody else in the Club, and owned
quite a good little car, about which she talked a great
deal. She was talking about it, or about some car, when
Miss Matfield walked in.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

238

“Oh, the man was a complete fool,” she was saying,
in that deep bass voice of hers. “I told him to have a
look at the mag. Tut the mag. right,’ I told him, ‘and
the whole thing will be right. Clean those points a bit,
to start with.’ By this time, he’d taken the mag. out and
was staring at it like a stuck pig.”

“Marvellous!” cried one of the bright children. They
all thought Ingleton-Dodd “the very last word.”

“ ‘Oh, give it to me,’ I said, and snatched it out of his
hand. Then I sent for the manager. ‘Look here,’ I said
to him, ‘does anybody in this place know how to time a
mag.?’ You should have seen his face.”

Awful creature! She ought to have seen Norman
Birtley’s face. He was looking at Ingleton-Dodd with
fascinated repulsion written clearly on his simple and
expressive features. He greeted Miss Matfield con¬
fusedly, dropping his hat when he shook hands. His
hands were hot and damp, and there was a glint of per¬
spiration on his pink forehead. He had not changed at
all, except that he now wore rimless eyeglasses and his
sandy moustache was a trifle more in evidence. He was
only a year or so older than Miss Matfield and, as he was
far less sophisticated than she was, not at all at home in
London, which he only visited at long intervals, she felt
the older of the two. '

“How are you, Lilian?” he inquired, smiling ner¬
vously. “You’re looking very well.”

“Am I? I don’t feel it. I’m feeling pretty foul.”

“You’re not, are you?” He looked at her anxiously.
“What’s wrong? You haven’t got anything the matter
with you, have you? Are you seeing a doctor?”

This obvious concern ought to have pleased her, for
it was very flattering. But these questions, demanding

MISS HATFIELD WONDERS 2g9

as they did a definite answer, a disease or two, only
irritated her. It was understood at the Burpenfield that
you were nearly always pretty foul, with nothing exactly
wrong with you perhaps, but nevertheless in a fairly
permanent state of being worn out, nerve-racked, totter¬
ing on the brink of something ghastly. Miss Matfield
had forgotten that this simple visitor from the country
knew nothing of this convention.

“Oh, I’m all right really, I suppose,” she replied, dis¬
missing the subject. “Shall we go now? Where do you
propose to take me, Norman? Have you any plans?”
She moved to the door.

“Well, I didn’t know exactly what to do. I suppose
I ought to have asked you first, but there wasn’t time.
Tlrere seems to be a rather good show on at the Colla-
dium this week, so I got two seats for that, second house.
Do you like music-halls?”

“Not bad. It all depends.”

“A fellow I was talking to at the hotel said it was a
very good show, so I thought that would be all right.
But if you don’t want to go, I suppose I can get rid of
the tickets, can’t I?”

“No, that will be all right. I’d like to go,” she told
him. They were walking down the hill now, towards
Finchley Road.

“Good. And about dinner,” he continued, struggling
laboriously with his duties as host. “I thought we
might' go to a place in Soho. Old Warwick—he’s our
principal at the Chestervem Agricultural, and he’s been
here a good deal—told me there was a good little place,
one of those French or Italian places, you know, a bit
Bohemian, but very good cooking—I’ve got the name
and address in my book and I’ll find it in a minute.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

24O

Anyhow. I thought, if you didn’t mind, we might go
there.”

“All right,” she replied, not very enthusiastically.
Some of those little Soho places were rather foul, and
old Warwick of the Chestervern Agricultural might not
be a very good judge. “Let’s go there, and you can dig
out the name and address on the way. We’ll hurry and
catch a bus.”

“Oh, will a bus be all right?” he cried, obviously re¬
lieved. “I thought perhaps we might have to take a
taxi.”

“No, a bus will do,” she told him. A taxi, though,
would have done a great deal better. She loved riding
in taxis. Perhaps—who knows?—if Mr. Birtley had in¬
sisted upon their having a taxi, the whole evening might
have been different.

Once again she went jogging down the long hill, past
the sudden sparkle of Swiss Cottage, the genteel gloom
of St. John’s Wood, and a Baker Street that was now
like a series of captivating peep-shows. They did not
talk much inside the bus, which was full and uncom¬
monly noisy, but he shouted a few questions about the
Club and Ingleton-Dodd (whom he regarded with
horror) and the office and her father and mother, and
she screamed fairly adequate if brief replies. Her spirits
rose when they actually arrived at Soho, for though she
had some mournful memories of its table d’hote, and
had been in London long enough to be sceptical about
its romantic Bohemianism, she could not resist the place
itself, the glimpses of foreign interiors, the windows
filled with outlandish food-stuffs, chianti flasks, and
bundles of long cheroots, the happy foolish little decora¬
tions, the strange speech, the dark faces, the girls lean-

MISS MAT FIELD WONDERS 241

ing out of the first floor windows. It was quite a long
time since she had last walked along Old Compton
Street. It made her sigh for an adventure. Meanwhile,
that very evening took on a faint colouring of adventure
while they were still searching for old Warwick’s
restaurant, though, with all the good will in the world,
she could not transform Norman Birtley, fresh from the
Chestervern Agricultural College, into a romantic and
adventurous companion.

At last, they found old Warwick’s restaurant. It
might have been French or Italian or even Spanish or
Hungarian; there was no telling; but it was deter¬
minedly foreign in a de-nationalised fashion, rather as
if the League of Nations had invented it. No sooner was
Norman’s hand on the door than a very fierce-looking,
moustachioed, square-jawed Latin flung it open very
quickly and with a great flourish, so that they were
almost sucked in. The place was very small, rather
warm, and smelt of oil. The lights w T ere shaded with
coloured crinkly paper. There were only four other
people there, two oldish tired girls masticating rather
hopelessly in the far corner, and a queer middle-aged
couple sitting almost in the window. The fierce Latin
swept them across to a tiny table, thrust menus into their
hands, rubbed his hands, changed all the cutlery round
and then put it all back again, rubbed his hands once
more and then suddenly lost all interest in them, as if
his business was simply to drag people in and then,
having got them seated, to create a momentary illusion
of brisk service before they had time to change their
minds. f

“You can have the whole dinner for three and six¬
pence,” said Norman, looking up from his menu.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

2^2

“Wonderful how they do it in these places, isn’t it? I
mean to say, what would you get in an English restaurant
for that? Nothing worth eating, I’ll bet. But these
foreigners can do it. Of course, it’s their job. They
know how to cook. Shall we have the dinner?”

Miss Matfield thought that they might, and looked
about her, not very hopefully, while Norman gave the
order to a waitress, a very tall fat girl with a chalky
face and no features, who had just appeared. The queer
middle-aged couple looked queerer still now, for the
man appeared to be dyed and the woman enamelled and
it was incredible that they should ever eat food at all.
You felt they ought to feed on w T ood and paint.

Having given the order, Mr. Birtley was now looking
about him too, and when he had finished doing this and
had obviously noted the more picturesque details for
the benefit of the other members of the staff of the
Chestervern Agricultural College, he beamed at her
through his rimless eyeglasses. “Nothing I enjoy better
than studying these queer types,” he whispered. “A
place like this is a treat to me, if only for that reason.
Old Warwick told me I’d enjoy that part of it. He’s
had some very funny experiences in his time. I must
try to remember some of the yarns he’s told me, once
or twice when I’ve been sitting up with him over a pipe
at the Chestervern.”

While Miss Matfield was asking idly what sort of
man Mr. Warwick was and Norman was telling her,
the waitress had brought them the two halves of a grape¬
fruit, the juice of which had apparently been used some
time before. They had not finished with old Warwick,
who seemed to Miss Matfield a silly old man, when the
waitress returned to give them some mysterious thick

MISS MAT FIELD WONDERS 243

soup, which looked like gum but had a rather less pro¬
nounced flavour.

Miss Matfield tried three spoonfuls and then looked
with horror at her plate. Something was there, some¬
thing small, dark, squashed. There were legs. She
pushed the plate away.

“What’s the matter, Lilian? Don’t you like the soup?”

She pointed with her spoon at the alien body.

Mr. Birtley leaned across and peered at it through his
glasses. “No, by George, it isn’t, is it? Is it really? Oh,

I say, that’s not good enough, is it? That’s the worst
of these foreigners. Do you think I ought to tell them
about it?”

“If you don’t, I will,” said Miss Matfield indignantly.
“Absolutely revolting!”

But there was nobody to tell. Even the fierce Latin
had disappeared. It seemed as if when soup was served,
the whole staff hid in the kitchen. Miss Matfield was
sure now that her first instinctive disapproval had been
right, as usual. This was a foul little place. Unfortun¬
ately, she was really hungry, having had a very small
lunch.

The next member of the staff they did see obviously
could not be blamed for the soup, for he was the wine
waiter, an ancient gloomy foreigner. He padded across
to Mr. Birtley, who was trying not very successfully to
explain a very funny thing that had happened last term
at the College, held out a wine-list decorated with dirty
thumb-marks, and waited apathetically.

“A-ha!” cried Mr. Birtley jovially. “Let’s have some¬
thing to drink, shall we? Do you think we could manage
a whole bottle? I think we could. Yes, let’s have a whole
bottle. Now then, what is there? Will you have red or

ANGEL PAVEMENT

244

white wine, Lilian? It’s all the same to me.”

“I’d like red, I think,” she replied. “Burgundy per¬
haps.” It was more sustaining. After all, with bread
and butter and some Burgundy, it might be possible to
stun one’s appetite. She had no hopes of the dinner.

“Burgundy it is,” cried Mr. Birtley, with the air of
a reckless musketeer. “All right, then. A bottle of
Number Eleven. Beaune.”

“You geef me moanay,” murmured the ancient
foreigner.

“Righto. Money. There you are.” And then he gave
Miss Matfield a wink and smiled at her. She smiled
back, softening towards him a little, for he was so
•obviously enjoying himself and thinking it all so won¬
derful. Poor Norman!

“You ought to come and see us at the College next
time you’re home, Lilian,” he said. “You’d like it.
We’ve got one or two amusing fellows on the staff, and
the students aren’t a bad crowd. We have little dances
sometimes, and tennis in the summer. It’s growing, too.
In a year or two, if I can scrape up some money, I may
get a partnership. Not bad, eh? The fact is,” and he
lowered his voice, as if to keep these confidences away
from the waitress, who had just deposited some micro¬
scopic pieces of fish in front of them and was still stand¬
ing near, as if to see if they would have the audacity to
eat them, the fact is, I can get on better with old
Warwick than any of the other fellows. He’s taken
rather a fancy to me, thinks I’ve got more drive than
the others. And as a matter of fact,” he added, looking
earnestly at her, “I have. And I wish you’d come and
look me up down there.”

She said she would, if she could manage it, and then

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS

explained, while the ancient foreigner poured out the
wine, how difficult it was to do all one wanted to do,
what with one thing and another, and then, fortified by
the burgundy and determined to drive old Warwick out
of the conversation for a time, she went on to tell him
more about the office and the Club. He listened atten¬
tively,^ though with just the faintest suggestion of
patronage. Obviously he thought a good deal more of
himself these days, now that he had made such a hit with
his old Warwick of the Chestervern Agricultural. But
then all men were alike in that: they all thought they
were marvellous. However, she could tell from the way
he looked at her that he still thought she was marvellous
too, which was very pleasant. She could feel herself get¬
ting steadily better looking and more attractive.

This could not be said about the dinner. The chicken
was not marvellous, was not even pleasant. Like many
other places in Soho, this restaurant evidently had a
contract that compelled it to accept only those parts of
a chicken that could not be called breast, wing, or leg
It specialised in chicken skin. The salad could be eaten,
but its green stuff seemed to have been grown in some
London back garden behind a sooty privet hedge. The
sweet was composed of a very small ice, the paper in
which it had been delivered from the van at the back
door, and some coloured water that might have been
part of the ice two hours before. That was the dinner,
a miserable affair.. Even Norman seemed to have a
suspicion that it had not been very good, but he did not
apologise for it, perhaps out of loyalty to old Warwick.
Miss Matfield, in despair, had had two full glasses of
the burgundy, a raw and potent concoction, which had
produced at once a rather muzzy effect in her mind so

ANGEL PAVEMENT

246

that everything seemed a little larger and noisier than
usual. Once, just before die coffee, she had found her¬
self wanting to giggle at the thought of Norman taking
his sandy moustache back to Chestervern and old
Warwick. The coffee, black and bitter, stopped all that
nonsense. They smoked a cigarette together over it, and
Norman, with tiny beads of perspiration on his ruddy
forehead and his glasses slightly misty, talked about
old times and smiled sentimentally across the cruet at
her.

It was time to be gone. The Latin suddenly decided
to notice their existence again, brought the bill, accepted
money, proffered change, swept away the tip, and then
apparently threw them both into the street, where the
air seemed at once remarkably pure and unusually cold.
They arrived at the Colladium just at the right moment,
a few minutes after the doors had been opened for the
second house. The place was, as usual, besieged by a
mob of pleasure-seekers, who all looked like demons in
the red glare of the lights at the entrance. Norman led
the way, a little uncertainly, and they went swarming
down thick-carpeted corridors.

“Didn’t that man say ‘Round to the left and up the
stairs’?” Miss Matfield asked. She had a slight head¬
ache now. Those peculiar red lights outside the Colla¬
dium look exactly like a headache, and perhaps they had
inspired the burgundy. “I’m sure he did, you know.”

“I didn’t hear him,” replied Norman, not too amiably.
He was somewhat fussed. “Talking to somebody else,
p’raps.”

Feeling a little dubious, she followed him down the
gangway on the ground floor to the auditorium, which
looked as if it were recovering from a fire, there was so

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 247

much smoke about. There were programme girls show¬
ing people to their seats, but you had to wait your turn
and Norman, anxious to secure his two beautiful seats,
would not wait his turn. He marched on, glancing at
his tickets and the lettered rows of stalls, then finally
found the row he wanted, and they pushed past a few
people, sought and found the right numbers, and sank
into their seats.

“This is all right, isn’t it?” said Norman, after breath¬
ing a sigh of relief. “Jolly good seats, eh?” He looked
round triumphantly. More lights were being turned
on; the orchestra was beginning to tune up again; and
the place was filling rapidly. Miss Matfield’s headache
retreated, dwindled to an occasional twinge.

“What about a programme?” said Norman, and began
to make vague, fussy, ineffectual signs.

Then two large determined men, coarse-looking
fellows with heavy jowls and cigars stuck in the
corner of their insensitive mouths, came pushing down
the row. They stopped when they came to Mr. Birtley
and Miss Matfield. “Here, I say,” the first one called
back to the programme girl, after looking at his ticket,
“is this the right row?” Apparently it was, for now he
turned his attention to Norman.

“I think you’re sitting in the wrong seats, my friend,”
he said, not unpleasantly.

“I don’t think so,” replied Norman, rather sharply.
He brought out his own tickets and gave them a re¬
assuring glance. v

“Well, 1 do,” said the other. He had a loud voice, the
kind of voice that attracts attention. “Row F, fourteen
and fifteen. Isn’t that right? Well, those are my seats,
bought and paid for. Ask the girl. She sent us here."'

248 ANGEL PAVEMENT

“I don’t see that,” said Norman stiffly. ‘‘Mine are
Row F, fourteen and fifteen. And we were here first.
They must have made a mistake at the box office.”

Miss Matfield had risen from her seat. People were
looking round at them. If there was anything she hated,
it was this stupid sort of scene.

The second large determined man, who had nothing
like the amount of room to stand in his bulk demanded
and deserved, now made a number of impatient noises.
These noises goaded his friend into more direct action.

“Here, come on,” he said roughly, “let’s have a look
at your tickets. Here are mine. Now let’s have a look
at yours.” He almost snatched them out of Norman’s
hand. The instant he saw them, he cried triumphantly:
“There y’are. Balcony Stalls, Balcony Stalls. These
aren’t Balcony Stalls. Cor!-you’re in the wrong part
of the theatre, boy, in the wrong part of the theatre.”

“Wouldjer believe it!” cried the second man con¬
temptuously.

“Cor! Up there you want to be, right up there, boy.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.” Poor Norman was very
flustered now. Miss Matfield might have been sorry for
him, but she wasn’t. She was furious. Even after they
had left the seats and were pushing their way back to the
gangway, the two brutes were still talking about it and
laughing and making contemptuous noises. Then as
she arrived, scarlet, in the gangway, she ran into a little
party of three that was waiting to be shown to its place.
The first was a tall man with a bristling moustache,
obviously a foreigner; the second was a youngish girl,
very smart and pretty; and the third, who was still inter-
rmwing the girl with the chocolates was—yes, no other
-Mr. Goispie, rather flushed, very jovial. There was

MISS HATFIELD WONDERS 249

some congestion in this part of toe gangway; they had
to stop; and he looked up and saw her.

“Evening, Miss Matfield,” he said, grinning at her in
his usual fashion. “So this is where we come, is it?”

She stammered something.

“Had a good day at the office? You’ll see me there
to-morrow. Half a minute, Lena. Well, Miss Matfield,
see you enjoy yourself. Here, take one of these.”

She found one of the boxes of chocolates in her hand.
Before she could do anything or even say anything, he
had given her another of his vast grins and had turned
away. As she followed Norman up the gangway most
of the lights were lowered and the overture blared out.
Their seats were in the first tier, and by the time they
found them, the curtain had risen and the stage was
occupied by three very grave young men who were busy
throwing one another about.

“That was a bit of a mix-up, wasn’t it?” said Norman,
when they had settled themselves. “But it wasn’t really
my fault. They should give their seats proper names.
I’ve never heard of stalls being up here.”

“Well, you might have asked. I told you what that
man said.”

“By George, so you did. Sorry! But, I say, who was
that rum-looking chap you were talking to down there?”

“He’s a man who’s just joined the firm I’m working
with. I do his letters.”

“Didn’t he give you that box of chocolates?”

“Yes, he did. As a matter of fact, he just shoved it
into my hand.”

“Funny thing to do,” Norman continued, half resent¬
fully. “What did he want to do that for?”

“I don’t know. You’d better ask him.” She stared at

1

ANGEL PAVEMENT

250

the three young men, who were now climbing on to
piles of chairs and tables in order to throw one another
a greater distance.

“I must say I didn't like the look of him very much.”

“That’s sad, isn’t it, Norman?” replied Miss Matfield
“Hadn’t you better call at the office to-morrow morn¬
ing and tell him so? What had I better do? Get another
job?”

“You don t mean to tell me you like that chap?”

“I don’t know whether I do or not,” she told him,
with perfect truth. But her voice betrayed irritation.
“It doesn’t matter, anyhow. I’ll admit, though,” she
added, more amiably, “that he does look a bit weird.
But he’s rather amusing. Have one of his chocolates,
seeing that they’re here, and don’t talk so much.”

The subject was dropped and when they talked again,
as they did at odd moments throughout the performance,
Mr. Golspie was not mentioned. The show itself was
neither better nor worse than the others she had seen
there. She liked the white-faced clown with the squeaky
voice who nearly fell into the orchestra pit, and the two
men who got involved in the most passionate argument
all about nothing, and the Spanish dancers, and the
wildly ridiculous schoolmaster. On the other hand, she
did not like the American cross-talking and dancing pair
or the two girls who sang at the piano or the various
acrobats and trick cyclists. Norman, who soon re¬
covered from the ticket scene and settled down to enjoy
himself, to like as much as he could of the show and to
patronise the rest, was rather more human than he had
been during the misery of dinner. Old Warwick was
banished at last, and the dull shade of Chestervem never
fell on the talk.

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 25I

When they came out of the Colladium into the aston¬
ishing sanity of the night, and Norman not only sug¬
gested a taxi, but actually found one, she felt she was
beginning to feel friendly towards him again. And if he
had said, “You know, Lilian, I am rather feeble and a bit
of an ass, and I know you’re marvellous and far above
my style, but I’ve been in love with you a jolly long time
and still am, honestly I am, worse than ever in fact, so
will you marry me? I’m not doing anything very won¬
derful, I know, and you might easily find it dull at first
down at Chestervern, but we’d have some fun and things
would get better all the time”; if he had said something
like that, in the proper tone of voice—rather wistful—
and with a dumbly devoted look in his eyes, she felt
there was no telling what she might reply. She could just
see herself marrying him.

But he made no such speech, and was clearly not in
that dumbly devoted mood at all. All the way home,
he was vaguely sentimental—what fun they’d had in the
old tennis club days and what good pals they’d been!—
and was timidly amorous, like some faint-hearted Don
Juan taking one home after a dance. Unluckily, Miss
Matfield was not sentimental, at least not on conven¬
tional or Christmas-card lines, and she heartily despised
and disliked the timidly amorous male, who could not
let one alone but had not passion enough, or courage,
to make him risk a sound snubbing. He would slip an
arm round her waist and she would tell him to take it
away because it was uncomfortable, as indeed it was.
And then he would say “Ah, Lilian, you’re not very
kind to me,” in a ridiculous mooing voice, like a farm¬
hand trying to ape the artful philanderer. It was all
terribly irritating. When at last, as the taxi began

252

ANGEL PAVEMENT

grinding up the last hilly half-mile, she was so tired of
this that she actually asked him questions about his
prospects at Chestervern, dropping into the part of the
cool interested woman friend with a sound business
head, he turned rather sulky and answered her in a poor
half-hearted fashion.

“I suppose I can get a bus back?” he said as they
stood at the entrance to the Burpenfield and the taxi
departed.

“Oh yes, of course. Just at the bottom there, on the
Finchley Road. They run until after twelve, and they’re
much quicker at this time of night, too. You’re going
back to-morrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes, on the 10.20. I suppose I’d better be getting
along now. Rather cold standing here, isn’t it?”

“Well, Norman,” she said, trying to look bright and
friendly and not ungrateful, “it’s been nice seeing you
again. And thanks awfully for the dinner and every¬
thing. I adored that clown with the chairs, didn’t you?
Good-bye.”

He shook hands. “Good-bye. I’m glad you liked it,”
he muttered. “Good-bye.”

She stood in the entrance a minute or two after he had
gone, fumbling for her key, and suddenly from that great
ocean of deep depression which she always felt was not
far away, rose in the dark a great breaker and swept
her away. She could have cried. It was not Nor man
Birtley—he was a feeble fool who was rapidly getting
worse-but the endless cheating of life itself that
frightened her and stifled her. She was Lilian Matfield,
Lilian Matfield, the same that had gone playing and
laughing and singing and looking forward to everything
only a few years ago, no different now except a little

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 253

older and more sensible, and yet she felt, obscurely,
darkly, that somehow she was being conjured into some¬
body miserably different, somebody stiff and faded and
dull.

Another girl came up. Miss Matfield steadied herself,
found her key, and walked in. Isabel Cadnam was just
coming out of the lounge, and they met.

“Hello, Matfield. Been on the razzle? Look here, I
hope you didn’t want that shawl I borrowed. I didn’t
get in last night until the crack of dawn, and then I was
in such a hurry this morning, I forgot about it.”

“No, it didn’t matter, thanks, Caddie. I’m going up.
I’m tired.”

“So am I. Had a good night. That show that Ivor
took me to last night was rather a wash-out, I must say.
The most ghastly people, and millions of them. And
Ivor wanted to join in with some of the ghastliest, and I
didn’t, of course, and that started it all over again.
Another row, my dear. Isn’t it foul?”

Miss Matfield said dispiritedly that it was.

“What did you do to-night, Matfield? Anything
thrilling?”

“Not very. Rather dull, in fact. I've got a headache.
I think I’ve eaten too many chocolates. I’ll try some
aspirin.”

“Nothing like it,” said Miss Cadnam. “Look here, I’ll
. fetch your shawl mnd bring it round, and then, if you
have any to spare, I’ll borrow a couple of aspirins. If I
don’t take something, I’ll never get a wink of sleep all
night. It’s always the same after I’ve had a row with
Ivor. I begin arguing with him the minute I get to bed.
and then I go on and on all night until I think my head’s
going to burst. Isn’t it foul?”

254

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Completely,” said Miss Matfield, opening her door.
“All right, then. Hurry up with the shawl and I’ll get
you the aspirin.” She closed the door behind her.

4

It was rather queer seeing Mr. Golspie again, in the grey
light of Angel Pavement, after that strange meeting at
the Colladium. It was rather like seeing someone you
had just met in a vivid dream. She did some letters for
him the next morning, and when he had finished them,
he dropped his impersonal stare and tone of voice,
grinned at her, and said: “Enjoy the show last night?”

“Not very much,” she told him. “Did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” he boomed. “Dead as mutton. Not a
patch on the old halls. They call it Variety now, but
that’s about all the variety you get. All the same, isn’t
it? I keep trying it, but it’s poor stuff. That girl of mine
likes to go. She enjoys it all right. Did you see her last
night? She was there with me.”

“I wondered if it was your daughter. She’s awfully
pretty, isn’t she?”

“Think so?” He was pleased at this. “Well, she’s
pretty enough, and knows it, the little monkey. Was
that the young man, the one I saw you with?”

He really had some ghastly expressions. The young
man! “Good lord, no,” she cried. “He was just an old
friend who comes from my part of the world. Shall I
bring these letters in to sign as soon as I’ve done them?”

“I’d like them as soon as possible, Miss Matfield. I
want to be off before lunch. I’ve got several members of
the Chosen Race to see this afternoon.”

MISS M A T F I E L D WONDERS

*55

That was all. The awful “young man” question was,
of course, in his favourite vein, but apart from that, he
was much quieter and pleasanter than usual in this little
talk. For once he had dropped the jeering and leering
style that made her feel so uncomfortable. He was
friendlier. And she had never thanked him for the
chocolates. She would have to do that when she went
back with the letters.

“Oh, Mr. Golspie,” she cried, when he had finished
signing the letters, “I forgot to thank you for the lovely
box of chocolates. I don’t know why you gave them to
me—so suddenly, like that—”

“Just to celebrate the little meeting, that’s all,” he
replied, waving a hand. ‘Here’s our Miss Matfield,’ I
thought, ‘looking a bit uncomfortable because her young
man’s landed in the wrong seats.’ ”

“Oh, did you notice that? It was a stupid business.”

“Bit of a box-up, certainly,” he said, grinning at her.
“Yes, I saw you all right. You looked very annoyed,
too. Anyhow, I thought something ought to be done
about it.”

“Well, it was very nice of you,” she said, though she
was not altogether pleased at the turn the conversation
had taken.

“Ah, but I’m a very nice man,” he assured her, look¬
ing very solemn for a moment. Then he produced a
short disconcerting guffaw, and waved his hand again.
She turned away. “And another thing,” he called out.
She stopped. “You never catch me getting into the
wrong seats. You try me sometime, Miss Matfield, you
just try me. You’d be surprised.” He chuckled a little
as she went out. This time she felt hot and uncomfort¬
able again, and felt ready to dislike him just as much as

ANGEL PAVEMENT

256

she had done when he first came. It was odd how un¬
comfortable he could make her feel. After all, she had
worked for unpleasant men before to-day. But this was
rather different.

Messrs. Twigg and Dersingham were now busy
making what Mr. Dersingham, who was beginning to
wear a look of great self-importance, called a “big drive."
He and Mr. Golspie and the two travellers were visiting
as many firms as they could, showing the new stuff that
Mr. Golspie had introduced and piling up the orders.
Apparently, it was important that as many orders as
possible should be obtained during this little period,
for some reason that was not made plain to the office
staff, and perhaps was not plain to anybody but Mr.
Golspie. It meant a great deal of work for everybody.
Miss Matfield was kept at her machine nearly all day
making out lists, invoices, and advices. It was not
difficult work, but it was rather close work and very
dreary, and it left her fagged and feeling quite unfit to
plan some amusement for herself. There were plenty
of mildly amusing things that could be done with a
little planning, but she was too tired to bother, like so
* many of the girls at the Club. Going anywhere, even
if it was only attending a concert or doing a theatre,
always meant so much fuss and arranging that she let
it all slide, not excepting the week-end. If somebody
had come along with a. cut and dried plan for doing
something entertaining, that would have been quite
different, indeed heavenly; but nobody did. She spent
a good deal of her time at the Club listening to Evelyn
Ansdell, who was in the thick of her preparations for
the Empire tour with the Major and talked at great
length about every single thing she had to buy. Evelyn

MISS MAT FIELD WONDERS 257

was quite amusing about it, of course, but it was dis¬
tinctly depressing to think that very soon she would be
gone, probably for ever. On the Sunday they both went
round to have tea with Major Ansdell, who was quite
absurd and provided them with an enormous sticky tea
—bless him!—but it was really all rather sad. And on
Monday and Tuesday there was quite a frantic bustle at
the office. Mr. Smeeth turned himself into a faintly
apologetic slave-driver, and Mr. Dersingham ran in and
out like a large pink fox terrier.

The next morning they learned the reason for all this
fuss. Mr. Smeeth, after visiting the private office, came
back looking rather important, and said: “Mr. Golspie’s
leaving us to-day.”

Every one of them looked surprised, and three of
them, Miss Matfield, Turgis, and Stanley, looked either
startled or disappointed.

“He’s not going for good, is he, Mr. Smeeth?” asked
Turgis, before anyone else could speak.

He had spoken for Miss Matfield, who felt, she did not
know why, the most acute anxiety. For some strange
reason, which had certainly nothing to do with business,
for at heart she did not care a rap whether Twigg and
Dersingham sold all the veneers and inlays in England
or drifted into bankruptcy, she hated the thought of Mr.
Golspie leaving them. At one stroke it flattened the
whole life of Angel Pavement. _

“He’s not going for good, I’m glad to say,” Mr.
Smeeth replied, enjoying their suspense. “He’s only
going back for a short visit, on our business, to the place
he came from, up there in the Baltic. I don’t know how
long he’ll be away. He doesn’t know exactly himself yet.
But he’s sailing this afternoon, going the whole way by

258 ANGEL PAVEMENT

boat on the Anglo-Baltic. And,” here Mr. Smeeth
glanced out of the window at the raw damp morning,
‘‘I don’t envy him. It’ll be a cold job crossing the North
Sea, this weather. I remember I once had a sail on a boat
at Yarmouth one Easter, not very far out, y’know, but—
my word!—it was perishing. I was glad to get back. Well,
what’s it going to be like right in the middle, this time of
year? I wouldn’t be paid, wouldn’t be paid, to do it.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t care,” said Stanley boastfully. Mr.
Golspie was still one of Stanley’s heroes—though nobody
could discover why, except that he looked rather like a
detective—and Stanley had no half measures in the
heroic. “I'll bet he likes it. I would. I wish he’d take
me with him. I wouldn’t go. Oh no, oh no! Wouldn’t
I just!”

“You get on with your work, Stanley,” said Mr.
Smeeth mechanically. “We all know what you’d do and
what you wouldn’t do. Well, he’s sailing this afternoon,
all the way to the Baltic Sea, and, as I say, I don’t envy
him.” And Mr. Smeeth returned, well content, to his
cosy desk and his neat little rows of figures.

Half an hour afterwards, Mr. Golspie, wearing an
enormous ulster, looked in on them. “You won’t see me
for a week or two,” he announced cheerfully. “Keep it
going. Shoulders to the wheel! Full steam ahead, as
people say-though why they say it, God only knows,
because nobody in a ship ever said it—doesn’t mean any¬
thing. Make ’em all pay up, Smeeth. Keep your eye on
that cut rate with the Anglo-Baltic, Turgis. Just re¬
member me in your prayers, you girls, if you do pray.
Do you pray, Miss Matfield? Never mind, tell me
another time. And, Stanley—”

“Yes, sir,” said Stanley, springing to attention.

MISS MAT FIELD WONDERS 259

“Run down and get me a taxi, sharp as you can. Good¬
bye, everybody.”

When they had all said good-bye, too, and he had gone
and they had heard the outer door slam behind him, in
the sudden quiet that followed, the whole office had
appeared to shrink and darken a little. Miss Matfield,
aware of this, resented it, and, compressing her lips,
threw herself into what work she had on hand with a
sort of grey determination, never looking up and only
speaking when compelled to answer a question. By
lunch-time she felt so discontented that, instead of
spending the usual ninepence or so at the little teashop
not far away, she went farther afield, to a superior place
just off Cannon Street, and had cutlet and peas, apple-
tart and cream, and a cup of coffee, paying her half-
crown manfully. After that she was more cheerful and
more honest. She had been depressed because though
all kinds of things seemed to be happening to other
people, nothing was happening to her. It was hard luck
losing Evelyn Ansdell. It was hard luck losing Mr.
Golspie, if only for a week or two. She could not say
yet whether she really liked the man, but at least he
made Angel Pavement more amusing. It would be
terribly flat now without him. Everything, it seemed,
was sinking into dullness. Well, she must make an effort
and think of something amusing to do. When she re¬
turned to the office, quarter of an hour late, as usual,
she was cheerful and comparatively friendly with every¬
body.

Perhaps the little gods who look after these minor
affairs decided that she must be encouraged, for at once
they found something amusing for her to do. Shortly
after three, Mr. Smeeth took a telephone message and

s6o

ANGEL PAVEMENT

then called Miss Matfield to him.

“That was Mr. Golspie, Miss Matfield,’’ he began, in
his pleasantly fussy and important way. “He says they’re
sailing later than he thought, about five or so, and he
wants you to go down to the ship and take down a few
important letters he’s just remembered about. And
you’ve also got to take that sample book—it’s in the
private office—he forgot it. I haven’t got Mr. Dersing-
ham’s permission for you to go, and I can’t get it, because
he’s out, but of course it’s all right. I accept all responsi¬
bility. You don’t mind going, do you?”

“I’d love it,” cried Miss Matfield. “But where exactly
do I go?”

Mr. Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and then examined
the slip of paper he had been carrying. “You go to Hay’s
Wharf, that’s on the south side of the river between
London Bridge and the Tower Bridge, you go over
London Bridge and turn straight to the left to get there.
And the ship’s the L-e-m-m-a-l-a, Lemmata. Can you re¬
member that, Miss Matfield? And he says, ‘Take a taxi’
-so I’d better give you half a crown out of the petty
cash for that—IT 1 have to put it down as travelling ex¬
penses. Now you get your notebook and pencil and your
things on, and I’ll get that sample book out of the private
office for you. It’ll be a little jaunt for you, something
out of the common, won’t it? Stanley’d give his ears to
go, wouldn’t you, Stanley? Oh, he’s not there. Where is
that lad?”

Yes, it was a little jaunt for her. It was great fun.
First, Moorgate Street, the Bank, then King William
Street went rattling past the taxi window; then came
London Bridge, with leaden gleams of the river far
below on either side; then a slow progress along a

MISS HATFIELD WONDERS 261

narrow street on the other side, a turn to the left up a
street still narrower, a mere passage, at the end of which
the taxi had to stop altogether. She dodged up another
dark lane, asked a pleasant large policeman if she was
going the right way, and finally found herself at the
water’s edge, where men were busy loading and running
about with papers and shouting to one another. There,
about fifty yards farther down, was the Lemmala, a
steamship with one tall thin funnel, not very large and
rather dingy, but nevertheless a fine romantic sight. A
flag she had never seen before drooped from its little
mast. As she drew nearer, she heard some of the men
shouting down from the deck, and they were speaking in
a language she had never heard before, a tremendously
foreign language. Up to that moment, business had been
for her an affair of clerks and desks and telephones and
stupid letters that always began and ended in the same
dull way, but now, in a flash, she suddenly realised that
it was all very romantic. It was as if Mr. Dersingham
had stalked into the office in Elizabethan costume. The
wood they sold in Angel Pavement came in boats like
this, indeed in this very ship, and at the other end, where
the veneers began, there was quite a different sort of life
going on, huge forests, thick snow and frosts all winter,
..wolves on the prowl, bearded men wearing high boots,
women in strange bright shawls, scenes out of the
Russian Ballet. Miss Matfield, like most members of
the English middle classes, was incurably romantic at
heart, and now she was genuinely thrilled, and could
hardly have been more astonished and delighted if a few
nightingales had suddenly burst into song in one of the
dark archways. London was really marvellous, and the
wonder of it rushed up in her mind and burst there like

262

ANGEL PAVEMENT

a rocket, scattering a multi-coloured host of vague but
rich associations, a glittering jumble of history and non¬
sense and poetry, Dick Whittington and galleons, Mus¬
covy and Cathay, East Indiamen, the doldrums far away,
and the Pool of London, lapping here only a stone’s
throw from the shops and offices and buses.

She had arrived now at the foot of a gangway that
came down steeply from the rusty side of the Lemmala.
She looked up, hesitating. Somebody was calling. It was
Mr. Golspie above, and he was waving her up. When
she reached the head of the gangway he was there, wait¬
ing for her.

“We’ve a couple of hours at least before she moves,”
he explained, piloting her along the deck, then up a
short flight of stairs to the deck above, “but I shan’t keep
you so long, y’know. Awkward if she moved off and you
were still aboard, eh? Have to take a trip then, eh?”

“I don’t know that I’d mind very much,” she told him,
looking about her on the upper deck. “It would be
rather amusing.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have a bad time at all, so long as
you weren’t seasick. These fellows here would make a
great fuss of you, I can tell you.”

“Well, that would be rather a nice change.”

“Would it now?” He grinned. “Well, we won’t kid¬
nap you this time. We’ll go in here.” And he led the
way into a little saloon, quite neat and cheerful. On the
table, which was covered with a hideously bright cloth,
were some cigars, a mysterious tall bottle of a shape she
had never seen before, and several small glasses. Some
newspapers and illustrated papers, printed in fantastic
characters, were scattered about, and these helped more
than anything else, unless it was the tall bottle, to make

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 263

it all seem very foreign. Yet through the windows at
each side she could see the roofs and spires, the familiar
smoky mass, of London.

“All, I’d better look after that sample book,” said Mr.
Golspie. “Now then, you sit down there, Miss Math eld,
with your notebook.”

She sat down and tried to pull the chair nearer to the
table, but of course it would not move, or at least would
only swing round. She was forgetting that she was on
board a ship. It was all very odd and delightful.

The letters were not difficult and were all more or less
alike, and in half an hour they had done. Once or twice
while they were at work, various faces, foreign faces, had
peeped in at them, had nodded, smiled, and then dis¬
appeared. The only other interruptions were occasional
shouts and hootings outside.

“I think that’s all,” said Mr. Golspie, lighting a cigar
and pouring himself out a drink from the tall bottle.
“But just you read through what you’ve done while I try
to think if there’s anything else. There’s plenty of time.
D’you smoke? That’s right. Well, have a cigarette.
Here, have one of these.” And he threw over a very
fancy cardboard box, from which she took a long
cigarette that was half stiff paper, like a Russian. It was
a fine romantic cigarette and she enjoyed it.

“Can’t think of anything else,” said Mr. Golspie, puff¬
ing out a cloud of smoke. “Just run through that lot
quickly, will you?” She did, and there was only one
change to be made. “I’ll sign some sheets now for you,”
he continued, “and then you can take ’em back with
you to the office. I brought plenty of the firm’s stationery
with me. Always do, wherever I am. That’s the worst of
being on your own. Have to buy your own stationery,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

264

It’s a thing I hate doing. Funny, isn’t it? I’d spend
money like water on all sorts of silly rubbish and never
turn a hair, but I hate spending money on paper. Expect
you’re the same, aren’t you, about something?”

“Pencils,” replied Miss Matfield promptly. “I loathe
and detest having to buy pencils. If I can’t borrow or
steal one, and actually have to go to a shop and pay
money for one of the wretched things, I simply hate

it."

“Ah, we’re all a queer lot, even the best-looking of
us,” Mr. Golspie ruminated while he signed the blank
sheets. “We’re all both crooks and old washerwomen
rolled into one, though I expect you’ll tell me that you
aren’t, eh?”

“No, I shan’t. I know exactly what you mean.”

If they were on the very edge of a pleasant sympathetic
talk, as it appeared at that moment, then Mr. Golspie
only yanked them miles away at one swoop with his next
remark. “Well, if you do,” he said, “you know more than
I do. And that’s a nuisance.” He looked up, having
finished with the sheets. “Here, you’re shivering.”

“Am I? I didn’t know I was. But I am rather cold
now, she admitted. She was still wearing her thick coat,
but the little saloon was not warmed and there was a
nipping air along the river. • '

“You’ve finished here now,” said Mr. Golspie, looking
at her, “but if you’ll take my tip you won’t go like that,
you 11 have a drink of something to warm you up first.
Might get a cold before you say ‘knife.’ ”

This was Mr. Golspie in a new and unsuspected vein.
She could have laughed in his face.

“If the steward’s about,” he continued, “I could get
some tea for you. These people aren’t great on tea, but

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 265

they can make it all right. Or coffee, if you’d rather have
that. It just depends if he’s handy.” He got up, passing
the signed sheets to her.

“Oh, don’t bother, Mr. Golspie. They’re probably all
frightfully busy now, and I’d rather not, thanks. I can
get some tea on my way back to the office.”

“Well, you must have something. You can’t leave the
ship shivering like that. Have some of this stuff,” and
he pointed to the tall bottle. “It’ll warm you up. I’m
going to have some. You join me.” He poured out two
small glasses of the colourless liquor.

“Shall I? What is it?”

“Vodka. It’s the favourite tipple in these ships.”

Vodka! She picked up the glass and put her nose to
it. She had never tasted vodka before, never remem¬
bered ever having seen it before, but of course it was
richly associated with her memories of romantic ficton of
various kinds, and was tremendously thrilling, the final
completing thrill of the afternoon’s adventure. At once
she could hear herself bringing the vodka into her
account of the adventure at the Club. “And then, my
dear,” it would run, “I was given some vodka. There. 1
was, in the cabin, swilling vodka like mad. Marvellous!”

“Come along, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Golspie, look¬
ing at her over his raised glass. “Down it goes. Happy
days!” And he emptied his glass with one turn of the
wrist.

“All right,” she cried, raising hers. “What do I say?
Cheerio?” Boldly she drained her glass, too, in one gulp.
For a second or so, nothing happened but a curious
aniseedy taste as the liquor slipped over her palate, but
then, suddenly, it was as if an incendiary bomb had
burst in her throat and sent white fire racing down every

266

ANGEL PAVEMENT

channel of her body. She gasped, laughed, coughed, all
at once.

“That’s the way, Miss Matfield. You put it down in
great style. Try another. I’m going to have one. Just
another for good luck.” He filled the glasses again.

She floated easily now on a warm tide. It was very
pleasant. She took the glass, hesitated, then looked up at
him. “I’m not going to be tight, am I? If you make me
drunk I shan’t be able to type your letters, you know.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he told her, grinning
amiably and then patting her shoulder. “You couldn’t
be soused on two glasses of this stuff, and you’ll be as
sober as a judge by the time you get back to Angel Pave¬
ment. It’ll just make you feel warm and comfortable,
and keep the cold out. Now then. Here she goes.”

“Happy days!” cried Miss Matfield, smiling at him,
and once more there came the aniseedy taste, the incen¬
diary bomb, the racing white fire, and the final warm
tide.

“Now I like you, Miss Matfield,” he told her, with a
full stare of approval. “That was done in real style, like
a good sport. You’ve got some character, not like most
of these pink little ninnies of girls you see here. I
noticed that right at the start. I said to myself, That
girl’s not only got looks, but she’s got character too.’ I
wish you were coming with us.”

“Thank you.”

Well, it s a real compliment. Though I don’t know
that you’d like it. It’ll be perishingly cold, and by to¬
morrow she 11 be rolling like the devil all the way across
the North Sea, and she 11 start rolling again when we get
into the Baltic. I know her of old. How d’you feel
now?”

MISS MATFIELD WONDERS 267

“Marvellous!” And she did. She rose and gathered
her things together. “Not too sober, though.”

When they went out on to the upper deck, she stopped
and looked down the river. Daylight had dwindled to a
faint silver above and an occasional cold gleam on the
water, and at any other time she would probably have
been depressed or half frightened by the leaden swell of
the river itself, the uncertain lights beyond, and the
melancholy hooting, but now it all seemed wonderfully
mysterious and romantic. For a minute or so, she lost
herself in it. She was quite happy and yet she felt close
to tears. It was probably the vodka.

“Sort of hypnotises you, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie
gruffly, at her elbow.

“It does, doesn’t it?” she said softly. At that moment,
she decided that she liked Mr. Golspie and that he was
an unusual and fascinating man. She also felt that she
herself was fascinating, really rather wonderful. Then
she gave a quick shiver.

“Hello, you’re not starting again?” he said, humorous
but concerned too, and he took hold of her arm and drew
her closer to his side. They stayed like that for a few
moments. She did not mind being there. All that she
felt was a sudden sense of warmth and safety.

She stepped aside, and announced that she must go.
He made no effort to detain her, said nothing, but simply
led the way back to the lower deck and the gangway.
There he stopped and held out his hand.

“Very pleased to have met you, Miss Matfield,” he
said, taking her hand and, for once, smiling rather than
grinning.

“I hope you have a good trip, Mr. Golspie,” she told
him hurriedly, “and it isn’t too cold and the crossing

ANGEL PAVEMENT

isn't too bad.” Then, without knowing why, she added:
“And don’t forget to come back.”

He gave a sudden deep laugh. “Not I. You’ll be
seeing me again soon. I’ll be back in Angel Pavement
before you can turn round.” And he gave her hand a
huge squeeze, then released it.

She turned round once and waved, though it was
almost impossible to see if he was still there, then hurried
down the narrow lane, which brought her gradually back
into the ordinary world. By the-time she crossed London
Bridge again and looked through the bus window, there
was hardly anything to be seen of that other world, only
a glimmer of lights. By the time she was back at her
table, holding her notebook up to the nearest shaded
electric light, that other world was infinitely remote
and might never have existed outside a day-dream in
the November dusk. Yet there, on the very paper she
slipped behind the typewriter roller, was the sign that it
was there, the sprawling /. Golspie of the signature.
And it was queer now to think that he would be coming
back, returning from his tall bottle and rolling ship and
the snow and forests of the Baltic place, to walk through
that swing door there, not a yard from Smeeth’s elbow
It was queer and it was also rather exciting, which was
more than could be said of the 13 bus and the lounge at
the Burpenfield and her room there and the aspirin and
the hot water. She sent the typewriter carriage flying
along. It gave a sharp ping.

Chapter Six

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE

1

M R. 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

269

ANGEL PAVEMENT

270

his wife, she would have dosed him with half a dozen
different patent medicines and would have rushed out
for half a dozen more. She did not care for doctors, but
she loved patent medicines and would try one after
another, not as an attempt to cure some definite ailment,
for she could not claim to have one, but simply in the
hope that there would be some mysterious magic in the
bottle. Mrs. Smeeth called at the chemist’s in the same
spirit in which she called on her fortune-telling friends.
Mr. Smeeth was sceptical about both, though not so
sceptical as he imagined himself to be.

Occasional little pains, however, were nothing com¬
pared with the relief of seeing the firm busy again.
There had been times when he had almost hated going
to the bank, for he felt that even the cashiers were telling
one another that Twigg and Dersingham were looking
pretty rocky, but now it was a pleasure again. “Just
going round to the bank, Turgis,” he would say, trying
not to sound too important. (Not that it mattered with
Turgis, who really thought Mr. Smeeth was important.
But once or twice, when he had said something like this,
he had caught a certain look, a kind of gleam, in Miss
Matfield’s eye. With that young madam you never
knew.) Then he would button up his old brown over¬
coat, which had lasted very well, but would have to be
replaced as soon as he got a rise, put on his hat, fill his
pipe as he went down the steps, stop and light it outside
the Kwik-Work Razor Blade place, and then march
cosily with it down the chilled and smoky length of
Angel Pavement. Everywhere there would be a bustle
and a jostling, with the roadway a bedlam of hooting and
clanging and grinding gears, but he had his place in it
all, his work to do, his position to occupy, and so he did

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 271

not mind, but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent
ear. The bank, secure in its marble and mahogany,
would shut out the raw day and the raw sounds, and he
would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, sending an
occasional jet of fragrant T. Benenden towards the orna¬
mental grill. “Morning, Mr. Smeeth,” they would say.
“A bit nippy this morning. How are things with you?”
And then, if there was time for it, one of them might
have a little story to tell, about one of those queer things
that happen in the City. Then back again in the office, at
his desk, and very cosy it was after the streets. The very
sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens,
the rubber, the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber
stamps, all the paraphernalia of his desk, all there in
their places, at his service, gave him a feeling of deep
satisfaction. He felt dimly, too, that this was a satis¬
faction that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls,
young Stanley, would ever know, simply because they
never came to work in the right spirit. His own two
children were just the same. They were all alike now.
Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their
lives.

“And it beats me, Mr. Dersingham,” he said to that
gentleman, one morning, “who is going to be responsible
in this lot, when the time comes. And the time must
come, mustn’t it? I mean, they can’t be young and care¬
less all their lives.”

“Don’t you worry, Smeeth. They’ll all settle down,”
replied Mr. Dersingham, who felt that he stood between
these two different generations, and also felt that anyhow
he knew a lot more about everything than Smeeth. “I
can remember the time, and not so long ago, when I felt
just the same,” he continued, evidently under the

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 271

not mind, but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent
ear. The bank, secure in its marble and mahogany,
would shut out the raw day and the raw sounds, and he
would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, sending an
occasional jet of fragrant T. Benenden towards the orna¬
mental grill. “Morning, Mr. Smeeth,” they would say.
“A bit nippy this morning. How are things with you?”
And then, if there was time for it, one of them might
have a little story to tell, about one of those queer things
that happen in the City. Then back again in the office, at
his desk, and very cosy it was after the streets. The very
sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens,
the rubber, the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber
stamps, all the paraphernalia of his desk, all there in
their places, at his service, gave him a feeling of deep
satisfaction. He felt dimly, too, that this was a satis¬
faction that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls,
young Stanley, would ever know, simply because they
never came to work in the right spirit. His own two
children were just the same. They were all alike now.
Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their
lives.

“And it beats me, Mr. Dersingham,” he said to that
gentleman, one morning, “who is going to be responsible
in this lot, when the time comes. And the time must
come, mustn’t it? I mean, they can’t be young and care¬
less all their lives.”

“Don’t you worry, Smeeth. They’ll all settle down,”
replied Mr. Dersingham, who felt that he stood between
these two different generations, and also felt that anyhow
he knew a lot more about everything than Smeeth. “I
can remember the time, and not so long ago, when I felt
just the same,” he continued, evidently under the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

272

impression that he was now a tremendously responsible
person. “When the time comes, we take the responsi¬
bility all right. That’s the English way, you know,
Smeeth.”

“I hope that is so, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth
doubtfully, “but this new lot does seem different, I must
say. I know from my own two. Anything for tuppence,
that’s their style, and let next week look after itself. It
frightens me to hear them talk, though I say their
mother’s always been a bit like that and they may have
got it from her.”

Both George and Edna, however, unsatisfactory as
their general outlook might be, seemed to be going on
all right just then, and this, too, was a great source of
pleasure to Mr. Smeeth, who saw them-and had seen
them ever since they were babies-surrounded by snares
and pitfalls without number. He had to worry for two,
for their mother never seemed to worry about them or
anything else, for all her fortune-tellings and bottles
from the chemist’s, and to listen to her, you might think
life was a fairy-tale. To Mr. Smeeth—though he did not
say so—life was a journey, unarmed and without guide
or compass, through a jungle where poisonous snakes
were lurking and man-eating tigers might spring out of
every thicket. Only when he saw a little clear space
in front of him could he be easy in mind. His was a
naturally apprehensive nature, and in a religious age he
would never have overlooked the least comforting
observance. But he did not live in a religious age, and
he had no faith of his own. In his universe, the gods had
been banished but not the devils. He saw clearly enough
all the signs and marks of evil in the world, having a
mind that could foreshadow every stroke of malice, out

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 273

of the dark, and so was surrounded by demons that he
was powerless either to placate or to vanquish. If, de¬
siring as he did to be honest, decent, kind, good and
happy, his courage failed, he could call upon nobody,
nothing—but the police. Thus he lived, this man who
went so cosily from his little house to his little office,
more apprehensively, more dangerously, than one of
Edward the Third’s bowmen. He touched wood, and
desperately hoped for the best. Just now, it seemed to
be arriving. He was happier than he had been for some
time.

2

The morning after Mr. Golspie’s departure, two things
happened to Mr. Smeeth. The first seemed of little im¬
portance at the time, though afterwards he remembered
it only too well. George rang up from his garage, with a
message from his mother. “She’s here now, only she
doesn’t fancy herself at the phone,” said George. “So
I’ve got to give you the message. This is it. Do you re¬
member her talk about her cousin, Fred Mitty? Well,
he’s here in London with his wife. She’s just had a letter
from them, and they want her to go round and see them
to-night, somewhere Islington way. She didn’t think
you’d want to go.”

“No, I don’t want to go,” Mr. Smeeth told him. “But
that’s all right.”

“Yes, I know it is,” said George, “but the point is this.
She’s going there to tea, and she’ll be gone some time be-
, fore you get home. What she wants to know is this, has
she to leave something for you, she says, or will you have

ANGEL PAVEMENT

274

vour tea out somewhere and amuse yourself for once—”

“Now then, George,” his father cried down the tele¬
phone sharply, “that’s enough of that.”

“I’m only telling you what she says,” George’s voice
explained. “Keep cool, Dad. Nothing to do with me.
You can either have your tea out and amuse your¬
self—”

“I don’t want to amuse myself. As I’ve told some of
you before,” he added, rather grimly, “I like a quiet
life.”

“All right then, she can leave something for you.
You’ll only have to warm it up yourself. I shan’t be in
and Edna won’t be either.”

“Here, all right,” said Mr. Smeeth, who was not fond
of warming things up for himself. “I’ll stop out for
once. Tell your mother that’s all right. And tell her
I hope she enjoys herself with Mr. Mitty.”

He had heard his wife talk about her cousin, Fred
Mitty—she was rather given to talking about her rela¬
tions—but he had never met him. Mitty had been living
in one of the big provincial towns, Birmingham or Man¬
chester, for the last few years. He could have stopped
there, for all Mr. Smeeth cared. However, his wife would
enjoy herself. She liked nothing better than going out
for the evening and having a good old gas with some¬
body fairly lively, and Mr. Smeeth remembered now that
Fred Mitty—what a name!—was supposed to be very
lively, one of the dashing members of his wife’s family,
the chief comedian at all the weddings, and all the
funerals, too, for that matter. So long as Mrs. Smeeth’s
lot could all get together and eat and drink and gas
and kiss one another, they didn’t much care whether
they were marrying them or burying them. The Smeeths,

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 275

what was left of them, were different. When they met, it
meant business. Four of them had not spoken to one
another for ten years, all because of two cottage houses
in Highbury. His wife’s lot would have sold the pair
and eaten and drunk away the proceeds in less than a
week.

“But it wouldn’t do for us all to be alike, would it,
young lady?” he cried, almost gaily, to Miss Poppy
Sellers, who came up to him at that moment with some
invoices she had just typed.

“That’s what my dad’s always saying, Mr. Smeeth,”
she replied in her own queer fashion, half perky, half
shy. “And my mother always says, ‘Well, you might try
a bit, anyway.’ ”

“And what does she mean by that?” asked Mr. Smeeth,
amused.

Miss Sellers shook her dark little head. “I might be
able to give a guess, and then again I mightn’t. I’ve done
all these, Mr. Smeeth. Are they all right?”

“Well, now, let’s have a look,” he said, adjusting his
eyeglasses. “I might be able to tell you—and then again
I mightn’t.”

She laughed. She was a nice little thing, even though
Turgis had kept on grumbling about her. But he had
not grumbled so much lately. He had not done any¬
thing much lately, except get on with his work—he had
done that all right-and then sit mooning. The only
time he looked lively and brisk and up-to-the-minute
was when Mr. Golspie came in and asked him to do
something. A queer lad, Turgis. But he was beginning
to smarten himself up a bit, that was something; he had
taken to brushing his hair and his clothes and changing
his collars a little more often; and about time, too. Mr.

276 ANGEL PAVEMENT

Smeeth shot a glance at him over his glasses, then read
through the invoices.

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” said Stanley, returning from the
private office, “Mr. Dersingham wants to see you.”

And this was the second thing that happened that
morning, this little interview with Mr. Dersingham.

“What I feel, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, after a
few preliminaries, “is that you’ve been doing your bit
for the firm, and the firm now ought to do its bit for you.
You’ve had a good deal of extra work lately, haven’t you,
just as we all have?”

“I have, Mr. Dersingham. It’s been a very busy time
for me-and I’m glad to say so, sir.”

“For me too, I can tell you. I’ve been putting my
back into it these last few weeks. Jolly heavy going, if
you ask me. Particularly this last week, with the big
drive-and it’s not over yet, not by a long chalk it isn’t.
However, what I wanted to say is this, you’ve stood by
the firm, done your best and all that, and now I propose
to give you a rise.” He paused, and looked at his
employee.

“Thank you very much, sir,” cried Mr. Smeeth, flush¬
ing. “I didn’t want to say anything just yet, knowing
how things have been, but Mr. Golspie did say some¬
thing, just after he came—”

“Well, of course, this isn’t Golspie’s show at all. I
mean to say, he has his work here and, to a certain
extent, he s in charge, but whether you get a rise or not
or anybody else gets a rise or not has nothing to do with
him. It’s my affair entirely.”

“Quite so, Mr. Dersingham. I quite understand that,”
said Mr. Smeeth apologetically, though he was already
silently thanking Mr. Golspie for this.

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 277

“Though it’s—er—only fair to tell you that Mr. Golspie
did mention it to me. But, as a matter of fact, I’d prac¬
tically made up my mind then. He mentioned you, and
he also mentioned Miss Matfield. He seemed to think
she had been doing some very good work.”

“Miss Matfield's been working very well, sir. And she
certainly isn’t getting as much as she might. We promised
her a rise, if possible, after the first six months, when she
was taken on.”

“Well, I thought from now on, we’d give her three
ten instead of three pounds. Perhaps you’ll tell her,
Smeeth. Do it quietly. I don’t think I can give Turgis
any more yet.”

“He’s improving, Mr. Dersingham.”

“He’ll have to wait, though. As for you, Smeeth, I
thought we’d make it three seventy-five for you.”

This was a fine rise, well over a pound a week.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Dersingham. I’m sure I’ll
do my best—”

But Mr. Dersingham, large, pink, benevolent, cut him
short with a friendly wave of the hand. “That’s all
right, Smeeth. I hope it won’t be the last, either. You’ll
rise with the firm, and at the present rate there’s no
telling where we shall land. Mr. Golspie has suggested
several side-lines, quite profitable, handled properly, and
I propose to look into our end of it while he’s away. Oh
—by the way—I think those increases, both yours and
Miss Matfield’s, had better begin this fortnight, eh?”

At odd intervals throughout the day, Mr. Smeeth
thought about this extra money and delightedly con¬
sidered what might be done with it. He was, of course,
all in favour of saving it. They lived comfortably as,
they were, but they saved little or nothing, and now at

278 ANGEL PAVEMENT

last they had a chance of really putting something away.
Insurance? That ought to be looked into, for they had
all kinds of schemes. National Savings? A good safe in¬
vestment. They might buy a house through one of the
Building Societies. He saw himself looking into all these
things, smoking his pipe over them and then making
notes and putting down a few rows of neat little figures.
It almost made his mouth water.

It was not until late afternoon, when they were finish¬
ing off, that he began to tackle the major problem, for,
like most people, he preferred to examine the little
problems, the pleasant cheerful little fellows, first.
Plump in the middle of this major problem was Mrs.
Smeeth. If she was told about this extra money, she
would want to spend it. That was her nature; she was
a born spender. She was not a grabber and she was not
a grumbler; if the money was not there, she made no
complaint, and could make a little go a long way with
the best of them, if there was no help for it. Tell her
there was more money coming into- the house, and she
would never rest until it had been all frittered away, on
clothes and ornaments and meals in cafes and visits to
the theatre and the pictures and trips to the seaside and
chocolate and bottles of port wine. Insurance and
National Savings and Building Societies!-he could
hear her telling him what she thought about them, and
what she thought about him too for suggesting such a
miserable way of spending their money. (She never
understood the idea of saving, except when it merely
meant putting a few shillings in a vase until Saturday.
Giving money to an insurance company or a bank
seemed to her simply spending it and getting nothing
in return.) She would make him appear a mean ageing

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 279

sort of chap, almost an old miser, cutting a contemptible
figure in her eyes, and would refer to other men of her
acquaintance, big, open-handed, dashing fellows. That
would be so hateful that, finally, he would give in, and
then what would they have for the future, for the rainy
day? Empty bottles and chocolate-boxes and old pro¬
grammes and souvenirs of Clacton. It wasn’t good
enough. He saw one way out, of course, and that was
not to tell her at all, to say nothing about his rise until
he had made a good start with his savings; but he hated
the thought of doing that. It meant lying to her, not
once but perhaps scores of times. It would be all for the
best, but he had an idea that he would feel mean all the
time. Some chaps seemed to think of their wives as
people you always felt mean with, and to hear them talk
you would think they had married their worst enemies,
but though he and Edie were often pulling different
ways, that wasn’t their style at all. So what was he to do?

His mind was still busy with this problem when he
left the office for the night and called in T. Benenden’s,
round the comer. As he watched Benenden take down
the familiar canister, he wondered if Benenden was
married. He had exchanged remarks with him all these
years and never found that out. Surely Benenden
couldn’t be married. A man who never wore a tie
couldn’t possibly have a wife, unless, of course, he left
home with a tie and then took it off in the shop.

“You a married man, Mr. Benenden?” he inquired
casually.

T. Benenden stopped his weighing at once. “Now
that’s a queer question,” he said, staring.

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said Mr. Smeeth.
rather embarrassed. “No business of mine at all”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

280

“Not at all, not at all,” said T. Benenden, still staring.
“No offence taken, I assure you. What I really meant
was, it’s a queer question for me to answer. You say to
me, ‘Are you a married man, Mr. Benenden?’ Well, the
only answer I can give to that is—I am—and then again
I’m not. What do you make of that?”

Before Mr. Smeeth had time to make anything of it,
a youth rushed in, flung some coppers on the counter,
and cried: “Packet o’ gaspers. Ten.”

Mr. Benenden contemptuously threw down a packet
of cigarettes, contemptuously swept the coppers away,
and watched the youth rush out again with even greater
contempt.

“You saw that, you 'eard it?” he said scornfully.
‘“Packet o’ gaspers. Packet 0’ gaspers.’ Rushes in,
rushes out, never stops to say please or thank you, never
stops to think. Just-packet 0’ gaspers. Can’t even say
of. A packet of gaspers. Now that,” he continued gravely,
his eyes fixed on Mr. Smeeth’s apparently without once
winking, “is the ruin of the tobacco trade to-day. I. don’t
mean there’s no money in it. There is money in it.
That’s where the big forchewns ’ave been made—packets
o’ gaspers. If you and me had had the sense to realise,
when the War started, that this packet 0’ gasper business
was bound to come, bound to come—men smoking ’em,
women smoking ’em, boys and girls smoking ’em—we
could have made our forchewns, as easy as that. You
watch for the big dividends in our trade—where are
they? It isn’t tobacco that’s behind ’em—it’s packets 0’
gaspers. Same with the shops. Quick turnover, in and
out, throw ’em down, pick ’em up, outchew go. Easy
money. All right. But I say it’s the ruin of the tobac¬
conist to-day. And why? It takes the ’eart out of the

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE s8l

business. Some of ’em have started putting rows of
automatic machines outside at closing time. You’ve
seen ’em. Well, I say they might as well keep ’em all
day and have done with it. Packet o’ gaspers. Ten.
There’s your sixpence. Twenty. There’s your shilling.
Am I a man or am I an automatic machine?”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, nodding his head.

“I’m a man, and what’s more, I’m a man with expert
knowledge, I am. You come to me, and you say, 1 want
such and such a smoke, a bit of Virginia, a bit of Lati-
kee-ya—or you mightn’t say that because you mightn’t
know so much about it—but, anyhow, you’ve got your
idea of what you want and you come to me and I fix you
up, just as I’ve fixed you up with this mixture of mine.
There’s some pleasure in that. But this packet o’ gasper
business. I might as well stand in the door there, and
every time you put sixpence in my mouth, a packet of
ten drops out of my waistcoat.”

“You’d look well, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Smeeth
watched him filling the pouch, and could not help
thinking that T. Benenden’s Own looked dustier than
usual.

“Getting a bit down with that,” T. Benenden ad¬
mitted, rolling up the pouch, “though if you ask me,
I’d tell you to give me the bottom of the tin every time.
That’s not ordinary dust, y’know. That’s good short
stuff, best Oriental. It’s rich, that, and the Prince of
Wales wouldn’t want anything better than that in his
pipe—and I believe he smokes one.”

“I believe he does,” said Mr. Smeeth, handing over
his money. “But what was that you were saying about
being married?”

“Ar, yes,” said T. Benenden, preparing to consume

2?2

ANGEL PAVEMENT

some of his own stock. “Well, my answer to that ques¬
tion of yours was, ‘I am and I’m not.’ And how do you
puzzle that out?” he asked, with the air of a man who
had produced a rare riddle. “Bit of a facer, that, eh?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’d say—off-hand—that you say
you are married because you’re still legally married and
have a wife living, but at the same time you say you’re
not married because you’re not living the life of a
married man. In fact, you’re separated from your wife,
How’s that, Mr. Benenden?”

The other’s face fell at being robbed so quickly of the
chance of explaining himself. “That was a bit of smart
thinking on your part, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, brightening
up. “There aren’t many men about here who could
have got on to it like that. And you’re right. I’ve been
separated for nearly ten years. She goes her way, and I
go mine. We were only married three years, and that
was quite enough for me, a regular cat-and-dog life that
was. If she wanted to go out, I wanted to stay in, and
if she wanted to stay in, I wanted to go out. Well, that’s
all right, isn’t it? If she wants to go out, let her go out.
If she wants to stay in, let her stay in. What’s the matter
with that? Ar, but that’s a man’s point of view. This is
where the unfairness of the sex comes in. I was ready
to let her go out or stay in, just as she pleased. But what
about her? Had she the same fair-minded attitude, the
same broad principles?” Mr. Benenden here removed
his pipe to make room for a short bitter laugh. “When
she wanted to go out, I’d to go out too, and when she
wanted to stay in, I’d to stay in as well. That was her
idear. Dog in the manger, she was, all the time, and
specially on Saturdays and Sundays, just when you
wanted a bit of give and take. We didn’t get on. Why

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 2 Sj

some men like to tell you they get on well with women’s
a mystery to me. I never did get on with ’em, and I don’t
care who knows it.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Mr. Smeeth, for no particular
reason except that he felt Benenden ought to be en¬
couraged.

“Yes, well, as I say, we’d three years of it, and she left
me three times and I left her twice during them three
years. Interfering relations always ‘brought us together’
—as they called it—but it was a miserable business. One
of us was always packing up. I never knew whether I
was going home to find a bit of supper or a note to say
she’d gone to her sister’s at Saffron Walden. So the last
time, I left a note saying she’d better stay for good at
Saffron Walden, and I went into lodgings down Camber¬
well way for a week and didn’t go back for over a week.
When I did go back, she’d just gone again to Saffron
Walden—she’d been back, you see, and waited a few days
—and she stayed there.”

“And don’t you ever see her now?”

“Let me see,” said T. Benenden, tickling his beard
with the stem of his pipe. “Last time I ran across her
by accident, a year or two ago, or it might be three years
ago. I was walking round the Confectionery and
Grocery Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, and I sud¬
denly saw her and her sister—they’re in that line—and
another woman all eating free samples of custard or
jelly or potted meat or something, which is what I
might have known they would be doing. I gave them
one look and then went the other way.”

“Didn’t you stop at all?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“If I’d gone up to them there,” said Mr. Benenden
earnestly, “what would have happened? A lot of

284 ANGEL PAVEMENT

argument. ‘You did this—Oh, did I?—Well, you did that.’
What she wouldn’t have said, her sister’ud said for her.
Her sister had a tongue a yard long, noted for it up m
Saffron Walden. I know that because a man from there
came into this very shop one morning. Well, you can’t
have that sort of argument at a free custard and jelly
stall, can you? I had a picture post card from her last
year, from Cromer—all show-off, y’know. No, I’m
better without them. Let’s see, Mr. Smeeth, I think
you’re married, aren’t you? I seem to recollect you’re
a family man.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Smeeth, feeling very much
at that moment the affectionate father and husband.
“And I like it.”

"Oh, it suits some people,” said Mr. Benenden judici¬
ally. “They have a knack or an inclination that way.
I’m not laying down any rules about it. But it never
suited me. I like a quiet life of my own, to do what I
like when I like, and have time to think things over.
Good night.”

As Mr. Smeeth walked away, he came to the conclu¬
sion that he had solved the mystery of the absent tie.
Benenden did not wear a tie just to show his independ¬
ence. Mr. Smeeth, however, did not envy him, although
the question of Mrs. Smeeth and the extra money had
yet to be settled. He was glad that he was not going
home for once and would not have to meet his wife until
late that night. He dismissed the problem and asked
himself instead how he should spend the evening. The
first thing to do was to have a meal and as he had once
or twice had a respectable sort of high tea in a place in

Holbom, he decided to go there again, so turned down
Aldermanbury and Milk Street, caught a bus in Cheap-

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 285

side and, ten minutes later, was seated snugly at a little
table in the teashop.

He could not help feeling richer than he had done
that morning. Now he was practically a four-hundred-a-
year man instead of a three-hundred-a-year man. He felt
that he was entitled to celebrate this promotion in his
own quiet way. So he began by ordering a good solid
high tea, and then searched his paper to discover what
was happening that night in the world of entertainment.
There was a symphony concert at the Queen’s Hall. He
would go there. He had never been to the Queen’s Hall,
had always thought of the concerts there as being a bit
above his head. Symphony concerts at the Queen’s Hall
—it did sound rather heavy, rather alarming too, but
he would try it. After all, although he didn’t pretend to
know much about it, he did like music, indeed liked
nothing better than music, and there would be sure to
be something he could enjoy, and the Queen’s Hall, ex¬
pensive and highbrow as it sounded, couldn’t kill him.
So far, he had got his music from gramophone records
and the wireless, bands in the park or at the seaside,
popular concerts in North London or occasionally at
the Kingsway Hall and the Central Hall, and nights in
the gallery in the old days to hear the Carl Rosa Com¬
pany do Carmen and Rigoletto and that one about the
pierrots, Pag-lee-atchy he supposed they called it. Well,
this would be a new move, this Symphony Concert in
the Queen’s Hall, a bit of an adventure. He ate his tea
deliberately, as usual, but with a little inner glow of
excitement.

He arrived at the Queen’s Hall in what he imagined
to be very good time, but was surprised to find, after
paying what seemed to him a stifhsh price, that there

286

ANGEL PAVEMENT

was only just room for him in the gallery. Another ten
minutes and he would have been too late, a thought that
gave him a good deal of pleasure as he climbed the steps,
among all the eager, chattering symphony concert-goers.

3

His seat was not very comfortable, high up too, but he
liked the look of the place, with its bluey-green walls and
gilded organ-pipes and lights shining through holes in
the roof like fierce sunlight, its rows of little chairs and
music stands, all ready for business. It was fine. He
did not buy a programme-they were asking a shilling
each for them, and a man must draw a line somewhere
—but spent his time looking at the other people and
listening to snatches of their talk. They were a queer
mixture, quite different from anybody you were likely
to see either in Stoke Newington or Angel Pavement; a
good many foreigners (the kind with brown baggy stains
under their eyes), Jewy people, a few wild-looking young
fellows with dark khaki shirts and longish hair, a
sprinkling of quiet middle-aged men like himself, and
any number of pleasant young girls and refined ladies;
and he studied them all with interest. On one side, of
him were several dark foreigners in a little party, a
brown wrinkled oldish woman who never stopped talk¬
ing Spanish or Italian or Greek or some such language,
a thin young man who was carefully reading the pro¬
gramme, which seemed to be full of music itself, and, on
the far side, two yellow girls. On the other side, his
neighbour was a large man whose wiry grey hair stood
straight up above a broad red face, obviously an Eng-

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 287

lishman but a chap rather out of the common, a bit
cranky perhaps and fierce in his opinions.

This man, moving restlessly in the cramped space,
bumped against Mr. Smeeth and muttered an apology.

“Not much room, is there?” said Mr. Smeeth amiably.

“Never is here, sir,” the man replied fiercely.

“Is that so,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I don’t often come
here.” He felt it would not do to admit that this was
the very first time.

“Always crowded at these concerts, full up, packed
out, not an inch of spare room anywhere. And always
the same. What the devil do they mean when they
say they can’t make these concerts pay? Whose fault
is it?” he demanded fiercely, just as if Mr. Smeeth were
partly responsible. “We pay what they ask us to pay.
We fill the place, don’t we? What do they want? Do
they want people to hang down from the roof or sit on
the organ pipes? They should build a bigger hall or
stop talking nonsense.”

Mr. Smeeth agreed, feeling glad there was no necessity
for him to do anything else.

“Say that to some people,” continued the fierce man,
who needed no encouragement, “and they say, ‘Well,
what about the Albert Hall? That’s big enough, isn't
it?’ The Albert Hall! The place is ridiculous. I was
silly enough to go and hear Kreisler there, a few weeks
ago. Monstrous! They might as well have used a
racecourse and sent him up to play in a captive balloon.
If it had been a gramophone in the next house but one,
it couldn’t have been worse. Here you do get the music,
I will say that. But it’s damnably cramped up here.”

The orchestral players were now swarming in like
black beetles, and Mr. Smeeth amused himself trying

288

ANGEL PAVEMENT

to decide what all the various instruments were.
Violins, cellos, double-basses, flutes, clarinets, bassoons,
trumpets or cornets, trombones, he knew them, but he
was not sure about some of the others—were those curly
brass things the homs?-and it was hard to see them at
all from where he was. When they had all settled down,
he solemnly counted them, and there were nearly a
hundred. Something like a band, that! This was going
to be good, he told himself. At that moment, every¬
body began clapping. The conductor, a tall foreign-
looking chap with a shock of grey hair that stood out all
round his head, had arrived at his little railed-in plat¬
form, and was giving the audience a series of short jerky
bows. He gave two little taps. All the players brought
their instruments up and looked at him. He slowly
raised his arms, then brought them down sharply and
the concert began.

First, all the violins made a shivery sort of noise that
you could feel travelling up and down your spine. Some
of the clarinets and bassoons squeaked and gibbered a
little, and the brass instruments made a few unpleasant
remarks. Then all the violins went rushing up and up,
and when they got to the top, the stout man at the back
hit a gong, the two men near him attacked their drums,
and the next moment every man jack of them, all tire
hundred, went at it for all they were worth, and the
conductor was so energetic that it looked as if his cuffs
were about to fly up to the organ. >• The noise was
terrible, shattering: hundreds of tin buckets were being
kicked down flights of stone steps; walls of houses were
falling inp ships were going down; ten thousand people
were screaming with toothache, steam hammers were
breaking loose; whole warehouses of oilcloth were being

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 289

stormed and the oilcloth all torn into shreds; and there
were railway accidents innumerable. Then suddenly
the noise stopped; one of the clarinets, all by itself, went
slithering and gurgling; the violins began their shivery
sound again and at last shivered away into silence. The
conductor dropped his arms to his side. Nearly every¬
body clapped.

Neither Mr. Smeeth nor his neighbour joined in the
applause. Indeed, the fierce man snorted a good deal,
obviously to show his disapproval.

“I didn’t care for that much, did you?” said Mr.
Smeeth, who felt he could risk it after those snorts.

“That? Muck. Absolute muck,” the fierce man
bellowed into Mr. Smeeth’s left ear. “If they’ll swallow
that they’ll swallow anything, any mortal thing. Down¬
right sheer muck. Listen to ’em.” And as the applause
continued, the fierce man, in despair, buried his huge
head in his hands and groaned.

The next item seemed to Mr. Smeeth to be a member
of the same unpleasant family as the first, only instead
of being the rowdy one, it was the thin sneering one.
He had never heard a piece of music before that gave
such an impression of thinness, boniness, scragginess,
and scratchiness. It was like having thin wires pushed
into your ears. You felt as if you were trying to chew ice¬
cream. The violins hated the sight of you and of one
another; the reedy instruments were reedier than they
had ever been before but expressed nothing but a
general loathing; the brass only came in to blow strange
hollow sounds; and the stout man and his friends at the
top hit things that had all gone flat, dead, as if their
drums were burst. Very tall thin people sat about
drinking quinine and sneering at one another, and in

K*

ANGEL PAVEMENT

29O

the middle of them, on the cold floor, was an idiot child
that ran its finger-nail up and down a slate. One last
scratch from the slate, and the horror was over. Once
more, the conductor, after wiping his brow, was acknow¬
ledging the applause.

This time, Mr. Smeeth did not hesitate. “And I don’t
like that either,” he said to his neighbour.

“You don’t?” The fierce man was almost staggered.
‘You don’t like it? You surprise me, sir, you do indeed.
If you don’t like that, what in the name of thunder are
you going to like—in modern music. Come, come,
you’ve got to give the moderns a chance. You can’t
refuse them a hearing altogether, can you?”

Mr. Smeeth admitted that you couldn’t, but said it
in such a way as to suggest that he was doing his best
to keep them quiet.

“Very well, then,” the fierce man continued, “you’ve
got to confess that you’ve just listened to one of the two
or three things written during these last ten years or so
that is going to live. Come now, you must admit that.”

“Well, I dare say,” said Mr. Smeeth, knitting his
brows.

Here the fierce man began tapping him on the arm.
“Form? Well, of course, the thing hasn’t got it, and
it’s no good pretending it has, and that’s where you and
I”—Mr. Smeeth was given a heavier tap, almost a bang,
to emphasise this—“find ourselves being cheated. But
we’re asking for something that isn’t there. But the tone
values, the pure orchestral colouring—superb! Damn it,
it’s got poetry in it. Romantic, of course. Romantic
as you like—ultra-romantic. All these fellows now are
beginning to tell us they’re classical, but they’re all
romantic really, the whole boiling of em, and Berlioz

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 2 gi

is their man only they don’t know it, or won’t admit it.
What do you say?”

Mr. Smeeth observed very cautiously that he had no
doubt there was a lot to be said for that point of view.
When the interval came and he went out to smoke a
pipe, he took care to keep moving so that the fierce man,
who appeared to be on the prowl, did not find him.

The concert was much better after the interval. It
began with a longish thing in which a piano played
about one half, and most of the orchestra, for some of
them never touched their instiuments, played the other
half. A little dark chap played the piano and there could
be no doubt about it, he could play the piano. Terrum,
ter -rum, terrum, terrum, trum, trum, trrrrr, the
orchestra would go, and the little chap would lean back,
looking idly at the conductor. But the second the
orchestra stopped he would hurl himself at the piano
and crash out his own Terrum, ter -rum, terrum, terrum,
trum trum trrr. Sometimes the violins would play very
sadly and softly, and the piano would join in, scattering
silver showers of notes or perhaps wandering up and
down a ladder of quiet chords, and then Mr. Smeeth
would feel himself very quiet and happy and sad all at
the same time. In the end, they had a pell-mell race,
and the piano shouted to the orchestra and then went
scampering away, and the orchestra thundered at the
piano and went charging after it, and they went up hill
and down dale, shouting and thundering, scampering
and charging, until one big bang, during which the little
chap seemed to be almost sitting on the piano and the
conductor appeared to be holding the whole orchestra
up in his two arms, brought it to an end. This time Mr.
Smeeth clapped furiously, and so did the fierce man,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

292

and so did everybody else, even the violin players in the
orchestra; and the little chap, now purple in the face,
ran in and out a dozen times, bowing all the way. But
he would not play again, no matter how long and loud
they clapped, and Mr. Smeeth, for his part, could not
blame him. The little chap had done his share. My
word, there was talent for you!

“Our old friend now,” said the fierce man, turning
abruptly.

“Where?” cried Mr. Smeeth, startled.

“On the programme,” the other replied. “It’s the
Brahms Number One next.”

“Is it really,” said Mr. Smeeth. “That ought to be
good.” He had heard of Brahms, knew him as a chap
who had written some Hungarian dances. But, unless
he was mistaken, these dances were only a bit of fun for
Brahms, who was one of your very classical men. The
Number One part of it he did not understand, and did
not like to ask about it, but as the elderly foreign woman
on his right happened to be examining the programme,
he had a peep at it and had just time to discover that it
was a symphony, Brahms’ First Symphony in fact, they
were about to hear. It would probably be clean above
his head, but it could not possibly be so horrible to
listen to as that modern stuff in the first half of the
programme.

It was some time before he made much out of it. The
Brahms of this symphony seemed a very gloomy, pon¬
derous, rumbling sort of chap, who might now and then
show a flash of temper or go in a corner and feel sorry
for himself, but for the most part simply went on
gloomily rumbling and grumbling. There were
moments, however, when there came a sudden gush of

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 29$

melody, something infinitely tender swelling out of the
strings or a ripple of laughter from the flutes and clari¬
nets or a fine flare up by the whole orchestra, and for
these moments Mr. Smeeth waited, puzzled but excited,
like a man catching glimpses of some delectable strange
valley through the swirling mists of a mountain side.
As the symphony went on, he began to get the hang of it
more and more, and these moments returned more
frequently, until at last, in the final section, the great
moment arrived and justified everything, the whole
symphony concert.

It began, this last part, with some muffled and doleful
sounds from the brass instruments. He had heard some
of those grim snatches of tune earlier on in the sym¬
phony,'and now when they were repeated in this fashion
they had a queer effect on him, almost frightened him.
It was as if all the workhouses and hospitals and ceme¬
teries of North London had been flashed past his eyes.
Those brass instruments didn’t think Smeeth had much
of a chance. All the violins were sorry about it; they pro¬
tested, they shook, they wept; but the horns and
trumpets and trombones came back and blew them
away. Then the whole orchestra became tumultuous, and
one voice after another raised itself above the menacing
din, cried in anger, cried in sorrow, and was lost again.
There were queer little intervals, during one of which
only the strings played, and they twanged and plucked
instead of using their bows, and the twanging and pluck¬
ing; quite soft and slow at first, got louder and faster
until it seemed as if there was danger everywhere. Then,
just when it seemed as if something was going to burst,
the twanging and plucking was over, and the great
mournful sounds came reeling out again, like doomed

ANGEL PAVEMENT

294

giants. After that the whole thing seemed to be slither¬
ing into hopelesness, as if Brahms had got stuck in a bog
and the light was going. But then the great moment
arrived. Brahms jumped clean out of his bog, set his
foot on the hard road, and swept the orchestra and the
fierce man and the three foreigners and Mr. Smeeth and
the whole Queen’s Hall along with him, in a noble
stride. This was a great tune. Ta turn ta ta turn turn, ta
turn ta-ta turn ta turn. He could have shouted at the
splendour of it. The strings in a rich deep unison
sweeping on, and you were ten feet high and had a
thousand glorious years to live. But in a minute or two
it had gone, this glory of sound, and there was muddle
and gloom, a sudden sweetness of violins, then harsh
voices from the brass. Mr. Smeeth had given it up, when
back it came again, swelling his heart until it nearly
choked him, and then it was lost once more and every¬
thing began to be put in its place and settled, abruptly,
fiercely, as if old Brahms had made up his mind to stand
no nonsense from anybody or anything under the sun.
There, there, there there, There. It was done. They
were all clapping and clapping and the conductor was
mopping his forehead and bowing and then signalling
to the band to stand up, and old Brahms had slipped
away, into the blue.

There was a cold drizzle of rain outside in Langham
Place, where the big cars of the rich were nosing one
another like shiny monsters, and it was a long and dreary
way to Chaucer Road, Stoke Newington, but odd bits
of the magic kept floating back into his mind, and he
felt more excited and happy than he had done when he
had heard about the rise that morning. Undoubtedly a
lot of this symphony concert stuff was either right above

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 295

his head or just simply didn’t mean anything to any¬
body. But what was good was good. Ta turn ta ta—now
how did that go? All the way from the High Street to
Chaucer Road, as he hurried down the darkening streets
and tried to make his overcoat collar reach the back of
his hat, he was also trying to capture that tune. He
could feel it still beating and glowing somewhere inside
him.

His wife and Edna were in. He heard their voices
as he shut the front door. George was probably still
out. “Hello, there. Only me,” he shouted. “George
in yet?” They told him that George was in bed (George
was always out very late or in bed quite early. A
puzzling lad), so he carefully locked and bolted the front
door.

“Well, here’s the wanderer,” cried Mrs. Smeeth gaily.
She had still got her hat and coat on, and was refreshing
herself with a piece of cake and half a tumbler of stout.
“And where did you get to, Dad?”

“Went to a concert,” he replied, a trifle self-con¬
sciously. He drew nearer the fire and began taking off
his boots.

“Get your dad his slippers, Edna, that’s a good girl,”
said her mother. “And where was this concert then?”

“Queen’s Hall.”

“Oo, classy, aren’t we?” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “Did you
like it?'

“I’ll bet he didn’t,” said Edna, an aggressive low-brow.

“How do you know he didn’t, miss. Some people
like a bit of good music, even if you don’t. We’re not
all jazz-mad. There’s nobody round here who enjoys
good music, classical pieces, better than your father.
Isn’t that so. Dad? Nobody knows that better than I

296 ANGEL PAVEMENT

do, the times I’ve had to listen to it as well, and a little
bit goes a long way with me. Now you get off to bed,
Edna, now, else you won’t be getting up in the morning
and then you’ll be in a bit more trouble at the shop.”

“What’s this?” asked Mr. Smeeth, looking at his wife
and then at his daughter. “Has she been getting into
any trouble?”

“It wasn’t my fault at all, and you needn’t have
mentioned it, Mother,” Edna began, but she was cut
short by her mother.

“I didn’t say it was, but it will be if you don’t pop off
upstairs.” She waited then until Edna had disappeared.
“Tells me she’s had some bother with the buyer or floor
manager, all something and nothing, but she thinks one
or two of them there are getting their knife into her,
and I’ve just been telling her to keep quiet a bit and not
give any back answers until it’s blown over. Well,” she
continued, settling back in her chair, after disposing
of the stout, “I think George told you I was going to
see Fred Mitty and his wife.”

“He did,” said Mr. Smeeth. “And how’s cousin Fred?
What’s brought him here?”

“I can’t quite make out what it is. Something to
do with advertising and something to do with picture
theatres and all that. He didn’t explain it properly.
But he’s looking well, and so is his wife, and the
daughter. Quite grown up, she is, about Edna’s age
but bigger than Edna. But laugh!” Her face lit up.
“Laugh! I thought I’d have died. I wish you’d been
there, Dad. Oh, dear, dear, dear! Fred was always a
lively card, never knew him when he wasn’t, but he gets
funnier as he gets older, and he set us off to-night and
I thought we’d never have stopped. He started taking

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 297

of! a man he knew in Birmingham—I believe he worked
for him—and it seems this man talks on one side of
his mouth, can’t help it, you see, and Fred started—”

“I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll have all this to¬
morrow, Edie,” said Mr. Smeeth, standing up. “I feel
like going to bed. I’m tired.”

“Oh, all right, Mister Methodical,” cried Mrs. Smeeth
good-humouredly. “Fat lot of good it is saving a joke
for you, isn’t it? Never mind, you’ll see for yourself
on Saturday. I’ll ask Fred to do it again. They’re all
coming up on Saturday night.”

“Oh, they are, are they,” said Mr. Smeeth with an
entire lack of enthusiasm.

“Oh, I know what you’d like to say,” she told him,
as they moved to the door. “But I had to ask them
back, hadn’t I? Besides, we’ve got to have a bit of life
sometimes.”

That was true enough. He didn’t want to spoil her
fun. He hadn’t told her about the rise yet, and he wasn’t
sure if he was going to tell her. Somebody had to do
the worrying and saving at 17, Chaucer Road. Turn
turn turn turn—no, he couldn’t get it. He turned out
the light and followed his wife upstairs.

4

All the following day, he told himself that he would
not say a word to Mrs. Smeeth about the extra money
until he had made arrangements to save most of it.
Once he had committed himself, it would be safe—
though not pleasant-to tell her. In the meantime, if
she asked him why he wasn’t getting the rise he had
been promised, he would have to put her off with some

ANGEL PAVEMENT

£98

tale or other. That wouldn’t be very pleasant either
and not at all simple. To look at Mrs. Smeeth, with
her free and easy style, you would think she was easy
to lie to, but she wasn’t—or so it seemed to Mr. Smeeth.
Whenever he tried he found himself, at his age too,
still blushing and stammering. But there it was; that
was the plan. And he spent some of his lunch time,
all that could be spared from the usual poached egg
and cup of coffee, “looking into” one or two things,
insurance and National Savings chiefly, and when he
returned to the office and made a few notes and calcu¬
lations in his neat little script, he felt vaguely rich and
rather important for once in his life.

The only person in the office who noticed any change
in him was Stanley. Stanley’s interest in the affairs of
Twigg and Dersingham, never strong at any time, had
almost entirely lapsed now that Mr. Golspie was away,
and that afternoon he found Mr. Smeeth unbearably
tyrannical. He had to comfort himself by imagining
a certain dramatic scene in the future, in which Mr.
Smeeth, now the victim of a desperate gang, called in
despair on the great detective, S. Poole, only to dis¬
cover, after bowing humbly, that he was face to face
with Stanley, the boy he had once bullied and despised.
“Yes, Smeeth,” said S. Poole, lighting another cigar,
“you little imagined then who it was copying your
letters and filling your inkwells. But we will let by¬
gones be bygones. Come, I will rid you of these pests.”
And the great S. Poole, after slipping a revolver into
the pocket of his fur coat, strode out, followed by an
amazed and trembling Smeeth. “Courage, man,
courage,” said S. Poole, as he climbed into the
driving seat of his powerful roadster. “I can never

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 2Q9

thank you enough, Mr. Poole—”

“And just get on with your work, Stanley,” said the
same voice. But oh!—the difference in intonation. “1
told you those letters have to catch the country post.
Be ready to slip out with them. Got the envelopes
there?”

On his tram, going home, Mr. Smeeth turned the
pages of his evening paper, looking for those appeals
to “The Saving Man” and “The Small Investor.” One
of the advertisements asked him, not for the first time,
what he was going to do in the Evening of Life, and
though he still had no answer ready, for once he could
look at it without feeling himself shrinking somewhere.
Already he carried a good insurance for a man in his
position; he had a bit, for emergencies, in the Post
Office Savings Bank; and now he would have over a
pound a week to put away. Now if he did that for ten
years, fifteen years, perhaps increased it if the firm went
on doing so well and gave him another rise, why, then,
surely—and he lost himself in pleasant speculations.

He arrived home to find Edna sitting over the fire,
hugging herself in misery, and red and swollen about
the eyes.

“Hello, hello,” he cried, “what’s the matter here?”

“Lost my job,” Edna mumbled into the fire.

“Yes, she’s a fine one, isn’t she?” And Mrs. Smeeth
bounced into the room with a saucepan in her hand.
“I told her to be careful, last night, the way they were
getting their knife into her, and in she comes, half an
hour ago, and tells me they’ve had a regular dust-up
and the long and short of it all is, my lady’s sacked.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” said Edna, who had obviously
said this a great many times before.

goo

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Just you go upstairs and tidy yourself up,” cried her
mother. “Dinner will be ready in a minute and the face
you’ve got now isn’t fit to be seen at a table. It would
put us off our food. And don’t start telling me you
don’t want any dinner, just because you’ve got sacked.
Get along upstairs and don’t keep us waiting all night
when you do get up.”

“What’s all this about?” Mr. Smeeth asked, with the
quiet despair of a man who has known something like
it happen before, and not a few times before. He put
on that look familiar to all wives, who are left wonder¬
ing why men should imagine that domestic life, unlike
any other kind of life, ought really to be entirely lacking
in disturbing events.

“Look at me with this saucepan in my hand,” cried
Mrs. Smeeth, laughing at herself. “Just you sit down
and keep calm, and I’ll have dinner on the table in a
minute, though what it’ll be like, Lord only knows, the
way I’ve been badgered and rushed.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth came to the conclusion
once again that his wife was to be envied. She made a
great fuss, far more noise than he ever did, but she
didn’t really dislike these disturbances and strokes of
bad luck. Any sort of happening, even an apparent mis¬
fortune, braced her up and left her really enjoying it.
What she didn’t like was a quiet life, the same thing day
after day.

She came in now like a savoury whirlwind. “Draw
up, Dad. We won’t wait for Edna. She’ll be down in
a minute. Help yourself to that stew and take plenty
of it because the meat’s nearly all bone. Dig down
and you’ll get the barley, and that’ll do your old inside
good.”

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 30 1

“What’s this about Edna, then?”

“Far as I can see, you can’t really blame her, though
she’s probably been acting a bit too independent. Edna
is independent, though better that, in the long run,
than too much the other way. But she’s only a child,
when all’s said and done, and I know she liked the work
and wanted to stop on there. For two pins, Fd slip
down to Finsbury Park to-morrow and give that floor
manager or whoever he is a piece of my mind. All
favouritism really, that’s what it boils down to, and of
course Edna hadn’t been there long and ought to have
kept quiet—though a girl’s a right to speak up for her¬
self, and Fd be the last to say she hasn’t—but they begin
picking on her and she stands up for herself and lets
out one or two things she oughtn’t to and the next thing
is, she’s told to go.”

This was not a very clear account of how a girl came
to be suddenly dismissed from an important firm of
retail drapers, but it seemed to satisfy Mr. Smeeth, who
did not ask for any details. The truth is, he had gone
though this scene before, and he knew now that it was
not worth trying to discover exactly what had happened.
Edna returned, looking her usual self, except that she
wore a slightly tragic air.

“When do you finish then, Edna?” her father asked.

“This week. And the sooner the better. I wouldn’t
go to-morrow if I hadn’t to get my week’s money. Lot
of pigs, they are. I knew one or two girls-Ivy Armit-
age, for one—who’s been there and they told me what it
was like, but of course I wouldn’t believe ’em, but it
didn’t take me long to see they weren’t talking so silly
as I thought.”

“And what’s the next mcr% then?” demanded Mr

ANGEL PAVEMENT

302

Smeeth, rather wearily.

“Don’t you worry, Dad. I’m not going to stick about
home long. I’ll find something.”

“What she’d like to do is to go to Madame Rivoli’s
in the High Street,” Mrs. Smeeth explained, “and learn
the business properly.”

“What business? I’ll trouble you for the greens,
Edna.”

“Millinery. You know Madame Rivoli’s in the High
Street, the place where I got that very nice purple hat
of mine that fell into the water at Hastings that time?
Mrs. Talbot keeps it now. You know, her husband died
of eating oysters about four years ago, and nobody
round here would touch ’em for months—well, that’s
Mrs. Talbot, a little woman, looks a bit Frenchified—
smart, y’know, Dad, but overdoes it a bit. I pointed
her out to you one day, and you said if you’d legs as
thin as that you’d take the trouble to hide ’em and I
thought she heard you.”

“And then you talk about me talking,” cried Edna.
“That’s a nice way to talk, isn’t it? And about Mrs.
Talbot, too. You couldn’t want anybody nicer than
Mrs. Talbot.”

"All we want is for you to mind your own business,”
said Mrs. Smeeth, forgetting that this really was Edna’s
business. “But if you want something to do, you can
be fetching that pudding in and making yourself useful,
while I finish this. And be careful getting it out. Use
the cloth.”

“And where does Madame Rivoli come in?” asked
Mr. Smeeth.

“She doesn’t come in. It’s just a name, y’see, Dad.
Miss Murgatroyd had it before Mrs. Talbot. It catches

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 303

people, makes them think all the hats are Paris models.
For all that, it’s the best little hat shop we’ve got about
here. If you know of a better one in Stoke Newington,
I’d like to know where it is, I would really. Only thing
that keeps me away from that shop is the prices they
ask—oh, wicked, they are—you might as well go to the
West End and have done with it. But Mrs. Talbot
does a fine business—I don’t think it’s altogether her
shop, I think she just manages it, and somebody told
me two Jews really owned it. Now then, Edna,” and
Mrs. Smeeth sprang to her feet and took the pudding
from her daughter, “just nip back for the plates and
then we’re all right. There we are. It’ll taste better than
it looks. This pudding always does. Plenty for you,
Dad?”

“Just middling, Mother,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Well, if that isn’t enough, you can always come
again, can’t you? What about you, Edna? Don’t want
any, I suppose? Well, you’re going to have some. You
eat that and see if it doesn’t make you feel better.”

“I’ve tasted worse,” said Mr. Smeeth judicially. “But
heavy, though, isn’t it?”

“Oo, mother, you can’t have mixed it properly,” cried
the fastidious Edna. “It’s like lead. It is really. I’ll
have a bit more of the apple, please. I can’t eat the
crust.”

“Now if you’d been me and I’d been my mother,”
said Mrs. Smeeth, with an attempt at severity, “you’d
have been made to eat what was on your plate and not
gone picking and choosing like that. But it’s not come
out as well as it might, I must say.”

“Well, to get back to what we were talking about,”
said Mr. Smeeth, laying down his spoon and shaking

ANGEL PAVEMENT

3°4

his head at an offer of more pudding. “Where does this
Mrs. Talbot or Madame Rivoli or whoever it is come
in? What’s she got to do with us? I’ve forgotten how
It all started. You go on and on and what with purple
hats and oysters and legs and Jews, I don’t know where
I am. Now then, start again, if we must have it.”

“Oh, you tell him, Edna, while I go make the tea.
And for goodness’ sake be careful you don’t mention
purple hats and oysters or else your father will be leav¬
ing home. Old silly!” And Mrs. Smeeth, as deft as a
juggler, swept herself and half a dozen plates and a few
dishes out of the room.

“It’s like this, Dad,” Edna began. “My friend,
Minnie Watson, knows this Mrs. Talbot who’s manag¬
ing Madame Rivoli’s because her mother has known her
a long time and Minnie Watson introduced me to Mrs.
Talbot and we got on talking and Minnie Watson told
her afterwards I wanted to go in for the millinery if 1
could—”

“Ah, we’re coming to it at last, are we?”

“Well, the point is, Mrs. Talbot told Minnie Watson
that she liked the look of me and that if I wanted to go
as an apprentice, I could do, and they’d teach me the
business. Only I have to go for six months first without
getting any money at all, and then they’d pay me some¬
thing after that—not much at the start, but afterwards
I could earn a lot, because you can if you’re a proper
milliner and know the business.”

“That’s the idea now, you see, Dad,” said Mrs.
Smeeth, coming in with the tea. “Learning the
millinery. I don’t say it’s a bad idea, because it’s not,
and, if you ask me, I should say Edna had as good a
chance of making something out of it as any girl I know.

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 305

because she’s good with her fingers—when she cares to
use ’em and that’s not often in the house—and she likes
altering hats, which is more than I ever did.”

“Everybody says I’m clever at it,” said Edna, looking
rather defiant.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘everybody,’ but
if you mean your Minnie Watsons and such like, I don’t
think whatever they say amounts to much. They’d tell
you anything for tuppence. But still, Dad, it’s not a
bad idea-but, as I told her, this apprenticeship busi¬
ness is coming a bit hard on us because it’s working for
nothing and now that she’d been earning money, she’s
used to having it to spend, and we’ve got to keep her
looking decent and she’ll still want to be spending some¬
thing and she’ll be bringing nothing in for a long time.
You say I haven’t a head for business, Dad—and I dare
say I haven’t and I don’t know that I want to have-
but I saw that as soon as she mentioned it and asked
her what she thought we were going to get out of it.”

“Dad can’t talk,” cried Edna, looking across at him
triumphantly, “ ’cos he wanted me to be a teacher and
if I’d started to be a teacher, I’d have been going to
college now, and then he’d have had to be paying for
me, never mind me not earning anything.”

“Yes, but you didn’t want to be a teacher, did you?”
said Mrs. Smeeth, as if that somehow settled the matter.

“Besides, my girl,” Mr. Smeeth began, rather pom¬
pously.

“Take your tea, Dad.” It was a curious thing, but
whenever Mr. Smeeth had some really dignified state¬
ment to make, Mrs. Smeeth invariably broke in to hand
him a cup or a plate or to ask him to put some coal on
the fire or to see if there was somebody at the front door.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Go on, Dad, what were you saying?” said Mrs.
Smeeth, observing that he was frowning a little at his
cup.

“I was going to say that teaching’s one thing and
millinery’s another thing. If you’d have decided to be
a teacher, Edna, I was ready to make a sacrifice to see
that you became one. Teaching’s a profession. Safe,
too. Once you become a teacher, you’re safe for the
rest of your life—”

“Awful old maids they look too, some of the old ones.
Lord help us, what a life!” Mrs. Smeeth shuddered,
shook her head, then smiled at her husband, encourag¬
ing him to continue with his little speech.

“But this millinery business is quite a different thing.
There may be money in it and there may not-I don’t
know. What I do know is, it’s in a different class alto¬
gether, not the same standing at all. I’d do for one
what I wouldn’t do for the other. So don’t throw that
teaching affair in my face because it’s outside the argu¬
ment altogether.”

“Oh, all right.” Edna wriggled her shoulders. “Don’t
go on and on about it. If I can’t go, I suppose I can’t,
that’s all.” She pushed her cup away and rose from
the table. Then she stopped and looked at them, and
Mr. Smeeth saw, to his dismay, that her eyes were filling
with tears. Like that, she looked hardly a day older
than she had done when he still played childish games
with her. “But I did want to go. It’s the only thing
I’ve really wanted to do since I left school. And if I
went, I might be earning quite a lot in a year or two
and some day I might be able to have a shop of my own.
If George had wanted to do something like this, you
wouldn’t have said no to him—oh—”

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE R07

She was making for the door., but her father’s shout
stopped her.

“Here, wait a minute,” he called out. Then, when
she halted, he threw a quick glance at her streaming
little face, looked across at her mother and then down
at the table-cloth, and said: “Well, I suppose you’d
better have a try at it then, Edna.”

“Oo, can I?” She was all delighted eagerness now,
and darted across to him. “I can, can’t I?”

Awkward, a trifle shamefaced, Mr. Smeeth made a
movement as if to put his arm round her, but apparently
thought better of it and merely patted her nearest
shoulder-blade. “That’s all right,” he muttered.
“That’s all right.”

“Can I go round and see her now?” said Edna, her
eyes shining and her feet dancing with impatience.
Then she flew out of the room.

“Well, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth. “I won’t say I’m
sorry you’ve decided that way, because I’m not. 1
believe it’s what she’s wanted some time. She doesn’t
know whether she’s on her head or her heels now.
Ah!”—and she gave a tremendous sigh—“I like to see
them happy. After all, we’ve only got to live once—”

“How do you know?” demanded her husband.

“Well, I don’t know, if it comes to that, Mister
Clever,” she retorted good-humouredly. “All the same,
I’ve a very good idea. But what I wanted to say is this,
Dad. I wasn’t going to give her permission to start this
business. And don’t say I persuaded you, because I
didn’t. You did it yourself. You know what it means.
She’ll be earning next to nothing for a year or two, and
though she’ll have to pull herself in a bit now she’s not
earning anything, she can’t be kept on nothing. So

ANGEL PAVEMENT

30S

don’t you turn round on me and tell me I don’t know
that twelve pennies make a shilling or something of that
sort. It’s your own doing, this time. I made up my
mind I wouldn’t say a word. And if you think you can
do it all right, well and good; I’m glad.”

‘‘Of course I can do it,” he told her, rather indig¬
nantly. Then out it came. “Matter of fact, I’ve got
that rise.”

“You’ve not?”

“Yes, I have.”

“How much?”

“I’ve been put up to three seventy-five, that’s more
than a pound a week more than I’ve been getting.” And
as he said it, Mr. Smeeth asked himself if he wasn’t
behaving like a complete fool.

Mrs. Smeeth descended on him impetuously and gave
him a resounding kiss. “I knew there was something
coming,” she cried jubilantly. “I told you about Mrs.
Dalby’s sister, didn’t I? She told me again that money
and good luck were coming through a stranger, a
middling-coloured man in a strange bed. And that was
this Mr. Golspie of yours, I’ll bet. Nearly four hundred
a year, isn’t it, now? That’s something like. My
cousin, Fred Mitty, was boasting the other night about
what he could make sometimes, and now this will be
something to tell him to-morrow night. And fancy
you just sitting there as if nothing had happened and
never saying a wordl I never knew anybody so close,
you old oyster you! But that shows what they think
of you, doesn’t it? And you always worrying about
your job and talking as if you were going to be out in
the street next minute!” She ran on and on, happy and
excited, while he filled his pipe and tried to appear very

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISF gOQ

cool and collected. Actually he was being pulled two
ways. One half of him was gratified, no, more than
gratified, delighted by her pleasure and her pride in
him, and the other half was dubious and demanded to
know if he realised what he had done.

“Now look here, Dad,” said Mrs. Smeeth, “we must
celebrate the great occasion somehow to-night. It’s no
good luck coming to the house if we’re not going to take
any notice of it. Let’s go out somewhere. Let’s enjoy
ourselves.”

“I thought we were going to do that to-morrow,” he
told her dryly, “when Fred Mitty and company arrive.”

“But that’s different. I mean, just ourselves, just
you and me. Let’s go and see a good picture or down to
the second house at Finsbury Park or something like
that, and sit in the best seats, and you buy yourself a
cigar and buy me some chocolates for once, and let’s do
it properly. Come on, boy. What do you say?”

The Saving Man and the Small Investor in Mr.
Smeeth went down before the affectionate husband and
the proud male. When she looked at him like that, it
would be a sin and a shame to refuse her. “All right,
Edie. You decide where you want to go, and we’ll go.”

“I’ll just put George’s dinner out and put the dirty
things under the tap,” she announced breathlessly,
flushed and bright-eyed, a girl again, “and while I’m
doing that, you look at the paper and see where you’d
like to go. Give me those two cups. No, I can manage.
You just sit there and have a quiet smoke.”

He could hear her singing, in her own cheerful vague
fashion, above the faint clatter of crockery in the
kitchen, while he had his quiet smoke. He did not look
at the paper to see where he would like to go. She could

310 ANGEL PAVEMENT

decide that, and she would soon enough when she had'
washed up. For a week or two, she would be feeling
rich and would be bringing out all sorts of plans. If
by the end of this night she had not thought of twenty
different ways of getting rid of a good deal more than
an extra pound or so a week, he would be surprised. She
had a weakness for hire purchase schemes, to begin with,
and he detested them, both as a man of business and
a careful householder. Well, after the first excitement
had gone he would have to put his foot down; no more
of these fairy tale views of life; somebody had to do the
thinking. Now his thoughts took on a sombre colour¬
ing. He had never envied the rich their luxurious
pleasures; he was a simple chap, and their way of life
seemed to him ridiculous; he did not want a great deal
for himself; but what he did want—and for this he was
prepared to envy anybody—was security, to know that
decency and self-respect were his to the end of his days.
To be safe in his job while he was fit for it, and after
that to have a little place of his own, with a garden (he
had never done any real gardening, but he always found
it easy to imagine himself doing it very well and enjoy¬
ing it) and a bit of music whenever he wanted it-that
was not asking much, and yet, for all the firm’s increased
turnover and its rises, he could not help thinking it was
really like asking for the moon.

“ ’Lo, Dad,” cried George, entering briskly. “How’s
things?”

“Pretty good, boy. How’s the car trade?”

“Not so dusty. You don’t know anybody who'd like
to lend me sixty quid, do you, Dad?”

“I don’t,” replied Mr. Smeeth very decidedly.

Pity, said George, who showed no signs of dis*

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE flit

appointment. “If I could put my hand on sixty quid
this minute, I could make money. A cert. Sounds like
horse racing, doesn’t it, but it isn’t—”

“And I should hope not,” said his father, looking at
him severely.

“Second-hand car deal. Money for nothing. Ah,
well—you wait a bit.”

“Well, you be careful, with your money for nothing.”

“Leave it to me, Dad,” said George coolly.

Mr. Smeeth looked wonderingly at him. It seemed
only yesterday when he was filling his stocking and
putting the Meccano set by the boy’s bedside. And
now—leave it to him, sixty quid, a cert! Mr. Smeeth
took his pipe out, stared at it, and then whistled softly.

r>

“Come along, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, pouring out
the Rich Ruby Port for the ladies. “Buck up. Join
in the fun.” She had herself a rich ruby look, for what
with eating and drinking and shouting and laughing
and singing, her face was crimson and almost steaming.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mitty overheard her. “That's
right,” he roared, drowning any other voice in the
room. “Come on, Pa. Take your turn. No shirking.
Take your turn, Pa. Show us a conjuring trick.”

“Oh, shut up, Fred,” Mrs. Mitty screamed, pretend¬
ing to chide him, as usual, and really drawing attention
to his astonishing drollery. “You’ve gone far enough.'

Mr. Smeeth could not do any conjuring, but if he had
been given unlimited powers, he knew one trick he

ANGEL PAVEMENT

312

would have liked to perform that instant, a trick that in¬
volved the immediate disappearance of Mr. Fred Mitty.
It was Saturday night, the little party was in full swing,
and they were all in the front room, all, that is except
the Mitty girl and Edna, who had gone out together for
an hour or so, probably round to the pictures. In addi¬
tion to the Mitty pair, there were Dalby and Mrs. Dalby
(whose sister told fortunes with cards). Mr. Smeeth
had seen the room when it had had more people in it,
but he had never known it when it had seemed so full.
He had always thought of Dalby, who lived at 11,
Chaucer Road, was a bandy-legged insurance agent, and
fancied himself as a wag and a great hand at parties,
as a noisy chap, but compared with Fred Mitty he was
quiet and decent and merely another Smeeth. It had
not taken Mr. Smeeth ten minutes to discover that he
disliked Mitty intensely, and everything that Mitty had
done and said since (and for the last hour or so he had
insisted on calling Mr. Smeeth “Pa”) had only in¬
creased that dislike, which did not stop short at Fred
but extended to Mis. Mitty and the girl, Dot. He had
never known three people he had disliked more.

Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin was a fellow in his early forties
who had probably not been bad-looking once in a cheap
flashy style. He had curly fair hair, very small, light-
coloured greedy eyes, a broken nose, and a large loose
mouth that went all out to one side when he talked
He reminded Mr. Smeeth at once of those cheap
auctioneer chaps who take an empty shop for a week
or two and'pretend they are giving everything away.
Mr. Mitty’s complexion seemed to be permanently rich
and rubv, and it had evidently cost somebody a good
deal in its time, though—as Mr. Smeeth assured him-

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE gig

self, vindictively—not necessarily Mr. Mitty himself,
who clearly brought out visiting with him a colossal
thirst and appetite. He was a funny man, a determined
wag, and the noisiest Mr. Smeeth had ever known. He
shouted all the time, just like one of those cheap
auctioneers. His jokes gave you a pain in the stomach
and his voice a headache. Moreover, he seemed to Mr.
Smeeth quite obviously a silly boaster, a liar, and a man
not to be trusted a yard. Such men frequently ally
themselves to quiet little women, but Fred Mitty—
fortunately for some quiet little woman—had found a
female of his own kind. Mrs. Mitty, who had a long
blue nose and hair that was bright auburn at the ends
and grey-brown near the roots, was as brassy as her
husband. Her scream accompanied his roar. If she
said anything playful to you, she hit your nearest rib
with her bony elbow; and if you said anything playful
to her, she slapped you on the arm. Here she differed
from Fred, who banged you on the back and poked you
in the ribs, unless you were a woman and not too old,
and then he hugged you or invited you to sit on his
knee. Dot, the solitary offspring of this brassy pair,
was about Edna’s age and was all legs and golden curls
and a hard blue stare. She talked of becoming a film
actress. Mr. Smeeth, who did not know much about
Hollywood, but nevertheless had a horror of the place,
told her quite sincerely that he hoped she would get
there, and added, with perfect truth, that she reminded
him of those Broadway girls on the pictures. Edna of
course-the silly child—had been fascinated at once by
Dot; and as for Mrs. Smeeth, who really had no more
sense about people at times than a baby, she seemed to
be infatuated with all three of them.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

3 M

“Will you have a little port wine, Mrs. Dalby?” said
Mr. Smeeth, who felt that he must do something.

“Just the tiniest, weeniest sip, Mr. Smeeth,” she re¬
plied. And when he had brought her the Rich Ruby,
she continued: “Lively to-night, aren’t we?”

“Very,” he told her.

She gave him a quick glance. “Well, it’s nice to see
people enjoying themselves. But you look a bit tired
to-night, Mr. Smeeth.”

“Oh, I don’t know—do I? Feel all right, y’know, Mrs.
Dalby.” Did he feel all right? What about that little
tick-tick of pain somewhere inside him? “I’ve been
working hard just lately. We’ve been busy, for once.”

“You’re inside all the time, aren’t you?” said Mrs.
Dalby seriously and sympathetically. “And that’s what
tells on you. Tom works very hard—though you
wouldn’t think so, to hear him talk—but he’s out most of
the time, on his round, you know, and so it’s not so
bad for him, unless we get a spell of nasty damp weather
and then he begins to feel it in the chest. He’s had
chest trouble before?”

“Has he really?” said Mr. Smeeth. This was not a
very cheerful conversation, but nevertheless it pleased
him. Mrs. Dalby was a nice quite ladylike sort of
woman, and talking to her in this company was like
having a few words with a sane person in a madhouse.

“That’s right, Fred,” Mrs. Smeeth shouted. “Do help
yourself.”

“Trust me!” roared Fred, who was pouring himself
out some whisky. Yes, there was a bottle of whisky,
as well as some beer and the Rich Ruby. So far as Mr.
Smeeth could see, half the week’s housekeeping money
must have been spent on this racket.

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 315

“Yes, trust ’im,” screamed Mrs. Fred, putting down
her empty glass. “If you don’t take that bottle away
from him, he’ll have it all before you know where you
are.”

“Ah like ma droap o’ Scoatch, d’ye ken,” Fred
bellowed in a very hoarse voice and in what he imagined
to be a Scots accent. “Wha’ day ye say, Meesees Mac-
phairson? Hoch aye!”

“Oh, stop it, Fred,” cried his wife.

“Good as a turn, you are, Fred,” said Mrs. Smeeth
admiringly.

“Reminds me of the chap from Aberdeen,” Dalby
began. But it was no use. It was not his evening.

"There was a Scottie I knew in Brum,” Fred shouted.

Mrs. Fred let out a piercing shriek. “Oh, yes, tell
’em about him.”

Fred did, but Mr. Smeeth, by a tremendous effort,
contrived not to listen, although Fred’s voice more than
filled the room. Indeed, there was so much of it that
it was possible not to take it in properly. Mr. Smeeth
thought about other things, and paid no attention until
he suddenly discovered that he was being addressed.

“Yes, do let’s have that,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, her face
very red and her eyes moist with laughter. “Y’know,
that one you did the other night for me—that man in
Birmingham. Laugh! I thought I’d have died. Dad,
you remember me telling you? Do listen to this.”

‘That’s right, Pa,” roared Fred, with mock severity.
“A little of your attention, please, while I endeavour
to give you a slight impersonation of—Mis-ter Snook-um
of Brum.”

“That wasn’t his real name, you know,” Mrs. Fred
screamed, turning on Mr, Smeeth so that he got she full

316 ANGEL PAVEMENT

force of it. “That was the name these chaps gave him.
Do it properly, Fred, this time. Dress up for it.”

“Shall I? What about it?”

“Yes, go on, do. Like you did that time at Mr.
Slingsby’s. I’ll tell you all about that night in a
minute,” Mrs. Fred added, with the air of one about to
confer a great favour. “That was a night. But go on,
Fred.”

“All right,” replied Fred, noisily finishing his whisky.
“I will—by special request.”

“Looks as though we’re going to have a performance,”
said Dalby, not very pleasantly. There had been rather
too much of Fred for his taste.

“That’s right,” Fred shouted at him, not too
pleasantly either. “Any objections?”

“Hurry up, Fred,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, beaming at him.
“We’re all waiting.”

“Allow me one minute in which to change my
costume,” Fred replied, “and I will oblige.” And out
he went, and the others were moved about to allow a
clear space near the door, and Mrs. Dalby and Mrs.
Mitty were pressed to take a little more of the Rich
Ruby or to have a sandwich or a piece of cake, and Mrs.
Dalby had a sandwich and Mrs. Mitty, whose long nose
was a much deeper shade of blue than it had originally
been, accepted another glass of the Rich Ruby.

“I ought to tell you that this chap he’s going to take
off,” Mrs. Fred explained to them, “was a chap Fred
had some business dealings with in Birmingham. He
owned one of the picture theatres there. He wasn’t a
bad sort of chap really, but he was an absolute comic-
didn t mean to be, y know, didn’t know he was funny—
but he was , and Fred and the other fellows used to make

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE 317

game of him. To start with, he always talked, you see,
with his mouth on one side—”

“Well, so does Fred,” said Mr. Smeeth, bluntly and
boldly.

“Now, Dad,” cried Mrs. Smeeth, “how can you say
that!”

“That’s right, Mrs. Smeeth,” said Dalby. “He does
talk with his mouth on one side. I noticed it myself.
Just a habit, you know. Easy to get into. Probably you
never notice it now,” he remarked considerately to Mrs.
Fred. “You’ve got used to it.”

“Oh, that’s quite different,” she said stiffly. But she
did not continue with her explanation. “Wait till he
comes in. You’ll see what I mean.”

What Mr. Smeeth did see when Fred came in was
that Fred was wearing his best overcoat and hat. He
must have chosen these things because they were obvi¬
ously too small for him and so added to the comic effect.
The coat was strained across his shoulders, and the hat,
a good grey soft felt, which Mr. Smeeth only wore at the
week-end and for special occasions, had been jammed
on his head and punched in at the top in a horrible
manner. Mr. Smeeth was so annoyed he could hardly
sit still.

“Good evening, you people,” said Fred, speaking in a
queer voice and throwing his mouth round to the other
side. “Fm Mister Snookums of Brum, and I’d loike
you to understand that I’m the propreeotor of the Luxy-
drome Peecture Palaice, situated in one of our main
thoroughfares of the city and built ree-gardless of
expense. Hem!” Here Fred coughed in a silly way,
with a quick movement of one hand to his mouth, a
movement that nearly split the seams of the overcoat.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

318

His wife and Mrs. Smeeth shrieked with laughter; Dalby
and his wife smiled: and Mr. Smeeth merely looked
dum. This went on for several minutes, at the end of
which, Fred, in a frantic attempt to capture the whole
audience, was shouting at the top of his voice, nearly
bursting the overcoat, and punching the hat out of any
recognisable shape. At last, Mr. Smeeth could stand
it no longer.

“Just a minute,” he said, advancing upon Fred. “Fm
sorry to interrupt, if you’ve not finished. But, y’know,
that’s my hat, my best hat—when you’ve done with it.”
And he held out his hand for it.

“All right, old sport,” said Fred, giving it to him and
resuming his normal appearance. “No damage done.
And ber-lieve me, people,” he added, mopping his brow,
“that’s nearly like work. Yes, I think I will, Cousin
Edie.” And he made for the whisky.

Edna and Dot returned now from the pictures. It was
Dot’s turn to entertain the company. “Oo, I say,” she
cried, like a suddenly galvanised doll, “Oo, I say, you
oughter see Ducie Dellwood in this picture we’ve just
seen. A college girl, what they call over there a co-ed.”

“I thought she was sorful,” said Edna. “Didn’t you,
Dot.”

“I didn’t like her much. This was her. Watch me,
everybody. Just watch me a minute. This was her.”
And Dot, after screaming everybody into attention,
began jazzing about and rolling her eyes and flinging
herself into a chair and then jumping out of it again.
“That song’s in this picture, mother,” she gasped. “You
know—what is it— It’s Necking or Nothing Now —and
Ducie Dellwood sings it—like this.” She stood facing
them with her legs apart and knees bent, crooked her

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE gig

elbows, spread out her fingers, then swayed as she sang,
or tried to sing in a little nasal voice, what she remem¬
bered of the song. Mr. Smeeth, after noticing that Edna
was regarding this performance with open admiration,
told himself that in spite of the fact that he was a quiet
and good-tempered man, he would dearly like to get up
and give this Dot girl a good box on the ears and then
pack her off to bed.

“Well, I really think we’d better be getting along
now,” said Mrs. Dalby.

“Yes, time to be off,” said her husband.

“No, don’t go yet, Mrs. Dalby,” cried Mrs. Smeeth.

“The night is yet young,” roared Fred. “I thought
you London people kept it up till all hours. Why, up in
Brum, when a few of us got together, some of the
bo-hoys and some of the ger-hirls, we used to be settling
down to it now, I give you my word.”

“And how much longer does he think he’s going to
stay here?” Mr. Smeeth asked himself bitterly, as the
irrepressible Fred went roaring on. Mrs Dalby was
firm about going and edged towards the door, smiling
at her hostess; Dalby followed her and when they did
finally go, Mr. Smeeth, glad to escape even for a minute
or two, saw them to the door. The night was beauti¬
fully dark and quiet, delighted in its entire lack of
Mittles.

“Lively card, all right,” said Dalby, as they halted a
moment.

“A bit too lively for me,” said Mr. Smeeth, in a low
confidential tone. “A little of him goes a long way, it
seems to me. Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin, y’know,” he added,
disclaiming all responsibility.

“Well, to be quite truthful, Mr. Smeeth,” Mrs. Dalby

ANGEL PAVEMENT

3 20

declared, “I must say I thought the way they allowed
that girl to carry on was ridiculous. My words, if she’d
been a girl of mine—!”

“Or mine,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly.

“Still, we’ve had a very enjoyable evening, haven’t
we, Tom?” said Mrs. Dalbv, who had plainly had
nothing of the kind but was a polite woman.

After they had said good night, Mr. Smeeth remained
at the door for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and
the cool fresh air. When he returned to the others, he
made straight for the fire and raked it together with the
poker, but did not put any more coal on it. Then he
yawned once or twice, and did not try very hard to pre¬
tend he was not yawning. Ten minutes later, he told
Edna to get upstairs to bed, pointing out very firmly
that on any other night she would have been there some
time. There were signs then, after Edna had reluctantly
and with much wriggling of shoulders taken her depar¬
ture, that the Mitty family was about to go, but unfor¬
tunately George made his appearance and that kept
them another half-hour, towards the end of which Mr.
Smeeth merely stared at them in despair. When they
did go Mrs. Smeeth and George saw them to the door,
and Mr Smeeth stayed where he was.

Somehoxv the room looked as if fifty people had been
eating and drinking and smoking in it for days. There
were two sandwiches and a flattened cigarette end on the
carpet; somebody had spilled some port on the little
table; there was the glass that Fred had broken; there
were the forlorn bottles, the dirty glasses, the remnants
of food, cigarette ash, the smoke rapidly going stale: the
whole room, the pride of the house and as nice a parlour
as you would find in the length of Chaucer Road,

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE $21

looked tipsy, bedraggled and forlorn, and as its disgusted
owner wearily moved about, throwing bits of stuff into
the fire and straightening things, he felt as if the Mitty
crew had left their sign and mark on it for ever. He
threw open the windows and was just in time to hear
from outside the last good nights.

His wife came in. “George has gone to bed,” she
announced. “I was telling him he seemed quite struck
with young Dot.”

Mr. Smeeth grunted.

She followed her usual practice on these occasions,
sitting down by the fire with a last sandwich, prepared
for a cosy little gossip about the evening. “I’m not going
to touch a thing to-night. It’ll have to wait until the
morning. Well, well, I must say I’ve enjoyed myself
to-night; whether other people have or not.” For a
moment her face was alight with reminiscent mirth,
that pleasant afterglow of jolly evenings, but it died
out as she looked at her husband. “But I must say too,
Dad, I never saw you in such a mood. I expect you
thought I wasn’t noticing you, but I was. Couldn’t help
it. Quite grumpy you were, half the time, and down¬
right rude, if you ask me, once or twice. Fred’s wife
noticed it, too.”

Mr. Smeeth mumbled something to the effect that he
did not much care what Fred’s wife noticed.

“Perhaps you’re tired, are you, boy?” she said, her
manner changing. “I thought once or twice you looked
tired, and Mrs. Dalby told me she thought you were
looking a bit tired to-night.”

“I expect I am,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Ah, well, that’s different, isn’t it, when you’re tired
and you don’t feel in the humour for it? Never mind,

L*

322

ANGEL PAVEMENT

next time I expect you’ll be ready to join in the fun.
They’ve asked us all down for one night next week—
they’ll let us know which night—to meet some people
they know who used to be in Birmingham too.”

‘‘Well, I hope you told them I wasn’t going.”

“Of course I didn’t Dad. The very idea!”

“Well, I’m not going.”

“Why, what for?”

“Because I’m not. If you want to know,” Mr. Smeeth
added, his voice trembling, “I’ve had quite enough of
’em here to-night, without going to look for some more.”

His wife looked at him indignantly and sat up
straight. “That’s a nice way to talk, isn’t it? What harm
have they done you? It’s not Fred’s fault—or his wife’s
fault—if you didn’t enjoy yourself to-night.”

“It is. If it’s not their fault, whose fault is it?” Mr.
Smeeth retorted. “I can’t stand him-and I can’t stand
his wife—and I can’t stand that jazzing girl of theirs
either. And the less Edna, or George, for that matter,
sees of that little—”

“Now just you be careful what you’re saying,” cried
Mrs. Smeeth. “You’ll be saying something in a minute
you’ll be sorry for afterwards. Now, Dad, you’re tired
to-night, and I expect they were a bit too noisy for you.
Fred does get noisy when he gets going, I’ll admit. But
you’ll feel different about it in the morning. Let’s go to
bed.”

“All right. I’m ready. But understand this, Edie.
I’m not going down to Fred Mitty’s this next week or
any other week. If you want to go, I can’t stop you,
and if you want to ask them here again, I suppose I can’t
stop you-though if he starts coming here regularly,
drinking the amount of whisky he drank to-night I’m

MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE $$

going to have something to say. But he doesn’t see me
again for a long time, I can tell you that.”

“The way you talk!” said Mrs. Smeeth on her way
to the door. “But I’m not going to argue with you
to-night. I’m tired myself and I’m sure you’re so tired
you don’t know what you are saying. I’ll leave you to
lock up, Dad.”

No doubt he was tired. He was still trembling a little
as he went round, turning off the lights and seeing that
both outside doors were locked and bolted; but his mind
was made up on the Mitty question. There is a certain
pleasure in making up your mind, putting your foot
down, taking a firm stand, especially if, like Mr. Smeeth,
you do it very rarely, not being a wilful or autocratic
man; and as he walked along the dark little hall and
climbed the stairs, Mr. Smeeth experienced that
pleasure, and the hand that he placed on the banisters
was that of a strong determined man, the natural head
of a house. Yet even before he had reached the bed¬
room door, there was mixed with that pleasure, absorb¬
ing it gradually, an uneasiness, a faint foreboding, a
sense of worse things to come.

Chapter Seven

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS

I

T'ERSH,” said Mr. Pelumpton, staring at Turgis
Y and pulling hard at his little pipe, which re-
X plied with a sickening gurgle, “yersh, that’sh
what you want, boy, shome short of ’obby, to parsh the
time—shee?”

“That’s right,” cried little Mrs. Pelumpton, sitting
down but only on the edge of the chair to show that this
was a mere breathing space in the long battle with beds
and stairs and dirty plates and potatoes and legs of
mutton. “You oughter get out of yourself more, Mr.
Turgis—if you catch my meaning. That’s what you’re
telling him, isn’t it?”

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, who was busy now
poking at his pipe with a very large hairpin.

“Oh—I dunno,” said Turgis, vaguely and mournfully.
“Look at Edgar,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued.
' “What with ’arriering—y’know, a lot of ’em all running
together, miles and miles, and not as much on as you
might go in the water with if you was at the seaside—
though he ’asn’t done much of that lately—”

“Don’t blame him,” Turgis muttered, shuddering.
The last thing on earth he wanted was to be a harrier,
who not only ran and ran until he nearly dropped but
also contrived to look silly. Ugh!

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 325

“What with that and now these racing do^ 'dirt
tracks—”

“Hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton broke in, pointing a
derisive pipe-stem, “d’hear that, Mishter Turgish? Dog
dirt tracksh! That’sh a good one. You’ve got it wrong,
Mother, Nobody’d pay to shee a dog dirt tracksh, you
can shee them any time, outshide in the shtreet. Plenty
of ’em round ’ere. That makesh me laugh, that doesh.”
And to show that it did, he cackled a little.

“It wouldn’t take much to make you laugh. But you
know what I mean?” and she turned to Turgis.

“Greyhound racing.”

“That’s right,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton triumphantly.
“He goes to see ’em once or twice a week—never misses—
and though it costs money—”

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton. “Think it doesh.
It’sh a betting bishnish—shame ash ’orsh racing, a
betting bishnish.”

“Oh, is it?” Mrs. Pelumpton was thoughtful. “Well,
that’s not as good as it might be, is it? I don’t want
Edgar starting with them betting tricks—two to one each
way and all that. Never any good came of that, in my
opinion.”

“A mug’s game,” said Turgis, with the air of a rather
gloomy man of the world.

“I thought they just went to see the dogs run about,
just a bit of fun,” Mrs. Pelumpton continued, dubi¬
ously. Then she brightened. “But I can trust Edgar
to behave and not do anything silly.”

“Yersh, yersh. Matter of a bob or two, that’sh all.
The boy’sh all right. Mindjew, for my part, I never
cared for thish betting game, neither ’orshesh or any¬
thing elsh. Wouldn’t touch it. Fellersh ’ave shaid to

526 ANGEL PAVEMENT

me, ‘You put all you’ve got on sho-an’-sho—it’sh a
shert,’—but I’ve told ’em ‘No.’ Matter of prinshiple,
shee? I don’t want the bookiesh’ money and they’re
not going to ’ave my money. What I’ve made,” Mr.
Pelumpton added, apparently under the impression that
he had made whole fortunes in his time, “I’ve honeshtly
earned. There’sh quite enough gambling in the dealing
bishnish for me, quite enough.”

“Well, I’d rather see Edgar going up there, even if it
means he’s putting his shillings on now and then,” said
Mrs. Pelumpton, getting up, “than see him going round
the pubs. That’s an expensive ’obby, if you like. And
you can’t say you’ve never had a try at that, Dad. If
you ever had any principles against the publicans ’aving
your money, all I can say it they never took you very
far. What you’ve honestly earned you’ve mostly
honestly spent too.” And Mrs. Pelumpton waddled into
the kitchen.

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, completely ignoring
his wife’s speech and now fixing Turgis with his watery
stare, “quite enough gambling in the dealing bishnish
for me. Now here’sh an inshtansh.”

“Oh, blow you and your instances!” Turgis cried to
himself.

“Chesflt o' drawersh going up in Holloway and I’m
requeshted to ’ave a look at it. Very pretty piesh, very
pretty piesh. Worth money, that piesh. I’m tellin’ you
now what I thought, at the time. I went back and shaw
Mishter Peek an’ tellsh him that piesh’sh worth a ten
pound note if it’sh worth a penny. ‘Go back,’ he
shaysh, ‘and go right up to sheven if nesheshary.’ I go
back and thish piesh’sh gone. Old Craggy up the road
there had bought it—’ad to pay sheven, too—an’ I could

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 327

have kicked myshelf. Well, that’sh what?—oh, eight
munsh, ten munsh, a year ago. All right. I’m looking
round in old Craggy’sh the other day and what do I shee
—the very shame piesh. I shaysh to ’im ‘I know that
piesh,’ and I told him ’ow and why I did know it. Then
I shaysh to him, ‘What you wanting now for that piesh?’
An’ what do you think he shaid?”

“Fifty pounds,” said Turgis promptly. He had heard
this type of story many, many times from Mr. Pelump-
ton.

“Now that’sh jusht where you’re wrong, boy,” cried
Mr. Pelumpton, delighted. “Jusht where you’re wrong.
Not fifty poundsh but five poundsh, two lesh than he’d
given for it. Couldn’t get rid of it—shee?—and had
pulled it down and down—and I give you my word, I
believe I could have ’ad that piesh from him for four—
he was sho shick of sheeing it about the shop. And I’d
have bought it for sheven, sho would Mishter Peek, sho
would you, sho would anybody. It jusht showsh you.
The dealing bishnish ish a gamble.

“If you ask me,” said Turgis, all gloomy and pro¬
found, “it’s all a gamble.”

“Well, don’t loosh ’eart, boy, don’t loosh ’eart. Take
a ninterest in thingsh like I do. Shtart a nobby—” '

“What’s your hobby?” asked Turgis, not too graci¬
ously. And he immediately gave himself the answer
silently: “Finding free beer, you old soak, that’s your
hobby.”

“My work ish my ’obby now,” replied Mr. Pelumpton
very solemnly. “In my time, I’ve ’ad all manner of
’obbiesh, from pigeonsh to joining the volunteersh, but
now my work ish my ’obby. It’sh not only my work
but my play, ash you might shay. And if you’re going to

ANGEL PAVE MENT

328

make anything at all out of dealing, if you’re going to
be a real dealer, that’sh the only way to do it—make
it a full time job, wherever you are, be on the look out,
keep your eyesh open, your earsh open, turn thingsh
over in your mind. If you’d a bit more money, d’you
know what I’d shay to you?”

Turgis could think of several things that Mr.
Pelumpton would say to him, the very minute he had
some more money, but he was certain that not one of
them was in Mr. Pelumpton’s thoughts at the moment.
So he merely shook his head.

“What I’d shay to you ish—shtart collecting. In a
shmall way, y’know, to begin with. Doeshn’t matter
what you collect. And I’d put you on to thingsh.
That’sh where you’d be lucky ’cosh you’d ’ave the bene¬
fit of my experiensh and knowledge of the trade.”

Turgis did not think he would care very much for
collecting, and Mrs. Pelumpton, returning at that
moment, wiping her hands on an apron, said that she
didn’t think of collecting either. “Just wasting your
money and littering the place up, that would be,” she
added. “So don’t you go and put ideas into his head,
Dad. I’d sooner see you taking an interest in these
politics, same as Mr. Park.”

“You know what he ish, Mishter Park?” said her
husband. “He’sh a Bolshie, that’sh what he ish.”,,

“Well, it keeps him quiet enough,” Mrs. Pelumpton
retorted. “And sober, too. Never makes any noise or
trouble. Nobody will make me believe he’s a real
Bolshie, a nice quiet young chap like that. And he’s
never been to Russia, never once set eyes on it. He told
me so himself.”

“That doeshn’t matter,” said Mr. Pelumpton.

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 329

“What does matter then?” asked Mrs. Pelumpton
triumphantly.

No doubt her husband could have told her, but he did
not choose to; he merely made a contemptuous noise,
and then took up the evening paper. Turgis decided to
go to bed. It was not late, but there was nothing to do.
He was tired of talking to the Pelumptons, though he
felt vaguely grateful to them, or at least to Mrs.
Pelumpton, for taking an interest in him. What they
actually said did not mean much to him—for he did
not want any of their silly hobbies and had not the
slightest desire to be like either Edgar or Park—but it
was pleasant to feel that somebody was interested in
him. His father took no interest in him, hadn’t done
for years, and he had no other near relations. They
didn’t care much about him at the office. Even Poppy-
with-the-fringe had kept away from him lately, and the
others simply took him for granted. He had no friends.
He was just a chap in the crowd. Nearly all his time
away from the office was spent in a crowd somewhere,
getting back to his lodgings in the packed Tube, re¬
turning to the thronged streets afterwards, perhaps
eating in some crowded place, then waiting in a queue
to get in a picture theatre, making one of a huge
audience, wandering along the lamp-lit pavements, and
he was for ever surrounded by strange, indifferent or
hostile faces, looking into millions of eyes that never lit
up with any gleam of recognition, and spending hour
after hour in the very thick of packed humanity with¬
out exchanging a single word with anybody. His exist¬
ence was noticed only when he bought something, when
he turned himself into a customer.

And yet, of course, this was not entirely true. There

330 ANGEL PAVEMENT

were innumerable people in London who were not only
ready to make the acquaintance of Turgis, but were
actually longing for him. There were Park’s comrades,
the communists, who would be only too glad to obtain
another recruit; possibly the Socialists; and certainly
the Anti-Socialists, who would have been delighted to
show him how to mount a soap-box. There were clergy¬
men of all denomination and sects on the prowl for him,
willing to lead him in prayer, to instruct him in the
Scriptures, to teach him anthems, to show him lantern-
slides of the Norfolk Broads, to smoke a manly pipe at
him, to play a game of chess, draughts, dominoes,
bagatelle, or billiards with him, to give him a right hook
and then a straight left with the gloves on, according to
their varied tastes and dispositions. There were men
who were not clergymen, but had the habits and outlook
of clergymen, leaders of ethical societies and the like,
who would be pleased to talk to him about their own
particular universes, lend him a few books, and welcome
him twice a week at their philosophical-literary-musical
services. No doubt there were criminals who could have
made good use of a youth with such a guileless air.
There were thousands of other young men in lodgings
and offices, young men who were not very clever or
strong or handsome or brave or artful, young men who
were for ever packing themselves into Tubes and buses,
eating hastily in corners of crowded teashops, and then
using the music-halls, picture theatres, saloon bars and
lighted streets as their drawing-rooms, studies, and
clubs, who would soon have been overjoyed, once the
mumbling preliminaries were passed, to spend their
evenings with Turgis.

But then he did not really want any of these people,

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS ggi

did not want company for company’s sake. What he
really wanted was Love, Romance, a Wonderful Girl of
His Own. And these had lately all been assuming the
same shape in his mind, that of Miss Lena Golspie. He
had never spoken to her, had never seen her except once,
at a distance, since that day she appeared at the office,
but he had thought a great deal about her. To say that
he had fallen in love with her at sight would be to
exaggerate. If an attractive girl-and she need not have
been anything like so pretty as Miss Golspie-had
turned up and had been kind to him, no doubt he would
soon have forgotten all about Lena. But no such girl
turned up; indeed no girl of any kind appeared. If Lena
Golspie was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen (and
he could not remember a prettier, not even if he in¬
cluded the beautiful shadow people, Lulu Castellar and
the other film stars), she was certainly the prettiest girl
he had ever spoken to, and the fact that she had actually
made her appearance at the office door in Angel Pave¬
ment somehow brought her definitely into his own
world. That she was not really a creature of that world
only made her more fascinating, mysterious, romantic,
like the beautiful heroine of a love story of the films.
She was a lovely bird of passage. He imagined her
against a background of strange places and fantastic
luxuries. It was as if Lulu Castellar had stepped out of
the screen, taken on colour and solid shape, and had
actually spoken to him, smiled at him. And yet, there
it was, her father worked in the very same business, in
the very same office, with him. No wonder he could not
get the girl out of his head, which for a long time now
had been haunted by a vague but infinitely desirable
feminine shape. It was vague no longer; it had definite

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 333

and there was a broken statue in the dingy bit of garden
in front), perhaps walked along the street at the top a
little way, towards the main road, then did the same
at the bottom, had a last saunter along Carrington Villas,
perhaps ended up with a glass of bitter at the high-class
little pub just round the corner at the top, and went
home. The first few evenings he had spent like that he
had enjoyed; there was to him something enchantingly
mysterious and romantic in the winter evening gloom of
this Maida Vale; as he moved about the quiet streets, a
shadow among shadows, he became aware of an intense
secret inner life of his own; but the pleasure rapidly
decreased. Too often the upper half of the house was all
dark, and then of course the whole neighbourhood lost
its charm, which was transferred to some other, un¬
known, part of the city, where she was spending the
evening. Probably in the West End, that brilliant
jungle, where you might meet anybody, the last person
in the world you expected to meet, and where you might
miss for ever the one person you wanted to meet. It was
in the West End he caught sight of her. He had been to
a picture theatre and it was late, and he saw her with her
father and another man. Mr. Golspie was shouting for a
taxi, and in another moment he had got one and they
were gone. But he saw her distinctly, and it was strange
seeing her, for though he had thought so much about
her, she had almost stopped being real.

Pie was beginning to mope now, for he was tired of
going over to Maida Vale, and yet could not settle down
to spend his evenings in the old way, and that was why
the Pelumptons, seeing him hanging about and looking
vaguely miserable, had begun to give him advice about
hobbies. They did not understand, he told himself

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 333

and there was a broken statue in the dingy bit o£ garden
in front), perhaps walked along the street at the top a
little way, towards the main road, then did the same
at the bottom, had a last saunter along Carrington Villas,
perhaps ended up with a glass of bitter at the high-class
little pub just round the corner at the top, and went
home. The first few evenings he had spent like that he
had enjoyed; there was to him something enchantingly
mysterious and romantic in the winter evening gloom of
this Maida Vale; as he moved about the quiet streets, a
shadow among shadows, he became aware of an intense
secret inner life of his own; but the pleasure rapidly
decreased. Too often the upper half of the house was all
dark, and then of course the whole neighbourhood lost
its charm, which was transferred to some other, un¬
known, part of the city, where she was spending the
evening. Probably in the West End, that brilliant
jungle, where you might meet anybody, the last person
in the world you expected to meet, and where you might
miss for ever the one person you wanted to meet. It was
in the West End he caught sight of her. He had been to
a picture theatre and it was late, and he saw her with her
father and another man. Mr. Golspie was shouting for a
taxi, and in another moment he had got one and they
were gone. But he saw her distinctly, and it was strange
seeing her, for though he had thought so much about
her, she had almost stopped being real.

Pie was beginning to mope now, for he was tired of
going over to Maida Vale, and yet could not settle down
to spend his evenings in the old way, and that was why
the Pelumptons, seeing him hanging about and looking
vaguely miserable, had begun to give him advice about
hobbies. They did not understand, he told himself

334 ANGEL PAVEMENT

gloomily, that he wasn’t simply another Edgar or Park.
But he admitted once again that it was decent of them
to take an interest in him, even if they missed the great
fact about him—namely, that he was entirely different
from Edgar or Park or anybody else they knew. The
innermost self of Turgis was always being surprised and
hurt by the general ignorance of this simple fact. Having
reached his little room, he now did what he had done
many hundreds of times before; he examined his face
carefully in the tiny cracked mirror to see if there were
any signs of this difference written there; and once again
he came to the conclusion that there were, only you had
to look closely and sympathetically at him, not just give
a hard stare and then march off, to notice them.

For once, the little gas-fire did not explode when the
match came near and then wheezily complain. It gave
only a soft pop and then merely murmured. Its master
knew that that meant that the meter demanded another
shilling, and as he had not got a shilling and was too lazy
to return to the back room for possible change, he let
it murmur and sink, until its flames were like tiny blue
flowers. Then he did something he had not done hun¬
dreds of times before. He began brushing his clothes.
Mr. Smeeth had already noticed, as we saw, that Turgis
had smartened himself up. We are now behind the
scenes of this smartening. It had occurred to Turgis that
his next meeting with Lena Golspie, if there ever was
one, might easily take place in the office, like the first
meeting, and then he realised at once that he would have
to take some trouble with his appearance during the day.
He went to the length of spending one-and-threepence
on a clothes-brush of his own. A day or two later, he
went to the further length of buying a few collars, very

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS §35

smart soft collars with long points on them, and was
quite surprised at the difference they made. Then he
had taken to folding his trousers and putting them under
the mattress, and had even taken his better pair down¬
stairs once and ironed them. Now, after brushing the
coat and waistcoat and doing a little scratching here and
there with his pen-knife, he took these trousers from
under the mattress and thoroughly examined them.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, the trousers over
his arm, staring at the large hole in the old rug. But he
was not looking at the hole but through it, into Angel
Pavement, into the office. Mr. Golspie had just gone
away, and now Turgis suddenly realised that that fact
was tremendously important. It might mean that there
was no chance whatever of Lena coming near the office,
now that her father was not there. On the other hand,
it might mean just the opposite, that there was a very
good chance of her visiting the office, just because her
father was away. She might want something; she might
be in trouble; and Mr. Golspie might easily have told
her to come to the office. And now he remembered
hearing something , something that Mr. Golspie, at the
outer door, had shouted to Mr. Dersingham sitting in
the private office, a something that had to do with Lena
and “you people here,” as Mr. Golspie had called them.
Turgis knew definitely that Lena was being left behind.
Well then, she might call at the office any day. There
was quite a chance, anyhow. So there and then, he
decided that for the next twelve days or so, while Mr.
Golspie was away, he would shave carefully every
morning, put on his better suit and wear a clean collar,
and have his hair cut at lunch time on the following day.
Having thus made up his mind, he felt quite excited,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

336

and, as people do, if they have drifted for a long time
and then suddenly come to a decision and adopted a
programme, he found himself visited obscurely by a con¬
viction that something was bound to happen, just as if
by drawing a firm straight line he could compel circum¬
stance to come and toe it.

The gas-fire retired from service with a very sad little
pop. He moved and the bed immediately gave a groan.
(Everything in the room creaked and groaned and con¬
stantly complained. It was tired of people, that little
room.) Very carefully he raised the mattress and re¬
placed the trousers underneath. Then, with something
like an air of sheer dandyism, he put out an absolutely
clean collar for the morning. He went to the little
dormer window and stared through the few inches of
open space at the dark and the faint glimmer of the
town. Here he was, high up above Camden Town, in
his own little room. There she was, Lena Golspie,
perhaps in her little room in Maida Vale, perhaps just
above those two pillars he had seen, peering through the
open gate, perhaps looking down on that broken statue
in the front garden. It made his eyes water, staring there
like that, but still he remained. His lips moved.
“Listen, Lena,” he began; but then stopped. “Listen,
Miss Golspie, Miss Lena Golspie. Listen. Do come to
the office, do come to the office. And make it something
I can do. Turgis, you know, the one you saw that day.
Do come to the office.”

As soon as he stepped back into the little room, it told
him in its various creaky voices, not to be a damned
fool.

“Oh!—you!” he said to it, aloud, and then made baste
to undress and get the light out.

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS

s

Turgis kept his word' to himself. Every day he appeared
at the office all shaved and brushed and as spruce as it
was possible for him to be. The others congratulated
him and chaffed him and invented the most elaborate
reasons for the change. Sandycroft, the tall traveller
with the small head, the inquisitive nose, and the extra¬
ordinary number of teeth, paid one of his flying visits to
headquarters and pretended, possibly at the instigation
of Mr. Smeeth, not to know Turgis.

“I say, Smeeth,” Sandycroft barked—and he really
did bark; it was like having an enormous terrier about
the place when Sandycroft arrived—“what’s become of
that other chap—you know, what’s his name—that chap
who used to wear the dark brown collars—?”

“Now who was that, Sandycroft?” said Smeeth,
frowning and putting his head on one side. Smeeth
was as conscientious and painstaking a wag as he
was a cashier. It was not often that he joined in
a joke, but when he did he was almost alarmingly
thorough.

“You know the chap I mean, Smeeth,” replied
Sandycroft, sniffing with that queer little nose of his.
“Never had his hair cut—wore a beard—looked like a
Spring Poet in the autumn. Sat at the desk over there,”
he continued, lowering his voice, “where that smart
young feller is. Oh, what was his name?”

Here Stanley gurgled and spluttered, not perhaps
because he thought this was very brilliant humour, but
because he thought comic relief in any form should be
encouraged. Miss Poppy Sellers was giggling a little,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

S3 8

too, and Miss Matfield smiled at them, not without
condescension.

“Oh, don’t be so funny,” Turgis mumbled, giving
Stanley a ferocious scowl.

“That’s queer, Smeeth. The same voice—the very
same voice.”

“I believe you’re right, Sandycroft. I believe you’re
right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the air of a dutiful cross¬
talk comedian.

“Sure I am,” the other barked. Then he stepped
forward, with a large polite smile on his face, displaying
at least a hundred teeth. “Not Mr. Turgis? Surely it
can’t be Mr Turgis?”

“No,” said Turgis, who was not very good at this sort
of thing, “it’s Charlie Chaplin.”

“Well, Mr. Charlie Chaplin Turgis,” said Sandy¬
croft, “I must congratulate you, I really must. All in
favour, show in the usual way. Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen.” And he turned away, grinning.

“Ah, well,” said Mr. Smeeth, settling down to his
books again, rather as if he had just come to the end of
some great gusty epic of humour, “a bit of fun won’t
do any of us any harm now and again. Here, Stanley,
slip round to Nickman and Sons with this and say it’s
for Mr. Broadhurst—for Mr. Broadhurst, mind. And
hurry up, don’t take all the morning about it. Don’t go
shadowing somebody all round London.”

A week had passed, and though news of Mr. Golspie
himself had trickled through into the general office,
Turgis had heard nothing about Lena. It seemed as if
he was making a fool of himself—and being laughed at
by the others for his pains—and he was beginning to feel
very disheartened. On two evenings, he had returned to

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 339

Maida Vale and had hung about the neighbourhood of
4 a., Carrington Villas, but had been rewarded by nothing
more than a glimpse of a shadow on a curtain. He had
been tempted then to walk boldly up to 4A and offer
some wild excuse for trying to see Miss Golspie. But he
could think of nothing that did not sound insane, and,
realising that this crazy step might spoil everything and
get him into trouble at the office, he dismissed the
notion. The other evenings went very heavily. He had
begun to tell himself that he was silly to bother his head
about the girl at all, but it was one thing to tell himself
that and quite another thing to stop bothering.

Stanley returned, and was sent out again. Mr.
Smeeth departed for the bank. Turgis and the two girls
worked away quietly; there was not a lot to do that
morning. Then Poppy Sellers came over to Turgis with
some advice notes she had just typed.

“Are these all right?” she asked.

He looked them over. “Yes, they’re all right. You’ve
got into it now, haven’t you?” he added, deciding to give
her a good word for once. She wasn’t a bad kid, really.
“Wish I could type as neat as that. I used to have to
do it sometimes, before you came, but I used to make a
nasty mess of it, I did.”

Her sallow little face brightened at once at such
praise. But her manner was as perky as ever. “My
words, we are coming on, aren’t we! What have I done
to deserve this? But I say,” and here she became more
confidential in tone, “you didn’t mind what they said—
y’know when they were trying to pull your leg. I had to
laugh, and I thought you looked a bit mad.”

“If it amuses ’em, I don’t care,” replied Turgis loftily.
“Bit silly, I call it, all the same. I don’t go round

34°

A.NGEL PAVEMENT

making personal remarks about other people. Matter
of fact, I don’t mind what old Smeethy says, ’cos he’s a
decent sort, and anyhow it isn’t often he breaks loose.
But I don’t like that chap Sandycroft. He’s a cocky
devil, he is. And, anyhow, he’s only just come here—
what does he want to be trying to be funny for?”

“That’s right,” said Poppy, nodding her head. “I
don’t think much of him either. Not my style at all,
he isn’t. Too many teeth, if you ask me. And I don’t
like them noses that turn up the way his does. If he
worked here all the time, he’d have that nose and teeth
into everything. I know that sort.”

“So do I. We’d a school teacher the very image of
him when I was a kid, and he used to try it on with us—
oh, what a hope!”

“Mind you,” Poppy continued, looking at him a little
uncertainly, “you do look diff’rent—smarter, y’know.”

“Well, that’s nobody else’s business but mine,”
Turgis declared. “What’s it got to do with anybody
else?”

“Oo, all right, don’t jump at me. I only meant—
well, you look a lot nicer now. In fact, I think you look
very nice.”

Turgis did not know what reply to make to this, so he
merely grunted.

“You don’t mind me saying so, I hope?”

“No, ’s’all right,” he replied awkwardly.

“I say, listen. Are you going anywhere to-night?”
She stopped for a moment, but then, before he had time
to answer, went on with a rush. “ ’Cos if you aren’t—
well, it’s like this, my friend—her father’s a policeman—
and she got two tickets given for the Police Minstrels
to-night and now she can’t go ’cos she’s in bed with the

AR 4 IJIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 341

flu and I’ve got the tickets, and I wondered if you’d like
to come with me.” And she drew a deep breath.

“Well, thanks very much,” he stammered, “but—I
don’t know—you see—”

“Have you fixed up already to go somewhere?”

“Well, I have—really —”

“Oh, sorry.” Her face fell. She was silent for a
moment, then looked up—rather cheekily, he thought—
and said: “Going out with your girl, p’raps?”

This annoyed him, just as if she had jabbed at some
sore place. “Well, that’s my business, isn’t it?”

“Oo, sorry, sorry, sorry! Squashed again. I’d better
shut up.” And she marched away, a compact little
figure, and began typing with great vigour and noise.
Miss Matfield threw a curious glance at her.

Turgis wondered if he had been foolish to pretend
that he wasn’t free to go to that entertainment. It would
be a lot better than doing nothing. He supposed it was
too late too change his mind, particularly now that she
had walked off in a huff. He would wish, when the even¬
ing did come and he had nothing to do but mope about,
that he had accepted her offer. She really hadn’t a bad
face when you took a good look at it. Yes, perhaps he’d
been silly not to accept.

But when the evening did come and he suddenly
remembered how he had refused this other engagement,
how glad he was! It seemed like fate. And afterwards,
when he suddenly remembered yet again how he had
refused this other engagement, how sorry he was! And
still it seemed like fate.

He and Miss Matfield came back from lunch at the
same time that afternoon (Miss Matfield had gone out
first, but then she always took quarter of an hour longer

2^2 ANGEL PAVEMENT

than anybody else), running into one another in Angel
Pavement, near T. Benenden’s. “You know, Turgis,”
she announced, in that clear hard voice of hers which
always rather frightened him, “I do think you’re beastly
rude to little Miss Sellers.”

‘‘Why, what have I done to her?” he demanded.

“I saw this morning you’d hurt her feelings again,”
Miss Matfield continued. “And why you should, I can’t
imagine. She’s quite a nice child, really, underneath
that silly perky manner of hers, and I think she’s rather
lonely, and you could be quite good friends. You see,
she happens to think you’re rather marvellous.”

“And you don’t, Miss Matfield,” said Turgis, bold
for once with her. “Go on, you might as well put that
in properly. I could hear it in your tone of voice.”

“I certainly don’t think you’re at all marvellous,”
she said coolly. “Why should I? What I do think is
that you’re being very rude to somebody who is pre¬
pared to like you a good deal. And when people really
like you,” she added severely, “you ought to be specially
nice to them and not rude. Now don’t say anything
to her about what I’ve just said, or I shall be really
annoyed.”

“All right,” said Turgis sulkily, wondering why he
couldn’t say something sharp to her, for her cool cheek.
“But I don’t see what I’ve done to her. She takes
offence too quickly, that’s it. And whose fault’s that?
And for that matter, who’s ever considered my feelings
in the office?”

“You’re different,” she said airily, “or if you’re not,
you ought to be. You’re a man.”

Turgis, pleased by this statement that he was a man,
but still labouring under a grievance, could do nothing

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS f}4!>

but mumble and mutter, and Miss Matfield, taking no
further notice of him, led the way upstairs. The next
time he saw Miss Sellers, Turgis looked curiously at
her. So she thought he was “rather marvellous,” did
she? He found himself returning to this, and to her,
several times during the afternoon.

But then something happened, something so im¬
portant that it promptly blew away all thought of Miss
Sellers or anybody or anything in that office. Mr.
Dersingham, who had only been there long enough in
the morning to go through the first post, returned about
four to examine the later posts, and he had not been in
ten minutes before he sent for Mr. Smeeth. After a short
interval, during which one of them telephoned to some¬
body from the private office, Mr. Smeeth came out,
looking fussy, as he always did when he had something
special to do.

“Let’s see,” he said, looking round the office, “does
anybody here live Maida Vale way?”

What was this? Turgis’s heart jumped and knocked.

“Well, I live in Hampstead, and that’s roughly the
same way,” Miss Matfield began, dubiously.

“What is it, Mr. Smeeth?” cried Turgis eagerly. “3
know Maida Vale very well.”

“Thought you lived Camden Town way?” said Mr.
Smeeth.

“Yes, I do, but—er—I know somebody in Maida Vale,
often go there. Is it anything I can do, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Yes, I think you’d better have the job, Turgis,” said
the unconscious Mr. Smeeth, little knowing what effect
his words were having. “You see, Mr. Golspie’s got a
daughter living with him—well, you know that, because
she came here one day, didn’t she?”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

34-i

Oh, my gosh!—didn’t she!

“She hasn’t got a bank account,” Mr. Smeeth, con¬
tinued, “and apparently the girl’s got through all me
money her father left her-these girls, my word, they
think we’re made of money!—wait till you’re a father,
Turgis, and then you’ll know-and he’s arranged with
us to let her have some from his account here. She
wants it at once, to-day, and we’ve just telephoned to
see if she’ll be in, and she will—trust her!—they’ll
always be in if they get something for it—so somebody
had better take it up to her, Mr. Dersingham says. I’d
make the young madam wait if I’d anything to do with
it,” he went on, maddeningly, “because this is only
encouraging extravagance, upon my word it is—but Mr.
Dersingham says she’d better have it now.”

“Well, I’ll take it, Mr. Smeeth.” Oh, wouldn’t he
just!

“All right then. You’d better clear off that work
you’ve got on hand, Turgis, and then when you go, you
needn’t come back. If you leave here about five, you’ll
get there about half-past five, and that’ll leave her ample
time to put in a full evening spending it. I’ve got the
address here all ready.”

Got the address! If old Smeethy only knew! Turgis
could have banged his desk and sent all his advice notes
and bills of lading and railway and shipping accounts
flying about the office. He did contrive to clear up a
few odd jobs, but he did not do as much work as he
pretended to do, for it was impossible to keep his mind
crawling there, among the papers, and to prevent it from
talking a wild leap now and then. At a few minutes to
five, he cleared his desk ruthlesly, so that it looked as if
the last crumb of work had been gobbled up. “I’m ready

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 345,

now, Mr. Smeeth,” he announced.

“Right you are,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m putting
twelve pounds, twelve pound notes, into this envelope,,
and it has the name and address on, you see—Miss
Golspie, 4A, Carrington Villas, Maida Vale. I'll seal
that. Now here’s a form of receipt I’ve made out, and
you must get her to sign that, so that there’s no possible
mistake. You understand that?”

Turgis assured him fervently that he did. He was
delighted at the receipt idea. Once or twice he had
thought what a dismal ending it would be if he merely
handed over the money at the door—“Is that the
money? Thank you. Good afternoon.” But signing,
a receipt was a different matter; it could not be done
properly at the door; you should read a receipt carefully
before you sign it; you might want to have it explained;
you must ask the messenger in, and then of course he
might have a chance to talk. The receipt made it a piece
of real business. Good old Smeethy! It was just like
him to insist on a proper receipt.

“And you needn’t come back, of course,” said Mr.
Smeeth. “Just pop off home. I’ll just tell Mr. Dersing-
ham I’ve fixed it all up.”

“What’s all this about?” Miss Matfield asked, as he
was taking his overcoat from its peg.

He explained shortly.

“Where do they live?”

“In Maida Vale. 4A, Carrington Villas,” he told her.

“I say, listen,” cried Miss Sellers, sweeping away her
grievance. “If you get a chance of going in, go in, and
then tell us what it’s like to-morrow. I’d like to know
what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in. Wouldn’t you,.
Miss Matfield?”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

346

Miss Matfield, to Turgis’s surprise, for he expected
her to be disdainful of such idle curiosity, admitted at
once that she would. “I’m rather sorry I didn’t ask for
the job,” she added. “It would be amusing to see what
the daughter’s like. I have just seen her, but that’s all.
And I can’t imagine what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives
in, though it’s probably some furnished maisonette
they’re camping in. Maida Vale’s stiff with them.”

“Well, I can’t fancy that Mr. Golspie having a ’ome
at all,” Miss Sellers put in. “Seems a ’omeless sort of
man to me.”

“I’ll say ‘Good afternoon,’ ” cried Turgis loudly and
cheerfully, and off he went, the money and the receipt
form snugly tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat,
the best coat he had and all brushed and as natty as you
like. Now for Maida Vale, and no hanging about this
time, but straight as a shot from a gun through the front
gate of 4, Carrington Villas. He hurried out, running
down the stairs, in fear of Mr. Dersingham or Mr.
Smeeth or Miss Golspie or the gods suffering a change
of mind at the last minute and dragging him back to his
desk.

3

There was just light enough, and time enough, for him
to notice that the broken statue, really a plaster thing,
was that of a little boy playing with two large fishes, and
that the two pillars were peeling badly. There were two
bells, one for 4, the other for 4A. He was careful to press
the 4A one. He pressed it several times and altogether
waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS $ 4 /

as if she was out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell
for 4. Instantly, a light was switched on in the hall, and
the door—there was only one door for both flats—flung
open.

“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous
woman in an apron, standing there. “Because if it is,
I’ve to give you the mistress’s word that she’s paying
out no more money for the machine because the girl that
could work it has left and it’s no use to us at all the way
we are now, and not another penny will she pay out for
it, so take it itself and leave us in peace.”

“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis
told her.

“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the
very image of him.”

“I want to see Miss Golspie.” .

“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other
bell, with the a on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”

“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung
it about six times.”

“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman
coming out and looking at the bell-push, as if that might
explain something. “Haven’t they got that bell of theirs
ringing yet? Every time it’s us, it’s really them. Come
inside, young man, come inside, or if we stand here talk¬
ing another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain the
way she’ll say she’s destroyed with the draught. Does
she know you’re coming at all?”

“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the
hall. “I’ve been sent to see her on business. It’s very
important. I hope she’s in.”

“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say
she was going to see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll

ANGEL PAVEMENT

348

see a bit of a door-it may be open and it may be shut—
and if you knock on it, you’ll make her hear. The
servant they have is out to-day because I met her here
myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s
to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up
the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock on the door.”

Just beyond the head of the stairs, there was a door,
and it was open a little, so that he could plainly hear the
sound of a gramophone playing jazz. He knocked hard.
The gramophone stopped abruptly.

It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She
was dressed in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was
prettier than ever. At the sight of her standing there,
solid and real again at last, his heart bumped and his
mouth went suddenly dry.

“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss
Golspie,” he announced, stammering a little.

Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that
money?” she cried, in that same queer fascinating voice
he remembered so well. “How much is it? Come in,
though. This way.”

The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but
in spite of its size, it was full of things. Turgis had never
seen, except on the pictures, so many cushions; there
seemed to be dozens of them, huge bright cushions, piled
up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed into arm¬
chairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then
there were gramophone records and books and maga¬
zines all over the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits
and fancy boxes heaped together on little tables, and
then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash¬
trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich
bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and

yellow, shaded lamps, and it was very cosy and warm;
almost too warm, even though it was a cold afternoon,
for an excited young man who had hurried there from
the bus.

“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a
receipt here that you have to sign.”

“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you.
I adore having money, don’t you? It’s beastly when you
suddenly find you haven’t got any, and can’t go any¬
where or buy anything. Oh, I remember you. You’re
the one I spoke to that day when I called at the office,
aren’t you? Do you remember me?”

Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still
standing, awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his
overcoat hanging loose from his shoulders, and he felt
rather hot and uncomfortable.

“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly.
“How did you remember so well?”

“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you,
Miss Golspie?” he said humbly.

She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”

“Well, I remember you,” he replied, gasping a little,
“because I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever
spoken to in all my life.”

“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She
shrieked with laughter. “What a marvellous thing to
say! Is that why you brought the money?”

“Yes it is,” he said earnestly.

“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re
pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some¬
one had to come here,” he continued, with sudden reck¬
lessness, “I specially asked to be sent—just to see you

ANGEL PAVEMENT

35°

again.” The hand that was still in his overcoat pocket
tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result that his
overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and
emptied a box of cigarettes on to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie,
greatly entertained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and
sweating now with sheer awkwardness and shyness.
“I’ll pick them up.”

“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your
hat down, and then you’ll feel much better. That’s
right. Dump them down there—anywhere. Now you
can pick the cigarettes up and you can also give me one
of them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily, he lit her
cigarette, picked up the others, and then lit his own.
“Now what about the money?” she continued. “What
do I have to do to get it?”

“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought
to count it first to see if it’s all right.”

When they had concluded this little transaction, she
said suddenly: “Have you had any tea?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.

“Well, I haven’t either. I was too lazy to make it.
The maid’s out to-day. Let’s have some, shall we?
Most of it’s ready on a tray, but I just couldn’t bother
boiling some water and making the tea. You come and
help and then you shall have some.” He followed her
into the little kitchen, where he filled a kettle and
watched it come to the boil while she chattered in a
drifting haze of cigarette smoke and languidly produced
another cup and saucer and some things to eat. Then,
when everything was ready, he carried the tray into the
other room and set it down on a low table in front of the

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 351

fire. Lena reclined, like a lovely lazy animal, on a pile
of cushions, while Turgis, at the other side of the low
table, sat in a low, fat arm-chair. It was a wonderful
tea. The tea itself was good, for there were little sand¬
wiches and all kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and
biscuits, all piled up anyhow, like everything in this
careless and sumptuous place. And then, far more
important than sandwiches and cake, there was Lena
herself, so real, so close, so magically illuminated there
in the firelight and shaded lamplight. She asked him
all manner of questions, beginning with “What’s your
name?”

“Turgis,” he told her shyly.

“What’s your first name?”

“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody
(anybody, that is, w T ho didn’t merely want him to fill up
a form) had asked him what his Christian name was.
He brought it out with desperate embarrassment, but
when it came out, he felt better.

“I don’t like Harold much, do you? Mine’s Lena.”

“Yes, I know it is.”

“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she
cried, laughing. “You’ll be telling me next how old I
am and where I was born and all the rest of it. Who do
you think you are—a detective?”

This was a good opportunity to be bright and enter¬
taining, so he told her all about Stanley at the office and
how Stanley wanted to be a detective and went about
"shaddering” people. After which, Lena, who seemed
to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people at
the office.

“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling
her nose in distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day

352 ANGEL PAVEMENT

in a place like that. So dark and dismal, isn’t it? And
they call that street Angel Pavement! What a name for
it! I nearly passed straight out when my father told
me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work
in a shop than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind
being a mannequin. Or go on the stage. That would be
best of all. I want to go on the stage. I nearly went on
when I was in Paris. And a man wanted me to go in for
film work—he said he’d get me a part right away. Do
you think I’d be any good for the films?”

“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all
solemn adoration. “You’d be wonderful on the pictures
—like Lulu Castellar or one of those stars—only better.
I’d go anywhere to see you.”

If he had thought about it for days, he could not have
produced a speech more calculated to please her than
this, because it chimed with her own innermost aspira¬
tions and beliefs. And his solemn adoration, a change
from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant.
She smiled at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet delibera¬
tion, and he sat looking at her, silent, intoxicated.

The silence was broken by a sharp rat-tat-tat. “Oh,
damn!” cried Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to
see. She returned, raising her eyebrows comically at
Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. It was an old
woman who looked like a dressed up and painted witch.
She had an enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply
sunken eyes, but, nevertheless, her face had the pink and
white colouring of youth. This was because it was
thickly painted, and when it caught the light, it shone,
just as if it was enamelled and varnished. She was wear¬
ing, above a purple dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with
a pattern of scarlet flowers on it, and she glittered with

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 353

brooches, necklaces and rings. Never in his life before
had Turgis been in the same room with anybody as
fantastic as this old woman, and suddenly he felt
frightened. For a second or so, he even forgot about
Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he
was somewhere familiar, sensible and safe. It was a
queer moment, and he remembered it long afterwards.

Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash
fashion, so that he never caught the name of this extra¬
ordinary visitor. All he knew was that it was something
foreign; and he guessed that she was the woman who
lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat Irish
cook, or whatever she was who had admitted him into
the house.

“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a
cracked foreign voice, “I’ll not stay at oil, onlee one
seengle minute. I haf asked my nephew and hees vife
and hees friend from de Legation to com’ to me to-night
because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, yes, yes,
yes, yes—in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no
end of eet.” At this point she sat down, shot out a claw¬
like hand and took a cake, and promptly gobbled it up.
Turgis stared at her fascinated.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound
concerned, but obviously ready to giggle at any moment.

“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a
great many times and wagging her head as she did so.
“My daughtair again, of course—need you ask? Always
de same—onlee a deef’rent troble.” She swooped down
upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth and lit it
with uncommon dexterity. After blowing a cloud of
smoke in Lena’s direction, she resumed. “I haf com’,
my dee-air, for two t’ings. First, here are de plomss I

M*

ANGEL PAVEMENT

354

said to you 1 would geef you. No, no, no, no. Dey are
noding, noding, noding at oil. Steel, dey are vairy, vairy
nice plomss.” Apparently these plums were in the little
box she now handed to Lena. “Next, I ask your
fadair, Meestair Golspie—does he say ven he com’ back
’ere?”

“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think
he quite knows yet. But it ought to be some time next
week. Perhaps you know, do you?” And she looked at
Turgis.

“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis,
very conscious of the fact that the old woman was
staring at him. “We expect him back some time next
week.”

“No, no r no, no. I should like to ask your fadair
about dees troble for my daughtair—dat ees oil—and
eenoff! Aw yes!—eenoff. My nephew’s friend from de
Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, I ask your
fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fire¬
place, and got up from her chair surprisingly quickly.
“Aw, my dee-air, dat ees a nice, a vairy nice dress
you’ave on now. Aw, yes, eet ees.” She ran a be-ringed
claw over some of it. Then she looked at Turgis, who
immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a nice
dress, eh? You t’eenk so?”

The embarrassed Turgis said it was.

“She ees vairy preetty, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes—loffly,
you t’eenk, eh?”

“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing
his throat.

“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”

These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap?
What had it got to do with her, the nosey old hag? He

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 355

made some sort of noise in his throat, and it was enough
to stop her staring at him and to set her moving towards
the door, chuckling just as if she was a witch. “The
young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im a
plom, dee-air.”

When Lena came back, after closing the outer door
behind the old woman, a new feeling, of friendly ease
and lightness, immediately descended upon them both.
They were young together. They laughed at the old
woman, whom Lena imitated "with some skill.

“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old
thing, really—she’s always giving me things—but quite
cracked, of course. And the daughter she talks about,
the one who’s in ‘treble’—she’s some sort of a countess
—seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who ever
comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only
people I’ve spoken to these last few days, so you can tell
the sort of time I’ve had. It’s just my damnable luck!
—when my father’s away and I could do what I liked—
three friends, all three, take it into their heads to go
away, too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve been
so bored.” She lounged over to the window and looked
out. “Looks very thick now. Another fog coming, I sup¬
pose. That’s the worst of London, all these foul fogs.
What shall we do now? You haven’t to go home or any¬
thing, have you?”

Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he
hadn’t to'go home or anywhere.

“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near
here. It’s not bad. Just wait, I shan’t be long. Or, look
here, you could take these tea things back into the
kitchen.”

He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to

ANGEL PAVEMENT

think of washing them long before Miss Golspie
appeared again. What he did, when she did appear,
was to wash himself in a bathroom that had more towels
and bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other half-
dozen bathrooms he had ever seen put together. And
now they were ready for the pictures.

It was not far, but they had to grope their way through
a mist that was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once
or twice Lena put her hand on his arm, and they were
cosy together in the blank woolly night, and it was all
rather wonderful. It was better still when they were sit¬
ting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and deep rose-
shaded dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre.
(Turgis had paid for these best seats, and was left with
exactly three-and-threepence to take him through the rest
of the week.) They were both enthusiastic and knowing
patrons of the films, so that they had a good deal to talk
about, and frequently as they whispered, her head came
close to his and her hair even brushed his cheek. It was
tremendously exciting. The chief picture, a talkie—it
was Her Dearest Enemy, with Mary Meriden and
Hunter York—was good stuff, but it was nothing com¬
pared to merely sitting in that balcony with Lena
Golspie, who, incidentally, was much prettier than Mary
Meriden. She herself thought she was just as pretty, but
Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told her
so several times. On this occasion he abandoned his
usual tactics. He did not even try to hold her hand.
He was content to sit there, to whisper, to be so near to
this fragrant dim loveliness, with his hunger, which he
had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily
appeased. A dream had come true. He reminded him¬
self of this, time after time, if only because the dream,

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 357

which had been haunting him so long, was still more
real than this sudden actuality. He longed to make
everything stand still, knowing only too well that it was
all flowing away from him. Every photograph that
leaped on to the screen and then leaped away again was
nibbling at the evening. Very soon the programme
would be completing its circle, and she would be want¬
ing to go, and it would be all over. Turgis felt all this,
even if he did not find phrases to express it, so that he
was not completely and perfectly happy. He was, as we
have seen, a born lover, and a romantic, and w T hat he
wanted at heart was not ordinary human happiness, but
a golden immortality, a balcony seat high above Time
and Change.

“You can come back and have some supper, if you
like,” said Miss Golspie casually, when they descended
into the gloom of Maida Vale again. “You can help me
to make it. I’m hungry, aren’t you?”

He was hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like
to help her with supper. He could have shouted for joy
at the thought that he had not to leave her yet, that the
evening was being thus magically extended. All the way
back, they talked about pictures and film actors and
actresses they liked and disliked, and as there was not
really much difference in their points of view, for they
both went to the films in search of an amorous dream
life and the mere difference of sex only added spice to
the discussion, they got on very well indeed. After the
fog, the room at 4A seemed richer and cosier than ever,
and as Turgis helped to put odds and ends of food,
mostly out of tins, on the little table in front of the fire,
he felt as if he had wandered into a glorious film.

'■’Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

35*

“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real
life at all to him, and in a sudden burst of candour,
he added: “Matter of fact, I’ve never tasted one in my
life.”

“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying
to be funny. You must have had.”

“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and
whisky and port wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve
never had a cocktail.”

“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily,
“you’re going to have one now—one of the special
Golspie Smashers.”

He watched her take bottle after bottle from the side¬
board and then shake a tall silver flask, just as he had
seen people do on the stage and in films. “Now just you
taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” she commanded, giving
him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, rather sweet at
first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of
golden glow, which seemed to travel all over him.

“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.

“It’s fine.”

“Have another then. Well just have one more and
then well eat.”

After the second one, he felt larger and more im¬
portant and even happier than he had done before. He
insisted upon showing her a trick with three pennies.
He knew three tricks, one with the pennies and the other
two with cards. The other two could wait; it would not
do to show her everything at once. She thought the trick
with pennies very smart, and they postponed eating until
he had shown her how to do it and she had practised it
several times. They were better friends than ever when
they sat down to eat the sardines and the two salads in

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 359

the cardboard jars and the sliced veal loaf and the fruit
salad and chocolate cake. Lena ate very quickly and left
things and started again on them and pushed them aside
and altogether dined in a delightfully fussy extravagant
fashion that was quite new to Turgis, who was used
to seeing people walk through a meal at a good round
pace.

When she had finished eating, Lena lit a cigarette and
then darted to the large gramophone in the corner.
Having wound it up, she could not find the record she
wanted (there seemed to be records all up and down the
room), and he had to help her, when she had told him
half the name and tried to whistle a bit of it at him. At
last they found it, and the gramophone came gloriously
to life, filling the room with the lilt and throb of this
fashionable tune.

“Can you dance?” she asked him, gliding and twirling
to the music.

“Not much,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.

“Well, let’s see. Shove that rug back, there. That’s
enough. Now then.” And she came up to him. “Not
that way. Like this. That’s it. Go on, you can hold me
tighter than that.”

He could, and he did. If they had been standing still,
it would have been a rapturous moment, but though he
was delightedly conscious of the body against one arm
and of the hand that gripped his, he had to try and dance,
and he was very awkward.

“You’re ghastly,” she told him, with lips that were not
four inches from his, “but you’ll improve. I’ve known
worse. You’ve got some idea of the rhythm, and some
men never even get that. Now—left—right—left—that’s
better. Only you’re so stiff—put some pep into it—oh.

360 ANGEL PAVEMENT

hell!—the gramophone’s stopped. Shove another dance
record on and we’ll try again.”

They tried several times, with an interval during
which they had another cocktail each, and Turgis im¬
proved considerably, and towards the end was holding
her as she wanted to be held, close to him, and had time
to enjoy the situation. When they stopped, his arm left
her waist reluctantly, and she did not seem to resent it.
She told him all about the dances she had been to in
Paris, and then, having come to the end of them, sud¬
denly yawned. He glanced at the clock.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’d better be going
now.”

“All right,” she replied, yawning again. “I suppose
you had. I’m tired all at once—must be this rotten heavy
weather.”

“What about all this stuff?” He pointed to the little
table.

“Oh, they don’t matter. The maid will clear them in
the morning. She’ll be in soon—unless her sailor boy’s
persuaded her to stay out all night. And that would be
nice for me, wouldn’t it?—here all night by myself. No,
she’ll be in soon. I thought I heard her then.”

Very slowly, reluctantly, Turgis put on his coat, care¬
fully buttoning it and lingering over every button.
While he did this, he stared at her, wondering how he
could possibly say what was in his mind.

She, too, had been thoughtful. “Look here,” she cried
at last. “Have you been to the Colladium this week?
Well, I haven’t either, and I want to go, and I hate going
by myself. If I can get two seats for the first house to¬
morrow night, will you come with me? I might go down
and get them to-morrow afternoon if I feel like it, 1

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 36 1

want to spend some of that twelve pounds, anyhow.”

Would he go? Oh, my gosh!

“All right then,” she continued, walking towards the
door with him. “Listen. I’ll telephone to you at the
office some time in the afternoon if it’s all right. I’ll tell
you where to meet me and all that then.”

They were standing at the door now, and he was still
holding her hand, as if he were about to shake it, but was
at the moment too busy trying to stammer out a few
adequate phrases. Nor was he merely holding the hand,
for, involuntarily, he was pulling it too, so that there was
less and less space between them as his little speech
floundered on. This made Lena impatient.

“I don’t know what on earth you’re trying to say,” she
told him, “so don’t bother. And you might as well go
now before the girl does get back. And I’ll telephone to¬
morrow. Oh, don’t dither so much, silly. There!” And
with that she leaned against him, putting a hand on each
shoulder, kissed him swiftly on the mouth, drew back,
laughed, and then shut the door on him.

Turgis stared at the door, drew a long breath, and then
wandered down the stairs and through the hall below
like a man drifting drunkenly out of some Arabian
Night. He walked up to Kilburn, where he caught a 31
bus that took him most of the way home. The fog was
not very thick, but it was wretchedly cold damp stuf*
that made everybody shiver and cough and wipe their
eyes and blow their noses and look miserable. But
Turgis did not care. As he sat gazing at nothing in the
bus or marched along the blackened pavements, he was
warmed by the fire inside him and cheered by a host of
tolcured fancies that were rocketing in his mind.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

362

4

When he awoke next morning, he knew at once that
he was in possession of an exquisite secret and was quite
different from the Turgis who had rubbed his eyes so
often in that little room. He was the chap who had been
kissed by Miss Lena Golspie the night before. He was
also the chap she was going to telephone to this very day
and take to the Colladium this very night. He jumped
out of bed and then jumped into the part of this new
and splendid chap. The fact that he still looked like the
old Turgis, to whom nothing wonderful had ever hap¬
pened, only made it all the more amusing.

“Another raw morning, my word,” said Mrs. Pelump-
ton, as she handed him his breakfast. “Them’s best off
this morning who has to stay in. Edgar’s been gone these
two hours, and a nasty cold job it must be in that station
this morning.”

“Yes, it must, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis heartily.
“I’m sorry for Edgar.” And so he was. Edgar would
never be kissed by a girl like Lena Golspie, not if he
lived to be a thousand. Poor dreary devil!

Old Pelumpton shuffled in, unwashed, blue about the
nose, and wearing a greasy muffler. Turgis had seen him
like that many times before, but this morning he re¬
sented the appearance of this dirty apparition. If Lena
Golspie knew that he had to eat his breakfast looking at
that nasty old mess, who might have just crawled out
of the dust-bin, she would probably never speak to him
again.

“No letter, I shee,” said Mr. Pelumpton, going to the
fire and warming his hands. “That meansh he doeshn’t

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 363

want me to go and shee the shtuff thish morning. I’ll
go round jusht before dinner and catch ’im in then.
That’sh the idear.”

“Yes, that is the idea,” said his wife sharply, as she
bustled about. “Wait till the pubs is open and then
catch him in. I know that idea. It’s a good idea, that is.
If it wasn’t for that idea, I don’t know why the pubs ’ud
ever open at dinner-time, ’cos they wouldn’t have any
custom.”

“You hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton said to Turgis, who
was putting aw T ay his breakfast as fast as he could. “Deary
me, they’ve got pubsh on the brain, the women ’ave. If
a man shtops in a bit, they want to know when he’sh
going to do a bit o’ work, an’ if he goesh out, then it’sh
the pubsh.”

“And you don’t go in the pubs, do you, Mr. Pelump¬
ton?” said Turgis, with a very marked ironical inflection.

“Oh no! He ’ates them, he does,” cried Mrs.
Pelumpton. “You couldn’t get him to go near one.”

“What shome o’ you people don’t realishe,” retorted
Mr. Pelumpton, with dignity, “ish that the pub may be
nesheshary in bishnish. And until you’ve been in bish*
nish—a bishnish like mine, I mean—it’sh shomething
you don’t undershtand. The amount of bishnish tran-
shacted in pubsh, my wordsh—”

“’Morning, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis, wiping
his mouth and dashing out. What a life the Pelumptons
had! It seemed incredible that anybody could find so
dingy an existence worth living. Hurrying down to the
Camden Town Tube Station, cramming himself into
the lift, waiting for a City train, swaying near the doors
among a mass of elbows, newspapers and parcels all the
way to Moorgate, he hugged his grand secret. When he

364 ANGEL PAVEMENT

arrived at the office, he swelled exultantly, for this was
where Mr, Golspie gave his orders, and they all knew
Mr. Golspie and they had heard about his daughter, but
they did not know what Turgis knew. It was a delight¬
ful feeling. He wanted to laugh out loud every time one
of the others spoke to him or even looked at him. Ah,
little did they know!

“You got that receipt all right, did you, Turgis?” said
Mr. Smeeth.

It was extraordinary. He had forgotten all about the
money and the receipt. But he had the receipt in his
pocket, nevertheless, and when he handed it over, he
found himself swelling again inside, nearly bursting with
secret knowledge and happiness.

“Did you go inside?” said Mr. Smeeth casually.

“Yes,” replied Turgis. Did he go inside!

“Oo, did you?” cried Poppy Sellers, who missed
nothing. “Tell us what it was like? What did you say
to his daughter? Is she nice? Tell us all about it—
go on.”

Not a bad kid, really, though that fringe effect was a
distinct mess. And she thought him—what was it?—
rather marvellous. (And so she ought. Why, if Lena
Golspie—oh, well, I-mean-to-say!) Poor kid—a bit
pathetic, when you came to consider it. And she had
wanted him to go with her to the Police Minstrels last
night! And he had half thought of going! Dear, dear,
dear!

“Well, Miss Sellers, if you really want to know,” he
said, “I’ll tell you.”

“My words, aren’t we getting grand!” cried Poppy.
“Go on. Very good of your lordship, I’m sure.”

“They live in the top half of a detached house,” said

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 365

Targis, “and the room I went into was a large room,
bigger than this office here, and it had all sorts of things
in it, and shaded lights and a big gramophone and dozens
of cushions all over the room—”

“Did it look like a furnished flat?” asked Miss Mat-
field.

“I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything
about furnished flats.”

“Well, what about his daughter?” Miss Sellers en¬
quired. “What’s she like?”

“I’ve seen her—for a minute,” said Miss Matfield.
“She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” replied Turgis, keeping a hold on him¬
self. He was bubbling inside.

“Yes, but what’s she like?” Miss Sellers persisted,
staring at him. And when he made no reply, but turned
away and pretended to be suddenly busy with some
work, she gave him a curious look before she herself
turned away, too. He never saw it, and if he had seen
it, he would not have been interested.

Fortunately, both for him and for Twigg and Dersing-
ham, he was not very busy that afternoon. Otherwise,
he might have muddled every consignment of veneers
and inlays, and so confused the whole trade that it might
not have recovered for a fortnight. The disadvantage
of pinning your whole afternoon on a possible telephone
call in an office is that the telephone is ringing every few
minutes and you are for ever on the jump. Up to three-
thirty, Turgis was comparatively calm; from three-thirty
to four, he was on the tiptoe of expectation; from four
to four-fifteen he was desperate; from four-fifteen to
four-thirty he was swaying on the brink of a vast abyss
of misery, only to be plucked back by every ring of the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

366

bell and then hurled forward again by each unwelcome
voice (“And if you ask me,” said the girl at Brown and
Gorstein’s, after making one of these calls, “I think it’s
time Twigg and Dersinghams just veneered a few
manners on. The way they snap your head off!”); and,
at four-thirty-five he was sitting staring at a desk in Hell,
all hope gone, and at four-forty-five he was breathing
heavily down a telephone receiver in Heaven. Yes, she
had got the tickets and would he meet her just inside the
entrance to the Colladium at twenty-five past six.

Even now, there was no peace for him. The instant he
had put down the receiver he had realised that it would
not be easy for him to be at the Colladium at twenty-five
past six. Sometimes they did not finish until nearly that
time, and indeed, on really busy nights, it was often con¬
siderably later. He had to get from Angel Pavement to
the Colladium, and if possible he had to have some tea.

“What time do you think well be finishing to-night,
Mr. Smeeth?” he enquired, respectfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked up from his neat little wonderland
of figures. “Oh, I dunno, Turgis. Just after six, I sup¬
pose. Why, have you got something special on?”

“I’ve got to be up in the West End at twenty-five past
six,” said Turgis. (“And if you knew who I’m going to
meet, Smeethy, old man, you’d have a fit.”) Then he
thought for a moment. “Would you mind if I sent
Stanley out for some tea for me, Mr. Smeeth?”

' : Well, as long as you do it now, before he’s busy copy¬
ing the letters, it’ll be all right.”

So Stanley was dispatched to the Pavement Dining
Rooms for one pot of tea, one buttered teacake and a
bun—total eightpence. “And do I keep the change?”
asked Stanley, who had been given a shilling.

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 367

“I should think you don’t, my lad!” cried Turgis,
whose finances were now in a desperate state. The
pictures last night had left him with three and three¬
pence; the bus going home had cost him twopence;
lunch had been ninepence (it cost him nothing travel¬
ling to the office, because he had a pass on the Under¬
ground); and now, after paying out this eightpence, he
would be left with one and eight. On that one and eight,
he would have to travel to the Colladium and get home
afterwards, and then exist all the next day, Friday. And
he had only two cigarettes left. If Lena wanted anything
in the Colladium—and he could imagine her asking for
chocolates and cigarettes and ices—he was in a hole.

He got away at five minutes past six, after having a
very thorough wash-and-brush-up in the little office
lavatory, hurled himself into the flood of west-bound
travellers, and arrived, breathless and triumphant, under
the red glare of the Colladium entrance exactly on time.
He had ten minutes in which to cool off before Miss
Golspie appeared, wearing a handsome coat with a huge
fur collar and cuffs and looking so rich and beautiful
that he was almost too shy to talk to her. Their seats
were down at the front—Turgis had never sat in such
seats before—and it would all have been perfect if it had
not been for two little incidents. The first occurred
when Lena, during the second turn, a silent juggling
affair, announced that she would like some choco¬
lates.

“Can you get hold of that girl there,” she said. “She
always has some nice boxes.”

Nice boxes! “How much are they?” he asked her,
miserably.

“Well, you are a mean pig! How much are they? I

368 ANGEL PAVEMENT

like that, and after I’ve paid for the seats, too!*'

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, “but—you see—I've only
got one and sixpence.” He had paid tuppence on the
bus, getting there.

“One and six!” Lena laughed. It was not an un¬
friendly laugh, but it was not a very sympathetic one
either. “That’s worse than I was, before you brought
that money, yesterday. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t
know that I do want any chocolates. But would you
spend your wonderful one and six if I asked you to?”

“Yes, I would. Of course I tvould. If I’d,” he added,
as the curtains swept down on the smiling jugglers, “if
I’d hundreds and hundreds of pounds, I’d spend them all
if you asked me to. I would, honestly.”

“Oh, it’s easy to say that,” said Lena, not displeased
however, at his fervent tone. She gave him a brilliant
glance, and no doubt remarked that his face was flushed
and his eyes were at once hot and moist, as if he stared
through a steam of embarrassed adoration.

Unfortunately, not all her brilliant glances were re¬
served for him, and that fact formed the basis of the
second disturbing incident. There was a young man, a
rather tall handsome chap with wavy hair, who was sit¬
ting with a girl in the row in front of them and a little
to their right. Turgis had noticed that this fellow was
turning round a good deal whenever the lights went up
and that every time he did so his glance always came to
rest finally on Lena. After this had happened several
times he noticed that she was returning this glance. At
last, during the interval, he caught her smiling, yes,
actually smiling, at the chap. Instantly, he felt miser¬
able, then angry, then miserable again.

He could stand it no longer. “Do you know that chap

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 369

there?” he asked, trying to appear light and easy.

‘‘Which one? What are you talking about?”

“Well, you keep smiling at him—I mean, that one
there, the chap who’s just had a permanent wave, by
the look of him.”

“Oh, the one who keeps looking round. He seems to
think he knows me, doesn’t he? He’s rather attractive,
as a matter of fact.”

“Well, I suppose as long as you think so, it’s all right,
isn’t it?” said Turgis bitterly. He could feel a pain, a
real pain, as bad as toothache, somewhere inside him.
“He doesn’t attract me,” he mumbled. “If you ask me,
he looks a rotten twister—bit of a crook or something.”
But in his heart he knew that the chap was taller and
stronger and better-looking and better-dressed and
altogether more important than he was, and he could
have killed him for it.

“He doesn’t at all,” said Lena. Then she laughed and
made a face at him. “You’re jealous, that’s ail. And you
oughtn’t to be jealous, it isn’t nice. I’ll smile at him
again now. I think he’s lovely.”

When she said that and looked so determinedly in that
fellow’s direction, Turgis was filled with a desire to take
hold of her there and then, dig his nails into her soft
flesh, and hurt her until she screamed. He was suddenly
shaken with the force of this desire, which was like
nothing he had known before. But at that moment this
little game of glancing and smiling came to an end, and
the person who put a stop to it was the girl with the other
man. She turned round, too—and good luck to her,
thought Turgis—then frowned and said something to
her companion, and after that there was no more turn¬
ing round and Lena divided her attention between the

370 ANGEL PAVEMENT

stage and Turgis, who was left in a queer state of mind
and body.

“You can come and have some supper again, if you
like,” said Lena, when it was all over. “The maid wanted
to go out again, so I said she could, and if you’d like to
come and help me again, you can.”

“I should think I would like to,” he cried enthusiastic¬
ally. “And I’m sorry if I was silly—y’know, in there.”

“Jealous boy,” she said, smiling. “That’s what you are,
aren’t you? Oh, it’s cold out here, isn’t it? Let’s get a
taxi. Oh, never mind about your precious one and six-
I’ll pay. I want to get home quick, out of the cold. Come
on. Stop that one, there.”

Turgis had only been in a taxi once before in all his
life. As he sat close to Lena in the dark leathery interior
and saw the familiar crowded streets go reeling past the
window, this effortless journeying seemed magical. They
were in Maida Vale in no time. It made life seem at
once wonderfully rich and simple. When they entered
the house, they heard a tremendous babble of talk
coming from the lower flat. It sounded as if that fan¬
tastic old foreign woman had summoned all her rela¬
tions and friends and all their friends and relations to
discuss her “troble.” In the room above, there appeared
to be even more cushions, gramophone records, boxes
and bottles than there were the day before. Once more,
Lena mixed some cocktails, and Turgis encountered the
queer flavour, sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and
ending with a sudden glow. Once more, he had a second
and bigger one, and found everything enlarged, includ¬
ing himself. Once more, they sat down to supper at the
little table in front of the fire, though this time there was
more luxurious food and it all seemed to come out of

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 37 1

little cardboard containers. They were very friendly
over the cocktails and the food, and Lena, dressed in
bright green, a colour that seemed to throw her red-gold
hair and light brown eyes, her scarlet mouth and white
neck, into brilliant relief, was lovelier than ever. It was
wonderful.

“Do you know Mrs. Dersingham?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “She came to the office once, and
I just saw her, that’s all.”

“She’s not as pretty as I am, is she? Or do you think
she is?”

“Pretty as you!” Turgis gave a gasp, and meant it.
“Why, there’s no comparison. She’s just ordinary—and
you’re lovely. Yes, you are, really.”

“You don’t mean it. You’re just teasing me.”

“I’m not,” he said solemnly. Teasing her indeed! A
fat chance he would ever have of teasing her. “I’ve never
known any girl as pretty as you—never seen one—in all
my life before—and I never shall, never, never.”

She rewarded him with a smile. Then she frowned.
“I don’t like Mrs. Dersingham. I met her once. I loathe
her. She’s a snob and a rotten cat.”

“Is she?” Turgis didn’t care what Mrs. Dersingham
was.

“Yes, she is. I hate her. My father doesn’t like her
either. He doesn’t like Mr. Dersingham much either.
He thinks he’s a fool.”

“I don’t think he’s a bad chap though,” said Turgis
thoughtfully. “I’ve never really had much to do with
him. But I don’t believe he’s much good at business. I
knoiv the business w T as in a rotten state just before your
father came. Good job for us he did come. I don’t pre¬
tend to know much about it, but I do know that. Mr.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

372

Golspie’s clever, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “He’s always making a lot of money, but
he usually spends it all or loses it in some mad scheme.
He hates staying in one place long, and if it wasn’t for
that, he could have made a lot more money and been
really rich. But he doesn’t care about that. When he
wrote to tell me he was coming to London, he said I’d
have to come too, because he was going to stay a long
time and make a proper home for us, but now he’s here,
he says he doesn’t like London, and he’s going away
again soon.”

“Is he?” Turgis stared at her. “What—how do you
mean ‘soon’?”

“Oh, quite soon,” she replied carelessly. Then she
remembered something. “Look here, I may be wrong,
though. And you mustn’t say anything to anybody, will
you? Promise you won’t.”

“All right, I won’t. But if he went,” Turgis con¬
tinued, regarding her earnestly, “would you go too?”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?”

“Yes, it is. You wouldn’t be going, would you?”

“I might—pass me a cigarette, will you?—and then
again, I might not. It all depends. But, look here, if
my father knew I’d been saying anything, he’d be
furious, and though he usually lets me have my own way,
when he’s really furious, he’s hellish, I can tell you.”

“I’ll bet he is,” said Turgis, who had never had any
doubts about that. “I wouldn’t like to see him in a
temper.”

“What a dreary depressing conversation!” she cried,
getting up. “Let’s have another drink. Have you ever
been tight? I expect you have. I got tight once or twice
in Paris, with some Americans. We were drinking chain-

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 373

pagne and liqueurs all night. I fell on the floor once
and rolled under a table and went to sleep for hours and
hours. Shove the gramophone on, with something decent
on. Then come and have this drink and I’ll see if you
can dance yet.”

They did not dance long, however, for Lena
announced that she was too tired and that he was too
clumsy. She turned off one of the two shaded lights and
went and stood by the fire. He joined her there, stand¬
ing quite close, trembling a little. He put his arm round
her tentatively and when she did not move away, he
tightened it. She half turned so that she was lightly
pressing against him, and then she lifted her glamorous
face, looked at him with huge mysterious eyes, raised her
lips to within an inch or two of his, and whispered:
“Wouldn’t you like to kiss me?”

“Yes,” and he made a quick movement.

But she was quicker still, and in a second had broken
away from him and was laughing. “Well, you can’t
then—unless you say you adore me and are madly in
love with me and that I’m the most wonderful person
you’ve ever met and that you’ll do anything in the world
I ask. Now then.”

“But you are. Oh, you are,” he stammered, all his
heart trying to break through. “I’ve thought that ever
since I saw you that day in the office. I’ve never thought
about anything else. I used to come and stand outside
this house, hoping to see you again, just to look at you.”

“You didn’t.” There was a faint suggestion of
giggling in her voice. “You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. Lots of nights. I did, really. Oh,
Lena—”

“Oh, funny boy!” she cried, mocking him. “Well, you

ANGEL PAVEMENT

374

can kiss me—if you can catch me.”

And she dodged behind enormous arm-chairs and
round the various tables and he went almost blindly
after her, until at last she darted across to the big deep
sofa thing, and there sank down among the cushions.
‘‘No, no,” she cried, laughing and breathless, as he came
up, “you didn’t catch me.”

But now. he bent over her, clasped her fiercely in his
arms, and kissed her hard. When he drew back, she
began laughing and protesting again, but in another
minute her arms were about his neck and her body was
crushed against his and they were kissing again. After
a few minutes of this, she pushed him away and sat up,
but she gave him her hand and he knelt there, holding
it, with great roaring tides sounding in his ears.

“And now you’ve got to behave yourself,” she said,
strangely calm.

“Yes,” he said humbly, looking up at her. If she had
spoken kindly to him then he would have cried.

She smiled at him, and then, leaning forward, rubbed
his cheek gently with her other hand. She brought her
face nearer his, so that her mouth flamed again in his
misty sight, but as he raised his head, she retreated, until
at last he sprang up and clasped her to him as fiercely
as before, and they were kissing again. For an hour she
kept him swaying and lunging and beating about in this
wild dark tide, and sometimes he was only gripping her
hand and pressing it to his cheek and at other times she
was completely in his arms for a few moments, answer¬
ing his drive of passion with sudden bright flares of her
own. And then, strangely calm again, she told him he
must go.

Dazed and aching, he leaned against the back of a

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS

chair and stared at her with hot pricking eyes.

She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace,
humming a little dance tune. Then she turned round,
met his stare with a slight frown, and pointed out again
that he really must go.

He wanted to say all manner of wonderful things to
her, but could not find words for them. He tried to put
them into the look he gave her. “Can I see you to¬
morrow?” he said, at last.

“Mmmm?” She pretended to look very thoughtful.
“Well, perhaps. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t mind what it is so long as I’m with you,” he
assured her, trying to smile, but finding his face all stiff,
so stiff that a smile would crack it. “What would you
like to do? Can’t I take you somewhere?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see that Ronald
Mawlborough talkie, that new one, you know—where is
it? at the Sovereign. Isn’t that it—the Sovereign? I be¬
lieve it’s terribly crowded, so you’d have to book seats.”

“I’ll do that if you’ll only come,” said Turgis stoutly.

“All right. We’ll go there, then. And you get the
seats, don’t forget.”

“I shan’t forget. What time?”

“Let me see. Oh, I’ll meet you just outside at quarter
to eight. I believe that’s just before the Ronald Mawl¬
borough picture starts, because I looked it up in the
paper, this morning.”

“Quarter to eight. All right then. And—I say—
Lena—”

But she pointed to his hat and coat, and when he had
got them on, she took his arm and led him to the door.
“You can tell me all that to-morrow. But just tell me
this. Am I nice?”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Oh, Lena—you’re the most marvellous girl—oh, I
don’t know what to say—”

“Don’t you, dar-ling?” she replied, laughing at him.
She came very close, held up her mouth, drew it back
suddenly, laughed again, but finally allowed herself to
be kissed.

Turgis was still dazed, still aching, still hot and prick¬
ing about the eyes, as he went out into the street and
turned to have a last look at the enchanted window
above; and desire burned and raged in him as it had
never done when he had vainly searched the long lighted
streets for an answering smile, had stared at red mouths,
soft chins, rounded arms and legs in tube trains and
buses and teashops, had felt those exciting little pressures
in the darkness of the picture theatres, had returned to
his little room, tired in body, but with a heated imagina¬
tion, as he had done so many times, to see its dim comers
conjure themselves tantalisingly into the shapes of lovely
beckoning girls. The flame of this desire was fed from
the heart. He was now in love, terribly in love. The
miracle had happened; the one girl had arrived; and
with this single magical stroke, life was completed. He
merely existed no longer; but now he lived, and, a lover
at last, was at last himself. Love had only to be kind to
him, and there was nothing he would not do in return;
he was ready to lie, to beg, to steal, to slave day and
night, to rise to astounding heights of courage; all these
trifles, so long as he could still love and be loved.

The conductor of the 31 bus, noticing the young man
with the rather large nose, the open mouth and irregular
teeth, the drooping chin, whose full brown eyes shone as
they stared into vacancy, whose face had a queer glowing
pallor, might easily have concluded that there was a chap

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 377

who was sickening for something. But Turgis was alight
with love. He sat there in a dream ecstasy of devotion,
in which remembered kisses glittered like stars.

5

“Please, Mr. Smeeth,” he said, next morning, “could
you let me have a pound to-day?”

Mr. Smeeth rubbed his chin irritably. “Well, you
know, Turgis, I don’t like doing this,” he said fussily.
“It’s not so much the thing itself—”

“It’s only till to-morrow morning,” Turgis pointed
out, for the next day, Saturday, was the fortnightly pay
day.

“Yes, I know that, and it’s a small thing in itself, but
it’s a bad system. Once you start doing that sort of
thing, you don’t know where you’re going to end. When
I was with the Imperial Trading Company, before the
war, they’d a very easy-going cashier there, an old chap
called Hornsea, and we used to be paid every month.
The result was, some of the fellows, particularly one or
two of the lively sparks, were subbing all the time and
old Hornsea would let them have it out of the petty
cash. What happened in the long run? He got let down,
badly let down. Now I don’t mean to say you’re going
to let me down—”

“You know I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Smeeth.”

“Well, you couldn’t, not even if you tried,” said Mr.
Smeeth, with great emphasis. “It wouldn’t work here at
all. I’m not old Hornsea. But, believe me, my boy, it’s a
bad system. Can’t you last out until to-morrow mom-

N

37 8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

ing? I could lend you a bob or two myself, for that
matter.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Smeeth. I’d rather have the
pound on account, if you don’t mind. It’s something
special I have on to-night.” And he added to himself
that old Smeethy would be just about dumb with sur¬
prise if he knew, too.

“Oh, well, in that case, I suppose you’d better have it.
But it’s a special case, mind. And don’t forget you’ll
have a pound less to-morrow morning.” He carefully
made out a slip Sub. H. Turgis—£1 os. od., placed it
in the petty cash-box, and then handed over the pound
note.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis
quietly, humbly. That was the first thing done. The
next was to book the seats at the Sovereign. He could
have telephoned and then paid for them in the evening,
but this did not occur to him, for he did not belong to
the seat-booking classes, and even if it had occurred to
him, he would have rejected it as being too precarious.
To make certain of getting good seats, he curtailed his
lunch to a mere gobble and gulp, then hurried off to the
West End and the Sovereign, which was already open.
Indeed, for the last hour or so, the Sovereign had been
doing excellent business, chiefly with young wives who
had come in from distant suburbs to buy three and a
half yards of curtain material and, having saved nine-
pence, felt they were entitled to a glimpse or two of
Ronald Mawlborough. Early as it was, there were
several people in front of Turgis at the advance book¬
ing office, but he was able to get two fairly good seats at
four and sixpence each. Nine bob for the pictures! This
was easily his record, and it certainly seemed a lot of

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 379

money, nearly as much as he earned in a whole day.
Nevertheless he paid it gladly. With the tickets in his
pocket, to say nothing of eleven shillings to meet
emergencies, he had nothing to do now but quietly exist
until quarter to eight, and then—Lena.

It was not worth while going back to his lodgings after
he had finished at the office, so he went to a teashop not
very far from the Sovereign and there spun out his meal
as long as he decently could. Even then, however, it was
only half-past seven when he arrived at the Sovereign;
but he did not mind that, for it would be pleasant just
standing there, watching the crowd, and knowing that
every minute brought Lena nearer to him. There was
a queue waiting for the cheaper seats. Turgis had stood
in that queue many a time. Now he looked at it with
a mingling of pity and scorn. It seemed to belong to
some ancient and desiccated past. In the entrance hall,
under the russet globes, the footmen and page-boys in
chocolate and gold were handing the people on to one
another and sending them, in two jerky dark streams,
up the two great marble staircases. For the first ten
minutes, Turgis merely lounged about, but after that,
when he knew that Lena might arrive any moment, he
carefully planted himself in the centre, in sight of all the
doors in front, so that there was no chance of missing
her. Hundreds of girls passed in with their young men,
but not one of them was as pretty as Lena. A few days
ago he would have envied a good many of those fellows,
but now he could afford to pity them. They didn’t know
what a girl was. “Wait till you see Lena,” he told them,
under his breath, as they passed, unconscious, smiling.

At five minutes to eight, he pointed out to himself that
Lena had been ten minutes late the night before at the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

380

Colladium. Girls always kept a chap waiting. They were
famous for it. At eight o’clock he began to be anxious.
He wondered if he was waiting in the wrong place, and
he hastily searched the whole breadth of the entrance.
At quarter-past eight, his eyes began to smart. Time,
which had passed so slowly at first, was now rushing
away. The Ronald Mawlborough picture had started
long ago. A lump, compact of sheer misery, rose in his
throat and then wobbled up and down there, trying to
choke him. Half a dozen times he stepped forward
eagerly, only to retire again, under the stare of strange
girls who thought they were about to be accosted, and to
pretend to himself that it was still worth while staying
there a little longer. The last half-hour was nothing but
a dismal farce, for he knew that she could not be coming
now, yet somehow his feet refused to move more than a
yard or two away. It was nine o’clock when he finally
left the place, with two useless tickets in his pocket. One
of them he could have used, but he never thought for a
moment of doing so. It was Lena he wanted to see, not
Ronald Mawlborough.

He thought of a hundred excuses for her. She might
have been taken ill quite suddenly, for girls often were,
he believed. Something might have happened at the
house. Her father might have come back unexpectedly.
What he could not believe was that there was any mis¬
take about the meeting itself, for she had suggested both
the time and the place. Still struggling with his dis¬
appointment, he hurried along, through the stupid
idiotic crowds, and caught the first bus that would take
him to Maida Vale. More excited every minute, he
turned at last into Carrington Villas, and almost ran to
get a sight of 4A. There was no light coming from tne

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 381

sitting-room. She was not there. Nevertheless, he came
to the conclusion that somebody was in, for after waiting
a few minutes, he thought he saw a light go on in one of
the other windows. Once he had made up his mind, he
did not hesitate at all, but marched straight up to the
door and rang the bell. He remembered then that it was
probably out of order. Still, he rang again.

“Yes,” said a voice, as the door opened a few inches,
“what is it?”

“Is Miss Golspie in, please?”

The girl, obviously the maid who had been out the
two previous nights, now opened the door properly and
came forward to have a look at him. “Oo, no, she isn’t.”

“Do you know where she’s gone?”

“Oo, no, I don’t.”

“Oh—I see,” said Turgis miserably. “I was hoping to
see her to-night.”

“Well,” said the girl confidentially, “I think she went
out with a friend, because she got all dressed up just after
seven and she told me she wouldn’t be back till very late,
and then about half-past seven a young gentleman called
for her in a motor-car. And that’s all I can tell you.
Would you like to leave a message?”

“No, no message.” He walked slowly down the
garden, out of the gate, across the road. He had to stop
at the comer, because he was biting his handkerchief,
which he had screwed into a ball. Then, when at last he
was quiet and had put his handkerchief away, he walked
on and on through a blank misery of a night.

Mr. Pelumpton was sitting up alone, just finishing his
last pipe and a mouthful of beer, when Turgis burst into
the back room.

“Can you lend me some ink, please?" he asked.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

382

“Yersh, I think sho. I got a drop shomewhere. But
you’re not going to shtart writing lettersh thish time 0’
night, boy, are yer? If I wash like you, clerking all day
in a norfish, writing lettersh about thish, that, an’ the
other, never shtopping, why deary me!—you wouldn’t
catch me wanting to write lettersh thish time o’ night,
my wordsh you wouldn’t—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Turgis screamed at him, “let
me have the ink if you’ve got any and stop yapping.”

“ ’Ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere, ’ere! Thatsh a way to talk now,
ishn’t it!” Mr. Pelumpton, offended and on his dignity,
produced the ink bottle and put it down on the table and
then promptly turned his back on it. “There’sh shuch a
thing,” he continued, still with his back turned, “ash
mannersh an’ ashkin’ for a thing in a proper way. And
you can't ’ave everything you want the minute you want
it, not in thish world you can’t, and it’sh no good you or
any other man—”

But Turgis had banged the door behind him and was
on his way upstairs. He sat in his little room, a pen in
his hand, a writing-pad on his knee, but at the end of
half an hour there were only a few stiff sentences down
on the paper, although a torrent of phrases, angry, re¬
proachful, bitter, appealing, had gone raging through
his head. When, in despair, he crumpled the paper and
flung down his pen and then wandered wretchedly to the
window, the night out there was filled with tall hand¬
some young men with wavy hair and evening clothes, all
with Lena in their arms. They were laughing at him.
She was laughing at him. He left the window, and told
himself that perhaps she wasn’t, though, perhaps she was
sorry now. He wished he had waited in Carrington
Villas until she had returned, no matter how late that

ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 383

might have been. He smoothed out the writing-pad, and
tried to decide whether he should write something short
and forceful or long and appealing. Oh, but what was
the use of writing! He would see her, speak to her, tell
her what he thought while looking her straight in the
eyes. He would show her she wasn’t dealing with a kid
now, but with a Man.

He undressed, and, as usual, emptied his pockets.
Two tickets, four and six each, for the Sovereign Picture
Theatre. And it was she who had suggested it, and she
had never even bothered letting him know she wasn’t
coming, but had just gone out with somebody else, had
dressed up, got into a car, and laughed at him or for¬
gotten his existence. He turned out the light, got into
bed, and found himself in a hot salty darkness, his eves
lillinc; with tears.

Chapter Eight

MISS matfield’s new year

1

A DAY or two before Mr. Golspie returned, Miss
Matfield, sitting with cold feet and a novel she
disliked in the 13 bus, realised with a shock that
it was nearly Christmas. The shops she passed every day
in the bus along Regent Street and Oxford Street had
been celebrating Christmas for some time; and it was
weeks since they had first broken out into their annual
crimson rash of holly berries, robins, and Father Christ-
masses. The shops, followed by the illustrated papers,
began it so early, with their full chorus of advertising
managers and window dressers shouting “Christmas Is
Here,” at a time when it obviously wasn’t, that when it
did actually come creeping up, you had forgotten about
it. Miss Matfield told herself this, and then remem¬
bered that every year her mother used to cry, “What,
nearly Christmas already! I never thought it was so
near. It’s taken me completely by surprise, this year.”
Yes, every year she used to say that, and year after year,
Miss Matfield would tease her about it. And now, Miss
Matfield told herself, she had begun to say it, just as if
she was on the point of becoming forgetful and absurd
and middle-aged. Oh-foul! She stared out of the
window. Those two miles of Xmas Gifts and lavish
electric lighting and artificial holly leaves and cotton-

384

MISS matfield’s new year 385

wool snow were still rolling past. The festive season-
help! It was all an elaborate stunt to persuade every¬
body to spend money buying useless things for every¬
body else. She tried her novel again: The months
passed, and still Jeffrey made no sign. He had not for¬
given her. In despair, Jenifer accepted an invitation to
join the Mainwarings in Madeira, returned to a gay but
feverish fortnight in Chelsea (where John Anderson
sought her out everywhere and never left her side), and
then appeared, still smiling, still audacious, but with a
vaguely haunted look, at Cap d’Antibes. It was there she
heard that Jeffrey had been seen at Miami—“And with
Gloria Judge, my dear.” And that was quite enough of
that. Who cared what happened to Jenifer and Jeffrey,
the pair of ninnies? And why were all these novels
always filled with people who spent all their time travel¬
ling about to mere resorts and spas, and deciding whom
to live with next? Nobody ever did any work in them.

She returned to the subject of Christmas. It was, on
the whole, she decided, revolting. You gave people a
lot of silly things, diaries and calendars and rot, or use¬
ful things that were not right, gloves of the wrong size
and stockings of the wrong shade (and she would have to
be thinking out her presents now, and she tvas terribly
hard up); and they in their turn gave you silly things
and the useful things that were not right. You ate
masses of food you didn’t want (and even Dr. Matfield,
who had ideas about diet, said it didn’t matter at Christ¬
mas), and then you sat about, pretending to be jolly, but
really stodged, sleepy, headachy, and in urgent need of
bicarbonate of soda. If you stayed at home, you yawned,
tried to convince your mother that you hadn’t a rich
secret life you were hiding from her, and drearily

N*

ANGEL PAVEMENT

386

sampled the family supply of literature. If you went out,
you had to pretend you were having a marvellous time
because /ou were wearing hats from crackers and playing
pencil and paper games (“Let me see, a river beginning
with ‘V’?”). And what was so terribly depressing and
revolting about it all was that it was possible to imagine
a really good Christmas, the adult equivalent of the en¬
chanting Christmasses of childhood, the sort of Christ¬
mas that people always thought they were going to have
and never did have. As the bus stopped by the dark
desolation of Lord’s cricket ground, swallowed two
women who were all parcels, comic hats, and fuss (a sure
sign this that Christmas was near, for you never saw
these parcels-and-comic-hat women any other time), and
then rolled on, Miss Matfield took out from its secret
recess that dream of a Christmas. She was in an old
house in the country somewhere, with firelight and
candle-light reflected in the polished wood surfaces; by
her side, adoring her, was a vague figure, a husband, tall,
strong, not handsome perhaps but distinguished; two or
three children, vague too, nothing but laughter and a
gleam of curls; friends arriving, delightful people—
“Hello,” they cried. “What a marvellous place you’ve
got here! I say, Lilian!”; some smiling servants; logs on
the fires, snow falling outside, old silver shining on the
mahogany dining table, and “Darling, you look wonder¬
ful in that thing,” said the masculine shadow in his deep
thrilling voice. “Oh, you fool, stop it,” Miss Matfield
cried to herself. She had only brought out that non¬
sensical stuff to annoy herself. She liked reminding her¬
self how silly she could be. It braced her.

She would go home, as usual, for Christmas, and on
the way there she would look forward to it and imagine

MISS matfield’s new year 587

that this time it was going to be rather nice, and once
she was there, she would wonder how she could have
thought it would be anything but depressing. All as
usual. Still, it would be a change, a break in what had
lately been the very dull round of the office and the
Burpenfield. Never had the round been duller. The
Burpenfield was getting worse; Evelyn Ansdell—lucky
child!—had gone off with her absurd father; and nobody
amusing had arrived. She had not met a single interest¬
ing new person for ages. Then, life in Angel Pavement
had merely been so much typewriter-pounding since the
one amusing person there, Mr. Golspie, had been away.
Mr. Golspie, she admitted to herself, with unusual
candour, was amusing, easily the most amusing person
on the horizon—bless him!—and she would be glad when
he came back. It would be fun, if only one had the cheek
and courage to do it, to bring Mr. Golspie into the Club,
to introduce him to Tatters, to say “Miss Tattersby, this
is the only amusing man I know just now.” But—oh
Lord!—she must keep off Tatters. In the Club, they
talked about Tatters day and night.

She had further proof of this, if she had wanted it,
when she reached the Club, for on the landing outside
her room she met the depressing Miss Kersey. “Is that
you, Matfield?” Kersey wailed, all damp and droopy as
usual. “Don’t, don’t go near Tatters to-night, whatever
you do. I went in to ask her about sub-letting my room
and she simply snapped my head off, didn’t give me an
earthly chance to tell her when I wanted to sub-let or
anything. She just flew at me, Matfield, as if I’d been
caught stealing or something. Isn’t Tatters really awful?
And yet the last time I went in, she was as nice as any¬
thing and even asked me about my sister, the one who’s

ANGEL PAVEMENT

388

gone to Burma. I won’t go near her noxv for months,”
she added, really enjoying the fact that Miss Tattersby
could be so ferocious, so unpredictable in manner. “I’ll
send her notes as some of the others always do. Don’t
you go near her to-night.”

Miss Matfield said she had no intention of doing so,
and then hurried into her room, where she came to the
conclusion, as she tidied herself for dinner, that it was
really Tatters who made the Burpenfield endurable for
people like Kersey, for she gave their lives a colouring
of danger and drama, poor old things. At dinner, she
had to share a table with Isabel Cadnam, the languid
Morrison, and a recent arrival who had taken Evelyn
Ansdell’s old room, and annoyed Miss Matfield just be¬
cause she was not Evelyn Ansdell. But, apart from that,
this new girl was an irritating creature. Her name was
Snaresbrook; she had untidy dark hair, huge staring eyes
(heavily made up), and white, flabby, sagging cheeks;
and she was soulful, gushing and psychic. So far she had
been a great success because she went round talking to
people about themselves very sympathetically, offering
to tell their fortunes, and going in tremendously for this
heart-to-heart business. Miss Matfield, a tougher subject
than most, refused to be taken in. When she sat down
the other three were already there, and were talking
about work.

“I’ll bet you’ll agree, Mattie,” said Miss Cadnam.

“What’s that?” inquired Miss Matfield.

“I was just saying that it’s part of the cussedness of
everything that nearly every girl here has the wrong job.
I mean, if you like one kind of thing, then it’s ten to one
you have to work in a place where it’s all another kind
of thing. I’ve just discovered that Snaresbrook here

MISS M ATF'ELD’S NEW YEAR 589

works for a film renting show, and she loathes it—”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Miss Snaresbrook put in softly
in her soulful contralto, “because I don’t loathe any¬
body. I don’t think one ought to—”

“I do,” said Miss Morrison. “I loathe nearly every¬
body. I think the world’s full of people who are abso¬
lutely foul.”

“No, I don’t loathe these film people. But I do feel
they’re not my own kind. I don’t feel really sympathetic
towards them, and I feel there is work of a better kind
waiting for me.” And Miss Snaresbrook turned her huge
staring eyes, like the headlights of a car, round the table.

“That’s just what I’m saying,” cried the excitable
Caddie. “Now I’d adore to work at a film place; just my
style. And here I am, assistant secretary' to the League
of the Divine Lotus, and I’m sure you’d adore that,
wouldn’t you, Snaresbrook? Whereas, if you don’t mind
my saying so, I think these Divine Lotus people are all
too sloppy to live, and the minute they begin to talk
now, they get on my nerves. If I stay there much longer,
I’ll go potty, too, and break out into robes and mystic
stars and Wisdom from the East. If anybody mentions
the East now, I want to scream. A lot of fat film men
smoking cigars would be a marvellous change. And to
go to trade shows if you want to—marvellous!”

“You two ought to swop jobs,” said Miss Matfield.
“Then you’d both be satisfied. What about that,
Caddie?” ’

“That’s just where the cussedness comes in. They’d
xiever have the right ones. It’s the same with nearly
everybody here. If you’re heavily West End, you’re
landed with a job at a wholesale cheap milliner’s some¬
where in the City—”

ftQO ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Revolting!” murmured Miss Morrison.

“And if you’re a wild Socialist or something, like that
Colenberg girl, you find yourself secretary to Lady
Thomson-Greggs in Berkeley Square and grumble like
anything because the place is stiff with footmen. I told
Ivor about that, the other night, and he said I ought to
write an article about it for the papers.”

“Why don’t you?” said Miss Snaresbrook. “I’m sure
you could write. You have the gift of expression. I
don’t think I’ve looked at your hand yet, have I? I’m
sure it’s written in your hand.”

Miss Matfield looked across the table in time to catch
a disgusted glance from Morrison, whose grey eyes had
also the gift of expression and announced quite clearly
that Snaresbrook was revolting. “Well, I don’t think
much of my job,” said Miss Matfield, “but I don’t know
that I particularly want anybody else’s here. The fact
is, they’re all pretty rotten, and that’s the real trouble.
We don’t any of us get a chance to do anything really
important. They’re all silly little mechanical jobs. If
we were men, we’d be doing something decent now.
What chance has a girl? The rot they talk about women
working! The men jolly well see where all the decent
jobs go to. And you know it.”

“True, Miss Matfield,” said Miss Snaresbrook, turning
on all the sympathetic stops. “I feel it’s particularly un¬
just in your case. A girl with a strong character like
you is entitled to an important, responsible post. We
have a long way to go yet. Men are still trying to hold
women back, to keep them in inferior places. And their
attitude! The things some of those film men have said
to me!” She sighed, then switched on the headlights.

“Yes, I’ll bet they’re a tough crowd,” said Caddie.

MISS MATFIELD’s NEW YEAR 9,Q 1

cheerfully, “but that ought to make it amusing. Men
are easy enough to handle. It’s women who are so awful.
There are some frightful old cats among those Lotus
creatures. They come swarming and drooping all over
you, and all the time they’re poking their long noses into
your affairs and making up the most fiendish lies. Give
me men. I wish there were some in this club.”

“Miss Cadnam, you don’t really,” said Miss Snares-
brook reproachfully.

“Yes, she does, and so do I,” said Miss Morrison,
roused for once from her languid disgust, “and so will
you when you’ve been here as long as we have. I’m not
so terribly keen on men—most of them are pretty foul,
so far as I can see—but a few here w r ould be a pleasant
change. The ones we do get as visitors are usually fairly
hopeless, but even then I like to see them down here,
trying to pretend they don’t mind the foul food. There
are too many girls here. Ugh! Too much feminine slush
and slop. Too much powder and lipstick and cold cream.
Too many stockings and silk jumpers. Too many hot-
water-bottles and bedroom slippers. Too much messi¬
ness and brightness and depressingness and sympathy.
Every time I hear some man clumping about here, and
see him sit dowrn, all solid and thick, I’m delighted—I
don’t care how terrible he is. Too many women about.
Revolting!”

“Whoops!” cried Caddie. “Go on, my dear. Don’t
stop now.”

“Talk about girls living their own independent lives!”
Miss Morrison continued, pink and defiant. “It’s a
marvel to me that after living here a year or two and
being faced with the prospect of living here for donkey’s
years like some of the poor old things—”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

89*

■‘Oil, don't!” Miss Matfield groaned.

“I say that it’s a marvel to me we don’t just marry
anybody, anybody at all, or, failing that, run away with
somebody. A place like this simply encourages wild
matrimony and risky adventures. And if there isn’t more
of it, I’ll tell you why. It’s not just because we’re all such
ni-ice, ni-ice girls, so ni-icely brought up, but because
there aren’t many chances going about.”

“Oh, aren’t there, Morrison?” said Caddie. “Speak
for yourself.”

“I’m not speaking for myself or for anybody in
particular—”

“You’re certainly not speaking for me, Miss
Morrison,” said Miss Snaresbrook, with large, sweet,
forgiving smile. “I like the society of men, but I like
the society of other girls too. Whoever they are, I find
they interest me, and we have something to say to one
another, very often some little secret to share, some con¬
fession to make. Of course, I admit those little clair¬
voyant gifts of mine have helped me a great deal, and
have brought me friends, dear friends, among girls who
probably imagined at first that they and I hadn’t much
in common. And I’m sure I intend to enjoy my-self at
the Burpenfield.” And, smiling sympathetically at them
all, she rose and left the table.

“And I hope it keeps fine for you,” murmured Miss
Morrison to her retreating back. “You know, of the
many ghastly specimens who have turned up here this
year, I think that one the worst.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Miss Cadnam. “She’s not
so bad, really—”

“That’s because she’s going to read Caddie’s palm to
find her gift of expression,” Miss Matfield explained.

MISS matfieid’s new year 393

“Of course it is,” said Miss Morrison. “You’re feeble,
Caddie. I saw you swallowing the bait, as if you’d just
been born. Vile!”

“Have you people realised that it’s nearly Christmas?”
said Miss Matfield, as they moved upstairs, where they
could smoke.

“My dear Mattie,” cried Miss Cadnam, “you don’t
mean to say you’ve only just found that out. I’ve bought
all my presents and sent half of them off. If I don’t
send some of my people very early presents, they never
remember to send me anything.”

“Christmas, yes,” said Miss Morrison, with languid
distaste. “Isn’t it foul? I haven’t bought a thing yet,
haven’t even made out a list. Anyhow, I haven’t any
money. I loathe Christmas, even though one does have
a holiday. What good is it? Are you going home, Mat-
field?”

“Yes. I always do.”

“So am I. It’s pretty ghastly. It wasn’t so bad before
my brother went out to the Sudan. We used to have
rather an amusing time.”

“But you’ve another brother, haven’t you, Morrison?
I thought I saw him here once.”

“Yes, Anthony. He’s at Cambridge, researching. By
the way,” Miss Morrison continued, “he wants to come
along early next week and bring his researching friend
Jiggs or Hoggs or something and take me and any lady
friend o’ mine out for what passes for a gay evening up
in the Cambridge research labs. If either of you is
dying to come, you can, but I don’t advise it. I’m trying
to get out of it.”

“I thought you were bursting to go round with a few
men, Morrison.’

394

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“No, it’s not as bad as all that. I’ve tried this before.
Anthony, my brother, is pretty glum and dumb-quite
different from Tom, the Sudan one—and his research¬
ing friend, Higgs or Joggs, is the limit. He’s frightfully
tall and awkward, with very short hair, a very long nose,
and spectacles, and when you try to make conversation
with him, he thinks you’re asking scientific questions. If
he doesn’t know exactly, he just says ‘I don’t know’;
but if he does know, he explains all about it, gives you a
short lecture, and then completely shuts up. It’s like
being back at school, only worse. He’s a horror.
Anthony, of course, adores him, and thinks he’s confer¬
ring an immense favour on you by bringing this
monster. He said to me, ‘One day you’ll be proud to
think you’ve talked to Jiggs’—or Hoggs. And so I told
him 1 wasn’t ambitious and I’d risk having missed the
great Higgs. No, on second thoughts, you can’t come.
I’m definitely going to put him off. Talking about
Joggs has brought it all back too clearly.”

“Hello,” cried Miss Cadnam, looking at her watch.
“I must fly.”

“Ivor?’

“Ivor—thank God! We’re supposed to be in the
middle of another row, but I know he’ll be there.”

“What a ridiculous pair!” said Miss Matfield, smiling,
as she watched Caddie leave the lounge.

“Who? Caddie and her Ivor? Oh, quite mad, of
course, from what I’ve heard about them. Still,” said
Miss Morrison carefully, “it does pass the time for her,
doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it does a lot more than that. Caddie lives a
wonderfully dramatic life. She probably would, any¬
how, if there wasn’t Ivor to quarrel with and then make

MISS matfield's new year 395

it up with. She and Evelyn Ansdell were the only two
people here I’ve ever envied, because they both contrived
to have an exciting life all the time, even if they were
absurd. I think I shall have to find a nice little Ivor.”
And Miss Matlield gave a short laugh.

“You don’t lead a double life or anything of that
kind, do you, Matfield?” Miss Morrison inquired, almost
wistfully.

“Heavens, no! What do you mean?”

“Let’s have another cigarette, shall we? Make a night
of it. I only meant—well, it’s a compliment really—”

“It doesn’t sound like one.”

“Well, I meant that you looked as if you had a more
interesting sort of life going on somewhere. You go
down to your office in the City—it is in the City, isn’t
it?—yes, I remember you’re telling me it was—and you
come back here and don’t seem to do anything much,
but at the same time you look quite alive, as if some¬
thing’s happening somewhere.”

“It isn’t.” Miss Matfield laughed, then lit her cigar¬
ette. “I wish it was. All perfectly dull, respectable,
ordinary. A typical Burpenfield existence.”

“Oh, foul! Well, I’m disappointed in you, I really
am, Matfield. I’ve been suspecting some time that you
were a dark horse. Tell me, what sort of men are there
in that office of yours. Did I ever tell you I was in the
City once? I nearly died. I don’t believe it was a typical
City place at all, though I was only there a week. There
were four men there, two young ones with adenoids and
whiny voices, who always called me ‘Miss,’ and two
older ones with red faces and waxed moustaches, who
either shouted at me at the top of their voices or came
o^er slimy and breathed down my neck and put their

ANGEL PAVEMENT

396

hot hands on my shoulder. Revolting! Don’t tell me
they’re all like that. What are your lot like?”

They were in a quiet corner of the lounge, which
was not so full as usual, indeed almost empty, and Miss
Matfield found herself drifting into a fairly detailed
description of the people in Angel Pavement, conclud¬
ing at some length with the newest arrival there, Mr.
Golspie. She ended with an account of her visit to the
Lemmala, the foreign sailors, the cabin, the vodka, all
the strange romantic accessories. She described it well,
and Miss Morrison, who appeared to have dropped her
usual attitude of languid disdain towards this life,
listened eagerly.

“But, my dear Matfield,” she cried when it was done,
“I think that was a most amusing adventure. I like the
sound of that man, even if he is middle-aged and what
not. Now, if I met people like that when I went to work,
I wouldn’t grumble. No such luck, not in Anglo-
Catholic and ladies’ bridge circles in Bayswater-
nothing but old tabbies. I think I shall have to try the
City again, after all. I didn’t know there were such
entertaining, mysterious, brigandish sort of men down
there.”

“That’s exactly what Mr. Golspie is-brigandish.”

“Quite right, too. I’m all for it. You ought to lure
him in here, so that I can meet him. But tell him to
shave off that large moustache first.”

“Why should I? It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not
going to kiss him,” Miss Matfield added quickly, with¬
out thinking what she was saying.

“No, I suppose you’re not,” said Miss Morrison
meditatively. “By the way, has he suggested you
should?”

MISS HATFIELD'S NEW YEAR 397

“No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I believe
you’re suffering from a complex, Morrison. Why should
he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He sounds vaguely like it to me.
I don’t mean he sounded like those awful creatures with
waxed moustaches that I worked for—not a bit. Quite
a different type. But still—however, I’ll say no more.
Did you say he was away, this mystery man? When is
he coming back? Quite soon? All right, Matfield, you
must tell me more about this, you really must. I’m
interested for once in my young but embittered life.
You must tell me more.”

“There won’t be anything to tell,” said Miss Matfield
casually. “I think I’ll write home, think about Christ¬
mas presents, have a bath, and go to bed early. Good
night, Morrison.” No, of course, there wouldn’t be any¬
thing to tell. And if there was, it was no business of
Morrison’s. (But Morrison was not a bad sort, much
better than she used to appear to be.) But then, there
wouldn’t be. Absurd.

2

“Just read that over, please, Miss Matfield,” said Mr.
Dersingham, and then listened self-consciously. “Does
that sound all right to you?” he inquired, when she had
done. “I want to send them—y’know—a jolly stiff letter.
They’ve asked for it, by George!”

“I think it sounds rather feeble,” replied Miss
Matfield. She had no respect for Mr. Dersingham; he
was too vague, pink, and flabby; he was like too many
men she had met at home, the sort who cry “Shootingl”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

39 8

when somebody makes a good stroke at tennis; he did
not really exist, in her eyes, as an individual at all; there
were hundreds, thousands of him. She knew that though
he might be her employer, he was really frightened of
her. Impossible for her to have any respect for him.
Quite a decent fellow, of course, but then the place is
stiff with dull, decent fellows; a few fascinating crooks
would be a change.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Miss Matfield,” he said.
“Seems to me to touch ’em up a bit. What’s wrong with
it exactly?”

“I should change it-there”-she pointed—“and
there, don’t you think so?” What was it like being Mrs.
Dersingham, she wondered, and came to the conclusion
that it must be rather fussing half the day, boring the
other half, but on the whole pleasanter than being
Lilian Matfield at the Burpenfield. But that was leaving
out Dersingham himself. She couldn’t marry him.
Help! She stared at his nose, which was quite a healthy,
sound nose, slightly bulbous, a shiny pink deepening to
a fishy red at the blunted tip; there was really nothing
wrong with it; nevertheless, it annoyed her; it was a
silly nose. What was Mrs. Dersingham’s real opinion
now of that nose? Did she think it was marvellous?
Was she indifferent to it? Had she been irritated by it
so long that she was ready to scream at the very thought
of that nose?

Happily unconscious of what was buzzing about in
the dark head so close to his, Mr. Dersingham frowned
down upon the letter he was answering, an evasive,
slinking, slimy letter from the mysterious fellow who
ran the Alexander Imperial Furnishing Company.
“He’s a dirty dog, y’know, Miss Matfield,” he mused.

MISS MAI FIELD’S NEW YEAR 399

“This is the fourth letter he’s sent explaining why he
can’t pay, and every time it’s a different excuse. By the
way, remind me to send Sandycroft a note, telling him
not to call there any more. All right, I’ll write some¬
thing shorter and stronger. ‘Unless our account is
settled within the next fourteen days, we shall be obliged
to take—what is it?—proceedings.’ Something like that,
eh? Right you are, then. Cancel that one. We’ll start
again.”

That did not take long. The note to Sandycroft could
be left to Miss Matfield. She was given several letters
that Mr. Smeeth could attend to, and then there was
nothing left. “I’m expecting Mr. Golspie back this
morning,” said Mr. Dersingham. “He’ll probably have
some letters for you. He rang me up last night, at home,
to say he’d just arrived and would be down this morn¬
ing. Just take this lot, will you? Half a minute, though,
I must have another look at that North-Western and
Trades Furnishing letter. Hang on a minute.”

Miss Matfield, hanging on, found she was quite ex¬
cited by the prospect of seeing Mr. Golspie again so
soon, though she had been expecting him to return any
time these last few days. It was not quite three weeks
since she had stood by his side on the deck of that
steamer in the Thames, but, nevertheless, Mr. Golspie
strictly as a person, a face, a body, a voice, had become
curiously dim and unreal, though as a figure in outline
and as a mass of character he had been constantly in her
thoughts, where he had appeared, especially during the
last few days, hardly as a real person she knew, but
rather as a particularly vivid and memorable character
in a play she had seen or a novel she had recently read.
It was queer and exciting to think that he would

ANGEL PAVEMENT

400

actually walk into the office at any moment.

“I think I’d better have a talk to Mr. Smeeth about
that letter,” said Mr. Dersingham, putting it on one side.
“You might tell him, Miss Matfield—” But now two
doors were flung open and banged to in rapid succession.
Mr. Golspie had arrived.

“Hello, Dersingham,” he boomed, clapping and rub¬
bing his hands. “Hello, Miss Matfield. Brrrrr—but it’s
devilish cold here. I feel it creeping up and down my
bones. Funny thing, but it’s colder here than it ever is
in places that pretend to be really cold, twenty below
and all the rest of it. Damp, I suppose. Ten years of
this would do me in. Well, how’s everything? Making
money?”

“All right, Miss Matfield,” said Mr. Dersingham.

Miss Matfield could not decide whether she had
exaggerated the size of Mr. Golspie’s moustache or
whether he had had it trimmed. The fact remained that
it seemed considerably smaller. Another fact remained,
and that was that she felt disappointed. She walked out
of the room feeling absurdly disappointed. It was quite
unreasonable, but there it was.

This feeling persisted throughout the day. Mr.
Golspie came into the general office and shouted genial
greetings at everybody. Afterwards, when Mr. Dersing¬
ham had gone, he dictated a few letters to her, but he
said little or nothing, and neither that day nor any of
the days before Christmas did he once refer to her visit
to the Lemmala. There was no particular reason why
he should, but still it was disappointing, and he was
disappointing, and everything was disappointing.

■ Those last few days before Christmas were so awful
that she found herself looking forward more and more

MISS matfield's new year 401

eagerly to the holiday at home, to that train which would
take her away, on Christmas Eve, from the vast glitter¬
ing muddle of London. Mr. Golspie, who was appar¬
ently going to spend Christmas in Paris with his
daughter, and Mr. Dersingham, whose spirits rose at the
approach of ail holidays, were in a good temper, but
everybody else in the office seemed unusually gloomy
Mr. Smeeth was not exactly gloomy, but he was worried
and fussy, as if something was troubling his grey and
shrinking little mind. Turgis, who was not very cheer¬
ful at any time, was simply terrible; he went slouching
about the place, sat at his desk staring out of the window
at the black roofs, made a mess of his work, and almost
snarled his replies to any civil question. Several times
she had to speak to him quite sharply, the lout. The
little Sellers girl, perhaps because Turgis was either so
aloof or so rude, was not her usual perky self, and even
Stanley, though ready to give Christmas or any other
holiday the warmest welcome, had suffered so much
lately from the moods of Mr. Smeeth and Turgis, who
accused him unjustly of dawdling over every errand, that
he was now turning into quite a sulky boy. And
although Miss Matfield, who considered herself merely
a visitor to Angel Pavement, in it but not of it, had
always preserved her independence, she had to sit in the
same room all day with these others, to work with them,
and could not help being influenced by the prevailing
outlook and their various attitudes. It was depressing.

Outside the office it was as bad, if not worse. She had
her presents to buy, which meant frantic rushes to the
shops during lunch time or the short space left to her in
the evening before they closed. They were packed out
with people, and, of course, you could never find the

402 AXGEL PAVEMENT

things you wanted, and if you went late, the assistants
who had not drawn a proper breath for several hours
hated the sight of you and would not help. At last the
army of advertising managers, copy writers, commercial
artists, colour printers, window dressers, bill posters,
which had been screaming “Buy, buy. Christmas is
coming. Buy, buy, buy” for weeks and weeks, was
charging to victory. London was looting itself. Those
damp, dark afternoons seemed to rain people down into
the shopping streets; whole suburbs burst upon Oxford
Street, Holborn, Regent Street; the shops themselves
were full, the pavements were jammed, and the vehicles
on the crowded road could hold no more. Never before
had Miss Matfield seen so many boxes of figs and dates,
obscenely naked fowls, cheeses, puddings in basins, be-
ribboned cakes, and crackers, so much morocco and limp
leather and suede and pig-skin, so many calendars,
diaries, engagement books, bridge scorers, fountain-pens,
pencils, patent lighters, cigarette-holders, dressing-cases,
slippers, handbags, manicure sets, powder-bowls, and
“latest novelties.” There were several brigades of
Santa Clauses, tons and tons of imitation holly, and
enough cotton-wool piled in the windows and dabbed
on the glass to keep the hospitals supplied for the next
ten years. Between those festive windows and a line of
hawkers, street musicians, beggars, there passed a million
women dragging after them a million children, who,
after a briej space in some enchanted wonderland, were
dazed, tired, peevish, wanting nothing but a rest and
another bun. From a million bags, bags of every con¬
ceivable shape and colour, money, wads of clean pound
notes straight from the bank, dirty notes from the vase
on the mantelpiece, half-crowns and florins from the tin

miss matfield’s new year 403

box in the bedroom, money that had come showering
down out of the blue, money that had been stolen,
money that had been earned, begged, hoarded up, was
being pushed over counters and under little glass
windows and then conjured into parcels, parcels, parcels,
with whole acres of brown paper and miles of string
called into service every few minutes. Hundreds of
these parcels, especially the huge three-cornered ones,
seemed to find their way into every bus that Miss Mat-
field, after waiting and running forward and returning
and waiting again, contrived to board. She felt like a
shivering and bruised ant. Never had she hated London
so much. She wanted to scream at it. When she got
back to the Club, the only thing she wished to do was
to have a long hot soak in the bath, and of course it was
precisely the thing that everybody else wanted to do too,
so she would find herself hanging about, still waiting,
after waiting to leave the office, waiting to get a bus,
waiting to be served in the shop, waiting at the cash
desk, waiting for her parcel, waiting for another bus;
and then Kersey would come up and say “Going out
to-night, Matfield? No? Well, you can’t expect to go
out every night, can you, dee-ar?” Hell!

Mr. Golspie left for Paris—lucky man—on the morn¬
ing of Christmas Eve; Mr. Dersingham wished them all
a merry Christmas and departed early; Mr. Smeeth gave
them all an extra week’s money, brightened up a little,
and hoped they would have a very good ^me. Miss
Matfield, after working miracles, arrived at Paddington,
a Paddington that suggested that some invading army
had already reached the Bank and that shells were fall¬
ing into Hyde Park and that the seat of government had
already been transferred to Bristol, and she was just in

ANGEL PAVEMENT

404

time to get three-quarters of a seat and no leg space in
the 5.46. The lights of Westbourne Park and Kensal
Green, such as they were, blinked at her and then were
gone. Thank God she was done with this nightmare of a
London for a few days! Perhaps Christmas at home this
time would be amusing. At any rate, it would be reason¬
able and quiet, and her father and mother would be glad
to see her, and she would be glad to see them. As the
train gathered speed, shrugging off the outer western
suburbs, she thought of her parents with affection, and
for a little time felt nearer the child she had once been,
the child who had thought her father and mother so
wonderful and had found Christmas the most radiant
and magical season than she had done for many a month.
She closed her eyes; her mouth gradually lost its dis¬
contented curve; her whole face softened. Angel Pave¬
ment would hardly have recognised her.

3

“Hello, Matfield! What sort of a Christmas did you
have?”

“Oh, the usual thing, you know—rather feeble.”

“Do anything special?”

“No, just stodged and sat about and yawned. Stayed
in bed every morning for breakfast and never got up till
nearly lunch time. That was about the best thing that
happened. What about you?”

“Oh, awful!” replied the other girl, Miss Preston, who
worked at the Levantine Bank, but based her claim to
attention at the Club on the fact that her brother, under

MISS matfield's NEW YEAR J05

another name, was a well-known actor. He bad visited
the Club twice, and each time Preston’s reputation had
soared. “The minute I got home I started the vilest
cold, and then Archie—my brother, you know, the actor
—had promised to come for Christmas, but wired at the
last second that he couldn’t.”

“Hard luck!” cried Miss Matfield, but not with much
conviction. You had to give out so much sympathy at the
Burpenfield that you were apt to become very mechan¬
ical, and if something really terrible and tragic had hap¬
pened there, if, for example, half a dozen girls had gone
down with ptomaine poisoning, the other girls would
probably have been struck dumb, having overworked so
long all the possible expressions of pity and horror.

Now they were all discussing their holidays. The
youngish ones, who had probably enjoyed themselves
thoroughly, were mostly going about crying “Vile!
Absolutely ghastly, my dear!” The oldish ones, the
lonely hot-water-bottle enthusiasts, who had probably
had nothing but a mocking shadow of a Christmas, were
busy pretending, with a strained creaking brightness,
that they had had a wonderful time. The members in
between these two groups, such as Miss Matfield, gave
fairly truthful accounts. The entrance hall, the lounge,
the stairs and the corridors above, all buzzed with these
descriptions. The Burpenfield Club was returning to its
normal life. With admirable forethought, Miss
Tattersby had pinned up half a dozen new notices all
written in her most exclamatory and sardonic style, and
already these notices, especially a very bitter and
tyrannical one about washing stockings and handker¬
chiefs, were feeding the mounting flames of talk. “My
dear, but have you seen Tatters’ latest?” they cried,

40(j ANGEL PAVEMENT

along the landings and in and out of their little bed¬
rooms.

Miss Matfield went up to her little room, found a
space on the wall for two framed Medici prints she had
brought back from home, cleared out of her tiny book¬
shelf several books she had borrowed and forgotten to
return, and put in their place some books she had con¬
trived to borrow during the holidays. There were two
travel books and three novels or romances, and all three
stories had for their settings such places as Borneo and
the South Seas. This was not a mere coincidence. Miss
Matfield liked her fiction to be full of jungles, coral
reefs, plantations, lagoons, hibiscus flowers, the scent of
vanilla, schooners on the wide Pacific, tropical nights.
So long as the young man was first shown to her dressed
in white and lounging on a verandah, while a noiseless
brown figure brought him something long and cool to
drink, she was ready to follow his love story to the end.
If the story had no love in it but had the right exotic set¬
ting, she would read it, but she preferred a fairly strong
love interest. She had not bad taste, and if the story was
written for her by Joseph Conrad, so much the better;
but she was ready to endure if not to delight in authors
of a very different cut from Conrad if they would only
give her the jungles and lagoons and coral reefs and
mysterious brown faces. The worst story about
Malaysia was preferable to the best story about
Marylebone. She did all her reading on the bus to and
from the office, in some teashop at lunch time, and in
bed, and as her one desire was to escape from any further
consideration of buses, teashops and girls’ club bed¬
rooms, these stories of the other end of the world,
strange, savage, beautiful, might have been specially

MISS M A T F I E L D ’ S NEW YEAR 407

created for her; indeed, many of them were. She never
admitted that she had a passion for these exotic and
adventurous tales. She did homage to them negatively
by looking through other and very different novels,
novels about London and Worcestershire, and then
sneering heavily at them. A long acquaintance with
these heroes in bungalows and schooners and bars run
by Chinese had gradually shaped and coloured her
attitude towards men, though here again she admitted
nothing and only paid these distant creatures a negative
tribute, by criticising adversely the fellows who were
quite different and much nearer home. The idea of a
man that warmed her secret heart was that of the strong,
adventurous, roving male with a background of alien
scenes, of little ships and fantastic drinking haunts. If
she married him, she might want to domesticate him in
that beautiful old country house in which she had
spent so many imaginary Christmasses, but he would
have to be that kind of man first, and not bom in
captivity.

It was not possible to change her room very much—
though she always tried after being away—because it
was far too small; it was like trying to re-arrange three
or four toys in a boot box; but notv, as before, she did
what she could. She had come back determined, as she
told herself, to fight against the Burpenfield atmosphere.
No more drooping and whining, no more waiting for
something to turn up while you knew all the time it
wouldn’t, no more wistful hanging about on the road¬
side of life! She would lead a real life of her own, full,
adventurous, gay. This was not the first time—alas!—she
had come back to the Club with such a resolution and
had promptly tried to change her room about as an early

ANGEL PAVEMENT

..i)

4&>3

outward sign of it; but now it was different; she was
older, more experienced, and this time she meant it.
Moreover, she had now a total of five pounds a week
instead of four pounds ten, for they had given her a ten-
shilling rise at the office, and though she had told her
father, he had only congratulated her (with that tired
smile and that faint irony which frequently accompany
long experience of a general medical practice, that con¬
stant round of births and deaths), and had not proposed
cutting down his allowance of six pounds a month. Any
girl at the Burpenfield would have instantly appreciated
the profound distinction between five pounds a week
and four pounds ten shillings, for whereas on four
pounds ten you have still to be careful, on five pounds
you can really begin to splash about a bit.

“Well, if you ask me, Mattie,” said Miss Cadnam,
who had looked in and had been promptly told about
this new mood, “you’re absolutely rolling. I only get
four, you know, including what I get from home, when
they don’t forget, and I know if I suddenly got an extra
pound, I’d simply break out in all directions. Do you
know, Ivor only gets six pounds a week, that’s all.
Don’t say anything, of course. He’d be furious if he
knew I’d told anybody—men are awfully silly about
things like that, aren’t they?-terribly secretive—but
honestly that’s all he gets, and he seems to have an awful
lot to spend.”

Miss Matfield shut a drawer with a bang, turned to
face her visitor, and looked very determined. “I always
think this time that’s coming now—the next two months
or so—the foulest part of the whole year. Awful weather,
cold and slush and everything, and Easter and spring a
long time away, and nothing happening very much, and

MISS HATFIELD'S NEW YEAR 409

it’s just the time when, if you let yourself go, you get
depressed beyond words.”

“I absolutely agree,” said Miss Cadnam earnestly.

“Well, I’ve made up my mind this time I’m not going
to have it. If things don’t happen, I’ll make them
happen. If anybody asks me to go anywhere or do any¬
thing that’s at all decent, I shall accept. I shall go to
theatres and concerts more, and if there’s any dancing
about, I’m having it. By the way, Mother’s given me
■ what seems to me rather a nice dress. I’ll show it to you.
The only thing I’m not certain about is the length at
the front. What do you think?”

There was a short interlude, during which the dress
was held up, pulled down, examined, and finally
approved.

“Anyhow, that’s my programme, Caddie,” said Miss
Matfield, after the dress had been put away again. “I’ve
come to the conclusion that one gives in too much—I
don’t mean that you do, my dear, because you’re one of
the very few people here who definitely don’t—it’s some¬
thing in the Burpenfield atmosphere that does it, sort of
saps your initiative and makes you frightened—and if
you let yourself drift here, it’s fatal. I’m not going to
have it. And that’s to-day’s great thought and resolu¬
tion, Caddie.”

“Good! I always come back feeling like that. You
know, feeling I must start all over again somehow
whether it’s leading a gay life or leading a quiet life or
what it is.”

There was a tap on the door, which opened to admit
the head of Miss Morrison. “Hello, Matfield. Hello,
Cadnam. Is this terribly private? Sure?” She came

in. “This is to announce that I’ve changed my room

o

410

ANGEL PAVEMENT

and am now your neighbour, four doors down on die
other side.”

“That’s Spilsby’s room,” said Miss Matfield.

“It was, but is Spilby’s no longer. Spilsby is not
coming back. She’s going to New Zealand or Australia,
I forget which, and it’s just the place for her, whichever
it is. I’ve discovered Spilsby’s secret vice—reading
those American magazines that you can buy cheap at
Woolworth’s, and other places, you know the kind—
Western Yarns with a Punch.”

“I know,” cried Miss Cadnam. “But not Spilsby?”

“Spilsby. She’d bought hundreds of them. I’ve just
had them turfed out. You couldn’t move for them. All
Westerns or tire big wild North-West or the red-blooded
Yukon, all bunches of gripping yarns with a punch.
Spilsby was a red-blooded Western addict—revolting!
Are you sure you wouldn’t like some, Matfield, before
they’re all gone? You look a bit fierce to-night.”

“She is,” said Miss Cadnam. “Aren’t you, Mattie?
She’s just been telling me that she’s come back full of
grand resolutions.”

“Ugh!” Miss Morrison looked disgusted. “Don’t tell
me you’ve made up your mind to spend all your even¬
ings learning Italian and German or something like
that.”

“You’re quite wrong.”

“Quite.”

“Thank the Lord for that,” said Miss Morrison. “It
would have beeen completely foul. Besides, you’re not
young enough and not old enough, if you see what I
mean, for that sort of thing. When I was a few years
younger, I used to come back full of good intentions and
ambition and tell myself I was going to learn commercial

MISS MAT FIELD’S NEW YEAR 4II

Spanish or qualify as an accountant or something
equally crazy. You feel like that after the holidays. But
what’s this new attitude?”

It was explained to her, and she listened with a
dubious smile on her smooth pale face. “Ah, my
children,” she said, “i like to hear you talk. I, too, have
felt like that in my time. It won’t work.”

“In your time! Why, Morrison, I’m two years older
than you at least,” cried Miss Matfield.

“And I’m nearly as old as you, Morrison,” said Miss
Cadnam. “I’m getting terribly old.”

“It isn’t just the years, little ones. It’s the experience.
You make me feel old with your charming youthful
illusions. However, I’m all for you leading a dashing
worldly life, Matfield. I’m all in favour of you going to
the devil, for that matter. How do you do it, by the way?
I used to hear an awful lot of vague talk about the
temptations of a poor girl’s life in London. Where do
they come in? Nobody ever tempts me. The only
temptations I have are to steal some of my worthy
employeress’s terribly expensive bath salts w T hen I’m
allowed to enter her bathroom to wash my hands, and—
there must be something else—yes, not to give the bus
conductor my penny w T hen he doesn’t ask for it. What
chance have I then to be really virtuous or to be wicked
either? I admit, Matfield, that you’re different. You
go down to the great City, to begin with, and meet
mysterious men on romantic ships—”

“When was this?” cried Miss Cadnam. “Did you,
Mattie, or is she making it up?”

“Quiet, child! You will understand in time. And
then again, my dear Matfield, you have a look. I don’t
say you look terribly marvellous, my dear—”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

412

“1 don’t pretend to,” Miss Matfield told her.

“But there’s a something -a hint, you might say, of
dark, wild forces. I don’t suppose you have any, really,
but there’s a look. That’s where you completely beat
me. I haven’t that look at all, whereas if people only
knew what I was really like-well, never mind. But you
have it, though if I were you—particularly now, when
you’ve made up your mind to be a One—I should do my
hair rather differently. You ought to have it out at the
side more. I’ll show you what I mean. You watch,
Cadnam, and see if you don’t agree.”

“Ye-es, I think you’re probably right,” said Miss Mat
field finally.

“By the way,” said Miss Morrison, “there’s a dance
here on New Year’s Eve. And as nobody has asked me
anywhere else, I think I’ll go, and I might be able to
persuade a couple of men I know vaguely to look in.
They’re not very bright lads, but they’re energetic and
harmless and better than nothing. What about you,
Matfield? A dance at the Burpenfield is perhaps hardly
a proper start on the downward path—but still, you
never know.”

“Oh yes, I’ll be there,” said Miss Matfield. But she
wasn’t.

4

Many a time afterwards, Miss Matfield wondered if Mr.
Golspie deliberately engineered that staying late on
New Year’s Eve. She never asked him and never made
up her own mind about it. At the time, it seemed acci¬
dental enough. He had looked in at the office during the

MISS M ATFIELD’S NEW YEAR 413

morning, had gone out quite soon and had not returned
until six o’clock, when they were all busy clearing off
the last odds and ends of work. Mr. Dersingham had
already gone. Mr. Golspie arrived, shouted for her, and
went into the private office.

“Sorry, Miss Matfield,” he began, “but I’ll have to
ask you to do a bit of work for me at once.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now. Don’t look at me like that, Miss Matfield
—spoiling your handsome features. It can’t be helped,
and an extra hour for once isn’t going to hurt you, is it?”

“I suppose not, Mr. Golspie. It’s only—well, it’s New
Year’s Eve, isn’t it?”

“So it is. I’d clean forgotten. Old Year’s Night, we
always use to call it. Still there’ll be plenty of it left
when we’ve finished.”

“Yes, that’s all right—only I’d arranged to go to a
dance to-night.”

“O-ho, the gay life, eh?” he boomed, grinning at her.
“Now I remember, my daughter’s going to one to-night.
One of these balloon, confetti, and false noses affairs, eh?
Champagne at midnight, eh?”

“No such luck. It’s only a dance at the girls’ club
where I live, a very modest affair.”

“Oh, a dance at a girls’ club, eh? That’s nothing.
You’re as well off here with me as at a dance at a girls’
club. What time does it start?”

“About nine, I suppose.”

• “I shan’t keep you here until nine, unless you want
me to. Now you go back and finish what you were
doing, and you can tell the rest of ’em they can go when
they like, as far as I’m concerned. Then come back here,
bring your notebook, and well get down to it. I’ve some

414 ANGEL PAVEMENT

letters I must get off to-night. Somebody’s got to earn
some money for this firm, y’know.”

When she returned to the private office, Mr. Golspie,
meditating over a cigar and occasionally jotting down
some figures, motioned her towards a chair and did not
speak for several minutes. She heard the outer door
bang behind the other people, going home, heard other
doors banging and noisy footsteps on the stairs, and then
everything suddenly sank into silence.

“Now then,” said Mr. Golspie, “let’s make a start.
You can take the whole lot down at once, if you like, or
you can take two or three, go and type ’em, then come
back for more, just as you please. All I care about is
that they go to-night.”

She took down several letters, then went to type them
out while he looked at his figures and thought about the
rest of them. It was very strange to be at work in the
deserted general office, to go back to the private office
and find Mr. Golspie there, almost lost in his cigar
smoke, to return again to her machine under the solitary
light. As the quarters of an hour slipped by, so many
little noises from outside disappeared into the silence
that at last she did not seem to be working in a place
she knew at all. The instant the familiar and now cheer¬
ful clatter and ping of her typewriter stopped, every¬
thing turned ghostly, until she found herself again in
the private office, which was not at all ghostly. There
was nothing spectral about Mr. Golspie.

But what about copying them?” she cried, when they
were all done, all signed, and ready for their envelopes.

“They can stay uncopied,” replied Mr. Golspie.

“But, you know, we always copy all letters.”

“Well, this time we don’t. It isn’t worth the bother.

MISS MAT FIELD’S NEW YEAR 415

I know what I’ve said to these people, and they’re my
letters, not Dersingham’s. Help me to put them into
their envelopes and bring some stamps, then we’ve done.
That’s the way. A good job of work, that, Miss Matfield.
I’m much obliged. Most girls would have kicked up a
fuss and then done the work dam’ badly just to show
their independence. What time is it? Would you
believe it?—nearly eight! I thought I was hungry.”

Miss Matfield had given a little cry of dismay.

“Hello, what’s the matter with you?”

“I’d no idea it was so late, though I feel terribly
hungry, too. Dinner will be over at the Club when I get
back there now, though I suppose I shall be in time to
get something.”

“You’re hungry, too, are you? What did you have
for lunch?”

“I never had much lunch, you see,” said Miss Mat-
field. “I had an egg and a roll and butter and a cup of
coffee.”

“And then you had a cup of tea and a biscuit, and
now it’s nearly eight and you feel hungry and you think
if you run all the way back to your Club they’ll give you
a bite of something there—that’s it, isn’t it? Well, that’s
no good at all. That’s the way you girls do yourselves
in. You don’t feed. It’s all wrong. If you don’t have
at least one thumping big meal a day in this town at this
time 0’ the year, you might as well send for the doctor
at once and have done with it. Now, Miss Matfield,”
and he rose and put a hand on her shoulder, “you’re not
one of those half-starved wizened little monkeys of
creatures that pass for girls nowadays; you’re a fine up¬
standing girl, a real woman; and you can’t play those
tricks with yourself. Now listen-you’re coming to feed

ANGEL PAVEMENT

4 l 6

X

with me. We’ve both been working; were 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 loin 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.

MISS MATFIELD’S NEW YEAR 417

“Not a thing. But I’ve picked up a good many
different sorts of business in my time, and I haven’t
finished yet, not by a long chalk. But I don’t call this
veneer trade a proper business. It’s a side-line. There’s
no size to it. You might as well be selling sets o’ chess¬
men or rocking-horses. No size to it, no chance of real
growth, you see? It’s all right for Dersingham—it’s
about his mark—but then he’s not really in business.
He’s only got one leg in it instead of being up to the
neck in it. He thinks he’s a gentleman amusing himself.
Too many of his sort in the City here. That’s how the
Jews get on, and the Americans. None of that nonsense
about them,.”

The main road, into which they had turned now, still
showed a few lighted windows, behind which the last
orders of the year were being booked and the last entries
made in the ledgers, and there were still a few belated
clerks and typists hurrying away on each side; but com¬
pared with its usual appearance, the hooting muddle of
the day and early evening, its appearance now was that
of a lighted stone wilderness. A tram came grinding
down, looking as if it expected nothing. A bus slipped
through, curiously swift and noiseless. They walked
down to the end of the road, past the narrow openings
of little streets and alleys already sunk into midnight
and the mouths of wider streets that were illuminated
emptiness. At the bottom they turned to the right. A
taxi came jogging along at that moment, and Mr.
Golspie at once claimed it, shouted “Bundle’s” to the
driver, and then sat very close to Miss Matfield.

“Thought we’d go to Bundle’s,” he said, “if it’s all the
same to you. D’you know it?”

“I’ve heard of it, of course,” she told him, “but I’ve

O*

ANGEL PAVEMENT

418

never been there. It’s more a restaurant for men, isn’t
it?”

“More men than women there certainly, but women
do go. And if they’d more sense, they’d go oftener.
Bundle’s is the place if you’re really hungry and you
want a good solid feed. It’s English, too, and I like it
for that—good old-fashioned tack. I don’t suppose
there’ll be a lot of people there now—lunch is the
crowded time at Bundle’s—and there’s no need to dress
up to go there.”

“Thank Heaven for that!” cried Miss Matfield.

“Mind you, Bundle’s isn’t a cheap place, by any
means,” Mr. Golspie continued, apparently anxious to
suggest that he was not skimping his hospitality. “Don’t
get that idea into your head. It’s plain, but it works out
as expensive as most places, even though the other places
are giving you ten courses and a band and rattles and
confetti and God knows what else. There’s nothing like
that at Bundle’s, but there’s real food and some good
drink.”

“Well, Mr. Golspie, I’ll be quite candid, and confess
that I could do with both at this very moment. Even,”
she added mischievously, “if they will cost you a lot of
money.”

“I didn’t say that, Miss Matfield,” he said, pinching
her arm. “All I said was that Bundle’s isn’t cheap. As
for costing me a lot of money, I don’t honestly think you
could do if you tried, not at Bundle’s. You’d be sick
before you could eat that amount, and drunk long before
you could drink it. I took a feller there, just before
Christmas, and he did cost me money. He found they
had some Waterloo brandy there, and fancied a few goes
of that after lunch.”

MISS MATFIELD'S new fear 419

“Well, suppose I do, too,” said Miss Matfield, as St.
Paul’s went jogging past the window on her side of the
cab. “What about that?”

“I’ll promise you one, though, if you ask me, it’s a
waste of beautiful stuff, because I’m sure you can’t
appreciate it. But you won’t get any more out of me. If
you did, you’d turn round afterwards and tell me I made
you drunk. No, no.”

“Don’t be absurd. I was only joking. I don’t like
brandy, as a matter of fact; the taste of it always re¬
minds me of being ill. I loathe whisky, too. I like wine,
though, you’ll perhaps be glad to know. You will also
be glad to know that I can drink quite a lot of it—if it’s
good—without feeling tight.”

“All right. Now I know. The sooner he gets there
now, the better it will be. I’m getting hungrier and
hungrier.”

“So am I. If I’d gone back to the Club, I’d never
have been able to find enough to satisfy my appetite to¬
night. The food’s not really too bad there, but it isn’t
quite real—if you know what I mean. It’s like the food
you get in cheap hotels.”

“I know,” said Mr. Golspie grimly. “You can’t tell
me anything about cheap hotels and bad grub. And
when you say it’s not real, you mean it all tastes alike
and never quite leaves you satisfied. Nothing like that
about Mr. Bundle. And here he is.”

Mr. Bundle, whoever he was, had remembered one
simple fact when he first established his tradition of
catering, and that was that Man is one of the largest
carnivora. You went to Bundle’s to eat meat. The
kitchen turned out acceptable soups, vegetables, pud¬
dings, tarts, savouries, and the like, but all these were

ANGEL PAVEMENT

420

as nothing compared with the meat. The place was a
vegetarian’s nightmare. It seemed to be perpetually
celebrating the victory of some medieval baron. Whole
beeves and droves must have been slaughtered daily in
its name. If you asked for roast beef at Bundle’s, they
took you at your word, and promptly wheeled up to you
the red dripping half of a roasted ox, and after the
waiter had implored you to examine it and had asked
you a few solemn questions about fat and lean, under¬
done and over-done, he cut you off a pound or two here,
a pound or two there. A request for mutton was not
treated perhaps with the same high seriousness, but
even that meant that legs and shoulders came trundling
up from all directions, and you found yourself facing a
few assorted pounds of it on your plate. The waiters
themselves had a roasted jointy look, though most of
them were lean and under-done, whereas most of the
guests were obviously fat and over-done and suffering
from gigantic blood pressures that took another leap
upward every time they went out of these doors. It was
the meatiest place Miss Matfield had ever seen, and
she had a suspicion that if she had not been feeling
really hungry, it might have made her feel rather sick.
As it was, she welcomed the look of it, and smell
of it, and enjoyed, too, its very definite masculine
atmosphere.

Mutton was wheeled at Miss Matfield and beef was
wheeled at Mr. Golspie, and, while acolytes brought
vegetables, the high priests gravely pointed to fat and
lean and under-done and over-done, and then sliced
away with their exquisite long narrow knives. Mr.
Golspie, after consulting briefly with her, ordered a good
rich burgundy. Then, after Mr. Golspie, a true

MISS HATFIELD'S NEW YEAR 4*1

Bundle’s man, had polished off his gigantic helping of
beef, and Miss Matfield had eaten about a third of her
mutton, he had a savoury and she had some apple tart
and cream.

“We’ll finish the wine before we have coffee,” said
Mr. Golspie, pointing the bottle at her glass, which she
had emptied. “It’s a good burgundy this.”

“Only about half a glass, please. It’s lovely rich sun¬
shiny stuff, but I daren’t drink much more. I feel as
if I’d had about fifteen of my Club dinners rolled into
one. I don’t believe I shall ever be hungry again.”

“You look well on it,” said Mr. Golspie, who perhaps
looked a shade too well on it himself. “You’ve a fine
colour, Miss Matfield, and your eyes are sparkling, and
altogether you look full of fight and fun, too good for
Angel Pavement, I can tell you.”

“Oh, but I am,” she cried humorously. She suddenly
felt that life was rich and gay.

“Of course you are. I said that to myself the first time
I set eyes on you. There’s a girl with some spirit and
sense, I thought—she’s alive, not like these other poor
devils. ‘She don’t belong,’ I said to myself. That’s why
I kept my eye on you. Did you notice me keeping my
eye on you?”

“Mmmm, ye’es,” looking at him and hoping that her
eyes were still sparkling. “Sometimes I thought you
seemed quite human.”

“Human!” he roared, so that a waiter jumped for¬
ward. “I’m human enough, I can tell you. I’m a dam’
sight too human.”

“If you’re in the City, you can’t be too human, Mr.
Golspie. Not for me. I’ve spent months there some¬
times and never spoken to anyone who seemed to me

422

ANGEL PAVEMENT

really human. Awful creatures. Then people like Mr.
Smeeth, all grey and withered and not bad really, but
just-pathetic.”

“No, Smeeth’s not a bad feller. But he’s not pathetic.
He doesn’t make me weep, anyhow. All he wants is to
be safe, that’s what the matter with him. Anything to
be safe—that’s his line. Pay him a pound or two a week,
give him some cash-books to play with, tell him he’s
safe, and he’s as happy as a king. But he’s better than
that dreary youngster you have in there—what’s his
name?—Turgis.”

“Oh, he’s hopeless, I agree.”

“Not your style, eh?”

“What, Turgis! Help!”

“He’s a typical specimen of what they’re breeding
here now—no sense, no guts, no anything. I can’t even
remember the look of the lad, although I see him nearly
every day. That shows you what impression he makes.
He might be a shadow flickering about the place.”

“I know. And yet that funny little Cockney girl,
Poppy Sellers, thinks he’s marvellous. I’ve watched her
worshipping him at a distance. Isn’t it strange—I mean,
the way everybody amounts to something different to
everybody else?”

“Well, a lad like that’ull never mean anything to me,
never amount to anything to anybody, I should think,
no more than a bit of straw or paper blowing about the
streets,” said Mr. Golspie.

The waiter who had jumped forward was still waiting
expectantly a few yards away. Mr. Golspie called him.
“You’ll have some coffee, won’t you? And I’m going to
have some brandy, not the Waterloo, though. Will you
have a liqueur? Have one of the sweet ones. What

MISS M A T F IE L D ’ S NEW YEAR 44 ]

about a Benedictine or a Kumrael? What do you say?
Here, look at the list.”

She examined it. What fascinating names they had,
these liqueurs! “I don’t know. Shall I? All right then,
I’ll have a Green Chartreuse.”

Mr. Golspie lit a cigar and then, over the coffee and
liqueurs, answered some questions she asked about his
recent trip abroad, and went rambling on about his
experiences in those Baltic countries and in other places
still more mysterious and romantic to her. As she
listened, feeling very gay and confident inside, his blunt
staccato talk seemed to open a series of little windows
upon a magical world she had always known to be some¬
where about, although she had never walked in it her¬
self, and his own figure took colour from the blue and
golden lights flashing through these little windows. He
talked in the way she had always felt a man should talk.
He was so tremendously and refreshingly un-Burpen-
fieldish. And he was interested in her; he was not
merely filling in an idle hour; she attracted him, had
attracted him, she felt now, for some time; and—oh!—it
was all amusing and exciting.

“It’s quarter to ten,” Mr. Golspie suddenly
announced. “What about that dance of yours?”

“Oh, Lord!—I don’t know. It’s hardly worth it now.
What a nuisance!”

“Like dancing, eh?”

“Adore it.”

“All right. You listen to me. I remember now I had
an invitation from one or two of those Anglo-Baltic
chaps; they weren’t giving the show, but a friend of
theirs was, and a lot of people I know were going to be
there. Dancing, too. Well go there, and then you won't

424 ANGEL PAVEMENT

be able to say I've done you out of your Old Year's Night
celebration. What d’you say? Good! I’ve got the tele¬
phone number down in my notebook, and now I’ll just
ring up to make sure. Shan’t be a minute.”

He returned, smiling, with the news that the party
had just begun. “Yes, I know what ytiu’re trying to say
now,” he continued. “What about clothes, eh? Well,
any clothes are right for this affair. They’re not a dressy
lot. If you went without clothes, they wouldn’t care.
We’ll have to stop on the way to buy something-a
bottle or two and something to eat—to take with us. It’s
not necessary, but it’ll be appreciated. These people will
be a change for you—not the sort you meet in a girls’
club at all—and it’ll amuse you, if you’re the girl I take
you to be.”

There wasn’t even time to ask him then what exactly
was the girl he took her to be.

5

They went in a taxi and the place was somewhere
Notting Hill way, but that was as near as she ever came
to knowing where it was. She could have asked, of
course, but she preferred to be without exact informa¬
tion; it was more amusing. The road in which they
finally stopped looked one of those dingy shabby-genteel
streets, but she could not be sure even about that. They
walked up a garden path, but instead of going up the
steps to the house itself, they turned to the right, by the
side of the house, until they came to a lighted door and a
great deal of noise, Apparently the party was being held
in one of those large detached studios.

MISS matfield’s new vear 425

She found herself shaking hands with a very small
woman with frizzy black hair, tiny black eyes that
seemed to jump and snap, a long humorous nose, and
an outrageous purple dress. After that she shook hands
with a very tall fair man who looked like a retired
Siegfried. These were obviously the host and hostess,
and they were both foreigners, but she never caught
their names. Clearly it was the sort of party at which
names were of little importance. The studio was filled
with people, most of whom had a foreign look. None of
the men wore evening dress, and among the women, she
was glad to see, there was an astonishing variety of
clothes, so that she was not at all conspicuous. Mr.
Golspie recognised a good many acquaintances, and she
was introduced to some of them, mostly youngish men
of a nondescript foreign appearance who drew them¬
selves up sharply, looked grave for a moment, then sud¬
denly smiled and widened their eyes, as if to say “I am
being introduced to a lady, by my friend Mr. Golspie.
This is serious, important. Ah, but how charming, how
beautiful a lady!” It was a pleasure being introduced to
men with such a manner. One of them, the youngest, a
nice, smiling boy with bright hazel eyes, called Some¬
thing-insky, insisted upon her smoking a long cigarette,
and brought her a mysterious, greeny-yellow drink. Mr.
Golspie, who had found a whisky and soda, grinned at
her, and exchanged knowing remarks in a mixed
language with various men, who patted him on the
shoulder and slapped him on the back and were patted
and slapped in return.

The little hostess, her eyes snapping furiously, came
rushing through and screamed in an unknown tongue at
two young men in a comer, a small crooked Jew, almost

a hunch bade, and a thin, red-haired young man, very
serious behind enormous spectacles. When she finished
screaming at them and had held out both her arms in an
imploring gesture, these two bowed gravely, and then
the Jew sat down at the grand piano and the red-haired
spectacled one seated himself behind some drums. They
began playing-and very well they played, too-and in
a moment the centre of the room was cleared for
dancing

“You veel danz, eh? Pleass?” said Something-insky.

He was a good dancer, and though he was not quite
tall enough for her, they got on very well together. As
he piloted her in and out, for nearly everybody was
dancing and the floor was crowded, he talked the whole
time. “I study here ee-conom-eegs,” he told her, “at
Lon-don School of Ee-conom-eegs,” and he was very
serious about his economics, but it was difficult to
understand much of what he said about them. Very
soon he passed to more intimate matters. “Yes, I like
Eng-lish girls vairy moch. Oh, but I am vairy saad, vairy,
vairy saad now,” he told her, his hazel eyes dancing with
pleasure. “I leef in High-gate and in High-gate I have a
girl, an Eng-lish girl, vairy beautiful-Flora. She leefs,
too, in High-gate, Flora, and she has blue eyess and
golden hair. For two veeks, you see, we have a quarrel.
Oh yes, it is vairy seely, but it is vairy saad, too. One
night I go to movees. I ask Flora to go too, but no-
she cannot go. So I go-by-myself. I am standing out¬
side and I see a girl I know, a girl from High-gate.
Vairy nice girl-but-aw, she is noding to me. But I am
pol-ite, I say to her ‘Good evening, mees, you go to
movees, too?’ I am by-myself. I take her weet me into
movees. Noding, noding at all. But after she tell Flora

MISS matfield’s new year 427

—at High-gate—‘Oh, I go weet your foreign triend to
movees.’ Flora comes to me and we have a beeg
quarrel.” He squeezed Miss Matfield’s hand as if he felt
that at this point he must have sympathy or die. “Yes, a
beeg quarrel. For two veeks, I do not see Flora at all.
I am vairy saad now.”

Miss Matfield said it was rather sad, but told herself
that in its mixture of Highgate and foreign-ness it was
really quite absurd and wonderlandish, and somehow it
gave the key to the whole evening. Nobody in this
studio, except herself and Mr. Golspie (and she was
not sure about him), was quite real. Something-insky
and his friends were very charming, but it was rather a
relief when Mr. Golspie marched up, very solid and
dominating, and said: “Well, what about a dance with
me?” t

“Of course,” she told him. “I thought perhaps you
didn’t dance. You’ve not been dancing, have you?”

“No. I thought I’d wait for you, Miss Matfield.
You’re the partner I want. I can dance all right, but,
mind you, I don’t pretend to be good at it, not like some
of these lads. Have another drink before we start,
eh?”

“If I have another drink to-night, I shall probably be
quite drunk. I feel hazy now.”

“No harm in feeling hazier. I’ll look after you, don’t
you worry.”

But she shook her head. The music started again, the
little Jew wagging his black locks over the piano and his
companion solemnly nodding above his drums, and Mr.
Golspie grasped her masterfully. He was obviously not
a very good dancer, but even if he had been, there would
not have been much chance for him to show what he

42S 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.”

“I’m 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

MISS matfield’s new year 429

was quite different; the smile had been wiped off; his
eyebrows had descended at least an inch and a half; and
his eyes stared tragically out of deep hollows. Miss Mat-
field noticed all these details. It was queer, but though
things in general were curiously hazy, she had only to
concentrate her attention upon anything and every
detail of it, like Humpty-Dumpty’s lips and eyebrows,
stood out in clear relief. This made everything seem
tremendously amusing, and she was very happy.
Humpty-Dumpty began singing now in a great rich bass
voice, which immediately plunged Miss Matfield, who
delighted in rich bass voices, into a dreamy ecstasy. He
sang one song after another, sometimes sinking into the
profoundest melancholy and the bitterness of death, and
at other times breaking into high spirits that were as
strange and wild as a revolution. With her eyes fixed
on that great yellow moon of a face from which these
entrancing sounds came, Miss Matfield allowed her
mind to be carried floating away on these changing
currents of music, and her body to rest against the
stalwart arm and shoulder of Mr. Golspie. She was
sorry when it came to an end, and Humpty-Dumpty,
after bowing, smiling, frowning, shaking his head in an
amazingly rapid succession, walked away to eat a whole
plateful of sandwiches, wash them down with lager
beer, and talk to five people at once with his mouth full
There was just time for another dance, and then it was
twelve o’clock. Everybody was silent for a moment. At
the eiid of that moment, they all behaved like men and
women who had been reprieved in the very shadows of
the gallows, which is perhaps how they saw themselves.
Never before had Miss Matfield seen such a raising and
clinking of glasses, so much back-slapping, hand-shak-

ANGEL PAVEMENT

43 °

ing, embracing and kissing. Something-insky kissed the
little girl in the fur-trimmed jacket and the secretary
girl from the legation, and then kissed Miss Matfield's
hand fifteen times while the girl in the fur-trimmed coat,
who had suddenly burst into tears, kissed her on the
cheek. Mr. Golspie shook her by the hand, then gave
her a big hug. It was at this moment that the only un¬
pleasant event of the evening occurred. Once or twice
before, Miss Matfield had had to escape from a tall
bleary-eyed man, one of the very few Englishmen there,
who was rather drunk and had been b«nt on dancing:
with her. Now he suddenly lurched into the middle of
their little group, murmuring something about a happy
New Year, and tried to embrace her. Mr. Golspie, how¬
ever, stepped forward smartly, and with one shove of
his heavy shoulder sent the man reeling back.

“I think I’d better go now,” she said to Mr. Golspie.
“I’m terribly late as it is.”

“All right. I’ll come with you.” Taking no notice of
the unpleasant fellow, who was mumbling threats just
behind them, he took her by the arm, marched her
through the crowd to shake hands with the host and
hostess, and then led her towards the door. There they
separated to look for their things. When Miss Matfield
returned to the little entrance hall of the studio, the
unpleasant man was there. Fortunately, Mr. Golspie
appeared, too.

“Now wha’s the idea, eh?” said the unpleasant one,
thickly and truculently to Mr. Golspie, trying to put a
hand on his shoulder.

“The idea is—you go home to bed,” replied Mr.
Golspie, giving him one contemptuous glance.

“Home to bed!” the other sneered. “T-t-t-t-t-talk like

MISS matfield's new year 431

a dam’ fool. Bed!” Then he recollected himself. “All
I wanner do is to wish thish young lady a Hap-py New
Year.” And he made a clutch at her.

This time Mr. Golspie instantly pinned both the
man’s arms to his side with so powerful a grasp that the
man cried out. “Talk like a dam’ fool, do I?” said Mr.
Golspie, pushing his face forward. “If you don’t make
yourself scarce, you’ll start the worst new year you ever
remembered. See?” And he shook the man. “See?”
And with that he sent the man flying back, took three
of four steps forward to see if any more persuasion was
needed, and when he saw it was not—for the man had
obviously had quite enough of Mr. Golspie—he returned
to Miss Matfield’s side. “I’ve rung up for a taxi,” he
said calmly. “There’s a telephone in there, where I had
my hat and coat. It’ll be here in a minute. We’ll wait
just outside and get a breath of fresh air.”

Miss Matfield, who had been half frightened, half
elated by the little scene, and now, what with the wine
and the dancing and the music and the embracing and
the general excitement of the long evening, was in a
fantastic condition, tired and excited and timid and
audacious and thrilled all at once, followed her brutal
or heroic friend out of the studio and into the shadow
of the neighbouring house. Just before the shadow
ended, he stopped. “We can wait here as well as any¬
where,” he said.

She did not tell him that it would be still more sen¬
sible to wait at the front gate. She stopped, and said
nothing.

“Well, that’s wasn’t bad,” he said, “though I’d had
enough of it when you said you had to go. They’ll keep
it up till the milk comes. I shouldn’t have gone, thoifgh,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

432

if you hadn’t said you’d come with me. If you want to
know my opinion, we’ve had a good Old Year’s Night.
We’ve got to see more of each other.”

“Oh, have we?” She was in no condition to be
femininely cool and mocking, but she did her best.

“Yes, of course we have,” he replied coolly. “You’re
the sort of girl I like, and I don’t often find one.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said, and was
instantly annoyed with herself for sounding so feeble.

“Well, Miss Matfield—oh, damn it, I can’t keep call¬
ing you Miss Matfield, not out of the office, anyhow.
What’s your other name?”

“Lilian,” she replied in a tiny voice.

“That’s good—Lilian. Well, Lilian, now that we’re
out of that monkey house in there, with everybody
snatching and pecking at each other, I can wish you a
proper Happy New Year.” And, saying no more, he
.swept her to him, kissed her several times, and held her
close, so close that she could hardly breathe.

She could not have described it as being either
pleasant or unpleasant. It was not an experience that
could fall into such easy categories. It could not be
tasted, examined, reported on, like most of Miss
Matfield’s experiences. If it belonged anywhere, it
belonged to the fire, flood and earthquake department.
Her quickening blood faced and replied to this huge
masculine onslaught, but the rest of her was simply
dazed and shaken.

“There’s our taxi,” he said, breathing hard, but other¬
wise cool enough. “What’s the address?”

Inside the taxi, she suddenly felt very tired and quite
disinclined to talk. She drooped, leaned against him,
and could only repeat to herself that it was all quite

MISS matfield’s new year 433

absurd, though all the time she knew very well that
whatever else it might be, it was not absurd. Mr.
Golspie was quiet too, though in that little enclosed
space he seemed now a gigantically vital creature, a
being essentially different from herself, a huge throb¬
bing engine of a man.

“Getting near your place?’’ he inquired, as the taxi
began to mount the hill.

“Yes, it’s only about half-way up this hill.”

“We’ll have some more nights out together, shall we?
Not all like this, y’know. Just the two of us, roaming
round a bit, going to a show or two, and so on. What
d’you say?”

“Yes, I’d like to. In fact—I’d love it.” She glanced
out of the window, then rapped on it. “We’re just out¬
side now. Please, don’t come out. No, no more. All
right then—there! Good-bye—and—and thank you for
my nice big dinner.”

The dance was over at the Club and most of the lights
were out, but a few girls were still drifting about the hall
and chattering softly on their way upstairs.

“Hello, Matfield!” somebody cried. “Happy New
Year!”

Would it be? It had begun strangely enough. Now
that she was back in the familiar and despised Burpen-
field atmosphere, the night’s antics ought to have
appeared in retrospect gayer and more delightfully ad¬
venturous than ever, with Mr. Golspie directing them
like a droll and massive fairy prince; but oddly enough,
they cut no such figure and she found herself wanting
to avoid the thought of them. As she slowly climbed the
darkening stairs she shivered a little. She was tired,
rather cold, and her head ached. There floated into her

ANGEL PAVEMENT

434

mind, as if borne there by white virginal sails, the com¬
forting thought of aspirin and her hot-water-bottle.

6

When he asked her, two days later, to spend another
evening with him, she gladly accepted, although she had
told herself several times before that she would refuse;
and after that they spent a good deal of time together.
They would have dinner somewhere, and then amuse
themselves by visiting some show of his choice. They
saw the new Jerry Jerningham musical comedy and a
crook play; they went twice to the Colladium; they tried
a talkie or two; and one exciting night he took her to
a big boxing match. She never really learned a great deal
about him; he would talk about odd experiences he had
had by the hour, but he remained mysterious; she never
discovered what his plans were, and at times she
suspected that he did not intend to stay in England
much longer, but this suspicion was only based on
casual vague remarks; she never went near his flat, never
met his daughter, and never heard a single word from
him about his dead wife, if indeed she was dead; and yet
she felt she knew him as she had never known a man
before. Sometimes he was simply friendly or uncle-ish,
dismissing her with a pat on the shoulder or a squeeze
of the arm; sometimes he turned cynically and grossly
amorous, and when he tried to paw her and she repulsed
him, he jeered at her and said things that were all the
more brutal because there was in them a hard core of
truth, and then she saw him as a gross middle-aged toper,
loathed him, and despised herself for having anything to

miss matfield's new year 435

do with him; but then, at other times, after a happy ex¬
citing evening, he would reach out to her in sudden
passion and her own mood would flare up to match with
his, and in some little patch of darkness or in the taxi
going home, they would kiss and clutch and strain to one
another, without a single word of love passing between
them, and she would be left shaken and gasping, unable
to decide whether she was a woman who was falling in
love with this strange unlikely man or a crazy little fool
who had just had too much excitement and wine, who
ought to go and have a good hot bath and learn sense
and decency. And that was all, so far, though even she
guessed it could not go on like that. Meanwhile, be¬
tween these curious expeditions, she chatted and
grumbled as usual at the club, wrote home in the old
strain once a week, and quietly worked away at the office,
where nobody knew what was happening to her.

Then, one night, as he took her back to the Club, he
said, quite casually: “I see they’re having a nice fine spell
on the South Coast. What about a trip down there next
week-end, Lilian? Might get hold of a car.”

“Oh yes,” she cried at once, without thinking, for
week-ends out of London were her dream, even in
January. “Let’s do that.”

“Is it a bargain?” he said quickly, triumphantly.

And then she realised what it meant. “No, no. I’m
sorry. I spoke without thinking.”

“Ah, she spoke without thinking, did she? You do far
too much thinking. Girls shouldn’t think too much, not
good-looking ones, anyhow. When I first met you, you’d
done nothing but think for a long time, and you weren’t
looking too cheerful on it.”

She made no reply. She was annoyed, partly because

ANGEL PAVEMENT

436

she was compelled to recognise the truth behind this
little jeer. When he talked about her in his casual,
rather brutal fashion, he had a strange knack of fasten¬
ing upon some unpleasant truth. He seemed to take aim
quite wildly, but somewhere in her mind, a bell rang
nearly every time.

He changed his tone now. “Oh, come on. Nobody’s
going to hurt you. Let’s enjoy ourselves while we’re
here/’

“No, thank you,” she said quietly, though she found
it far more difficult to resist this kind of appeal.

He pressed her.

“No, I won’t. Some time, perhaps. But not now. No,

I mean it.”

“Well, I’m disappointed in you. Still, I’ll try again.
Otherwise, y’know, you might regret saying that, some
day. Oh, you can laugh—”

“I might well laugh. I think men are the limit. You
just want your own way, no matter what it costs-to me,
and you’re quite hurt and disappointed because you
can’t have it, and anybody would think to hear you that
you’d been spending weeks thinking it all out purely for
my benefit.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Golspie cheerfully, and she
knew, though she could not see him properly, that he
was grinning. “Just what I have been doing. That’s
why I’m disappointed.”

“And that’s why I’m laughing,” she retorted, though
she did not feel like laughing now. “At your impudent
selfishness. Marvellous!”

“And I tell you, young woman, you might regret it one
day. I’m going to ask you again. You think it over.”

“I won’t.”

MISS matfield's new year 437

But she did think it over, and unfortunately she began
that very night, so that it was hours and hours before she

got to sleep. Her angry taut body refused to relax; her
head was a huge hot ring round which her thoughts went
galloping dustily; and as she turned in the uneasy dark¬
ness she heard the late taxis and cars go hooting far

away, melancholy hateful sounds in the deep night7 like
flying rumours of disaster.

Chapter Mine

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED

1

“X X 7 HERE are y° u §°* n o to ‘ > ” asEe ^ Mr. Smeeth,

\/\ / turning round in his chair to look at his
T T wife, who had suddenly made her appear¬
ance in the doorway, wearing her hat and coat. She was
still flushed with temper. It was surprising how young
and smart she looked. Still, she could not go on like that,
no matter how young and smart she looked.

“Out,” she replied, with that special look and special
voice she had for him when they had quarrelled. Oh
dear!

“Yes, I know that,” he pointed out, “but where you
going to?”

Up she blazed then, with her colour flaming and her
fine blue eyes flashing at him: “Just out, and that’s
enough for you. Begrudge every penny you give me,
keep me as short as you possibly can, tell me I mustn’t
buy this and mustn’t buy that, go peeping and spying
about and then lose your silly temper because you’ve
seen something you don’t like to see—though—goodness
me!—there can’t be a woman in this street who hasn’t a
few bills like that in the house, and most of them a lot
more and instalments, too, to pay and their husbands not
bringing in anything like what you are—” Here Mrs.
Smeeth stopped, not because this fine rhetorical sentence

438

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 439

had got out of control (it had, but she was capable of
finishing it somehow), but simply because she wanted to
draw a deep breath. “And then you want to know where
I’m going! I suppose you’d like me to give an account
of that as well, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course. Oh, of
course!” Her head wagged as she brought out these vast
sneers. “That would be very nice for you, wouldn’t it?
I’ll come and ask if I can spend a penny or tuppence.
Then I’ll ask if I can walk down the road—”

“Oh, don’t be so silly, Edie,” cried Mr. Smeeth, who
hated this sort of wild ridiculous talk and could not see
what good it did. Even after all these years, he was still
innocent enough to imagine that his wife was trying to
argue and failing absurdly, and he did not realise that
she was merely exploding into speech.

“Don’t be so silly!” she repeated indignantly, at the
same time coming forward into the room. “I’d like to
ask somebody who’s the silly one here. They’d soon tell
you. And I’d rather be silly than mean. Yes —mean. If
you’re not careful, Herbert Smeeth, you’ll soon be too
mean to live. Pinching and scraping as if you didn’t
know where the next penny was coming from! And the
more money you’re getting, the worse you are. It’s groov¬
ing on you, this meanness. My words, I’d like you to be
married to some women, that’s all. They’d teach you
something about spending.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” he said crossly, “ ’cos I wouldn’t
have it, wouldn’t have it for a single minute. I’d soon
put a stop to their little games. As for being mean, you
know as well as I do, Edie, I’m not mean, and never have
been. There’s nothing you’ve ever really wanted, or the
children either, you haven’t had. But somebody’s got to
be careful, that’s all. We’re not made of money. When

ANGEL PAVEMENT

44O

I got this rise, I hoped we’d begin to save properly. Any-
body’d think to hear you talk they’d given me the Bank
o£ England instead of another pound a week. Have a bit
of sense, Edie. If were going to spend every penny we
have now and get into debt, where are we going to be if
anything happens to us? Just tell me that.”

“And what is going to happen to us? Bless me, the
way you talk! A proper old Jonah you’re turning into!
You give me the pip, Dad, honestly you do. Anybody’d
think to hear you talk that we’ll have to sell up any day.
You can’t enjoy yourself a minute for thinking about
what might happen to you the year after next or some¬
time. We’ve only got to live once and we’ve only got to
die once, and for heaven’s sake let’s enjoy ourselves while
we can, I say.”

“Yes, and when we can’t—what then? I’ve heard this
kind of talk before, and I know where it lands people.
And, anyhow, I can enjoy myself as well as the next,
only I can do it sensibly and I don’t need to spend every
penny we get and go and ask any Fred Mittys to help
me to do it.”

“That’s right. Bring him in. I’ve been waiting for
that, I’ve just been waiting for that. I wondered how
long you’d be able to keep Fred Mitty out of this. That’s
you all over. You got your knife into him the first time
he came here, and after that of course be had to be
blamed for everything. Go on. Don’t mind me. Why
don’t you say I give him all my housekeeping money,
and have done with it. Go on.”

‘Well, I’ll say this,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper
rising. “That bill from Sorley’s there’s been all this
bother about wouldn’t have been that size and would
have been paid before now, if you hadn’t taken it into

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED 441

your head to ask Mitty and his wife and their guzzling
pals up here those two nights round Christmas. It’s bad
enough them coming here at all-most men wouldn’t
have it for a minute, not if they couldn’t stand the sight
of ’em and never stayed in the house when they were
there, like me—but it’s fifty times worse when you go
and run yourself into debt to do it, just so they can all
swill it down at my expense. It’s not good enough, and
you know it isn’t.”

“Oh, isn’t it? Well, next time Christmas comes round,
I’ll tell Fred and everybody else to keep away, and we’ll
all go into the workhouse, and then you’ll be satisfied.
If you wasn’t getting too mean to live, you’d have
thought nothing about it. You talk as if I owed Sorley's
about fifty pounds. Three pounds fifteen, that’s all it is,
and you make all this bother.”

“Well, it’s three pound fifteen more than you can pay,
it seems,” he retorted.

“Who says it is? I haven’t even asked you to pay it
yet. Keep your money. I can pay it all right in time.
Sorley’s can wait, for all I care.”

“Well, they can’t for all I care. I believe in paying
cash down and no debts running on, always have done,
and you know it. And I’ll have that to pay, just because
you’ve decided to open a free pub for Mitty and his fine
little lot. That’s what it amounts to.”

“That’s right, start again now. You can argue with
yourself for an hour or two, and see how you like it. I’m
going out. And if you want to know, I’ll tell you where
I’m going. I’m going,” she added deliberately, “down to
Fred Mitty’s.”

He was furious, but he knew that he could not prevent
her from going. He looked at her, and he had to twist

p

442

ANGEL PAVEMENT

round in his chair, for she had retreated towards the
door: “Well, see you come back sober,” he said.

“What’s that?”

But he did not repeat it. He wished it unsaid. The
instant after it had slipped out, he wanted to call it back.
And, for all her “What’s that?” she had heard him all
right; she was staring at him now, with some of her high
colour gone and her mouth curiously drawn down; her
whole attitude was different from what it had been
during their noisy argument; she was really hurt, this
time; he had gone too far, miles and miles too far.

“Yes, I heard you, though,” she said quietly, “and it’s
the nastiest thing, by a long, long way, that you’ve said
to me in twenty years. Did you ever know me come back
in any other way but sober?”

“No, no,” he muttered. “I’m sorry ... bit of a joke.”
He couldn’t look her in the face.

“Bit of a joke! I wish it was. But it wasn’t. You
meant it, Herbert Smeeth. You meant to be as nasty as
you could be. There’s only another thing worse you
could say to your wife, and you’d better hurry up and
get that said.”

“I tell you, I’m sorry.” He got up from his chair now,
and looked at her, mumbling something about “going
too fa;.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry too,” she said bitterly. “I didn’t
think you’d got a nasty thing like that in your head to
say. Oh, I know it slipped out, and now you wish it
hadn’t. But it oughtn’t to have been there to slip out.
That’s what hurts me.”

“Well, after all, you’ve as good as called me a miser-
or at any rate, a mean devil—half a dozen times to-night,”
he told her, but not with much confidence.

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 443

“Oh!—that’s different—and you know it is.”

“I don’t see that. Still, if you think so, all I can say,
Edie, is—I’m sorry.”

But before he had finished, she had gone, slamming
the door contemptuously behind her. A few seconds
later, she was outside the house. Mr. Smeeth returned
wretchedly to his chair by the fire. There was nothing
he disliked more than a quarrel with his wife, and this
looked like being a particularly bad one. That remark
of his would, he knew, take some living down. If she had
been a. woman who never took a drink at all, there would
have been nothing in that remark; but she liked a drink
or two, especially in company, and was liable at times to
get flushed and excited, as she well knew herself; and if
he had thought for months, he could not have said a
thing that would have hurt her more. He was still sorry
that he had said it, though there was one part of him
that could not help enjoying the fact that the shot had
told so well. “That got home on her all right, didn’t it?”
it chuckled, even while the rest of him, the part that
loved Mrs. Smeeth and was her willing slave, grieved
and repented. Mr. Smeeth did not often swear, but now
he called Fred Mitty, under his breath, every foul name
at his command. That earlier argument would not have
taken such a bad turn if it had not been for Mitty. They
had had these little squabbles about money before, like
most couples, he imagined, one of whom is nearly always
a spender and the other a saver. This had been a bit
more serious than most of their squabbles, if only be¬
cause the extra money had made her all the more eager
to spend and had made him all the more anxious to
begin saving. But Mitty and his wife even came into
this part of the quarrel, for the whole thing began when

ANGEL PAVEMENT

444

he came across that bill from Sorley’s for three pounds
fifteen, which she had not paid and couldn't pay, and
Sorley’s off licence and Mr. and Mrs. Swilling Mitty and
their bright pals had been responsible for that bill. He
had not seen what they had had because on both occa¬
sions, being duly warned, he had taken himself off, once
to hear “The Messiah,” and the other time to play whist
with Saunders, and had taken care each time, being a
peaceable man, to arrive back home as late as possible,
when Mitty aad Co. were no longer there. He didn’t
believe for a moment that his wife was so tremendously
fond of the Mitty lot as all that, but just because he had
grumbled at first and been a bit heavy-handed about
them, she had kept it up, out of devilment and to show
her independence. She was like that, if you took the
wrong line with her, and he had admitted to himself for
a week or two now that, if it was peace and quietness he
wanted and not a tussle to decide who was master, he
had certainly taken the wrong line.

After brooding over it all for about a quarter of an
hour, he felt so uncomfortable that if his wife had gone
anywhere else but the Mitty’s, he would have gone after
her, to call for her and then to try and make it up on
the way home. But he had his pride, and it refused to
allow him to call for her at the Mitty’s. He tried to dis¬
miss the whole wretched business. He lit his pipe and
picked up the evening paper. There was nothing in it
he wanted to read and had not read before. He tried the
wireless, and the first station plunged him into the
middle of a talk on modem sculpture by a young gentle¬
man who was apparently very tired. Finding no satis¬
faction in him, Mr. Smeeth went over to the other
station, which was running a sort of pierrot show. The

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 445

pierrots themselves seemed to be enjoying themselves
immensely and so did their audience, who laughed and
clapped unceasingly, but Mr. Smeeth merely felt rather
out of it and thought the jokes not good enough for all
that laughing and the songs not worth all that applause.
“Overdoing it,” he muttered darkly at the loud speaker,
which replied by bombarding him with more tinny
laughter and applause. But he was the master; he had
only to make a little movement and the pierrots and
their cackling friends were banished at once, simply
hurled into silence; and now he made this little move¬
ment, and the loud speaker was at once emptied of
sound, nothing more than a bit of a horn. He had a
book from the Public Library somewhere about, and
now, in despair, he found it and began reading. It was
My Singing Years, by the great soprano, Madame Regina
Sarisbury, whom he had once heard in an oratorio years
ago, and the young woman at the Library had told him
it was a most interesting book, on the word of her sister,
who was taking singing lessons and had two or three
professional engagements. But so far it had not appealed
to him very much. As a matter of fact, he was a reluctant
and unenterprising reader, one of those people who hold
their books almost at arm’s length and examine them in
a very guarded manner, as if at any moment a sentence
might explode with a loud report; and he had probably
returned more books half-read than any other member
of the local Public Library. Nevertheless, he liked to
have a Library book about, and to be discovered read¬
ing it.

He was discovered now. Edna came in, pulling off her
close-fitting little hat, and fussy and breathless, as usual.
In a few minutes, she would swing completely round,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

446

becoming slack, indifferent, languid, as if the house
bored her. Mr. Smeeth knew this, and it irritated him,
though he was very fond of the girl.

“'Where’s Mother?”

“Your mother’s out.”

“Where’s she gone to? She said she wasn’t going out
to-night!”

“The question is, not where she’s gone to, but where
you’ve been to,” he said, rather severely, looking at her
over the top of his eyeglasses.

Edna did not stop to examine the logic of this, or if
she did, she did not comment upon it, being still young
enough to recognise the right of parents to talk in
this fashion. “Been to the pictures—first house,” she
replied.

“What again! I’m surprised you don’t go and live
there. You’ve been once this week, haven’t you? Yes, I
thought so. And I suppose you’ll be wanting to go on
Saturday. That’ll be three times in one week—three
times. Paid ninepence too, I suppose. And who gave
you the money to go to-night?”

“Mother did.” And Edna looked slightly confused.
Her father, noticing this, jumped at once to the wrong
conclusion—namely, that Edna had been told to say
nothing about this extra visit to the pictures to him and
had suddenly realised what she had done. The truth
was, however, that Edna was confused, not because she
had spent another ninepence, but because the money
was still in her possession, for she had gone to the
pictures as the guest of one Harry Gibson, Minnie
Watson’s friend’s friend, who, in his turn, was supposed,
by his parents in their turn, to have been attending an
evening class in accountancy on this particular night.

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 447

Mr. Smeeth nodded grimly and tightened his lips
“There’ll have to be something said about this, Edna.
When I agreed to let you go and learn this millinery
business, I didn’t agree to let you go to the pictures
every night in the week too.”

“I don’t go every night, and you know very well I
don’t, Dad. Some weeks I only go once.”

“It’s a funny thing I never seem to notice those
weeks,” said Mr. Smeeth, with fine irony. It would have
been still finer irony if he had stopped to consider that
it really was not funny at all but quite natural. “But
apart from the waste of money, I don’t like all this
picture-going. Doing you no good at all. Doing you
harm. I don’t object to a girl having her amusement,”
he continued, dropping into that noble broad-minded
tone of voice that all parents, schoolmasters, clergymen,
and other public moralists have at their command. “I
go to the pictures now and again myself. But going to
the pictures now and again’s one thing, and living for
pictures is another thing altogether. Teaches you
nothing but silliness. Get false ideas into your head.
Why don’t you settle down with a book?” He held out
his own book. “Do a bit of quiet reading. Amuse your¬
self and learn something about the world at the same
time. Take this book I’m reading, f’r’instance—My
Singing Years, by Madame Regina Sarisbury—this is a
book that tells you something worth knowing, all about
the—er—musical career.”

“I read a book last week,” Edna announced.

“Yes, and been to the pictures three times since then.”
said her father, who was determined to have his griev¬
ance. “Too much going out and amusing yourself
altogether, my girl. Why, you’re worse than George was

ANGEL PAVEMENT

448

at your age. It’s my belief you girls are worse than the
boys nowadays, more set on having amusement, pictures
and dances and what not. I walked from the tram to¬
night with Mr. Gibson, who lives in the corner house at
the bottom of the next street, and he was telling me that
his son-I forget his name, but he’s about your age, per¬
haps a year or so older—”

“Do you mean Harry Gibson?” asked Edna.

“Is it Harry? Yes, I think it is. Well, Mr. Gibson
was telling me that this boy of his is attending three
evening classes a week—accountancy, book-keeping and
something else—three evening classes. That boy means
to get on and be somebody in the world. He’s not wast¬
ing all his time, he’s using it to some purpose. I’m not
saying that you ought to go to evening classes—”

Here he broke off because he noticed that a mysterious
smile that had been hovering for the last minute now
seemed to have definitely settled on Edna’s face. This
smile made him angry, or rather gave him an excuse for
exploding the anger that had been waiting inside him.
“And for goodness’ sake, Edna, take that silly grin off
your face when I’m trying to talk sense to you,” he
shouted, making her jump. “You’re not at the pictures
now. You’re nothing but a great silly baby.”

“What have I done now?” she began indignantly.
“Any more of that impudence from you,” Mr. Smeeth
shouted at her, glaring. But there was no more of that
impudence, which suddenly melted to tears. Edna, not
a strong character at any time and now completely taken
aback by her father’s sudden rage, hastily left the room,
whimpering.

Mr. Smeeth spent the next few minutes telling him¬
self all the things that were wrong with his daughter and

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 449

that justified any man getting angry with her now and
then. He worked hard., but he did not succeed in con¬
vincing himself. He put away My Singing Years and
turned the wireless on again. At half-past ten, George
came in, got a grunt or two from his father /who was.
in truth, afraid of talking), retired to the kitchen in
search of food and then went to bed. At eleven, Mrs.
Smeeth returned.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked. Some¬
times he had a little snack just before going to bed.

He shook his head.

“Can I get you something?” she inquired politely.

He knew now that he was in for a serious quarrel.
Mrs. Smeeth easily lost her temper and squabbled, but
she recovered it with equal swiftness and ease. If she
had marched in and called him a few names and looked
as if she was about to throw something at him, he would
have known that the whole thing could have been settled
before they went to sleep. But when Mrs. Smeeth was
quietly polite to him, it meant that for once she had
really hardened her heart. She would now turn herself
into a very efficient housewife. Nothing would be
allowed to go wrong; every meal would be on the table
at the proper time and every dish done to a turn; he
would not be given the slightest chance to grumble. But
as a wife, a real wife, she would cease to exist. Not a
smile, not a friendly glance, would come his way; ar.d
they would be estranged for days, perhaps weeks.

“No, thanks. I don’t want anything. Don’t feel like
it.” Which was true enough; but he hoped it would
suggest that he was not very well. She remained quite
stony, however.

“Both the children in?” she asked.

p*

450

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“Look here, Edie,” he began desperately, “don’t be
silly.”

“I’m not silly. I’m going to bed now.” And off she
went.

He was in for it now, days of it, perhaps weeks of it;
and in order to get out of it, not only would he have to
apologise at great length, but he would probably have to
buy something as well, in short to spend more money.
Yet the root of the whole trouble was that too much
money was being spent already. He wished he had never
set eyes on Sorley’s miserable bill. He wished he had
gone out and paid it without a word. He wished—“Oh
damn and blast!” he cried, and in his sudden spasm of
fury, he screwed up his face so hard and shook his head
so violently that his eyeglasses fell off and he spent
several minutes groping about the black wool rug before
he could find them. Oh—a miserable evening!

2

Between Thursday evening, when hostilities began,
and Saturday morning, Mr. Smeeth had tried unsuccess¬
fully once or twice to make his peace and to replace this
strange polite woman by his real wife. On Saturday
morning, he determined to do no more; she could have
her sulk, if she wanted it; he would simply make the
best of his position as a sort of super-lodger. He trotted
down Chaucer Road, on his way to the tram, harden¬
ing his heart. The morning, which already had a com¬
panionable Saturday look about it, smiled upon him, if
only faintly. For a day in late January, it was begin¬
ning well; no fog, snow or rain; but a slight sparkle and

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 45'.

nip of frost and the early ghost of a sun somewhere
above. Mr. Smeeth was very fond of Saturday; he liked
the morning in the office (he always had a pipe at about
half-past eleven, unless he was very busy), and he liked
the afternoon out of the office. It was difficult for him
to forget that his wife had quarrelled with him, but he
hardened his heait and did his best to forget. Unfortun¬
ately—as he knew only too well, for he had said it often
enough—it never rains but it pours. This treacherous
Saturday was destined to give him a series of shocks, of
varying degrees of severity.

The first, and slightest, of these shocks arrived when
he walked over to his desk, rubbing his hands as usual
and exchanging a remark or two with everybody. His
inkwells had not been filled up, and no fresh blotting-
paper had been put on his desk.

“Hello!” he cried, looking round. “Where’s Stanley?”

“Hasn’t turned up,” replied Turgis.

“Well, well, well, well,” said Mr. Smeeth fussily.
“Does anybody know what’s happened to him? Is he
ill or something?”

Nobody knew. Miss Sellers thought he had probably
caught a cold, because she was sure she had heard him
sneeze several times while he was copying the letters the
night before. Turgis said with gloomy satisfaction that
he had probably been knocked down and run over while
trying to shadow somebody on his way to the office.

“I don’t suppose for a minute he has,” said Mr.
Smeeth sharply. “But you needn’t seem so pleased
about it, Turgis. Not a nice way of saying a thing like
that at all. I don’t like to hear anybody talking like that
in this office. Don’t know what has come over you lately,
Turgis.” And it was true. He hadn’t liked the way

ANGEL PAVEMENT

452 4

Turgis had looked and talked for some time now.

The mystery of Stanley was cleared up when Mr.
Dersingham, very much the Saturday man in plus fours,
arrived to go through the letters, for among these was
one from Stanley’s father, apparently a man of few
words, who announced that Stanley was needed badly
by his uncle, just returned to the ironmongering in
Homerton, where the boy would be nearer home and
have a better chance of getting on than in Angel Pave¬
ment—and sorry no better notice given, but half fort¬
night’s wages due could be kept but please send Insur¬
ance Card all filled in —Yrs truly, Thos. Poole.

“That means getting another boy,” said Mr. Dersing¬
ham. “I’m sorry about that one, too. He was a lazy
little devil like all of ’em, but he looked rather bright,
didn’t he?”

“Wasn’t a bad boy at all, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr.
Smeeth meditatively. “I’m sorry he’s left us, too. We
might get a lot worse. He fancied himself as a budding
detective, Stanley did—we used to pull his leg about
shadowing people and all that.”

“Did he? A detective, eh? And I never knew that.
He’d got that from reading about ’em, you know. I’m
fond of a good detective yarn myself. But I never
wanted to be one when I was a boy. They weren’t quite
so much the thing then, were they? I remember I
wanted to be an explorer—you know, expeditions across
the desert and all that sort of thing. All the exploring
I’ve done lately, Smeeth, has been looking for some of
those mouldy Jew cabinet-making places in back streets
in North London. Ah—well!” And for a moment the
large pink face of Mr. Dersingham looked clouded, as if
he had suddenly discovered that life was quite different

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED 453

from what he imagined it would be when he was in the
Fourth at Worrell.

“We live and learn, sir, don’t we?” said Mr. Smeetn
vaguely.

"Do we? I dunno. People always say we do, don’t
they? But I dunno. I doubt it sometimes, I do, Smeeth,
honestly,” the other replied, first glancing at Mr. Smeeth
and then looking out of the window, through which
nothing could be seen but a ramshackle roof and a few
chimney-pots beyond. A queer melancholy, quite unlike
the proper spirit of any office on Saturday morning, in¬
vaded the room, and for a minute the pair of them were
lost in it.

“Well, well,” cried Mr. Dersingham, with a sudden
briskness, “you’ll have to see about getting another boy.
I’m sorry about that, though. That boy might have been
a useful chap later on. He’s missed a good opening. If
that other fellow, Turgis, had gone, I don’t think I’d
have minded very much. How’s he getting on, that
fellow? I don’t see much of him, but I must say I don’t
like the look of him these days. He slouches about, look¬
ing like nothing on earth. What’s the matter with him?”

"I don’t know', Mr. Dersingham. I’ve noticed it, too.
There’s been something wrong with him lately. He does
his work, but only after a fashion, and it’s not a fashion
I like, I must say. Something on his mind, I should say.”

“And a thoroughly nasty mind too, by the look of
him! Well, look here, Smeeth, you’d better take him
on one side and have a good talk to him. Tell him I’m
not satisfied with him and you’re not satisfied with him,
and that if he doesn’t buck up pretty soon, he’ll have to
clear out. Tell him he’s a fool to himself, too, with the
business growing as it is and all sorts of chances coming

ANGEL PAVEMENT

454

along for smart fellows. You know the kind of thing to
say. Threaten him with the sack, if you like; I don’t
mind. I shouldn’t care if I saw the last of the fellow this
morning, I never did think much of him. Got a Bolshie
look about him. All right then, Smeeth-see about that,
and about getting another boy. And I shall be off in
about half an hour or so, and Mr. Golspie won’t be in,
this morning. So just-er-carry on, will you.”

Mr. Smeeth was really sorry that Stanley had gone,
and not merely because it meant getting another boy and
showing him what to do. He realised now that he had
liked Stanley and would miss that freckled snub nose of
his, that sandy bullet head, and all the ridiculous detec¬
tive talk. But that was not all. Nobody knew better
than Mr. Smeeth that office boys come and go, are here
to-day and gone to-morrow, but nevertheless this sudden
departure of Stanley troubled him, if only because he
disliked change of any kind and found himself visited
by a vague mistrust, a flicker or two of apprehension,
whenever it occurred. Stanley had become part of the
office for him, and now Stanley had gone. It was not
important, but still, he did not like it.

“If we finish in good time this morning,” he said to
Turgis, after he had told them all about Stanley and
had handed over the copying and posting of the letters
to little Poppy Sellers, “I want to have a little talk with
you, Turgis. You’re not in a great hurry to get away,
are you?”

Turgis wasn’t. Indeed, the outside world appeared to
have lost as much favour with him as the office had.

It was an easy morning. At twelve, Miss Matfield had
nothing more to do, and was allowed to go, looking
rather more pleased with herself and the world than she

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 455

usually did. Turgis lounged up and gave Miss Sellers
a Hand with the copying, for which he received several
grateful glances from the brown eyes beneath the fringe.
Mr. Smeeth, sending out a fragrant drift of Benenden’s
Own Mixture, fussed about and locked up, then gave tire
letters to Poppy and packed her off.

“Now then,” he said to Turgis, as soon as they tvere
alone.

“Yes, Mr. Smeeth?” replied Turgis mournfully.

Mr. Smeeth looked at him, and perhaps saw him
clearly for the first time for weeks. There were dark
rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves had a queer
reddish look, as if their owner was not getting enough
sleep. He never had much colour, but now he was verv
pale, and the bony ridge of his rather large nose shone
as it caught the light, as if the skin had been drawn
back from it at each side. The lad didn’t look at all
well. Mr Smeeth, who knew that Turgis lived in lodg¬
ings and was a lonely sort of chap, felt sorry for him.

“Here, Turgis,” he said, “there’s plenty of time. We’ll
go out and talk there. Can you drink a glass of beer?”

Turgis, pleased and flattered by this invitation, said
that he could. *

“Well, we’ll go across the road and have a glass of
beer there. Do us no harm. Everything’s locked up, I
think, isn’t it? All right, then. We’ll go.” And so they
went down the stairs, Mr. Smeeth kept up a cheerful
clatter of talk: “I’ll just pop round the comer to Benen¬
den’s to get some tobacco first. Always get my tobacco
there, have done for years. His own mixture, y’know—
mixes it himself. Better than this ounce packet stuff.
You get it fresh. You don’t smoke a pipe, do you?
Cigarettes, eh? You ought to try a pipe. Cheaper and

ANGEL PAVEMENT

45 °

a better smoke and better for your health, too. I’ve tried
to get my boy George to start a pipe, but he won't droD
his cigarettes. Gaspers all the time. Too much trouble
just to fill and light a pipe, that’s it. I wonder how these.
Kwik-Work people are going on? Always seem to be
busy enough, but I never knew anybody that used their
blades. I stick to the old-fashioned razor. I’ve used the
same two for twenty years. I call it a silly waste of
money buying these safety razor blades. No wonder
they give the razors away nowadays. They know once
you’ve got the razor you’ll have to keep on buying their
blades. That’s the catch, you see. Well, just wait a
minute. I’ll call on my old friend, Mr. Benenden.”

But he didn’t, because his old friend Mr. Benenden
was not there. Behind the counter was a plump young
woman with bright ginger hair, and if Cleopatra herself
in full regalia had been standing there, Mr. Smeeth
could not have stared at her in greater astonishment.

“Yes?” said the plump young woman.

To explain what he wanted in T. Benenden’s, when
year after year he had merely had to put his pouch on
the counter, was in itself so novel an action that Mr.
Smeeth found himself at a loss to perform it. “But-
where’s Mr. Benenden?”

The young woman smiled. “You a regular customer
here?” she asked.

“I should think I am,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’ve been
coming in here, week in and week out, for Mr. Benen¬
den’s own mixture for years. It made me jump to see
anybody else here. What’s happened? He’s not given
it up, has he?”

“No, he’s not given it up,” she explained. “He’s in
hospital. He got knocked down by a car last night in

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED 457

Cheapside, and they took him to St. Bartholomew’s.”

“Well you surprise me! I’m sorry to hear that. Is
he bad?”

“We don’t know yet. He didn’t seem so bad last night,
because he got a message through to my mother and she
went to see him and he gave her the key here and asked
if I’d look after the shop for him, because he knew I
wasn’t doing anything and I’d worked once in a tobac¬
conist’s before—'well, tobacconist’s and sweets’, it was,
not like this, y’know—so it didn’t sound as if it was bad,
with him being able to talk and arrange things like that,
but the doctor told my mother it was worse than it
looked, for all that, and it might be a nasty long job,
and she’s going again to-day. I’m his niece, you see.”

“Poor old chap! I am sorry about this,” said Mr.
Smeeth, who was indeed genuinely distressed. “You
must let me know how he goes on.” He had to point
out to her the tin canister that held T. Benenden’s Own
Mixture and had even to tell her the price of it. When
he rejoined Turgis outside, he could talk of nothing else
for the next five minutes. This one morning, not con¬
tent with removing Stanley from Angel Pavement for
ever, had gone and swept Benenden out of sight, put a
plump young woman with ginger hair behind the
counter and turned Benenden into a mysterious suffer¬
ing figure in a hospital. Benenden and Angel Pavement
had been inseparable in his mind for years, and now the
thought of Benenden not being there, no longer wait¬
ing, tie-less, behind his dusty counter, gave the whole
place a queer look. Turgis had been in the shop many
a time for cigarettes, but, being one of the “packet o’
gaspers” customers, he could not really claim to be
acquainted with Benenden. By the time Mr. Smeeth

ANGEL PAVEMENT

45 s

had finished talking to him about the tobacconist, the
pair of them were in the private bar of the White Horse
across the road and had two glasses of bitter placed in
front of them.

Mr. Smeeth had not been in this bar since that night,
two or three months before, when Mr. Golspie took him
in, gave him a double whisky and a cigar, and talked
about the business. It was still as cosy as ever, but this
time it was not so quiet. It was entirely dominated by
a- large man with an enormous red face, who roared and
spluttered and coughed and wheezed very loudly at his
two companions, men of ordinary size, who could only
make ordinary noises back at him. All conversation in
the bar was provided with a thundering accompaniment
by this large man. There was no escaping him.

“You see, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth, “I thought I’d
better have a little talk to you, because, for one thing,
I’ve been noticing a few little things myself, and for
another thing, Mr. Dersingham’s been saying something
to me about you. If you remember, I said something
when we had a little talk a month or two ago.”

“I remember that, Mr. Smeeth. When you said they’d
been thinking of giving me the push.”

“That’s right. Well, Mr. Dersingham talked to me
about you this morning—rather in the same strain,
Turgis, and I said I’d have a talk to you.”

“But what have I done wrong?” cried Turgis bitterly.
“Why’s he always picking on me? I do my work all
right, don’t I? You’ve never said anything about it to
me, Mr. Smeeth. Seems to me they w r ant to get rid of
me whether I’ve done anything wrong or not—”

“Outch-ch-ch-ch,” went the large man. “Wait a
minute, Charlie, wait a minute, let me tell it. Oh dear,

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 459

oh aear, oh dear, oh dear. ’Ere, this is it. Simmy come
up to me, that morning, and I’m standing as I might be
'ere, see—and old Simmy—just a minute, Charlie, let me
tel’i it—”

“This is the point, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth
earnestly. “And, mind you. I’m talking in a friendly
way. Nobody’s got anything against you at all. Put that
out of your head. But as Mr. Dersingham says—you’ve
got to buck up. Just lately, you’ve not been taking your
work in the right spirit at all. I know you’re not a lazy
chap and I know you can do your work all right, but if I
hadn’t known it, I don’t mind telling you, I might have
come to a wrong conclusion just lately. Now, ice all
have our troubles. I’ve plenty of my own, I can tell
you,” he continued, with the air of a modest hero,
“though you mightn’t think it. That’s because I’ve
learned not to bring ’em to the office with me. I’m old
enough and experienced enough not to let my troubles
interfere with my work. You’re not, and it’s nothing to
be ashamed of. My opinion is, Turgis—you’ve not been
feeling up to the mark lately.”

“That is so, Mr. Smeeth,” said Turgis. “You're right
there. I haven’t.”

“Didn’t he, Charlie?” roared the large man, drowning
everybody. “He did. It’s as true as I’m standing ’ere.
Next time you see Simmy, you say to ’im, ‘What price
Lady Flatiron at NewburyP’-that’s all. Just say that.
Laugh! Oh gord! Outch-ch-ch-ch-ch.” The enormous
face was purple now.

“It’s no business of mine, Turgis,” said Mr. Smeeth in
his ear, “and I’m only asking in a friendly spirit. But
it’s my opinion you’ve got yourself into trouble some¬
how. If it isn’t that, you’d better go round and see a

460 ANGEL PAVEMENT

doctor. Perhaps you’re just not feeling well.”

“I’m not feeling so well, Mr. Smeeth, but it isn’t that,
really. It’s just-oh, I dunno-well, you see, Mr. Smeeth,
it’s a girl. That’s what’s been bothering me just lately.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Ought you to be marrying her or
something of that sort? No? Nothing like that, eh? Oh,
well, had a bit of a quarrel, eh?”

“Yes, in a way,” replied Turgis, guardedly, looking
very uncomfortable.

“Oh, well, don’t you let that bother you,” cried Mr.
Smeeth, astonished to discover that this was nothing but
a lover’s tiff. “I know what it is, of course. You’re talk¬
ing to an old married man now, my boy. I’ve got a son
nearly as old as you. It doesn’t matter how you’ve
quarrelled, you don’t want to take it as hard as that.
Bless me!—you’ll be making yourself ill over it.”

“That’s what I think sometimes,” said Turgis bitterly.

“Ridiculous! It’ll soon blow over. And if it doesn’t,
why, go and find another girl who isn’t so quarrelsome.
I can tell you this, if she’s quarrelsome now, she’ll be
past living with, if you’re not careful, later on. You’re
too sensitive about it, Turgis—that’s your trouble.”

Turgis produced a smile that was abject misery itself,
the tortured ghost of a grin.

“No, no, not at all,” the large man shouted. “We’ve
ten minutes yet. Plenty of time for another. What is it?
Same again? Three double Scotches; miss. I 'aven’ttold
you yet what ’appened the other night, ’ave I? I mean,
with Jack Pearce and old Joe, down at Staines—oh dear!
—splooch-ooch-ooch-ooch-ooch! ’ ’

“He seems to be enjoying himself all right,” said
Turgis. “I don’t know how some of these chaps do it—
spending money all day, no work, knocking about all

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 461

the time, and not giving a damn for anybody. How do
they do it, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Don’t ask me,” replied Mr. Smeeth, a trifle irritably,
as if he, too, had felt a sudden spasm of envy at the
thought of this rich careless life, but would not admit it
to himself. “Racing chaps, I suppose. Easy come and
easy go—that’s their motto. All right while it lasts—but
how long does it last?”

“How long does anything last?" Turgis muttered.

“Now that’s silly talk from a young fellow like you,”
said Mr. Smeeth. “It’s that sort of talk that lets you
down with everybody. Now listen to me. I believe if
you’ll only smarten yourself up a bit, don’t be so gloomy,
look as if you didn’t hate the sight of everybody—”

“I don’t, Mr. Smeeth, honestly I don't.”

“—and settle down to your work properly, there’s a
good steady job waiting for you with Twigg and Der-
singham. As Mr. Dersingham said, only this morning,
what with all this new business, the firm’ll be growing
and expanding, and that’ll be just the opportunity for
a young fellow like yourself.”

Turgis swallowed desperately. “I’m not so sure about
that,” he declared.

“What d’you mean?” cried Mr. Smeeth, staring at
him.

“I don’t think it’s all so rosy as all that. I’ve been
thinking it over. All this new business—and as far as
I can see, it’s about all the business we’re doing—came
with Mr. Golspie.” He brought out this name with a
sudden jerk.

“Well, what if it did? You’re not telling me any¬
thing now, Turgis. I know that as well as you do—and
better.”

4.62

ANGEL PAVEMENT

“If lie goes, what happens then, Mr. Smeeth?”

“If he goes? That would depend. A lot might happen,
or nothing might happen. But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie’s
not going.”

“I think he is-soon, too.”

Mr. Smeeth stared at him. Turgis was obviously quite
serious. “Where did you get that idea from?”

“I think he is.”

“What’s the good of talking like that! You think
he is! Why should he now? What’s the object? He’s
making plenty of money out of the business, as I know
better than you do. He’s making a surprising amount,
for a trade like this-I don’t mind telling you. He’d be
a fool if he did go, unless, of course—well—” And Mr.
Smeeth thought of several possibilities, but kept them
to himself. “No, that’s silly talk, Turgis. What put that
into your head?”

“It isn’t silly, Mr. Smeeth,” cried Turgis, goaded into
saying more than he had ever intended to say. “I know
he’s going. At least, I know he’s not staying with the
firm long. I know he doesn’t think much of Mr.
Dersingham either. I know that, too.”

“But where have you got all this from?” Mr. Smeeth
was more angry than alarmed. “This is the first I’ve
heard of it. How did you learn it? You’re not trying
to be funny, are you?”

“Well,” roared the large man. “Get a move on, eh?
You coming to eat with me, Charlie? That’s right. See
you Monday, Tom, eh? Course I’ll be there. You
betcher life, boy! Wouldn’t miss it. Am I what? Oh-
you wicked feller,Tom, you wicked feller! So long, boy.
Morning, miss. Morning, Sam.” And the silence he left
behind him was almost startling.

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 463

In this silence, Mr. Smeeth and Turgis looked at one
another. Then Turgis turned his eyes elsewhere, but
Mr. Smeeth continued looking at him.

"I don’t make head or tail of this, Turgis.”

Turgis frowned, shut his mouth tight for once, and
moved uneasily. Finally, he said: “I—heard something,
Mr. Smeeth, that’s all. I can’t tell where I heard it or
anything. I’m sorry I spoke now.”

Mr. Smeeth saw that Turgis was terribly in earnest.
There could be no doubt about that. “Do you mean to
say you won’t tell me where you heard it, how you heard
it, or anything?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Smeeth. I oughtn’t to have said any¬
thing. I can’t tell you any more, honestly I can’t. Don’t
mention it to anybody, please, Mr. Smeeth. If you do,
you might get me into trouble, though I haven’t done
anything really wrong, I haven’t, honestly. Only I did
hear that about Mr. Golspie.”

“When was that? You can tell me so much, anyhow.”

“Not long before Christmas, a week or two.”

“Mr. Golspie was away then, was he?”

“Yes,” Turgis admitted sullenly. “It was while he was
away.”

“Then somebody told you while Mr. Golspie was
away,” said Mr. Smeeth sharply, not taking his eyes off
the unhappy Turgis for a second. He thought quickly.
“It must have been his daughter. That time when you
took the money to her. You got talking and then she
told you. Is that it?”

Turgis said nothing, but he had no need to, for his
face replied for him. “Well, what did she say exactly?”
Mr. Smeeth continued, far more concerned now that he
knew Mr. Golspie’s daughter was the informant. “Come

ANGEL PAVEMENT

464

jn, Turgis, you might as well tell me now. What did she
say?”

“I don’t remember any more,” Turgis mumbled
miserably. “That was all. It was nothing. I oughtn’t
to have said anything. Mr. Smeeth, please don’t you say
anything, please don’t, will you? Promise.”

“All right. I don’t suppose there’s anything in it.
I know what these girls are. They’ll say anything.
Well—”

“Yes, I must be getting on now,” said Turgis. “And
thank you for telling me—you know about what Mr.
Dersingham said. I’ll do my best, Mr. Smeeth. I’m a
bit worried just now, that’s all.”

As his tram climbed the swarming City Road, Mr.
Smeeth considered this Golspie gossip. It made him feel
uneasy, although he was still ready to dismiss it as girls’
nonsense. It seemed unlikely that Mr. Golspie would
leave them, but then it seemed unlikely that Stanley
would be spirited away by an uncle in Homerton and
that Benenden would be lying in Bart’s Hospital. There
was no connection between these events, as Mr. Smeeth
knew very well, but the sudden disappearance of Stanley
and Benenden had left him with a feeling of insecurity.
They made him realise the fact that things simply hap¬
pened and that he had no control over them, no more
than he would have if the tram suddenly left the lines
and charged the nearest shop. In the dark hollows of his
mind, apprehension stirred again. He decided to talk all
this over with his wife, who, perhaps because she was so
unreasonable, had got something that he had never had,
a large confidence in life. With all her faults, there was
nobody like Edie for him at these times, when he felt a
bit down in the mouth. Then he remembered that they

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 465

were still not on proper speaking terms, and that, in her
present state of mind, he could no more talk to her about
what he felt than he could talk to the strange woman
sitting in front of him in the tram. “We just would be
quarrelling now, wouldn’t we?’’ he cried to himself, with
that gloomy satisfaction, that faint sweetness which
comes with the last bitter drop, known only to the
pessimist. Life could do many dreadful things to
Herbert Norman Smeeth, but it couldn’t take him in.
He was one of those people who are always there first,
who are standing at the grave before the doctor has even
begun shaking his head.

3

This treacherous Saturday, however, was still capable of
giving him another shock, from an unexpected quarter.
Mrs. Smeeth was out when he arrived home, and he had
a solitary dinner, with Edna flitting about and trying to
keep out of his w T ay. After dinner, he smoked his pipe
and pottered about for half an hour or so, and then, as
the afternoon sent some gleams of pale sunlight creep¬
ing, like a returned convalescent, into Chaucer Road, he
went out for a walk. Fate, which had for once an easy
task, directed him to Clissold Park, where his shock was
awaiting him.

The fifty green acres of Clissold Park are surrounded
by miles and miles of slates and bricks, chimney-pots
and paving stones, and so, in the middle of it, placed
there perhaps as a sign that the round green w T orld of
mountains, forests and oceans still exists somewhere, or
at least once had an existence, there are a number of

466 ANGEL PAVEMENT

animals and bright birds. If you are a Stoke Newington
ratepayer, you have only to turn a corner or two to catch
the soft shining glances of deer, to meditate upon the
spectacle of birds so fantastically fashioned and coloured
that it is impossible to believe that both they and North
London are equally real, that one or the other is not a
crazy dream. You stand there, a litter of peanut-shells
and paper bags all round you, with a Stoke Newington
dinner inside you struggling with your digestive juices,
and you suddenly hear a scream from the jungle and a
green and scarlet wing from the Orinoco is flashed at
you.

There are links, however, between these two worlds.
One of them was standing beside Mr. Smeeth, and wore
a short grey beard and a dusty bowler. “Yus,” he re¬
marked, looking at the gorgeous birds, then at Mr.
Smeeth, then at the birds again, and doing it master¬
fully, as if to keep both the birds and Mr. Smeeth there,
“yus, I been where them things comes from. Common
as sparrers there, yer might say. Bigger than these, too-
yus, and brighter colours on ’em. Yus, I been where
them birds comes from.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Smeeth. “And when was this?
Not lately, I'll bet.”

“And you’d win, mister. Forty years ago, that was, in
good old Queen Victoria’s time. Ah, yer little devils!”
he cried, addressing the birds now. “What dyer think
0’ that, eh? Forty years ago. I left the sea thirty-five
years ago, mister, but I’d stopped going to them places
five years before I left the sea for good an’ all. Yus, the
last five years I was on the North Atlantic run, and you
don’t see any 0’ them little dazzlers up there—fog and
icebergs is what you see up there, mister. But I’ve seen

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 467

the time when I’ve brought them things ’ome, proper
old sailor style. Yus, I have. If yer don’t believe me,
ask the pleece; they know everything there is to know,
isn’t that so, sergeant?”

Mr. Smeeth discovered that an acquaintance of his, a
Stoke Newington man and a very good hand at a whist
drive, Sergeant Gailey, of the local division, had strolled
up. “Now then, Mr. Lee, telling lies again! Dear, dear,
dear! Oh, it’s you, Mr. Smeeth, is it? You’re the victim
this time.”

“That’ll do, sergeant,” retorted Mr. Lee amiably, “yer
only giving away your ignorance. Yer’ve seen nothing
yet, and I don’t think yer ever will note. Good after¬
noon.” And off he toddled.

“You know him, don’t you, Mr. Smeeth?” said
Sergeant Gailey. “Oh, he’s a rum old devil. Keeps a
second-hand shop—furniture and curios and all that
stuff-down by the Green. His daughter runs it now,
but it’s his shop, and he’s better off than you’d think,
that old devil is. Won’t part with nothing, you know, but
his reminiscences and good advice. He’s a character.”

“When he started, I thought he was going to try and
cadge a bob,” said Mr. Smeeth, moving away slowly
with the sergeant.

“He’d have it all right if you offered it him, though
he could buy you and me up, Mr. Smeeth, a good many
times. But how are you getting on, these days? Here,
what’s the name of that boy of yours?”

“You mean George?”

“That’s right. George Smeeth, Chaucer Road—eh? 1
saw the name a day or two ago, and thought it must be
that boy of yours. We’re having him up at the North
London next week, Tuesday, I think.”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

468

“At the North London!” Mr. Smeeth stopped, and
gaped at him. “Do you mean the Police Court?”

“That’s right. Case comes on on Tuesday, I think.
What, didn’t you know?”

“No, of course, I didn’t know,” cried Mr. Smeeth in
horrified amazement. “Do you mean-my boy George?”

“Here, steady, steady, Mr. Smeeth! We’re not charg¬
ing him. He’s only up as a witness.”

Mr. Smeeth breathed again, but he was still puzzled
and worried, and the sergeant, noticing this, began to
explain.

“I don’t know why he’s not told you. It’s one of these
car stealing jobs. We’re always getting ’em now. What
with cars running over people and then skipping off, and
cars in these smash-and-grab outfits, and cars being lost
and pinched—coo!-we get a proper packet of cars! I
don’t know what the Force did in the old horse traffic
days. ’Owever, this is one of the car stealing jobs, and
by a bit 0’ luck and judgment, we traced this particular
car to that garage where your lad’s been working lately.
Chap 0’ the name of Barrett runs it, and between you
and me, we’ve had an eye on him for some time. Well,
he bought this car—a good car, nearly new; I don’t re¬
member the make, but it was a good car, worth money-
for fifteen quid. He doesn’t deny it. Now we’re taking
the line that he bought that car knowing it to be stolen,
not the property o’ the chap that offered it to him. It’s
our belief he’s done this before, and a good many times,
too. As I say, we’ve had an eye on him. If he’s not a
wrong ’un, I give it up. Whether well get him this time
or not, I don’t know. I wasn’t on the case myself. But
that fifteen quid’ll take a bit of explaining. They’ll be
saying they get cars given ’em soon.”

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIES 469

“But where does George come in?” said Mr. Smeeth,
who did not care what happened in the car-stealing
world, but cared a great deal about his son.

“Oh, that’s nothing. He worked there, see, and was
there when the car went into the garage, and so on.
We’ve nothing against him, of course. He’ll only be
asked to say what he saw.”

“Thank goodness for that! You gave me a fright, I
can tell you, sergeant. I don’t mean by that, mind you,
that I thought for a minute my boy’d be mixed up in
anything dishonest. I don’t see as much of him as I
ought these days, and he just goes his own way, but I
know the boy’s as straight as you like.”

“I’ll bet he is,” said Sergeant Gailey, with a certain
forced heartiness, which he immediately dropped for a
more serious, cautionary tone. “But, all the same, Mr.
Smeeth, he ought to have told you, you know. And
another thing. You get him away from that garage and
that chap Barrett. He’s in bad company there. Doesn’t
matter if Barrett walks out of that court next Tuesday
with the case against him in bits; never mind about that;
you get your boy out of it and away from that chap. If
we can’t prove it this time, we’ll prove it next time, and
there always is a next time with those cocky birds. I
wouldn’t let a boy of mine put his nose in a dump like
that.”

“Don’t you worry about that, sergeant,” cried Mr.
Smeeth, his voice trembling with excitement. “George
doesn’t stay there another day. I should think not! And
I'm very much obliged to you for telling me, sergeant,
very much obliged.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Smeeth. Thought you ought to
know. Which way you going now?”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

470

“Straight home. That’s my way now,” replied Mr.
Smeeth, and he went as fast as he could go to Chaucer
Road. He was still rather alarmed and astonished, for
police court affairs were remote from his experience and
he had a horror of them, but he was chiefly indignant,
indignant at the thought that this business, which took
George to court and might take his employer to gaol,
should have been kept from him. Did his wife know
all about it, and had she deliberately hidden it out of his
sight? He could hear her saying to George, “Now don’t
you say a word to your father about this. You know
what he is.” Yes, something like that. If she really had
done that, then they would have a quarrel. This was
serious. My word, what a life! You never knew what
was happening.

He arrived home to find his wife still absent and Edna
and her friend, Minnie Watson, screaming with laughter
in the dining-room. “Just a minute, Edna, I want
you,” he said sternly. She followed him into the other
room.

“Where’s George?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Working, 1 suppose, down at the
garage. What’s the matter?”

“Did you know anything about this police court
business?”

Edna stared at him, her chocolate-stained mouth open.
“What police court business? What are you talking
about, Dad? Has it something to do with George?"

“Never mind about that. You don’t know anything
about it, eh?” It certainly didn’t look as if she did, but
Mr. Smeeth told himself wearily that you could never
tell, not with children like these, such a strange secretive
lot. “All right, it doesn’t matter. Where is this garage?

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 471

You can tell me that, I suppose?”

She gave him precise directions, and ten minutes later
he was there, confronting a queer George in greasy over¬
alls, who was doing something incomprehensible to the
inside of a car. He was probably astonished to see his
father, but he only raised his eyebrows and grinned.
George had ceased for some time to show any signs of
surprise.

Telling himself that this was his son, who had been a
child only yesterday, Mr. Smeeth looked sternly at him,
and summoning all the forces of parental authority, he
said curtly: “Just clean yourself up and get your hat
and coat on, George.”

“What d’you mean, Dad? What’s up? Anything
wrong at home?”

“No, there isn’t, but just do what I tell you.”

“Well, I don’t understand.”

“Oh, come outside if you’re going to argue about it,”
said Mr. Smeeth impatiently, and led the way out into
the street. “It’s the police court business. I’ve just
heard all about it.”

“Oh—I see,” said George slowly.

“I’m glad you do see. I’d like to have seen a bit
earlier,” said his father bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell
me? Have to have a police sergeant telling me what’s
happening to my own son!”

“Well, you needn’t go at me, Dad. I’ve done nothing,
and they’ll tell you I haven’t.”

“I know all about that. And you’re not going to do
anything either. That’s why I came round. You’re
finishing here now, George. I was warned not to let you
stop on-though I didn’t need any warning. I’m not
going to have you mixed up with this sort of business.

4'/2 ANGEL PAVEMEN V

So you can just tell them you’re finishing now, this
minute.”

“Oh, I can’t do that, Dad. We’re busy.”

“I don’t care how busy you are, George. You’ve got
to stop.”

“Oh, all right—if you feel like that about it. But look
here, Dad, I must finish that job I’m doing now.”

“How long will that take you?”

“Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. Shouldn’t be
longer.”

“All right,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly, “I’ll wait.” And
he waited twenty minutes; but at the end of that time,
George came out, washed and brushed and without his
overalls.

“I might have lost the week’s money, walking out like
that,” he told his father, “but they paid up—like good
sports.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“There’s another chap running this besides Barrett, a
chap called McGrath—proper motor mechanic, he is.”

“And is he a wrong ’un, too?”

“Not more than most. McGrath’s all right.”

“Tell me this, George,” said Mr. Smeeth, halting and
looking very earnestly at his son, “did your mother know
anything about this police court business?”

“Course she didn’t, Dad. I wasn’t going to tell her”

“I see,” said Mr. Smeeth, relieved to find there had
been no general conspiracy. “But why didn’t you tell
me, boy? I can’t understand you keeping a thing like
this to yourself.”

They were walking on again now. “Oh, I didn’t want
to bother you about it,” replied George coolly. “I knew
there’d be a lot of gassing and fussing if I did. And there

HR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 473

was nothing to get excited about. I hadn’t done any
thing. They weren’t running me in, were they?”

It was incredible. Mr. Smeeth gave it up. Here was
this boy of his, who had been playing with clockwork
trains on the floor only the day before yesterday, so to
speak, and now he could talk in this strain, as cool as you
please, as if he was Sergeant Gailey or somebody! Mr.
Smeeth waited a minute or two, then said very quietly:
“About that car, George—did you know it was stolen?”

George grinned; no wincing, shrinking, anything of
that kind; just a plain grin. “I didn’t know, but I had
a few ideas of my own about it. And about one or two
others, too.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you’d a good idea of
what was going on there and you didn’t do anything
about it?” Mr. Smeeth was shocked and astounded.

“What could I do about it, Dad? If I'd been dragged
into it, that would have been different. But they didn't
try. And you needn’t worry—I wouldn’t have had it.
Buying cars that have been pinched like that is a mug s
game, if you ask me. Barrett’s a fool, though he’s not a
bad sort, really, and he’s treated me all right. Doesn’t
know anything about cars though, not like McGrath
does. I believe he had to take over some of those cars.
I saw one or two fellows who called to see him, and I
didn’t like the look of them at all-real toughs, they
were. But mind you, Dad, I don’t know anything about
those cars, don’t forget that.”

The boy talked about buying stolen cars as if it was
simply a little weakness on Barrett’s part, a silly hobby
He didn’t seem to be in the least shocked or frightened
Mr. Smeeth could not make it out at all. It was just as
if he had brought up a boy who had suddenly turned

Q

ANGEL PAVEMENT

474

into an Indian. The boy was all right, really; he had left
tire garage without making a fuss; but, nevertheless, his
point of view appeared to be whole worlds away from
anything his father could understand. “I must say I
don’t like to hear you talking like that, George,” he said.
“Seems to me you don’t understand the seriousness of
this business. It’s criminal, this is, work for the police,
and you talk about it as if it was a, tea-party or some¬
thing. Talk like that, and you don’t know where you’ll
land yourself.”

“That’s all right, Dad,” said George tolerantly.
“Don’t you worry. I can look after myself.”

“Well, you’re going to do it outside that place now,”
Mr. Smeeth told him.

“Oh, I meant to leave there soon, anyhow?” George
remarked airily.

“I should think so! And the next job you find for
yourself, I hope, will be in a concern that the police
aren’t interested in. You’d better tell me something
about it, first. Easy to get yourself a bad name, y’know,
boy, even if you don’t do anything wrong yourself.”

George, who seemed to live in a world in which bad
names didn’t count, a world his father didn’t know,
made no reply, but merely whistled softly as he walked
along. When they arrived home, tea was waiting for
them, with Mrs. Smeeth sitting behind the teapot. She
was surprised to see George walk in with his father. Mr.
Smeeth gave her a look that said, “Quarrel or no quarrel,
you’ve got to recognise that this is serious,” and cut short
her inquiries by remarking: “We’ll have a talk about
this^terwards, Mother.”

As soon as the two children were out of the room, he
told her what had happened, and she gave him all hei

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 475

attention, realising at once that this affair transcended
any quarrel.

“You did right, Dad,” she told him, when he had
finished.

“I hope you realise,” he added, not without bitterness,
“that this means the boy may be out of a job for some
time, and that means both of them earning nothing. It’s
all right, of course, but still—we’ll have to be careful.”

“George’U soon get something. He always does,” she
said confidently. “I shouldn’t wonder if he hasn’t got a
better job in his eye now. You were right to do what
you did, but you leave him alone now and don’t worry.
He’ll find something.”

This seemed a good opportunity to tell what had
happened during the earlier part of this eventful day,
with special reference to the disturbing rumour about
Mr. Golspie. But she wouldn’t listen. She turned her¬
self again into a woman who had quarrelled with him,
merely listened to a few words with a distant politeness,
excused herself and then gathered up the tea things in a
very grand, dignified manner, rather like a duchess visit¬
ing a poor cottager. Mr. Smeeth was left to smoke his
pipe, alone, a solitary little figure in a huge, dark, mys¬
terious world of cracking walls and slithering founda¬
tions, with echoes and rumours of catastrophe in every
wind.

4

On Tuesday morning, Mr Golspie and Mr. Dersingham
spent more than an hour talking together in the private

ANGEL PAVEMENT

476

office, and Mr. Smeeth, whose chief duty during that
time was to examine a number of replies to Twigg and
Dersingham’s advertisement for an office boy, found it
difficult to concentrate his attention upon these rather
monotonous letters, all in round handwriting that began
well, but always wobbled towards the end. He was
curious to know what was happening in the private
office. Now and again he had heard voices raised, and
once the door had opened, so that Mr. Golspie’s booming
tones had come flying out into the general office, but the
next minute the door had been closed again. Just after
half-past eleven, the bell in the private office rang
dramatically. Miss Sellers, now the junior, answered it,
and came back to say: “Mr. Smeeth, Mr. Dersingham
wants to see you.”

The private office was filled with cigar and cigarette
smoke, and Mr. Golspie, who stood in front of the fire,
his legs wide part, clearly dominated the scene. Mr.
Dersingham, sitting at his table, was rather rumpled and
flushed and obviously not at ease.

“A-ha!” Mr. Golspie cried, “here’s Smeeth. He’s the
man. He’ll tidy us up a bit. You know, Smeeth, if I’d
been as tidy as you, as good at putting down little figures
every day, never forgetting ’em, adding ’em up, I’d have
been a rich man now.”

“Well, I’m not a rich man, Mr. Golspie,” said Mr.
Smeeth, smiling nervously.

“No, but I didn’t say-if I could do that and nothing
else, d’you follow me? What I meant was, if I could do
what you do, plus what I can already do, I’d be a very
rich man now, and you wouldn’t find me in a dust-bin,
eh? Now if you want to make money, Dersingham,
really make money, pile up a big fortune, you’ve only to

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 477

be like me and like Smeeth here both together, two in
one. Quite simple.”

Mr. Dersingham nodded vaguely. He was not
interested in this talk and did not like the sound of it,
for Mr. Golspie’s voice had dropped into a jeering tone.
He caught Mr. Smeeth’s eye, and then began: “Look
here, Smeeth, Mr. Golspie and I have come to a new
arrangement. I’ll just explain it—”

“Oh, I’ll explain it,” Mr. Golspie broke in roughly.
“It’s simple enough. Up to now, I’ve been drawing com¬
mission on all this Baltic stuff as soon as it’s delivered
to your customers, haven’t I? That’s right. Well, that’s
too slow for me. I don’t want to have to wait for my
money like that. Some of these new orders are spread
over months.”

“Yes, and don’t forget how long we’ll have to wait for
our money, Golspie,” said Mr. Dersingham, “or rather,
I’ll have to wait for mine.”

“Quite so, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, who knew how long
it took to get accounts settled better than they did.

“That’s up to you,” Mr. Golspie replied, in his hearty
brutal way. “I don’t want to point out again that if it
hadn’t been for me there’d have been no orders and no
money to come in, whether it comes in this year or
next.”

“Yes, yes, that’s all right, Golspie. I agree. You
needn’t harp on it, needn’t rub it in.”

“Rub it in!” Golspie laughed. “You’re talking now
as if you were sore somewhere. There’s nothing to rub
in but a lot of good new business. Anyhow, Smeeth,
this is the point. I can’t wait now for all this big lot of
orders to be delivered. I want my commission on the
orders as they stand. They’ve gone through: the stuff’s

ANGEL PAVEMENT

478

on the other side all right, as you know; and your people
are here all right; so I want my cut now. I’m not as good
as you at figures, but that’s what I make it, right up to
date.” He handed over a slip of paper. “That’s a rough
total, of course.”

It may have been a rough total, but what leaped to
Mr. Smeeth’s eyes was the fact that it was a surprisingly
large total.

“Pretty big, eh? Bigger than you thought, eh? That
shows you the business that’s come into this office just
lately.”

“It does, Mr. Golspie,"’ said Smeeth, glancing down
at the figure again.

“Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Dersingham’s face cleared at
the thought. “Jolly good. Of course, it’s—what-is-it?
-phenomenal-a sudden rush, y’know, because they’ve
been booking this stuff of yours ahead as fast as they
can.”

“Don’t blame ’em,” said Mr. Golspie, looking at his
cigar.

“You want me to check this, I suppose?” said Mr.
Smeeth, glancing from one to the other.

Mr. Golspie yawned. “That’s it. When can you have
it done, with the figures right bang up to date, Smeeth?
By to-morrow morning, eh? All right. And you’ll see
how you can arrange the payment, Dersingham, eh?
Yes yes, I know how it is—you told me-but if you can
split it into three, say, and let me have the first cheque
this week and the other two as soon as you can, that’ll
do me. I’ll leave you to work it out. I’ll be looking in
this afternoon.”

They said nothing until they heard the outer door
close behind him and his footsteps die away on the land-

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED

479

ing. They seemed to be in a much larger room now.
Mr. Dersingham himself was much larger. “Get a chair,
Smeeth,” he said, and lit another cigarette. They
looked at one another through the sudden spurt of
smoke from it.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh. “Friend
Golspie's putting the screw on this morning. My God!
Smeeth—I’ll tell you candidly—and this is very much
between ourselves, you understand—that chap's getting
on my nerves. He’s such a damned outsider, he really
is. He’s brought all this business here, it’s true, but—
my God!—he doesn't let you forget it either. If we
hadn’t been in such a rotten bad way before he came,
well—I don’t know'—I think I’d have told him to take
his stuff somewhere else. Don’t repeat a word of this,
Smeeth, for the love of Mike! But that’s just how I feel,
and I must let steam off for a minute. He gets worse.
Talk about rough riding, or whatever they call it! He’s
the complete bouncing bounder. Business may be busi¬
ness, but give me a gentleman to deal with in it, every
time. Friend of mine, Major Trape—we were at Worrell
together—met the chap at my house, just after he came
and I asked him to dinner, the first and the last time,
and Trape summed him up after half an hour, and
several times since he’s said to me that he wouldn’t have
a chap like that working with him, sharing the same
office, not if he brought a quarter of a million pounds'
worth of business in his pocket. He’s getting worse, too.
Ouf!”

“Well, Mr. Dersingham, you’ve got to meet all kinds
in business, haven’t you?” said Mr. Smeeth, astonished
at this outburst.

“Looks like it,” replied Mr. Dersingham bitterly. He

ANGEL PAVEMENT

480

remained silent for a minute, and his face gradually
cleared. “Still, there’s no doubt we’re doing the busi¬
ness. Golspie’s total—and I don’t suppose it’s far out,
even though it is rough-surprised me, and of course
he’s drawn a fair amount of commission, on the actual
deliveries here, already, hasn’t he?”

“I suppose this new arrangement’s all right,” said Mr.
Smeeth dubiously.

“If you mean it’s a damned nuisance, I agree with
you, Smeeth. It’s that all right. Look what we’ve got
to pay him, and he wants it all these next two or three
weeks—says he’s a lot of old debts to meet, though
God knows where they are. That’s what I want to talk to
you about. We’ll have to go into this pretty carefully.
I don’t know how much you expect to get in these next
two weeks, but I imagine we’ll have to ask the bank to
help us out. That’ll be all right, of course, because I
can explain to Townley there how we stand.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded. “Well, I suppose it’s all right,
sir,” he said once more, still dubiously.

“What do you mean, Smeeth?” Mr. Dersingham was
impatient.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I don’t quite know. I’m just
wondering if it’s all right.”

“Oh, don’t keep saying that,” cried Dersingham
angrily. “Of course it’s all right. I’m not a fool. It’s
a nuisance, and I wouldn’t do it if I could help it, but
it’s all right. Plenty of fellows who work on commission
have this arrangement and get their money as soon as
the order goes through.”

“1 suppose they do, Mr. Dersingham. But you’re
thinking of ordinary travellers, aren’t you, sir, chaps who
just get a very small commission, not like this?”

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 481

“No, I’m not. I’m thinking of other fellows who—
er—work in a big way,” said Mr. Dersingham, rather
vaguely.

“Suppose Mr. Golspie leaves us? I can’t help think¬
ing about that, you know, sir.”

“Why should he? My hat!—he’s doing well, isn’t
he? He’s making more out of this firm than I am, just
now. No, I know what you’re thinking, Smeeth, and I
know what you’re going to say. You mean, there’s
nothing to prevent him walking over to some other firm
in our business, if they made it worth his while. Or
another thing. He might sell out the whole agency—he’s
got a tight grip on that, y’know, Smeeth; I know that
for a fact—for this Baltic stuff to somebody else, and then
clear out.”

“That’s right, sir. I thought of both those things.”

“And so did I, Smeeth. Don’t you worry about that.
I don’t blame you for being cautious—does you credit,
and I know you’re a good safe chap—but you mustn’t
think I was born yesterday, you know. I don’t pretend
to be one of these born City men, the real old cunning
sharks—that’s not my style at all, Smeeth, and if I could
afford it, I’d be out of business to-morrow and be in some
snug little country place—but I’ve had some experience
and I’m no fool, y’know. Oh no!” he cried confidently
to Mr. Smeeth and perhaps to the listening gods. “I’ve
thought about that for some time, and this morning,
when he brought up this commission idea and wanted
to clear our account at one swoop, for that’s what it
amounts to—though he’s earned it fairly, y’know, we
must admit that—I tackled him on those points.”

“Oh, I’m glad about that, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr.
Smeeth, greatly relieved.

Q*

angel pavement

482

“Yes, and he agreed to meet me half-way. I agree to
pay this commission over to him as soon as possible, and
he’ll sign an agreement, promising not to take the agency
elsewhere and to see that we keep the agency on hert if
he decides to clear out. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?
You can’t get away from that. In fact, we stand to gain
by this new arrangement, don’t we? We’re only paying
out, a little in advance, what’s due to him, and on the
other hand, we make the business safe for ourselves. If
Golspie goes after he’s signed this agreement-and I’m
going over to my solicitors this afternoon to have it
drafted out; we’ll do it properly-then he leaves us with
the new business in our hands, and all I can say is, the
sooner he goes the better. And I’ll tell you another
thing, Smeeth. When he’s signed this agreement, he’s
going to drop some of his little blighterish tricks, that
nasty jeering tone of his, because I’m not going to put
up with it any longer. I shan’t need to, after this. By
George!” and Mr. Dersingham’s voice had a triumphant
ring now and he tried to look like a very crafty man of
affairs. “I’d never thought of that, not properly. It
didn’t occur to me that, after this, if he doesn’t like it,
he can lump it, if you see what I mean. He’ll have to
change his tune, thank God!”

“Yes, I see, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly.
“It’s funny he didn’t think of that, too, isn’t it?”

“Oh, he wants his money in his pocket. That’s what
he’s thinking about. And then he probably imagines I
like that nice cheerful manner of his, and like to be told
every day or so that if it hadn’t been for him the firm
wouldn’t be paying its way. I tell you, these loud
bounders nevei think what’s going on in other peoples
minds.”

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 483

“I shouldn't think Mr. Golspie cared very much,
certainly,” said Mr. Smeeth thoughtfully. “But I don’t
know that I quite see him in that light, though you know
him better than I do, I’ll admit that, Mr. Dersingham.
But—I don’t know—”

"If you don’t mind my saying so, Smeeth,” said Mr.
Dersingham, grinning at him, “there are times when
you’re just a bit of an old washerwoman, and I’m not
sure this isn’t one of them. No. no, don’t mind that—
I know you're a good chap, and I can honestly say I
wouldn’t like to run this show without you. Now, look
here, trill you work out that total properly, as soon as
you can, and let me know what we’re likely to get in
these next two weeks, what we’ve got in hand, and so on,
and then we’ll settle the whole thing. Right you are.”

The latter part of this speech was all so friendly that
Mr. Smeeth could not take offence at the “bit of an old
washerwoman.” He left the room feeling that he ought
to be convinced, and almost ashamed of himself because
he could not share Mr. Dersingham’s sudden burst of
confidence. The fact remained, though, that he still felt
dubious. There was something in Mr. Dersinghain's
tone of voice that made him wince. He did not like this
easy dismissal of Mr. Golspie; there was a catch m it
somewhere; and he felt that Mr. Dersingham was taking
the wrong line with Mr. Golspie. What was it that
Turgis had said, reporting the daughter? He wondered
if he ought to have mentioned that, but then quickly
dismissed the possibility. Mr. Dersingham knew what
he was doing. He talked as if he did. Indeed, he talked
too much as if he did. Mr. Smeeth, with his apprehen¬
sive mind, always felt a slight alarm when anybody was
triumphantly confident. You had to be careful.

484 ANGEL PAVEMENT

He settled down at his desk, with the various books in
front of him, to work out the exact figures. For the next
hour he was lost in them, quite happy, at home in this
familiar little world of unchanging numerals and
balancing columns, this world in which you had only
to have patience enough and everything worked out
beautifully, perfectly.

5

“And how’s Mr. Benenden?” Mr. Smeeth asked. He
had called in the shop as he returned from lunch on
Wednesday, and had found the plump niece still behind
the counter there.

She remembered him, and at once smiled at the
prospect of a little chat and then looked sad because the
subject would be her stricken uncle. After that, she
compromised neatly between the two. “He’s not as well
as he might be, thank you,” she replied. “Now they’ve
got him in there and had a good look at him, they’ve
found a lot of things wrong with him. He never would
go to a doctor himself, didn’t believe in them, he said—
you know-silly. No, it isn’t just with him being
knocked down like that, though that was bad enough,
but they examined him, you see, and now they say he’s
not in a good way at all. They may have to operate.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it? What’s wrong exactly?”

“Now I couldn’t tell you. You know what they are in
these hospitals. If they know themselves, they don’t let
on. I went to see him on Sunday, and I told him about
the shop and who’d been in and all that. You're not
Mr. Bromfield, are you?”

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 485

“No. My name’s Smeeth.”

“Mr. Smeeth. Yes, that’s right. He mentioned you
as well.”

“Did he now?” Mr. Smeeth felt all the gratification
of a person who has been singled out, no matter by
whom. “Asked if I’d been in, I suppose, eh? Well, I
wish you’d tell him how sorry I am to hear he’s laid up.
Tell him I say that Angel Pavement doesn’t seem the
same place without him. And I hope he’s stirring again
soon.”

“Yes, I will.” The plump young woman hesitated a
moment. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Smeeth, if you just
happened to have a spare half-hour this afternoon,
perhaps you might like to go and see him. It’s visiting
day up there to-day, you know\ Three to four. My
mother’s going up about half-past three, but if you could
have a look at him, just to give him a word or two and
pass the time of day, some time before then, just after
three, he’d be ever so pleased. But perhaps you’re
busy.”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Smeeth thought it over, then
looked at his watch. “I think I will, you know. It
wouldn’t take me long to slip round to Bart’s. Where
shall I find him?”

She gave him elaborate directions. He remembered
then that he had wanted to have a w’ord with Brown and
Gorstein, whose place w r as just off Old Street. He could
go round to Bart’s first, and then up to Brown and
Gorstein’s. It did not look like being a very busy after¬
noon, and he had still three-quarters of an hour in which
to clear up a few r odds and ends of jobs in the office
before he went.

At three o’clock he came out into Little Britain,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

4 'd6

beneath the innumerable blue-curtained windows of
Bart’s new building. As he crossed the road, something
huge in the sky, to the left, caught his eye and made him
stop and look that way when he reached the other pave¬
ment. It was the dome of St. Paul’s, and nevei before
had he seen it look so massive and majestic; it was
almost frightening. He had never seen the dome from
that distance and that particular angle before, and it was
as if he was seeing it for the first time. He might have
been in a strange city. For once his sense of wonder was
quickened, and after that, throughout the afternoon,
until he returned to the office, it never slept. The wide
space between the main entrance to the hospital and
Smithfield Market was filled with carts coming from the
market, a very decided smell of meat, and a narrowing
stream of people, mostly women carrying paper bags and
little bunches of flowers, who were pouring into the
hospital entrance. It was all very strange to him, for he
had not been near a hospital for years and had never
visited one of this size before. It was like walking into a
fantastic little town, a strange city within the city. He
went through an archway and found himself in a great
courtyard or quadrangle with a fountain in it. Here
there was all the bustle of a market-place, but not of any
market-place he had ever seen before. Doctors in white
coats and bare-headed students ran in and out of the
many doorways; nurses fluttered snowily across the
quadrangle; and now and then he caught a glimpse of a
patient, strapped and rigid on a stretcher, being wheeled
away to God knows where. One passed him close, and
he saw a face cut out of yellow bone and staring un¬
fathomable eyes. It was terrifying. The whole place,
this little town if white uniforms and mysterious silent

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED i ?7

traffic within the roaring city, terrified him. He could
have sworn that the little pain somewhere inside began
tick-ticking again; and for a moment or two it seemed to
him astonishing that he should still be one of the uneasy
invaders swarming in here, one of the workers, eaters,
drinkers, smokers, pleasure lovers, movers about, from
outside. Any day now, he felt, he would be on one of
those stretchers.

Somehow it had never occurred to him that he would
see Benenden actually in bed. He had vaguely imagined
a hospital and had imagined Benenden in it, but he had
really thought of him as being still behind a counter, the
familiar half-length figure, beginning about the second
button of the waistcoat and then going on to the old-
fashioned high collar and stiff front (with no tie), the
straggling sandy-grey beard and the thick glasses. In
all the time he had known him, Mr. Smeeth had never
once seen Benenden away from his counter; and for all
he knew to the contrary, Benenden might have had no
legs at all. Now, as he approached the white-enamelled
iron bed, he saw less of Benenden than ever, but what he
did see gave him a shock. It was not that Benenden
looked very ill (for that matter, he had never looked very
well), but simply that he looked quite different. Mr.
Smeeth wanted to laugh. That head of Benenden’s above
the sheet looked idiotic. It was as if Benenden had taken
to wild joking.

“Hello, Mr. Benenden. Your niece in the shop
suggested I might call and see you. How are you feeling
now?”

The enormous eyes behind the glasses had slowly
swivelled round, and now there was a slow faint creasing
of the face that did duty for a smile. “Very pleased tp

ANGEL PAVEMENT

4 bS

see you, Mr. Smeeth. Very good of you to call.” This
came in tiny high explosions of sound, as if Benenden’s
ordinary tones had been raised an octave or two and
only allowed to emerge in separate little puffs.

Mr. Smeeth could see that he really was ill. Every
movement of the face and his speech were so slow, as if
they had to be thought out first. And though he had
been away from his shop such a little time, he gave the
impression that he had been away for years and years,
had gone round and round the world, had even changed
his nationality. He did not belong any more to the
workers and bustlers and movers about. He was now a
citizen of this inner city.

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Smeeth, wanting to be cheerful
and hearty, but not outrageously so, “not a bit. I’m
only too glad. I’ve missed you at the shop. Quite a
shock to hear what had happened to you. How are you
feeling then?”

“Not good, Mr. Smeeth. No, not good. Baddish.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Benenden. I suppose
that accident of yours was a shock to the system, eh?”

“That was nothing, that wasn’t,” replied Benenden,
speaking in a slow, oracular fashion. “They say there’s
all sorts o’ things wrong with me. Heart bad. Kidneys
bad. Inside all wrong. They don’t tell me much.
When they do, they think they’re teaching me some¬
thing.” The eyes behind the thick glasses seemed to
gleam with pride. “They’re not teaching me anything.
I could have told ’em that, Mr. Smeeth. I could have
told ’em that-yes, and a bit more-a long time since.
Eve known all about it for years, years and years.”

“You don’t say so!” Mr. Smeeth looked concerned.

‘ Yes, I’ve known it for years. They can’t tell me any-

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 480

thing about that heart of mine. It’s rotten. There’s
many and many a man—and I’ve known some of ’em—
who’s dropped in the street with a heart not so bad as
mine. Been missing the beat for years, missing it all
over the place. Same with the kidneys. They're rotten,
too. But, mind you, Mr. Smeeth, it’s not all the kidneys.
There’s the liver to be taken into consideration. They’re
overlooking that, so far they are, but I’m just waiting
for ’em to come round to my opinion. I’m not saying
anything. I’m just letting ’em find out a few things
for themselves. One of these days, that young doctor’s
going to notice my liver and then he’s going to have
another surprise. And that isn’t all, either.” Here the
astonishing image, after a little effort, produced some¬
thing like a chuckle. T. Benenden was exiled from his
shop and his financial columns and his chats with
customers, but now he had discovered in his ailments
and dubious organs a new and absorbing interest, and,
stretched out there, he saw himself as a romantic and
exciting figure. Within sight of death, he was beginning
life all over again.

Mr. Smeeth caught a fleeting glimpse of this fact, but
he was in no mood to appreciate it. The spectacle of
Benenden, suddenly transformed from a familiar Angel
Pavement character, and comic at that, to this infirm
shadow of himself, filled him with dismay and fore¬
boding. Try as he might, he could not help believing
that he would never see T. Benenden bejiind that
counter again. As he listened—for Benenden did most of
the talking, slowly boasting of the severity and compli¬
cation of his ailments—Mr. Smeeth told himself that
never again would the tobacconist bring out the canister
of Benenden’s Own Mixture for him.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

45 °

Yet there was no real evidence for this. “How is
he?” he asked the nurse who had first shown him the
bed.

“Who? Seventy-five? Oh, getting along all right,”
she replied briskly. ‘We’re operating at the end of this
week or early next week. He’ll be all right.”

She sounded confident enough, but Mr. Smeeth did
not know whether to believe her or not. As he left the
hospital, a clammy air.of dissolution and mortality clung
to him. Barbican and Golden Lane, through which he
passed on his way to Old Street and Brown and
Gorstein’s, spoke to him only of decay. It was a curious
afternoon, belonging to one of those days that are in
the very dead heart of winter. The air was chilled and
leaden. The sky above the City was a low ceiling of
tarnished brass. All the usual noises were there, and
the trams and carts that went along Old Street made as
much din as ever, yet it seemed as if every sound was
besieged by a tremendous thick silence. Cold as it was,
it was not an afternoon that made a man want to move
sharply, to hurry about his business; there was some¬
thing about it, something slowed down and muffled in
the heavy air, the brooding yellowish sky, the stone
buildings that seemed to be retreating into their native
rock again, that impelled a man to linger and stare and
lose himself in shadowy thought.

Mr. Smeeth found himself doing this, after he had left
Brown and Gorstein’s, and had turned down Bunhill
Row on his way back to the office. He halted opposite
that large building boldly labelled The Star Works, and
wondered what was made there and whether it had any¬
thing starry about it. Then he turned round, idly, and
stared through the iron railings at the old graves there.

MR. SMEETH IS WORRIED 491

He had been this way before, many a time, in fact, but
he never remembered noticing before that the earth of
the burying-ground was high above the street. The
railings were fastened into a wall between two or three
feet high, and the ground of the cemetery was as high
as the top of this little wall. There was something very
mournful about the sooty soil, through which only a few
miserable blades of grass found their way. It was very
untidy. There were bits of paper there, broken twigs,
rope ends, squashed cigarettes, dried orange peel, and a
battered tin that apparently had once contained Palm
Chocolate Nougat. This dingy litter at the foot of the
grave-stones made him feel sad. It was as if the paper
and cigarette ends and the empty tin, there in the old
cemetery, only marked in their shabby fashion the pass¬
ing of a later life, as if the twentieth century was burying
itself in there too, and not even doing it decently. He
moved a step or two, then stopped near the open space,
where there is a public path across the burying-ground.
He stared at the mouldering headstones. Many of them
were curiously bright, as if their stone were faintly
luminous in the gathering darkness, but it was hard to
decipher their lettering. One of them, which attracted
his attention because it was not upright in the ground
but leaned over at a very decided angle, he found he
could read: In Memory of Mr. John Willm. Hill, who
died May 26th, 1790, in the eighteenth year of his age.
That had been a poor look-out for somebody.

“ ’Aving a look at the good old graves, mister?” said a
voice. It belonged to an elderly and shabby idler, one
of those dreamy and dilapidated men who seem to haunt
all such places in London, and who will offer to guide
you, if you are obviously a stranger and well to do, but

492

ANGEL PAVEMENT

are quite prepared to pour out information for nothing
to a fellow-citizen.

“Yes, just having a look,” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Ar, there’s some pretty work ’ere, if yer know where
to look for it, mister. I know the Fields well, I do. Some
big men’s buried ’ere. An’ I’ll tell yer one o’ em. Daniel
Defow’s buried in ’ere, boy, and I could take yer straight
to the plice. Yers, the grite Daniel Defow.”

“Is that so? Now, let me see, who was he exactly?”

“Oo was ’e? Daniel Defow! Yer know Rawbinson
Crusoe, doncher? Rawbinson Crusoe on the island and
Man Friday an’ all that? Thet’s ’im. Defow—’e wrote
that. Cor!—think ’e did! Known all over the world,
that piece, all over the wide world. Well, ’e's in ’ere,
Daniel Defow, and I could take yer straight to the plice.
Yers, that’s right. Monument, too-ee-rected by the
boys and girls of England to Daniel Defow ’cos ’e wrote
Rawbinson Crusoe-in ’ere. I tell yer, boy, there’s some
big men in there-what’s left of ’em.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded and continued to stare idly
through the railings of Bunhill Fields, where the old
nonconformists are buried in mouldering eighteenth
century elegance, to which they had at least conformed
in death if not in life; and where, among the divines
and elders, not only Defoe, but also Bunyan and Blake,
the two God-haunted men, lie in the sooty earth, while
their dreams and ecstasies still light the world. As Mr.
Smeeth stared, something floated down, touched the
crumbled corner of the nearest headstone, and perished
there. A moment later, on the curved top of the little
wall beside him was a fading white crystal He looked
up and saw against the brassy sky a number of moving
dark spots. He looked down and saw the white flakes

MR. S M E E T H IS WORRIED 4Q3

floating towards the black pavement. In all his life he
had never been so surprised by the appearance of snow,
and for one absurd moment he found himself wonder¬
ing who had made it and who was responsible for
tumbling it into die City. He hurried away now, and as
he went the snow came faster and shook down larger
and larger flakes upon the town. Before he had reached
Angel Pavement, not only had it whitened every cranny,
but it had stolen away, behind its soft curtains, half the
noises of the City, which only roared and hooted now
through the white magic as if in an uneasy dream. It
was so thick that Mr. Smeeth was no longer one of ten
thousand hurrying little figures, but a man alone with
the whirling flakes. The snow was storming the City
and all London. In Twigg and Dersingham’s, they had
turned on the lights, but they could still see a queer
dim scurrying through the windows. Mrs. Smeeth, in
her little dining-room up at Stoke Newington, watched
it with delight and remembered her childhood, when
they had cried, “Snow, snow faster, White alabaster.”
Mrs. Dersingham, who had been shopping in Kensing¬
ton High Street, had to shelter from it in a doorway,
and was wondering if it had caught the children. The
Pearsons, secure in their warm maisonette in Barkfield
Gardens, stood at the window for a quarter of an hour,
calling one another’s attention to the size of the flakes,
for there had never been anything like this in Singapore.
Miss Verever, who had missed her usual visit to the
Italian Riviera, wrote another angry little note to her
solicitor, because it was he who had insisted upon her
staying in London. Lena Golspie, in Maida Vale,
watched it for a minute or two, then switched on one
of the big shaded lights and curled among the cushions,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

494

with a magazine, voluptuously, like a sleek blonde cat,
Mr, Pelumpton was just prevented in time from mafe
a bid of twelve and six for a marble dock (out of order),
and stayed at home, in Mrs. Pelumpton’s way, Benen-
den, having dozed off, never knew it was there. For an
hour it was unceasing, and all the open spaces on the
hills, from Hampstead Heath on one side to Wimble¬
don Common on the other, were thickly carpeted, and
everything in the City, except the busier roadways mi
the gutters, was magically muled and whitened and
plumed with winter, just as if it had been 'some old town
inatairly-tale.

Chapter Ten

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

I

T HE outward changes in Turgis, already noticed
by Miss Matfield and Smeeth, were only tin)
scattered hints and clues, and by no means in
proportion to the changes within, for during these last
seven weeks, ever since that night when Lena Golspie
had failed to keep her appointment with him,his life had
been like a bad dream. There are some dreams, tremb¬
ling on the edge of nightmare, in which the dreamer
goes rushing frantically through dismal reeling phantas¬
magoria of familiar scenes and places trying to find a lost
somebody or something. This had been Turgis’s real
life. He had got up as usual, bolted his breakfast and
exchanged a word or two with the Pelumptons, hurried
down to the Tube, climbed into the City, sent and re
ceived advice notes, telephoned to this firm and that, fed
variously in teashops and dining-rooms, looked at news¬
papers, even gone to the pictures, all as usual; but these
customary activities had merely been a dream within a
dream, a shadowy routine of existence. His real life had
been this pursuit of Lena, and so far it had had all the
urgency and dark bewilderment of a bad dream.

He had been able to call again at the flat before her
father had returned, but she had only spent half an hour
with him and had been vague and shifty in her excuses.

495

ANGEL PAVEMENT

49 6

He had flung away his resentment, had made the most
abject apologies and at last had made her promise to
meet him again. She had kept him waiting twenty
minutes on this occasion, and when she did come, she
only turned the evening into a misery. She had been
cold, had criticised his appearance, his manners, and
had made him jealous. When he had tried to kiss her,
she had laughed at him and evaded him. Then hei
father had returned, Christmas came, and the two of
them had gone to Paris, leaving Turgis to imagine, with
a vividness and force that brought a curious mingling
of pain and pleasure, a host of scenes in which Lena
went smiling in the arms of rich and handsome French¬
men and Americans. But at least he could not see her,
and so he was free for a few days to make what he could
of life by himself. He made nothing of it. He could not
forget her for a single minute. London was a jumble of
silly meaningless faces. Before he had met her he had
spent most of his leisure looking for adventures with
girls and hardly ever finding them, but now, of course,
they were offered at every turn, thrust on him, and they
had no interest at all. He tried once—a girl outside one
of the smaller picture houses had smiled at him and he
had taken her in—but it was merely dull and savourless,
like trying to eat sawdust. After that, he never bothered,
living entirely in his thought of Lena and in the memory
of those two first rapturous nights. He could not believe
—how should he?—that those two nights did not mean
as much, or nearly as much, to her as they meant to
him, and so he was ready, was eager, to see in everything
she had done since, merely so many mysterious feminine
moods, a queenly wilfulness and waywardness that

would gradually be consumed in the mounting fires of
l

THE LAST ARABIAN’ NIGHT 497

passion. He knew that this was what happened with
these wonderful creatures: he had seen it happen many
a time on the pictures.

At first, he had realised, with wonder and humility,
that it was all miraculous, that he was nobody in
particular with nothing very much to offer. But she
herself had changed that. She had kissed him into being
somebody, and now he had a great deal to offer, his love,
his life. Very soon, being a born lover and romantic, it
seemed to him that no girl could want more than that.
Living over and over again as he did that hour or so of
passionate embraces and kisses, he could look back on
what appeared to him a long intimacy with her, far re¬
moved from any casual encounter (for he knew all about
them, and this was quite different), so that he felt he had
a claim, a right, and that when she avoided him or in
any way challenged that claim, she was trying to escape
from the very condition of life itself. Thus, if it was not
wilfulness and waywardness, then it was something
abominably wicked stirring in her to be regarded as a
bigoted and militant priest would regard a heresy. None
of this, of course, moved on the surface of his mind, but
it coiled and uncoiled below that surface and obscurely
determined what did eventually move there or what at
last came bursting through, exploding beyond thought,
into action.

When the Golspies came back, after Christmas, it took
two imploring letters and a final telephone call (he rang
up from the nearest call-box to the office during a time
when Mr. Golspie was safely away from the flat) to
induce her to agree to another meeting, and even then,
after all the crescendo of excitement, she never turned
up. He was left in a hot and salted misery of shame

ANGEL PAVEMENT

498

and resentment, but he could no more turn his mind
away from her than he could walk about with his eyes
closed. And now all London and every familiar way of
life were like the flickering background of a film, a film
in which he pursued and she evaded him. He could
think of nothing, nobody, but Lena.

The sleep that would not come to him at night
hovered perilously near him during the morning at the
office, when, heavy, drowsy, brooding, he would lean
forward, chin in hand, one elbow on the desk, and leave
his work untouched until his attention was called to it.
He spoke little, and hardly let his dull gaze rest for a
moment on one of the others there. They told one
another that he seemed stupid, and stupid he was too, in
everything that did not concern Lena. In what did con¬
cern her, he developed a wonderful acuteness and fore¬
sight. Thus, for example, any telephone call from the
private office could be overheard at the receiver in the
general office, if the little switch-board was rightly
manipulated; and it often happened that the Golspies
talked over the telephone to one another, usually with
reference to what one or other of them proposed doing
during the evening; and Turgis became expert at catch¬
ing these talks while pretending to be at the receiver
waiting for some number to be given him. He was able,
too, to work on the least hint that might be dropped in
Mr. Golspie’s casual talk. Then he would wait hours,
even on cold, sleety nights in the neighbourhood of 4A,
Carrington Villas; sometimes in time to see her come
out, perhaps with a young man, perhaps with her father
and one of his friends, and then to stalk her down the
road to the bus or the taxi rank; sometimes late enough
to see her returning home, to hear her laughter suddenly

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 499

break the silence. Twice he had watched her, with an
escort, go into a large expensive restaurant, where he
could not poss’bly follow her. Once he had been able
to get to the same theatre, and had sat in the corner of
the gallery, looking down at her in the stalls. He had
often jeered at young Stanley and his “shaddering,” but
now, inspired by his jealous misery, he suddenly turned
himself into a master shadower. Icy winds pierced and
smote him; his feet ached in the slush; his hands grew
numb and his eyes watered; he caught colds that ought
to have sent him to bed, but he never heeded them and
somehow they disappeared; and all this discomfort
hardly troubled him at the time, for he carried a fire
inside him, a burning excitement. It was only after¬
wards, when he trailed back to Nathaniel Street, sat in
his little room pulling off his wet boots, turned and
tossed and coughed in his bed hour after hour, dragged
himself out in the leaden mornings, that he suffered in
the body.

His mind, however, lived as it had never lived before,
knowing exquisite agonies, finding pleasure and pain
inextricably confused in these hours of waiting and
shadowing. Sometimes when he was returning to his
lodgings, cold, tired out, hopeless, or rose to meet
another heavy blank morning, he would tell himself that
he had done with it all, and then he might creep through
a day or two trying to live a life of his own, but every¬
thing would seem then so dull, so savourless, that he
hurried back to Carrington Villas, to the waiting and
dodging and hurrying round corners. He discovered,
too, that when he knew where Lena was, what she was
actually doing, his jealous feelings were less strong and
sharply-barbed than when he did not know where she

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5°°

was and whom she was with: it was bad to realise that
for the next two or three hours she would be dancing
with that tall fellow who sometimes brought a car, but it
was much worse to be miles away from her and to know
nothing. When he was pursuing her, though only in this
strange, shadowy fashion, Lena and he alone were real,
the only real human beings in a City that had been
turned, with all its winter magnificence of lighted lamps
and shop windows, golden buses, glittering night signs,
and shining wet pavements, into an illuminated jungle.
When he tried to put her out of his mind, however, there
was nothing in the whole city that would let him forget.
It had been tantalising, maddening enough before he
had met Lena, when he had gone wandering about the
streets in an amorous hunger, but now it was a hundred
times worse. Everything he saw spoke to him of women
and love. The shops he passed were brilliant with hats
and clothes that Lena might wear; they showed him her
stockings and underclothes; they were piled high with
her entrancing little shoes; they invited him to look at
her powder-bowls, her lipstick, her scent bottles; there
was nothing she wore, nothing she touched, they did not
thrust under their blazing electric lights. The theatres
and picture houses shouted to him their knowledge of
girls and love. The hoardings were covered with illustra¬
tions, nine feet high, of happy romances'. The very
newspapers, under cover of a pretended interest in Palm
Beach or feminine athletics, gave him day by day photo¬
graphs of nearly naked girls with figures like Lena’s.
And in and out of the buses, tube trains, theatres, dance-
halls, restaurants, teashops, public-houses, taxis, villas,
flats, went boys and their sweethearts, girls and their
lovers, men and their wives, smiling at one another,

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 501

laughing together, holding arms, clasping hands, kiss¬
ing. Slinking through this Venusberg, like a shabby
young wolf, he could not forget. It never gave him a
chance. He had never given himself a chance. He had
nothing to put in the way, no ambition, no interests, no
friends; so far he had asked for little, merely food,
shelter, and trifling amusement, except love. In his heart
of hearts he did not want to forget.

That first phase of unusual smartness, brushed hair,
clean collars, creased trousers, had passed; he could not
bother with that any more; if Lena wanted him to be
smart again, well and good, she could tell him so; but
meanwhile, he was his old shabby self, indeed shabbier
than ever. Mr. Dersingham, Mr. Smeeth, Miss Matfield
were beginning to give him some queer glances at the
office. Well, they could look; so long as he kept the job
at all (and that was certainly important), it did not
matter to him; he was careless of all that. He was care¬
less of most things these days. His finances, always diffi¬
cult, had now drifted into a very bad state, and he owed
Mrs. Pelumpton a pound or two, and even then he had
to cut his ordinary expenses down to the lowest level,
which meant that he had to feed cheaply and scantily.
That did not matter either, for only now and then did
he feel really hungry. Mr. Pelumpton, the old fool, had
told him several times he ought to see a doctor, and even
Mrs. Pelumpton was beginning to ask him if he hadn’t
a pain anywhere, he looked “that bad,” she said. He
told her that he hadn’t a pain, though this was not true,
for very often now he had a sort of pain, not easy to
describe, but roughly amounting to a tender hollowness
in his head. He tried one or two things at the chemist’s,
just to make him sleep, for the nights following these

502 ANGEL PAVEMENT

vigils were the worst, when he turned and tossed and his
eyes burned and the hollow place in his head enlarged
itself; but these things did not do him much good, and
what sleep he got, he paid for in the morning, when he
felt heavy and shivery, so that the scantiest wash and
shave was a hard drudgery. His work in the office was
that too, though after Mr. Smeeth had taken him into
the “White Horse,” he tried to appear a bit more
energetic, for he knew very well that if he lost his job,
he was in a hopeless situation. All these things, however,
were only on the dream-like fringe of life. What was
there in the centre, though this was like a dream too, a
very different dream, dark, urgent, and with a terrible
beauty, was his pursuit of Lena, the outward Lena who
was behaving so strangely to him, whom she had wel¬
comed and kissed and held so close. Even yet he believed
that she was merely teasing him, holding him off for a
little space, and that soon all would be well.

At last, after seeing her several times in one week, at
a distance and never once alone, he made a desperate
throw and spoke to her. It was a queer night, unlike any
other he had seen during the time he had haunted
Maida Vale, for during the afternoon, a Wednesday,
there had been a sudden heavy fall of snow, so sudden,
so heavy, that for once it had remained as snow and had
not changed immediately into a black slush. The roofs
and gardens and privet hedges in Carrington Villas were
still white with it; even the gates and railings here and
there were snow lined; and the night was at once curi¬
ously light and muffled. He did not pay any close atten¬
tion to these details, did not consciously observe the
brilliance of the stars, the unusually solid velvety black
of the houses, the white-blanketed spaces, the sudden

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 503

crystal glitter now and again, the crunch of the trodden
snow as the night crispened; but nevertheless they stole
into his consciousness and worked obscurely there. He
thought of his boyhood, which he had not left behind
him long, though usually it seemed a hundred years
away, a faded muddle. Now it returned to him vividly,
evoked by the unfamiliar sight of the snow. He had not
had a very happy boyhood, but in this hour, when it
came back purged of its shame and distresses, it seemed
magical and the thought of it warmed and melted him,
so that something suspicious, something grudging, some¬
thing in his mind that matched a certain furtive look
he had, shook itself free and then vanished. It left him
feeling confident, eager, a young man in a world full of
friends.

Then he saw her coming up the street, the tall fellow
by her side. He was not sure at first, but then he heard
her voice. He hurried forward to meet them before they
could turn in the entrance to 4A, and he contrived it
so easily that he was able to slow up and dien come face
to face with them before they had reached the gate. He
stopped, raised his hat, and cried: “Good evening.” He
did not know whether to add “Miss Golspie” or “Lena,”
had no time to decide, but felt that something must
be added, so ended with a mumble that might have been
anything. His heart knocked painfully. She looked
lovelier than ever in the mysterious snowy half-light.

The tall young man stopped at once, raising his hat,
too, and smiling.

“Oh!” Lena’s soft little cry was charged with mean¬
ing; there was dismay, irritation, disgust in it. She hesi¬
tated a moment, threw him a quick frowning glance, then
said, coldly: “Oh-good evening,” and at once moved

ANGEL PAVEMENT.

5°4

away, leaving the tall young man staring after her for
a second or two. Then he gave Turgis a nod and hurried
away.

Turgis saw them turn in at the gate. He heard the
young man’s short gruff laugh and then an exclamation
of some sort followed by a little trill from Lena. The
door closed behind them, and it might have been banged
to in his face. For several minutes he never moved.
Then he slowly walked past the house, and, looking up,
saw the light in the window above, in that room where
she had given him supper and danced with him and
kissed him. For a moment, he thought wildly of march¬
ing up there, striding in and demanding to know this
and that; but he knew there was no sense in that, for
not only was the tall young man there, but also Mr.
Golspie himself might be there. He crossed the road,
turned to look at the lighted window again, stared at it
until at last it was nothing but a vague crimson blur,
then walked away, his shoulders humped in misery.

“Yersh,” said Mr. Pelumpton, as he shuffled into the
conjugal bedroom, three-quarters of an hour later, “e’sh
jusht come in, proper blue look on ’im, too. No, I didn’t
arshk ’im where ’e’d been. I like ter get a shivil arnsher
when I arshksh a man a shivil queshen, I do. ‘Leave
you alone, boy,’ I shaysh to myself. ‘You go your way
an’ I go mine. Yersh.’ What you shay, Mother?”

“I say it’s a pity, too,” replied Mrs. Pelumpton, above
the bed-clothes. ‘‘Worries me, it does, to see a quiet
young feller goin’ the wrong way like that. ’E’s got a
nasty broodin’ look. And if you want my opinion, ’e’s
• got ’imself into trouble with some girl—one of these
flappers, as they call ’em. My words, I’d give ’em flapper
if I’d anything to do with ’em!”

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 505

“Oh, I dare shay, I dare shay,” said Mr. Pelumpton,
with philosophic melancholy. "If it’sh bother yer want,
that’sh where to find it, that’sh my ecshperiensh. Oo, I
got a narshty pain in my back to-night. It'sh the cold,
yer know.”

2

“Is that Mr. Levy?” Turgis cried down the telephone.
“Yes, this is Twigg and Dersingham’s. It’s about the
next delivery—you know, you were asking. Well, I’m
sorry, but we can’t manage it for Tuesday. No, they say
they can’t do it. I’ve been on to them. But they’ll
manage it for Thursday—yes, the whole lot. Yes,
Thursday, certain, Mr. Levy—you can depend on that.
Yes, I’ll advise you. All right.”

He put down the receiver and returned to his desk.
He was shaking a little. There had been something
queer about his voice when he had been speaking to
Levy. As he left the telephone, he had noticed both Miss
Matfield and little Poppy Sellers glancing curiously at
him. Let them look, silly fools, and then mind their
own business! He had come to a sudden decision, and
the very thought of it made him shake with excitement,
though that was not very difficult, because he was not
feeling at all well. That great hollow inside his head
was filled now with jagging hot wires; his bones ached
vaguely; his hands shook a little as he wrote; and his
face kept twitching, as if it disliked the feel of the heavy
burning eyes. Yet he did not feel the least desire to go
to bed or to see a doctor; he did not feel ill in the
ordinary way at all; it was only nerves, he concluded,

E

ANGEL PAVEMENT

506

just imagination. He had only to sleep better and eat
more and all would be well.

His decision was to see Lena and have it out with
her that very night, if by chance he could find her in the
flat. He knew that her father would not be there, be¬
cause when he had gone to the telephone to ring up
Levy, Mr. Golspie had put a call through from the
private office, and it had been to book a table for two
at a restaurant. On this the cunning shadower in Turgis
pounced at once. Mr. Golspie sometimes took his
daughter out for the evening, but Turgis was certain
that he would not trouble to book a table for her. He
had not sounded like a man who was spending the
evening with his daughter. If Lena was out, then she
was out, and Turgis would have to wait, but he knew
she did not go out every night and this was a chance
not to be missed. At eight o’clock or just after, when
Mr. Golspie was well out of the way, sitting down in
his West End restaurant, he would go to the flat and,
if Lena was there, he would see her and talk to her in
that room of theirs again. He would see her, whatever
happened. Whatever happens, whatever happens-z
voice inside him said it over and over again as the Friday
afternoon, fussy and irritable because of its week-end
rush of things-that-must-be-settled-at-once, dragged on,
with the last dripping traces of snow fading outside the
window

“Finished that copying, Miss Sellers?” said Mr.
Smeeth, as he began to put away his books. “That’s
the way. We’ll have that new boy here on Monday, and
then you’ll have it easier, eh? You cleared up, Turgis?
Did you have a word with Ockley and Sons—y’know, I
mentioned it to you this morning?”

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 507

“Yes, I did, Mr. Smeeth. It's all right.”

“You’re through then, eh?"

“All I can do to-night, Mr. Smeeth. One or two things
I’ve had to leave till to-morrow morning—couldn’t help
it.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Smeeth, taking out his pipe and
pouch. “Well, I don’t think there’ll be much fear of
you not turning up here to-morrow morning, what do
you say? Pay day, eh, Turgis? That’s one of the days
we don’t like to miss.”

Turgis smiled faintly. “No, I’ll be sure not to miss
that, Mr. Smeeth. You can count on me for that.”

“It’s as well we can count on somebody for something
these days,” Mr. Smeeth remarked jocularly, “Well, you
can get away now, Turgis—you, too, Miss Matfield, of
course—and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“That’s right,” said Turgis. But as he was taking
down his hat and coat, he said to himself, for no par¬
ticular reason: “How does he know he’ll see me in the
morning? He doesn’t want to be so jolly sure about it.”
Then as he was putting his overcoat on, he looked across
at Smeeth, who was now lighting his pipe, and said to
himself: “Old Smeethy there, with his eyeglasses and his
pipe and his nice clean collar every day and his nice
home with his wife and kids and his walk round to the
bank with his seven or eight quid a week, he’s all right
and he deserves it, for all his fussing about, ’cos he’s
not a bad old stick. But he’s a bit of a dreary devil for
all that, and he thinks everything’s settled the way it
is with him, and he knows no more really about what's
going on than an old charwoman. Still, if I got on a bit
and Lena married me and we’d a nice little home the
same as his, I’d like to ask him in sometimes with his

go8 ANGEL PAVEMENT

wife and we’d have a smoke and a drink.”

And Mr. Smeeth, looking up from his pipe and catch¬
ing Turgis’s eye, said to himself: “That’s lad’s looking
bad, my words he is, worse than ever to-day. He ought
to knock off for a day or two, even if we are short-
handed. Doesn’t look after himself, that’s the trouble.
And nobody to look after him—in lodgings. Bit miser¬
able that. But then he’s no responsibilities, no worries,
only himself to provide for, and he could have a good
life—go to concerts and all that—if he only set about
it properly. Probably doesn’t know how to look after
himself. I ought to ask him up to tea or supper one of
these week-ends—be a nice change for him—bit of home
life. Yes, I’ll do that when we’re 4 bit more settled and
Edie’s in a good temper.”

Thus, with these thoughts buzzing in their heads, they
looked at one another, almost staring as people stare
at a familiar word that has suddenly grown strange.
Then, with a sober nod across the office, they turned
away, Turgis to the door and Smeeth to his desk.

3

It was fine that night, and in the slight stir of wind tnere
was a faint warmth that hurried the black slush into
the gutters. Once out of the main road, where the bright
lamps and the passing cars and buses were crazily
mirrored in the wet stone, Turgis turned into a Maida
Vale that was quite unlike the one he had seen two
nights before, when the snow lay thick on the ground.
Now it was close, dark and dripping. Carrington
Villas was one great gloomy drip-drip and it smelt

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 5O9

slightly of wet grass. Turgis, shivering a little, not with
cold, but from excitement, never gave these things a
thought, but nevertheless he noticed them. He noticed
everything that night. The least thing, a shadow
moving on a curtain, a boy’s whistle far down the road,
stood out clearly, rammed itself home. At No. 2 some¬
body was playing the piano, and he recognised the very
piece; he had heard it many a time at the pictures.

He stood outside the gate. There was a light up there.
She was in, that was certain. Someone might be with
her, but he would have to risk that. He did not care
very much now if there was somebody there, for he could
go up and say something. He waited a moment.

Then, as he waited, he was suddenly visited by an
impulse to go away, to drop it all then and there and
never to think about the girl again. He felt for a second
as if he had only to turn on his heel and walk straight
forwards until he reached the top of the street, just the
top of the street, that was all, and he was free and a
different kind of fellow, stronger and happier. It was
almost as if a voice whispered sharply in his ear:
“Come on. Have done with it. Come away, now.”
There was a cold emptiness somewhere in his stomach.
He wasn’t well. He could easily have cried. If that
light up there had suddenly vanished from the window,
he could have turned away without regret. The faint
crimson glow remained, however, and he could not leave
it now for a safe but empty world.

Once again, he passed the broken statue of the little
boy playing with two large fishes, climbed the steps be¬
tween the two peeling pillars, and carefully rang the
bell marked 4A. When nobody seemed to hear it, he
remembered what had happened before, and tried the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

510

other bell. The door was opened by the enormous
woman in the apron.

“Do you know if Miss Golspie’s in, please?”

“Oh, I’m wearing me feet out for them people!” cried
the woman. “Up and down, and every time our own
bell rings, it’s for them. Miss Golspie, is it? I believe
she’s in too, though it’s no business of mine whether
she’s in or out or gone to the devil, young man. Would
she be expecting you coming at all?”

“No, she isn’t. Do you know if she’s by herself—I
mean, is there anybody else there?”

“I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll give her a shout. Just come
inside and close the door gently behind you, so there’s
no draught in the place, and then I’ll give her a shout.”
And the woman went down the hall, climbed a few
stairs, and gave a shout that soon opened the door above.
“Miss Golspie, there’s a young man here, known to you
—I’ve seen him before meself—he wants to know if
you’re alone up there and can he come up to see you.”

“Yes, I’m all on my lonesome to-night,” Turgis heard
Lena cry. “Tell him to come up, please, and I won’t be
a minute.” She sounded as if she was pleased. It was
wonderful to hear her like that.

“You’ve to go up and then when you get there, she
says she won’t keep you a minute, meaning you’ll wait
while she tidies herself and makes herself pretty.”

“Thanks very much,” said Turgis fervently, and up
he went. The door was open and he walked forward,
straight into the big sitting-room, which he had re¬
visited so many times in his imagination these last few
weeks that it was quite strange to see waiting quietly
there for him, the very same room, with the very same
piles of bright cushions, the same deep sofa thing, the

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT §11

same gramophone records, books, magazines, bottles,
fancy boxes, fruit, and glasses all over the place, the
same two big shaded lamps. He shook to see it there,
solid, real. He did not sit down, but stood in the middle
of the room, holding his hat, glancing quickly, nervously,
at this thing and that.

“Hel -lo!” cried Lena gaily in the doorway. Then tht
sound was cut short. He turned to lace her.

“Oh!” she cried, staring at him. "it's you.” And
her face fell, her voice dropped.

He tried to say something.

“Do you want to see my father about something?”
she demanded.

“No, I don’t. I want to see you-Lena.”

“What do you want to see me about?”

“Oh!-you know, Lena. Everything.

She came forward a little now. “1 don’t know. My
father will be coming back soon—any minute.”

“He won’t,” he told her sullenly.

“How do you know he won’t? You don’t know any¬
thing about it!”

“I do. I know where he is, and I know he won’t be
back for some time.”

“Yes, you would! That’s why you’re here. You’ve
been spying and following me about, haven’t you?
Making me look a fool! You look a fool too, let me tell

you that, a nasty fool.”

“Well, what if I have? I wanted to see you.”

“Well, I didn’t want to see you,” she cried, furious
now. “And you ought to have known I didn’t. You
can’t take a hint. I told you as plainly as I could 1 didn't
want to see you any more.”

“Lena, why don’t you?”

ANGEL PAVEMENT

512

"Because I don’t, and that’s why. If I don’t want to
see you, why don’t you go away and stop away? I don’t
want you hanging about me and coming slinking in
here, looking like nothing on earth. Just because I felt
sorry for you once and hadn’t anything much to do and
was nice to you, do you think I’ve got to spend all my
time trailing round to the pictures with you?”

“But, Lena, listen—”

“I tell you, I won’t listen. I don’t want to hear. If
you only saw yourself! Go away. I won’t listen. I didn’t
want to be rude to you, but you’re so stupid and you
just make me look silly too.”

“Lena, please, please, just listen a minute—”

“Oh, go away, can’t you! Fool!”

“You’ll have to listen,” he screamed. He sprang for¬
ward, dropping his hat, and seized both her wrists and
held them tight. As she struggled to break loose, he
poured it all out in a wild unbroken rush of short
phrases, the whole story of his first distant adoration, his
desire and his passion, all the ecstasies and miseries of
his love. As he came to the end, his grasp suddenly
slackened and she was able to free her wrists. She had
not listened to him. She was in a fury.

“You damned rotten rotten—” she gasped, fighting
for breath. Then she flared up into a shriek: “Keep your
filthy hands off me,” and she flung her own hands into
his face, pushing him away.

Things were snapping inside him now like taut fiddle-
strings. “All right, I’ll kiss you for that,” he cried, and
caught tiold of her before she could get away. He was
not a muscular youth, but he was strong enough now.
He pressed her body to his and forced a few brief kisses
upon her before she had a chance to do anything but

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGH'i 513

push and wriggle. The feel of her body, the soft cheek
burning beneath his lips, the scent of her hair, touched a
spring inside him; all tenderness for her vanished; his
blood leaped and sent a murderous cataract roaring in
his ears. He still held her, but hardly noticed her hands
on his face.

She gave a violent twist, partly freeing herself. “You
dirty, filthy pig!” she cried. “Let me go. I hate you.
If you touch me again, I’ll scream and scream until
somebody comes.”

He looked at her and then there came, like a flash of
lightning, the conviction that she was hateful, and some¬
thing broke, and a great blinding tide of anger swept
over him. Her scream was cut short, for his hands were
round her soft white throat, pressing and pressing it as
he shook her savagely. Her head wobbled like a silly
mechanical doll’s. Her mouth was open and her eyes
were bulging, and so she wasn’t even nice to look at any
more, but just silly and ugly, so silly and ugly that his
hands, which had an independent life of their own now
and were strong and masterful, pressed harder than ever.

A horribly rusty noise came from that open mouth.
She suddenly went limp, and, as his hands released their
grip, her eyes closed and she slipped backwards, striking
her head against the comer of the divan as she fell" and
then rolling over on to the floor, a huddle of clothes and
white flesh. She made no movement at all, not a twitch,
not a tremor. He crept forward, his eyes fixed on what
could be seen of her face, purply-white and still. The
whole figure was completely motionless. He waited a
minute, raising his eyes in a slow strained fashion until
they took in nothing but the shape and colour of a fancy
box of cigarettes on the little table bv the divan. There

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5 l i

was a gay picture of a Turkish woman on the box. He
had had some cigarettes from that box; they were very
good; they were foreign cigarettes; Turkish, of course,
but not sold in England; foreign words just above the
picture of the Turkish woman, foreign words. Very
slowly his eyes left the box and returned to the figure
on the floor. Lena. Not a movement. No, that wasn’t
Lena any more; that was a body. You couldn’t lie there
like that unless you were dead. Lena was dead.

He stopped thinking then; no more thoughts came,
not one. He picked up his hat and shambled quickly
out of the room, out of the flat, leaving the door wide
open behind him. When he reached the hall below,
somebody came out from somewhere, perhaps spoke to
him , but he took no notice. He left the house. It was
better outside, in the dark.

4

Down the straight length of Maida Vale, past the
detached villas, past the great blocks of flats that were
like illuminated fortresses, he moved at a steady pace,
never lingering, just as if he were a young man who
knew exactly where he was going and knew exactly how
long it would take him to get there. But he wasn’t going
anywhere; he was only moving on, simply leaving that
room with the bright cushions and the fancy boxes and
the quiet huddle of clothes and limbs by the end of the
deep sofa. He wasn’t quite real. He was a young man
walking in a film. Somebody spoke to him once. It
was a big man in a cap and mackintosh, and he planted
himself squarely in front of the dazed Turgis and said,

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 515

almost angrily: “Here, I say, how do I find Nugent
Terrace?” And when Turgis muttered that he didn’t
know, that he was a stranger in that district, the big man
said that he was a stranger too and that everybody he
asked was a stranger, that they were all bloody strangers.
When Turgis was walking on again, he kept repeating
that—“all bloody strangers.” He noticed things as he
went along, though they weren’t very real, only like the
things you see in the background of a film. Maida Vale
turned itself into Edgware Road, and immediately be¬
came bright and crowded, a gleaming medley of shop
windows, pubs, picture theatre entrances, hawkers’
barrows, and pale faces. There was a shop where you
could get sixpenny packets of gaspers for fivepence. A
woman was shouting at a pub door; she was drunk. A
lot of people were waiting to see the pictures, and a
fellow with a banjo was singing to them. Two China¬
men came out of a sweet shop: All These Chocolates
Our Own Make. That fried fish smelt bad. Two men
starting a row, and a woman trying to pull one of them
away. A good raincoat for 25/6. Funny what a lot of
these imitation bunches of bananas there were, and
didn’t look a bit like the real ones either. That chap
standing in the shop doorway was just like Smeeth,
might be his double. It streamed on and on, like a
coloured film, a film with heavy bumping bodies and
real eyes in it. Marble Arch, and some people waiting
for buses.

Now, quite suddenly, he felt sick and terribly tired.
There was nothing left of his body but some tiny aching
old bones, but his head was enormous and there was
more screeching and grinding and dull roaring in the
great hollow inside it than there was among the cars in

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5i6

the road. He tried to think. Had he really gone there
and done that? He had gone to that room so many times
in hi? imagination, had so many scenes there, so many
vivid encounters with Lena, that perhaps this last visit
wasn’t real either. Had he done that? His fingers,
closing round ghostly flesh, sent a sharp message to say
he had done it. Yes, he had. Then there was no chang¬
ing it at all. It was there. As if curtains had suddenly
parted and been drawn up, he saw the room again; he
was back in it; a Turkish woman on a box of cigarettes,
and then-on the floor, not a movement. Something
inside him, a little wild thing, trapped, mad, sent up a
scream. Something else muttered over and over again
that it was an accident, only an accident, a pure acci¬
dent, just an accident, all accidental, simply an accident;
and then it said that he wasn’t well, not at all well, ill
in fact, nerves and all that, yes nerves, quite ill, not
healthy, not well. The tears came into his eyes as he
thought how true this was, for lots of people had said
that he wasn’t well and he knew he wasn’t well. Then
a bus came up and everybody got on it, so he got on it
too, and sat inside. The man next to him had a big
swelling at the back of his neck, and for a moment
Turgis was sorry for him, but after that he forgot all
about him, forgot about all the other people in the bus,
forgot all about Oxford Street and Regent Street that
rolled past like a gleaming and glittering frieze. He did
not notice where the bus was going; he did not care; he
sank into a sick stupor.

“’Ere, come along,” said the conductor. “Fares,
please.”

Mechanically, vacantly, Turgis handed him twopence
and received his ticket.

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 517

Nobody else bothered about him at all. They glanced
in his direction and then looked indifferently away. Yet
in a week or two perhaps, they might all of them be talk¬
ing about him. But then he would not be Turgis any
more, Mrs. Pelumpton’s lodger and the railway and
shipping clerk at Twigg and Dersingham’s; he would be
the Maida Vale Flat Murderer; and as that, he could
set huge machines in motion, send men running here
and there, men with notebooks, men with cameras;
news editors would mention him at conferences; sub¬
editors would rack their brains for good headlines
for him; reporters would describe his little room in
Nathaniel Street and interview Mrs. Pelumpton;
columns on his “ill-fated romance” would be com¬
missioned for the Sunday papers; good money would be
paid for the smallest snapshot of him; every detail of
his past would be sent roaring through the printing
machines; men who had known him would boast of it;
special contributors would comment on his story and
his fate for twenty guineas a thousand words; scholarly
criminologists would make a note of his case for future
reference; novelists and dramatists would see if he could
be worked up into anything good; millions would talk
about him, would denounce him, would cry for his
execution, would sign petitions, or perhaps pray for his
soul; if he were set free, ten thousand women would be
ready to marry him, and any halting sentences he could
produce about himself would be handsomely paid for
and conjured into The Story of My Life, announced on
innumerable placards and hoardings: he would be
somebody at last-the Maida Vale Flat Murderer. As
yet, however, he was only a shabby, hollow-eyed youth
with a vacant look, huddled in a seat that slowly moved

ANGEL PAVEMENT

518

round Piccadilly Circus where, against the night sky,
commerce was clowning it royally in a multi-coloured
fantasy of lights. Nobody bothered about him yet; they
were, as the big man had said, all strangers.

At the corner of the Strand and Wellington Street,
the bus turned and then stopped, and there he left it
and began walking eastward. He had no destination,
no plan; his mind issued no commands to his body to
move, this way or that; his legs simply went on; while
his mind was half in a dream and, for the rest, a vague
jangle of conflicting voices. It was quieter now, less
crowded, for he was going along Fleet Street, where later,
perhaps, the machines would pound him into brisk news
just as the other machines had pulped the tall trees into
paper for such news. They were waiting, just round the
comer, down the dark alleys, these machines, ready to
pounce on some unhappy morsel of humanity. But as
yet he was still only Turgis, Mrs. Pelumpton’s, Twigg
and Dersingham’s, and now he drifted on, up Ludgate
Hill, turning his face towards the old grey ghost of St.
Paul’s, then curving in its shadow round Church Yard,
up Old Change, down Cheapside, along Milk Street and
Aldermanbury. It was better here in the City; not so
much glare and noise, not so many people; it was huge,
dark, and wettish, like a big cellar, a cave. It made his
head feel better; and at last he could think a bit, though
it was like trying to think in a nightmare. His legs were
taking him somewhere now. There was no sense in it,
but then there was no sense in anything. Oh, what had
he done, what had he done? A street lamp, set queerly
at the side of a great blank wall, threw its uncertain
light on to a short curving flight of stone steps. While
he questioned himself, his feet sought these steps and

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 510

trod them with an ease that suggested familiarity. His
hand touched the stout little iron post at the top, as it
had done many and many a time before, for the blank
wail belonged to Chase ir Cohen: Carnival Novelties,
and these were the steps that prevented Angel Pavement
from being a cul de sac.

Two little yellow lights flickered at him, like a
dubious pair of eyes, from somewhere down the little
street. He walked towards them, quite slowly now, as if
at last his mind was attempting to control his legs. The
lights were those of a car. They were the feeble head¬
lights of a taxi. And above this taxi, there was one
lighted window, on the first floor, and on the first floor
of No. 8. Somebody was in the office, Twigg and
Dersingham’s, at this time, ten o’clock. He had to tell
himself so very slowly and clearly, and he did it while
he was standing in front of the waiting taxi.

He put his head round the corner, to look in the
driver’s seat. “I say,” he began, with difficulty as if his
voice was rusty, “I say—”

“Hel-lo, hel-lo!” the driver suddenly shouted, so that
Turgis jumped back. “What the hel-lo! You give me a
start, mate. I must ha’ dropped off.”

“I say,” said Turgis, returning to look at him
earnestly, “did you bring somebody here? In there, I
mean.”

“I did,” replied the driver. “And I'm waiting for the
party to come out.”

“Who was it? I mean, what was he like?”

The driver pushed forward a wrinkled red face.
“Now I should say—that’s my business. Who d’you
think you are, young feller? Scotland Yard or what?”

“No, but you see, I happened to be passing, you see,”

£20 ANGEL PAVEMENT

he hesitated a moment, “and, well, I work up there—
where the light is—in that office, and I wondered who
it was.”

“Your place—like?”

“Yes.” Turgis gulped. He felt sick; he was tremb¬
ling; he couldn’t talk like this long. “My place, where
I work.”

“I see. Well, matter of fact, there’s two of ’em in
there, and I brought ’em here from a restaurant in Greek
Street. There’s a young lady and a stiffish gent—big
moustache. That’s who’s in there, mate. Now are you
satisfied?”

“Yes—thanks.”

“ ’Ere,” said the driver, after a pause, pushing his face
over the edge of his door and staring at Turgis, “ ’ere,
half a minute, boy, what’s the matter? You’re not cry¬
ing, are you? Got the jim-jams, boy, or what?”

But Turgis had disappeared into the dark doorway.

5

The office door was slightly open, so that a thin pencil
of light pointed across the landing. Turgis waited a
minute, staring at it from the shadow. He passed a hand
roughly over his wet face. Then, summoning all the
courage left him in the world, he blundered in, almost
flinging himself into the private office beyond.

“Now who the hell are you?” roared Mr. Golspie,
jumping up from his chair at the table. Somebody gave
a scream. It was Miss Matfield, in the corner.

“Lena,” said Turgis, choking over the name.

“Well, I’ll be damned! If it isn’t What’s-his-name—

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 52 1

Turgis.” Mr. Golspie glared at him, and advanced
ferociously. “And what the devil do you want charging
in here like this, eh? What’s the game, eh?”

“Lena. Lena.”

“Do you mean my daughter, Lena? What are you
talking about? What about her? W 7 hat the blazes has
she got to do with you?”

“I think-I’ve killed her.”

“Killed her?”

“Yes.” And Turgis stumbled to a chair and began
sobbing.

“My God! he’s mad, he’s clean mad,” cried Mr.
Golspie to Miss Matfield, who had risen from her chair
and was looking from Turgis to Mr. Golspie in startled
bewilderment. “Here, you, stop that blubbering, and try
to talk sense. What do you know about my daughter,
Lena? You’ve never even set eyes on her.’

“I have,” cried Turgis, almost indignantly. “I was
with her to-night, in your flat. I’ve been there before.

I took some money there first—” He hesitated. ^
“That’s right, he did take some money there,” said
Miss Matfield quickly. “Oh!—I believe it s true.

Mr. Golspie pounced on him at once, clapping a
heavy hand on his shoulder. “Come on, then. What
happened? Get it out, quick.

Turgis blurted out a few sentences, broken and con¬
fused, but they were quite enough.

“My God, if she is, I’ll kill you. Come on, get up,

you_you bloody little rat, you v e re going straight

into that taxi and we’re going to see, and you re coming

“But can’t you telephone?” cried Miss Matfield wildly.
'Yes, of course-no, I can’t. I knew I’d have thought

ANGEL PAVEMENT

522

of it. The rotten telephone’s out of order—been out of
order for two days. Come on, let’s get away. You turn
the lights out, Lilian; I’m going to look after this fellow.
Hurry up, for God’s sake.”

It was a long, long journey. For the first five minutes
or so, nothing was said, but after that Mr. Golspie, out
of sheer impatience, began to ask questions, and piece by
wretched piece, he dragged the whole miserable story
out of Turgis, who sat facing him, on one of the little
seats, trembling, afraid every minute that Mr. Golspie
was going to hurl himself across the tiny space at him.
His misery was so great, now that his brain was clearer,
that he felt that he would not mind being killed, but
nevertheless Mr. Golspie’s huge violence, repressed, but
apparently ready to burst out any moment, terrified him.
Miss Matfield hardly spoke a word the whole time, and
when she did it was in a very soft shaky voice. But she
stared at Turgis, and when the lights flashed in, he saw
that her face was pale. It never occurred to him to
wonder what she was doing there so late with Mr.
Golspie.

“It just shows you, doesn’t it?” said Mr. Golspie to
Miss Matfield. “If I hadn’t suddenly thought during
dinner I ought to slip back there for quarter of an hour,
to tot those figures up to show that chap in the morning,
we’d never have seen this fellow. What were you doing
there, anyhow? I don’t know that it’s much good asking
you, because you seem to me wrong in your damned
head—but what were you doing there?”

“I don’t know,” Turgis muttered. “I just went there.
I didn’t know where I was going. I suppose when I got
to the City, well, I just went to Angel Pavement-sort of
force of habit,”

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 523

“Another ten minutes and we shouldn’t have been
there, and then I shouldn’t have got back home till
twelve. What time is it now? Quarter-past ten, eh?
What time did you leave my place?”

“I don’t know really. I’m all mixed up—”

“My God!—you are,” said Mr. Golspie bitterly. “And
you’re going to be a worse mix up soon, let me tell you.”

“I think-it couldn’t have been much after eight—I
don’t know, though—might have been half-past eight.”

“Nearly two hours—och!” Mr. Golspie groaned.
“Here, this fellow’s got to drive faster than this, or
we’ll be all the damned night getting there.”

It was horrible stumbling back up that garden path
again, going through the hall and climbing the stairs
once more. It was worse inside the flat. “You go in
there and wait, you,” said Mr. Golspie, and gave him a
mighty shove that landed him in the middle of the sit¬
ting-room, which seemed to him now, of all the places
he had ever known, the most horrible, the most closely
packed with misery, and the very sight of its cushions
and fancy boxes made him feel sick. Nevertheless, he
had not been there more than a minute before he knew
somehow that Lena was not dead. Then, after a few
more minutes, voices came through the open door be¬
hind him, and he turned and crept nearer to it.

“No, no, no,” cried a voice, and he recognised it at
once as that of the foreign, witch-like old woman who
lived downstairs, “she would not ’ave a doctair. I loosen
her dress and geef her cognac and do dees teeng and
odair teengs, and ven I say, ‘You ’ave a vairy great shock,
my dee-air, me call a doctair,’ she say ‘No, no, No. No
doctair.’ Veil den, eet does not mattair. But I say, ‘You
go to bed. Aw, yes, you go to bed, at vonce, my dee-air.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

324

And she deed not vant to go to bed, but I make her
go.”

“Little monkey!” Mr. Golspie rumbled. “Good job
you thought something was up, though, and came in.
I’m much obliged. Very grateful. Just take Miss Mat-
field here into her, will you, and I’ll be back in a minute
or two.”

“Is she all right?” cried Turgis, as Mr. Golspie came
into the room.

“I don’t know about that,” he replied grimly, “but
she’s a damned sight better than she was when you left
her lying here, you crazy little skunk. Come here.”

“Oh!—thank God!”

“Come here. You can do your thanking afterwards.”
And he grabbed Turgis by the lapel of his coat, and
yanked him nearer. “Just listen to me. There are one
or two things I could do to you. To start with, I could
give you such a damned good hiding you’d never want
to look at a girl, never mind put your hands on her, for
the next six months. See?” And he shook Turgis with
a sort of menacing playfulness, like a terrier with a rat.
“And while I’m about it, here’s a bit of good advice
for you. Keep away from ’em. You’re not a lady-killer,
y’know—though, by God, you nearly were to-night—and
if you take a good look at yourself, you’ll see why. Drop
it. You’re no good at it. And another thing I could do
to you, Mister half-starved caveman, is to hand you over
to the police. I could do that all right, couldn’t I?” he
demanded, looking sternly at his wretched prisoner,
who, hearing that tone and meeting that look, had every
excuse for not realising that this was the last thing Mr.
Golspie had any idea of doing.

“Yes, you could, Mr. Golspie,” he replied miserably.

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

525

He saw himself marched off, locked in a cell.

“Well, I’m not going to, not yet, anyhow. But, listen
—if I ever set eyes on you again, I will. If you come
within a mile of this place—”

“Oh, I won’t, I won’t.” And Turgis certainly meant
it.

“And you don’t go back to that office, understand?
You don’t go near it again. Keep right away from it.
Keep away from me altogether, see?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Turgis gasped, for now Mr. Golspie
had stopped shaking him, but was pulling him back¬
wards through the sitting-room doorway, almost lifting
him bodily with that huge powerful grasp on his coat
shoulder.

“I don’t ever want to see you again, unless it’s in the
dock or the madhouse,” said Mr. Golspie, throwing open
the door of the flat with one hand, while with the other
he gave a violent twist and brought Turgis round in
front of him. “The very sight of you turns my stomach,
see? You understand? You’re not going back to that
office, and you’re not coming within a mile of this flat,
and you’re going to keep out of my sight and you’re going
to keep your nasty mouth shut too. You’ve been lucky
to-night, my God you have! But if ever I see you again,
you won’t be lucky. So get out and bloody well stay out.
There!” And Mr. Golspie, spinning him round, released
his coat collar, put a hand in the small of his back, and
with a short run and a tremendous heave, sent him
sprawling down the stairs. He pitched forward badly,
banged his nose so hard that it bled, and was bruised,
but managed to pick himself up at the bottom and go
blindly along the hall to the front door.

He waited a minute outside, leaning dizzily against

ANGEL PAVEMENT

526

one of the pillars. The cool darkness rocked round him.
In the garden, just by the broken statue of the boy and
the two fishes, he was violently sick.

6

Nearly all Nathaniel Street was in darkness when he
returned there that night. At No. 5 they were still up,
and he could hear them singing; a rum lot, at No. 5.
Across the street there was a light or two and a gramo¬
phone going somewhere. But that was all. No. 9 was in
complete darkness; obviously they had all gone to bed,
Edgar too, for when Edgar was out, Mrs. Pelumpton
always left a light in the hall for him, a courtesy she
did not extend to her two lodgers, Park and Turgis. If
they were so late, they had to grope. Very quietly,
slowly and painfully, for he had walked all the way from
Maida Vale, partly because he wanted to arrive late and
so avoid any questions, and was tired out, aching all
over, Turgis crawled upstairs to his room at the top.
There he lit the tiny gas-mantle, and then sat down on
his bed, resting his head in his hands.

All his face felt stiff. Laboriously, he removed his
soaking shoes, and was not surprised to find that his
socks were wet. He put a match to the little gas-fire,
which exploded with a startling bang in that stillness.

He did not take his socks off, but held out in turn the
sole of each foot towards the gas-fire and watched it
steam. He had no slippers; he was always meaning to
buy some, but never did. He stared at his reflection,
holding the cracked little mirror in the wooden frame
near the gas-light. There was a bruise on the ridge of

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 527

his rattier prominent nose; dried blood caked about the
nostrils; a long smear down one cheek and just above
one eyebrow. The eyes, red-rimmed, stared back at him
in despair. In all his life, he had never hated himself
as much as he did then. The cracked face in the black
wooden frame began to twitch a little, and he banished
it. The water he had used before going out was still in
the basin, and now he soaped his hands in it and rubbed
them over his face, until his eyes smarted. When he had
finished wiping his face, he looked at it again in the
mirror, and found that the smears and dried blood had
gone, but that the bruise was more marked than before.
He did not look long. His face, pale and silly, disgusted
him. Going through his pockets, he discovered a
crumpled cigarette and had the first smoke for several
hours. He remembered the last one, when he was on
his way to Maida Vale, not five hours ago. Not five
hours ago! A hundred years ago.

The haze had completely vanished from his mind,
leaving a dreadful clarity. He saw himself quite clearly,
and loathed what he saw. He knew now that Lena was
simply a little flirt, who had happened to be bored, her
friends being away, when he first called at the flat with
the money, and had amused herself with him for a few
hours because she had nothing better to do and, for the
time being, his obvious worship entertained her. Then
the minute somebody better came along, she had
dropped him at once, and had afterwards been so
annoyed that she had disliked the very sight of him.
Now it seemed all quite clear, and it was unbelievable
that he could not see it like that before, that he could
have gone on dreaming away and hanging about to see
her and deluding himself. He did not even hate her

528 ANGEL PAVEMENT

now. She simply did not interest him.

What did interest him, however, was the figure he cut
himself, and that was what he saw with such terrible
clearness. As he sat drooping on the bed, pulling away
mechanically at the last inch of the cigarette, he put him¬
self through a pitiless cross-examination. How could he
ever have thought that he could make a girl like Lena
fall in love with him, a girl who was pretty, who could
meet all kinds of fellows, who had lived in places like
Paris, who had a father with money? The very thought
of Mr. Golspie crushed the last grains of self-respect in
him. What had he, Harold Turgis, been fancying him¬
self for? What was he? What could he do? What had
he got? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Only a silly face,
with a big useless nose and a trembling mouth and eyes
that began to water almost if anybody looked hard at
them. He threw the stump of his cigarette at the dirty
saucer in front of the gas-fire, missed it, and had to go
down painfully on his knees and retrieve the glowing
end.

He returned to the bed and curled up on it, his eyes
fixed on some photographs, cut out of a film weekly,
pinned up on the opposite wall; but he did not see the
photographs, for he was staring through them, through
the wall, into the future, a vague darkness, in which he,
a small lonely figure, moved obscurely. His job was
gone. He had finished with Twigg and Dersingham
and Angel Pavement. Perhaps they might have given
him a rise soon; he might have had Smeeth’s job and
seven or eight pounds a week before long, a proper home
and carpets and arm-chairs and a big wireless set of his
own; and now it might be a long time before he got a
job as good as the one he had just lost. What could he

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT £2g

do? A bit of typing and clerking, that was all, and any¬
body could do that; even girls could do it; some of them,
really educated ones like Miss Hatfield (yes, and what
had she been doing with Mr. Golspie?), just as well as
he could. And when he had queued up and looked at
advertisements and written letters and trailed round and
waited and got a job at last, what then? What would he
get out of it? Nothing. He saw the world before him
with no happiness in it, only foolish work and weariness
and unnamed fears, a place of jagged stones, shadows,
dim menacing giants.

Having got so far, he could go no farther. A little
voice, like that of some tiny erect indignant figure in a
great gloomy assembly, spoke up now, protesting. It was
not right. It was not fair. There had been a time when
it had looked as if everything was going to be quite
different. Something had gone wrong. Where, how had
it gone wrong? He could be happy; he could be as happy
as anybody, if only he had a chance to be; and why
hadn’t he a chance to be? Here!—if he’d a chance, he
could be a lot happier than Park or Smeeth or even Mr.
Dersingham—yes, he could! Then why shouldn’t he be?
What was wrong? What was it, what was it? The little
voice asked these questions, but no answer came. No
answer. It was as if the erect figure suddenly collapsed
and the gloomy assembly untroubled, unstirring.

It was no good. Every bit of him, from the damp
soles of his feet to his tangled hair (which seemed to have
a separate and equally miserable existence of its own,
this night), agreed that it was no good. He stood up.
He looked about him, as if searching the little room in
despair for something to touch, to hold, to cling to, now
that the night was pouring in, through the decayed wood-

530 ANGEL PAVEMENT

work of the window-frame, through the cracked mortar
and the foul old stone, its malevolent influences, its
beckoning and gibbering ghosts. The calm, the clarity,
were gone; the dream fumes rose and drifted again; but
when he moved, he still moved slowly, as if led here and
there by uncertain spectral hands. He fastened the
window tight, and stuffed paper in its various crevices.
The door fitted badly, and he had to stuff more paper,
indeed all the paper he had, between the door and the
frame, and then in the keyhole. He turned off the gas
from the tiny mantle, leaving the room uncertainly
illuminated by the gas-fire. For a moment he considered
the dying glow of the mantle. Could he use that gas? If
he had a tube, he could, but he hadn’t a tube; and if he
turned it on full, it gave out so little gas that it would
be painfully, horribly slow doing anything to him. No,
the gas-fire was the thing. He had only to turn it out
now, wait a minute or two until the burners had cooled,
then put a hand to that tap again, lie on his bed and hear
the gas hissing out for a minute or two, fall asleep and all
would be over.

He sat on the floor, in front of the fire, leaning his
elbow against the side of his bed. Staring at the three
twisted glowing pillars of the fire, he contemplated with
sombre satisfaction his approaching end. It would be
painless, that he knew, for he had once talked to a man
in the Pavement Dining Rooms, and this man had a
brother who was a policeman, and this policeman had
had a lot of experience with people who had done it with
gas and he gave it as his opinion that they all passed
quietly away in their sleep without a bit of pain and fuss
and worry: it was far easier getting out of the world
altogether than taking a train to the City at Camden

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 531

Town Tube Station. They would find him in. the morn-
ing, peacefully asleep. There would be an inquest, and it
would get into the papers. Some of them, Mr. Golspie
and Lena perhaps, would have to give evidence. Mrs.
Pelumpton, too. Had the deceased been strange in his
actions lately, had he something on his mind? A
promising young fellow—would anybody say that?
Tragic End, Young Clerk’s Fatal Romance. Who would
be really sorry? Nobody. No, no, one or two, perhaps a
lot of people; you never knew. Poppy Sellers, for in¬
stance; Miss Matfield had said that little Poppy, poor
kid, was keen on him; so that she ought to be sorry, very
sorry; perhaps it would be the great sorrow of her life—
‘'He meant everything to me, that boy. I worshipped
him”—he could hear these, and other heart-broken
phrases from the pictures, coming from a rather vague
Poppy Sellers, very pale and dressed in black. It made
him feel sorry himself, and it was the pleasantest feeling
he had had for hours, quite warm and luxuriant.

“A very sad case, gentlemen,” said the coroner mourn¬
fully. “Here you have a young man full of promise—”
Turgis interrupted him, for somehow Turgis was there
too: “It’s all right saying that now,” he cried to them all,
triumphant in his bitterness, “but why didn’t you do
something about it before? It’s too late now, and you
know it is. Too late, too late! Let this,” he continued
sternly, “be a warning to you.” But that was silly. He
would be dead and gone. Perhaps he ought to leave a
letter; they usually left letters; but he hated writing
letters, and he knew there was no ink in the room. No,
of course, he hadn’t any ink! He’d nothing! He might
as well finish it off now, and show them all, the rotten
swine!

ANGEL PAVEMENT

532

As he arrived at this savage conclusion, he noticed for
the first time that the three little glowing pillars of the
gas-fire were dwindling. They shrank rapidly, until they
were nothing but quivering blue blobs that shot up once
and popped, shot up again and popped, then popped out
altogether. No more gas. He hadn’t a shilling, he had
only eightpence. He couldn’t even commit suicide,
couldn’t afford it.

After a short silence, an unusual sound, a most strange
sound, a fantastic and incredible sound, came from the
side of the bed and travelled round the dark little room.
It came from Turgis, and he may have been crying, he
may have been laughing, or doing both at once. He was
certainly not committing suicide.

He made a great deal of noise now. Putting out a
hand, quite instinctively, to the tap of the gas-fire, he
touched something hot in the darkness there, gave a
sharp cry and banged his hand on the floor. Then he
stumbled to the window, to pull out the paper, and
somehow the window stuck and he pushed so hard that
when it did open, the rotten old woodwork of the frame
partly gave way, and as it suddenly flew open and the
night air rushed in, there was a loud crack. The door
was noisier still. He was determined to get all the paper
away, but it was not easy and he was impatient, and he
began pulling away at the knob of the door until at last
the door suddenly swung in and he sat down with a
bump, the knob still in his hand. It was then that he
heard sounds from below, and saw through the open
door a light travelling jerkily upwards. The next minute
he was looking at the extraordinary figure of Mr.
Pelumpton, who was standing outside in his night¬
shirt, holding a candle.

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 53?,

“Now let’sh ’ave reashon, let’sh ’ave reashon,” said
Mr. Pelumpton reproachfully. “Bangin’ and knocking
the housh about like that! The mishish thought shome-
body was breakin’ in. ’Ave a bit o’ shensh, boy, jusht
’ave a bit o’ shensh! Can’t go on like that, thish time o’
night. It’sh all very well going out an’ ’aving a pint or
two an’ coming in late—done it myshelf in me time—
but that’sh no reashon for carrying on like that, ish it?
Blesh me shoul!—like a nearthquake, jusht like a nearth-
quake. Now jusht get yourshelf to bed quietly, boy, and
let other people shleep even if you can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Turgis told him. “It was an accident.
I’m all right. I’m not drunk or anything.”

“Well, you might be in the ratsh, properly in the
ratsh, green sherpentsh all round you, the way yer going
on,” said Mr. Pelumpton severely, as he withdrew.

In ten minutes, Turgis was fast asleep.

7

“Well, we’ll have to see,” said Mrs. Pelumpton
dubiously. “That’s what we’ll have to do, we’ll have
to see.”

Turgis had been trying to explain, without any refer¬
ence to the real facts, why he hadn’t gone to the office
that Saturday morning, why he wasn’t going there again,
and why he couldn’t immediately pay Mrs. Pelumpton
what he owed her. He had not come down to breakfast
until late, and both Pelumptons were convinced that he
had been uproariously drunk on the previous night,
when he had made all that noise.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

534

“I’m sure they’ll let me have this fortnight’s money
all right, Mrs. Pelumpton,” he told her. “And then I’ll
settle up at once, before I do anything else.”

Mrs. Pelumpton stopped bustling about for a minute,
stood and looked at him, making herself as compact as
possible, so that she seemed exactly square from the
front; and suddenly said in a startlingly deep voice:
“Will you promise me one thing?”

Turgis said he would. He was ready to promise any¬
thing to her.

“Well, it’s this. Promise me to keep right off the drink
this next week or two.”

“I promise,” he replied promptly. Two glasses of
bitter a week were usually enough for him at any time.
The Pelumptons were positive, however, that he had
been drinking heavily for weeks. Mr. Pelumpton, a beer
man himself, said that whisky made you look and behave
like that, if you could only get enough of it.

“In or out of work, that ’abit’s bad,” Mrs. Pelumpton
continued. “But far, far worse it is, out of work. Keep
off it for a bit. Don’t touch a drop. I’m not one of these
prohibited and temperancers—though I did sign the
pledge when I was a girl, but then I wouldn’t ’ave
touched a drop then anyhow, didn’t like the taste of it—
but I do say that a young feller like yourself who’s going
to ’ave to look for a job is better without a single drop,
if only for the sake of not being smelt.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis,
who was hoping that this good advice mteant that she
was willing to let him stay on while he was looking for
another job.

“I know I am. And what’s just ’appened—'cos you can
talk about business until you’re blue in the face, but you

the LAST ARABIAN \’I G II T 535

won t make me believe you haven’t got into trouble with
youi little goings-on lately, and that’s why they’ve given
you the sack—but I say, what’s just ’appened ought to be
a lesson. You can t afford it and you ’aven’t got the ’ead
for it, so you’ve just got to let the booze alone. Pa can’t
afford it, but I will say, ’e’s got the ’ead for it. You
awen’t. That’s why it’s a lesson. Promise me that, and
I’ll l et you tun on a bit, paying me what you can, while
you’re out of a job. We’ve got to live and let live in
these times, and I will say that up to lately you’ve been
as quiet and reg’lar paying a young chap as I’ve ever let
to. And just you keep on Pa’s right side too, for ’e won't
like it, being in business himself you might say and a bit
of a stickler, but I’ve got a softer nature and I’m not for
turning a young chap out just ’cos he’s got his bit of
trouble and can’t pay all he’s agreed to pay—”

“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis
warmly.

“—For a few weeks anyhow,” she added cautiously.

Turgis thanked her again, but with considerable less
warmth this time. It might be more than any few weeks
before he saw another three pounds a week or anything
like it, and the way Mrs. Pelumpton talked before she
said that, he had imagined she was ready to let him stay
on for months. Still, a few weeks were something. He
had dreaded telling her that he had lost his job, had not
even got this fortnight’s money, and would have to keep
her waiting. He felt a bit better now that he had told
her, but nevertheless he was still feeling pretty miser¬
able. He wondered what was happening in the office,
whether Mr. Golspie had explained to Mr. Dersingham
what had occurred last night, whether they would send
his money on to him, whether they would give him a

536 ANGEL PAVEMENT

reference. He had exactly eightpence now and he
wanted a cigarette badly this morning. It was no use,
he would have to have a smoke. So he went down the
road for a packet of ten gaspers, and then decided to go
and look at some advertisements of jobs and perhaps
have a peep at the Labour Exchange. It was one of those
uncomfortable streaky days, a minute or two of sunshine,
then clouds and a bitter East wind. It was miserable
walking about in it with just twopence in your pocket,
no job, a terrifying Mr. Golspie (with possible police)
somewhere about, and no hope in any direction. When
he saw the Labour Exchange, he was sorry he had gone
that way, for the very look of it made him feel still more
wretched. He hated Labour Exchanges.

It was late when he had dinner, and when it was over
and Mrs. Pelumpton was washing and tidying up in that
despairing fury at which she always arrived on Saturday,
Mr. Pelumpton returned from the pub down the road,
immensely oracular, and insisted on talking to Turgis
for the next hour. This time Turgis was compelled to
stay there and listen, for already he was beginning to
feel that he was there on sufferance. Moreover, with
only twopence in his pocket, and an East wind blowing
outside, he was better off there than he would be any¬
where else. Something must have told Mr. Pelumpton
this, for he never took his dim boiled eyes off Turgis,
and droned on and on, sometimes touching on the dusty
mysteries of “dealing,” sometimes offering ridiculous
good advice. It was awful. Turgis sat there, steadily
hating the old bore. “That’s right, Mr. Pelumpton,” he
would say, with dreary politeness, adding to himself:
“You silly old devil, you ought to give those whiskers
of yours a good wash and brush up.” But there was not

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

537

much satisfaction in that.

At about half-past three, Mr. Pelumpton’s steady flow
was suddenly checked. Somebody was at the front door.
Mrs. Pelumpton immediately made a dramatic appear¬
ance from nowhere, crying, “You go and see, Pa. It
might be Maggie,” and then waited, tense, with lifted
brows and open mouth, while Pa shuffled out of the room
and along the hall.

“Yersh, that’sh right,” they heard him say. “Come
inshide. Jusht a minute.” And then he came shuffling
back, so maddeningly deliberate that his wife’s eyes
began rolling round with sheer impatience. “Is it Mrs.
Foster?” she cried.

“No, it ishn’t Mishish Foshter,” he replied, with
dignity. He looked at Turgis. “It’sh a young lady from
your offish who’sh been shent to shee you.”

“Take her in the front,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, before
Turgis could get out of the room.

It was little Poppy Sellers, and Turgis took her into
the front; which only made it all the more queer, for he
hardly ever went into that room. It was used only on
the most special occasions, and for about three hundred
and sixty days of the year it remained a shrouded and
mysterious chamber. It housed, behind faded lace
curtains, some of Mr. Pelumpton’s best bargains in
“pieshesh,” a piano with a pleated silk front, two arm¬
chairs that were very shiny and plushy, half a bear-skin
rug, several books in one glass case, dozens of butterflies
in another case, two real oil paintings of waterfalls, and a
fine collection of shells, glass paper-weights, wool mats,
marble ash-trays, and souvenirs of all the South-Eastern
seaside resorts. Above the mantelpiece, and flanked by

two tall mirrors that had storks painted on them, Mrs.

s

ANGEL PAVEMENT

538

Pelumpton’s father, so immensely enlarged in sepia that
at a first glance he seemed to be a generous view of the
Alps, stared down in mild astonishment. The air inside
this room was quite different from that of the rest of the
house; it did not smell of food at all; it was unlived-in,
chilly, with hints of wool and varnish in it. There was a
large paper fan in the fireplace, and immediately the two
human beings entered the room, a host of indignant
specks ran down the folds of this fan, making a queer
little flicker of movement and sound in that dim quiet
place.

“I’ve brought your money,” said Poppy, bringing an
envelope out of her scarlet handbag. She was very smart,
this afternoon, in a black and white check coat, a hat
nearly the same colour as her handbag, a yellow scarf
with red dots in it, and dark silky stockings and shiny
black shoes. Not the Japanese style this time—more
French. She looked well in that front parlour, sitting in
one of the plushy armchairs. “Yes, this is it,” she con¬
tinued, handing it over. “I think you’ll find that all
right. Mr. Smeeth said somebody had better take it, and
I said I would, ’cos I have a cousin that lives up here, in
Bartholomew Road, and I sometimes come up here, so I
said I didn’t mind bringing it, ’cos I know the district,
even if I do live a long way off, and I hadn’t anything
special to do to-day.” She rattled this off very quickly, as
if it were a set piece she had rehearsed a good many
times on the way.

“Thanks very much,” said Turgis. Recent events had
left him with an imagination that was capable of leap¬
ing into life very suddenly. It leaped now. Here was
Poppy Sellers bringing his money to him just as he had!
taken the money to Lena Golspie. She had been ready *

539

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

with a good excuse just as he had. This thought did not
immediately pluck him out of his despondency, but it
certainly made him feel several inches taller at once.
Besides, the kid had made herself look so neat and smart,
quite pretty, in fact.

“Aren’t you well?” she asked him, looking at him very
earnestly.

“I’m not too bright,” he admitted. “Matter of fact.
I’ve been a bit off colour for some time. Nothing much,
y’know. Nerves, really, that’s what it is. I’m one of
those highly strung people, I am.”

“You look pale, and you’ve got a mark on your nose,
haven’t you?” She examined his face in that special
detached way that all women seem to have at times,
looking at your face as if it was not part of you, but some¬
thing you were showing them, like a picture or a piece of
china. Then she nodded wisely at it. “I believe some¬
thing’s been up. Here, listen,” she continued eagerly,
“something’s happened, hasn’t it? I mean, you’re not
coming back, are you?”

Turgis admitted sadly that he was not,

“I’ve been puzzling and puzzling my head about it,”
she told him, a mounting excitement in her face and
voice. “When you didn’t come this morning, Mr.
Smeeth said you must be ill, and he wasn’t surprised.
And I thought so, too. And Miss Matfield didn’t say
anything, and I thought she looked a bit queer, as if
she knew something. She does, too, I’m sure, though I
don’t know what. She doesn’t tell me much—bit stand¬
offish, you know, though she’s nice, she really is—but she
knows a lot, and something’s been going on with her
some time, if you ask me. But, anyhow, Mr. Golspie
came in, later on, and he was talking to Mr. Dersingham,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

540

and then they sent for Mr. Smeeth, and after a bit, Mr.
Smeeth came back and said later on, y’know, just trying
to be ordinary like, as if nothing special had happened,
that you weren’t coming back. I knew all the time there
was something funny about it. And I didn’t see how
they’d told you, ’cos you didn’t know last night, did you?
Course it’s not my business, I know,” she added, with a
wistful note, “but I couldn’t help wondering. And I’m
sorry, too.”

“You’re sorry I’m not coming back?”

“Yes, I am,” she declared, tightening her lips, nod¬
ding, then looking him full in the face. “I don’t care
what anybody says—I am.”

“I’m sorry, too. Can’t be helped, I suppose. I’ve been
in trouble.” His voice trembled slightly as a wave of
self-pity swept over him.

She kept her eyes fixed on his, and they were dark and
round. “Did you-do something?”

He nodded. Already, even in this nod, there was a
certain gloomy romantic suggestion.

“Course you needn’t tell me if you don’t want,” she
said hastily, “but p’r’aps you’d like to, ’cos I’m not try¬
ing to poke my nose in—it’s not that—but I’d reelly,
reelly, like to know—’cos—well, it doesn’t seem a bit fair,
turning you off like that, and I said so this morning.
You’ve always done your work all right, and you knew a
lot about it, didn’t you? I’m sure you’ve helped me a lot,
and I don’t care who knows it. And I said so straight
out. I spoke up for you. They can say what they like
about me, but I do stick up for my friends and anybody
I like.” Then she lowered her voice. “You didn’t take
something, did you?”

“D’you mean—pinch some money?”

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT r,jl

Yes, she replied, looking down at her brilliant hand¬
bag.

I should think I didn’t. Nothing like that. It wasn't
anything to do with Twigg and Dersingham’s at all. It
was something-quite different.”

I see. She ran a finger up and down the bag.
Nothing was said for a minute. As the room, chill and
shuttered, waited for somebody to speak, there stole into
it all the Saturday afternoon noises of Nathaniel Street,
but all faint, muffled. Mrs. Pelumpton’s father stared
down at them with mild astonishment. Turgis, sitting
up in the other armchair, tapped a foot, and a few more
specks stirred in the paper fan. This front room made
him feel miserable, hopeless. He looked at the girl, and
though she was so quiet now, she seemed delightfully
vivid, warm, alive, human. He did not tell himself that,
but he felt it.

“Well, I suppose,” she began, grasping her bag
properly and making a movement of her body.

“Listen, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said quickly.

“You needn’t if you don’t want, y’know.”

He did want. He told her almost the whole story, as
he saw it then, and he did not see it then quite as he had
seen it when he had returned in abject misery to his
room the previous night. It took on a certain romantic
colouring, and, as the history of a poor, virtuous, in¬
fatuated young man and a rich, wicked syren, it was not
unlike a good many films that both the narrator and
his hearer had seen and admired. She listened en¬
thralled, exclaiming now and then, her eyes round with
wonder.

Her first question, when he had done, was about Lena.
What was she like, and did he still think she was as

542

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pretty as all that? This was not an easy question to
answer, for he had to convey the impression that Lena
was immensely seductive, and at the same time to
suggest that she had no further attraction for him. But
he contrived to answer it, a trifle awkwardly, perhaps,
but he satisfied Poppy.

“Course you never ought to have done that,” she cried,
thinking of his terrible assault upon the jeering “vamp.”
The glance she gave him, however, had more wonder
and awe in it than disgust. It made him feel that he was
not a man to be trifled with. “That was awful, that was.
You didn’t reelly know what you were doing at the time,
did you?”

“That’s it. I didn’t. Nerves, y’know. Highly strung.
A sort of madness, it was. Can’t imagine now how I did
it, ’cos I’ve never been that sort of chap, though, mind
you, I’ve always had a temper if I got properly roused.
Still, I don’t know how I came to do it, I don’t, really I
don’t. Must have been properly mad at the time. Seems
strange now, I can tell you, ’cos I don’t feel anything
about it now, nothing at all.”

“Well, I don’t say you ought to have done it, ’cos you
oughtn’t, and it’s turned out lucky the way it has.” She
had a moment of real distress, imagining how it might
have turned out. Then she went on to consider other
aspects of the matter. “But I must say she very near
deserved it, whatever happened, going on the way she
did.” She had throughout shown the greatest indigna¬
tion with Lena. “Horrible, I call it. Some girls haven’t
any real feeling at all. Girl I know—she lives near us,
and she’s one of these manicurists—she’s just the same.
Treats boys and talks about them, too, in the most awful
way. If they .only heard what she said about them, they'd

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

513

never look at her again. She’s asking for trouble too,
and she’ll get it before long, and it’ll serve her right—I
haven’t a bit of sympathy for her. I wouldn't behave to
a boy like that, I don’t care who he was, not if I’d never
liked him at all and he was always follering me round
and all that. And look at the way she went and en¬
couraged you at the first, making herself as cheap as any-
thing-that ought to have told you, but of course bovs
can never see that.”

“I can see it now,” said Turgis, with the air of a man
purged and purified by great suffering, a pale romantic
figure.

“Boys haven’t a bit of sense like that,” she cried in¬
dignantly. “And you were just as silly as the rest, in that
business. Mind you, I can see there’s a good excuse for
you, ’cos a girl like that, with her father so well off and
able to have all the clothes she wants and make herself
look nice all the time-course you think it’s all natural
her looking like that, but it’s having the money and
nothing else to do that does it—well, there is some
excuse, and I admit it. Fancy you going on with Mr.
Golspie’s daughter like that! And I never knew! Doesnt
it just show you?”

Undoubtedly it did. They continued a little longer,
dramatically and not unpleasantly, in this strain, and
then Miss Sellers asked what time it was, and Turgis,
instead of telling her the time, said: Just a minute.
Don’t go. I want to give my landlady some of this
money, and I’d rather not keep her waiting for it. I’ll

be back in half a minute.”

Mrs. Pelumpton, who was making tea, was very

pleased to see the money.

“This young lady works in the same office, you see,

544

ANGEL PAVEMENT

Turgis explained, “and they sent her up with it. We've
been having a good talk about all the business and all
that.”

“Quite so,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, affably, but with
dignity, as if the very presence of a strange member of
her own sex in the house, even though not in the same
room, made her put on a special manner, affable, digni¬
fied, lady-like. “Perhaps the young lady would like a
cup of tea, with yourself—that is, if she cares to take us
as she finds us?”

“Thanks very much, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis.
“I’ll go and ask her.”

Miss Sellers was easily persuaded to abandon a pro¬
jected visit to her cousin in Bartholomew Road, and
stayed to tea, during which she and Mrs. Pelumpton
discovered, after a great deal of elaborate cross-question¬
ing, that Miss Sellers and her sister had actually stayed
for a week in a boarding-house at Clacton that had been
kept, three years before they went there, by Mrs.
Pelumpton’s sister, whom therefore they had only
missed meeting by two years and ten months. Delighted
to discover once more they were living in a world so
small, so cosy, Miss Sellers and Mrs. Pelumpton were
very pleased with one another. After tea, when the
Pelumptons were out of the way, Turgis, though still
the same young man, without prospects, without hope,
actually went to the length of indulging in that mys¬
terious badinage which is the signal of sexual attraction
and interest among the young inarticulate creatures of
this country. “What d’you mean?” they cried to one
another. “Oh, I don’t mean what you mean!”

Then, at the end of half an hour or so of this: “Well,
I half promised to see a girl friend to-night.”

545

THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT

“Oh, well, don’t bother,” he told her. “She can do
without you, can’t she, just for to-night?”

Just for to-night, eh? Well, can’t you do without me
too, Mister Cheeky?”

No, I can t. I want somebody to cheer me up.’

Oh, that s it, is it? Thanks for the compliment. Any¬
body will do, eh?”

“No, I didn’t say that. You know, I didn’t."

“Well, you meant it.”

No, I didn’t. Reelly, I didn’t. Come on. What
d’you say?”

“All right then,” she said, turning her perky little
head on one side and smiling. Then she looked serious.
“Listen, though. If we do go, I must pay for myself.
Yes, I must. I believe in that,” she added earnestly, as
if she had thought about it for years and had not just
invented this rule for herself, knowing only too well that
he would be hard up in the near future and that every
extra shilling would make a great difference. “I’ll come
if you’ll let me pay for myself. There now!”

As they walked down Nathaniel Street, they decided
that it must be one of the big West End picture theatres,
but could not settle which it should be, and argued
pleasantly about it, and she pretended to care more
about it than she actually did and he pretended to care
less; she was the eager, excited, imploring female, and he
was the large, knowing, tolerant, protective male. Out
in the smoky blue and gold of the lighted streets, they
were more at ease than they had been in the house.
Already they may have felt that they were going further
together now than the way to the remotest picture
theatre could take them. Perhaps this was the best day's
work in one or other of their lives; perhaps the worst.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

546

Saturday night: the children of the pavements and
chimney-pots came pouring out, seeking adventure,
entertainment, profit or forgetfulness in the vast im¬
personal thunder and glare of the city; and soon these
two were lost in the crowd.

Chapter Eleven

THEV GO HOME

1

I T' was coming to a close like any other Friday after¬
noon. They were short-handed, for though the new
boy, Gregory Thorpe, from Hatcham, S.E., a lad with
a singularly long face and spectacles, far more con¬
scientious than Stanley but not so engaging, had been
with them since Monday, Turgis had been absent since
Monday too, and his place had not yet been filled.
Fortunately, they had not been very busy this last day
or two; the rush of a few weeks before appeared to be
over now; Mr. Golspie had not been near the office
since Tuesday, and had not sent in any new orders;
and the next Anglo-Baltic boat was not due in until the
following Monday; so that things were easier. Even
without Turgis, they were getting through the work at
the usual pace. Mr. Smeeth, glancing round over the
top of his desk, thought they ought to have finished in
another half-hour or three-quarters. He would get away
about six, have his tea in comfort, with plenty of time
to spare before the concert began. He was going to hear
that symphony by Brahms, the same symphony he had
heard before, the one that suddenly and gloriously Droke
into Ta turn ta ta turn turn. Another orchestra was play¬
ing it this time. It was lucky that the advertisement of
the concert had caught his eye: Brahms’ Symphony

547

ANGEL PAVEMENT

548

No. 1. He had been looking forward all the week to
hearing that symphony again, especially to that moment
when the great melody would come sweeping out of the
strings 'again. He had tried to remember it for weeks
and weeks, and then suddenly it had returned to him-
Ta turn ta ta turn turn. Brahms might be as classical and
highbrow as they said he was (and Mr. Smeeth had been
making a few inquiries), but the fact remained that the
thought of his first symphony, that dark but splendid
adventure, now warmed the heart of Herbert Norman
Smeeth. Ta turn ta ta turn turn—but no, he must get on
with his work, finish off and see that the others were
finishing off too.

“Miss Matfield, have you anything for Mr. Dersing-
ham to sign? Have you, Miss Sellers? Take them in
now if you have.”

Mr. Dersingham was in the private office. He had
been there most of the day. This was unusual, and
rather queer because Mr. Dersingham did not appear to
be very busy. He seemed to be waiting for something
or somebody. Several times during the afternoon, when
the outer door had opened, Mr. Smeeth had heard Mr.
Dersingham come out of the private office, as if he could
not bear to wait an extra half minute or so. He seemed
to be jumpy, too, about telephone calls. Very unusual,
rather queer, not like Mr. Dersingham. Mr. Smeeth
came to the conclusion that it must be some private
business, and therefore no affair of his.

“Now where’s that letter from Poppett and Sons?” he
demanded. “It was on this desk an hour ago, I’ll swear.
It’s a letter about their account, and I told one of you
this morning we’d have to answer it to-day. It was you,
wasn’t it, Miss Sellers? Well, have you taken their letter

THEY GO HOME

549

away, then? Just see if you have? Yes, there you are—
that’s it. Bring it here and I’ll answer it now. Poppett
and Sons, Poppett and Sons,” Mr. Smeeth repeated idly
as he re-read their letter. “Ye-es. Are you ready? No,
half a minute, though-my mistake. I’ll have to check
that figure. Fi-ifty fo-our pounds, thi-irte-een shillings—
yes, yes, that’s all right. Now then—” And here Mr.
Smeeth adjusted his eyeglasses and cleared his throat,
giving a faintly pompous little cough. Even now, the
thought that he, Herbert Norman Smeeth, was sitting
there, a cashier, dictating letters to this firm and that,
gave him a thrill. “—er—We are in receipt of your—
er—communication—put the date in there, Miss Sellers—
respecting our statement of account dated so-and-so—and
beg to point out that this account was quite in order.
You asked us to send down the goods by special road
delivery and agreed that the extra carriage, paid by us,
should be added to our account—no, just a minute-
extra caniage, which had to be paid by us in the first
place, should be charged to you, and this we accordingly
did. We refer you to your letter—I have a note of that
letter—ah! here it is—to your letter of the 4th of
December last—”

Mr. Smeeth rounded off his letter and Miss Sellers
hurried it away to her machine. Miss Matfield, who
appeared to be in a great hurry, pulled a sheet of paper
out of her typewriter with one fine sweep of the hand,
and then furiously tidied a little pile of typewritten
sheets. The new boy, Gregory, laboriously worked away
at his letter copying, with the air of a man engaged in
not very hopeful bacterial research. It was wearing away
like any other Friday afternoon. There was nothing to
suggest that it might blow up any minute, unless the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

55 °

unusual activities of Mr. Dersingham, who appeared to
be moving uneasily now in the private office, were con¬
sidered to be fantastically significant.

“Who was that?” Mr. Smeeth asked, after several
doors had banged and Gregory had returned from be¬
hind the frosted glass partition.

“I think it was a telegraph-boy, sir,” replied Gregory
sadly.

“How d’you mean—you think it was?”

“Mr. Dersingham was there, sir. He got there first,
and he was holding the door open and taking something,
so I couldn’t see who it was properly. I only saw an arm,
and it looked like a telegraph-boy. You see what I mean
about the door, sir? It comes back, inside, when it opens,
and Mr. Dersingham was holding it with one hand, and
so the door was in the way, you see—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I see. No need to make such a song
about it, boy.” There was a sad earnestness about this
new boy that had been rather impressive at first, but now
it only irritated Mr. Smeeth. He liked a boy to be con¬
scientious with his work, but this one was too dolefully
dutiful. You could not even relieve your feelings by
telling him sharply to get on with his work, because he
never stopped doing something, toiling away like a
spectacled young sheep. Mr. Smeeth wished now he had
chosen a brighter boy, even if the lad would have larked
about a bit.

“Smeeth. Smeeth.”

“Yes, Mr. Dersingham,” Mr. Smeeth called back,
frowning a little. He did not like to be summoned in
this fashion, by a shout from the door of the private
office; it was not dignified. He hurried in, however,
for Mr. Dersingham sounded as if he had something

55 1

they go home

important he wanted to say.

Shut the door, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, who
did not look so pink and cheerful as usual. “Oh, look
here—have they nearly finished out there?”

“Just clearing up, sir.”

“ A11 ri § h h then,” said Mr. Dersingham wearily.

Have I signed everything? Tell ’em to let me have
everything that must go off to-night, will you? I want
em to clear out, and leave us alone. Do that now. Just
get them to finish up as quick as possible.”

Wondering, rather apprehensive now, Mr. Smeeth
bustled to and fro with letters to be signed, hurried on
Miss Sellers and the boy, and in ten minutes had every¬
thing signed, copied, sealed up, and stamped. “Yes. yes,”
he told them, “that’ll be all. You can go now. That's
right. Good night, Miss Matfield. What’s that? Yes, I
remember. Mr. Dersingham said you could have to¬
morrow morning off, didn’t he? Off for the week-end,
eh? Lucky to be some people, Miss Matfield. Yes, yes,
quite all right, good night. Good night, Miss Sellers.
And—what’s your name-Gregory, don’t forget you’ve
got three registereds there; bring me the receipts in the
morning. No, that’ll do. Good night, good night.” He
returned to the private office. “All finished now, Mr.
Dersingham. Yes, all gone.”

“All right, Smeeth. Bring the order book in, then the
other books. Bring the order book in first.”

It looked as if he was going to have a little stocktaking
and general survey of the business, a very wise thing to
do too, now and again. Mr. Smeeth hoped that he would
not be kept long, but otherwise he was quite pleased and
proud, for there was nothing he liked better than these
confidential talks about the business, and he was glad to

ANGEL PAVEMENT

55 *

see that Mr. Dersingham was taking himself seriously
now as the head of a very flourishing little concern.

“Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Dersingham?” he said,
when he had brought in all the books.

Mr. Dersingham gave a short laugh, and it was a very
unpleasant sound. It startled Mr. Smeeth.

“Everything’s wrong, Smeeth, every damned thing,
unless you can see a way out. Sit down, man, sit down.
We’re going to be hours and hours on this job.”

Mr. Smeeth sat down, staring at him.

“Golspie’s cleared out,” Mr. Dersingham continued,
“and he’s done us in, absolutely done us in. Oh, the
rotten swinel God, I was a fool to trust that chap a
yard! I ought to have known, I ought to have known.
And now he’s gone. I rushed up to that flat of his in
Maida Vale at lunch-time, hoping to catch him in and
have it out with him, but he’d gone—at least, the maid
said he had, and it was only a furnished place he’d taken,
and she’d been taken over with it, so I suppose she wasn’t
lying about it. He’s going abroad, if he isn’t already
gone. Clearing out properly, the rotten crook! This
isn’t the only dirty game he’s been playing here, if you
ask me. I always thought he had a few more irons in the
fire besides his work here. He never spent more than
half his time with our business. But he’s had plenty of
time to do us down.” He was out of his chair now, kick¬
ing a ball of crumpled paper about the room.

“But what’s happened, Mr. Dersingham? I thought
you knew he might leave us. You told me so a week or
two ago, and you said you were getting him to sign an
agreement, when he drew all that forward commission,
so that you would have the agency.”

“Oh, we’ve got the agency all right,” cried Mr,

THEY GO HOME

553

Dersingham, with great bitterness. “No mistake about
that. Only it’s not worth having now, that’s all.
Mikorsky’s have raised all their prices. They say it’s
owing to the increased cost of their new process and to
some labour troubles and to some new government tax—
oh, they’ve got all kinds of reasons, and they may be
true and they may not, but the fact remains they’ve
raised all their prices. They’re all up fifty and sixty
and even seventy per cent.”

“As much as that? Good Lord, Mr. Dersingham,
that’s a ridiculous advance. It makes them as dear as
the most expensive of the old firms we were dealing with
before, doesn’t it? I see, now.”

“No, you don’t see, you don’t see at all yet,” Mr.
Dersingham yelled at him. “It’s a lot worse than that.
Look at that telegram. Just look at it.”

“I don’t understand this, sir,” said Mr. Smeeth, after
carefully reading the telegram. “Why did they send it?”

“They sent it because I’d wired to them asking if what
Golspie had written to me was true. I thought he might
have been bluffing, just out of devilish spite. But he
wasn’t. They’re all in league together, of course, if you
want my opinion, just a lot of rotten foreign swindlers
with this chap Golspie the worst of the lot.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dersingham. I can see it’s a bad busi¬
ness. But I don’t quite get the hang of it yet. They can’t
have raised their prices already.”

“My God!—that’s just what they have done, and that
filthy telegram confirms it.” Mr. Dersingham banged it
so hard with his fist that he hurt his hand. Then he
became quieter and sat down again. “I’m getting too
excited. Sorry I yelled like that, Smeeth, though it’s
enough to make any man shout his head off. I’ll explain,

554

ANGEL PAVEMENT

I got a letter from Golspie this morning, saying that he
was clearing out. Here, you can read it for yourself.”

Mr. Smeeth read it through twice. It pretended to be
an ordinary business letter, but there was a good deal of
unpleasant irony in it. One phrase, which practically
said that Mr. Dersingham had tried to sneak the agency
for himself and had not succeeded, made Mr. Smeeth
look up and ask a question. ‘‘Did you really write to
those people and try to get the agency yourself, sir?” he
asked.

Mr. Dersingham nodded.

Mr. Smeeth hesitated a moment. “I don’t think you
ought to have done that, sir,” he said finally, respectful
but reproachful.

“That’s my business, Smeeth.”

Mr. Smeeth looked down and remained silent.
Neither of them spoke for a minute or two, and the
room was strangely quiet.

“Oh well,” cried Mr. Dersingham, struggling with his
embarrassment, “perhaps I oughtn’t to. As it’s turned
out, it was a bad move. But I wasn’t really trying any¬
thing underhand, y’know, Smeeth. It wasn’t as if I was
trying to take a fellow’s living away from him, working
behind his back. I know it might look a bit like that,
to anybody who didn’t know the circumstances, but it
wasn’t. This chap Golspie was obviously one of these
here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow fellows—didn’t make
any secret of it, boasted of it—and I never liked the look
of him and I didn’t know what tricks he might be up to.
He came here, made use of our connection with the trade
and our organisation and everything and drew a heavy
commission, as you know, and all the time he walked
about the place as if he owned it. As I told you before,

THEY GO HOME

555

I couldn’t stand the chap—a terrible bounder. I tried to
be as friendly as possible at first, but it wouldn’t work.
And my wife took a strong dislike to him—she only met
him once, but you know what women are, and she saw
what he was in five minutes—and site was always telling
me to have nothing more to do with him, to get rid of
him. So I just wrote a confidential letter to Mikorskv’s,
saying it would pay them to have the agency properly in
the hands of a wholesale firm here like ours, and that
the—er—present arrangement wasn’t really satisfactory
to them or to us either, and that they ought to consider
it. All in confidence, mind. That was just before he
went over there, and of course they told him all about it.

I didn’t know they were friends of his. I thought they
had an ordinary business agreement, and I considered
I was entitled to suggest another business agreement,
leaving Golspie out.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Mr. Smeeth, still a little doubt¬
ful. “And I suppose they told him then, and that’s what
put his back up?”

“Oh, they did that, but I think he’d been ready to play
any dirty little trick right from the first. He isn’t a
gentleman—never looked like one—and he isn’t even an
ordinary decent business man. He’s just an adventurer,
trying his hand at anything for tuppence. No wonder
he never stopped anywhere long—too crooked! But you
see what he says there, that he encloses a little document
that had-what is it?-escaped his memory. Well, there’s
the little document, there-that statement of Mikorsky’s,
dated when he was there, raising all the prices. There’s
the full list of ’em-up fifty to seventy per cent.”

“But-but,” Mr. Smeeth stammered, as he looked at
this list, “we can’t be expected to pay these prices. We’ve

556 ANGEL PAVEMENT

already bought heavily on the old prices.”

“Have we? Golspie did the buying, and I can’t find
any acknowledgment from them.”

“Well, can’t we cancel the last orders then, Mr.
Dersingham? I never heard of such a thing. It’s not
reasonable. Here their prices have been up for weeks
and weeks, and we’ve been thinking we were buying at
the old rates. They can’t force us to take the stuff at
these prices, surely.”

“I don’t know. That side of it doesn’t matter, anyhow.
The point is, Smeeth-don’t you see?-whether we’ve
bought the stuff or not, we’ve sold it.”

Mr. Smeeth did see; he saw with fatal clearness; and
his dismay must have been written on his face.

“Yes,” Mr. Dersingham continued, “we’ve sold it,
stacks and stacks of it, thousands of square feet, big
orders, Smeeth, big orders, all those orders we paid
Golspie that commission on. You might well look like
that. I’ve been feeling like that all day, even though I
still hoped there might be a mistake-before that
telegram came.”

“But, Mr. Dersingham-it’s-it’s ruination, sheer
ruination.”

“And it’s damnably, damnably unfair, Smeeth. We’ve
simply been swindled. Listen, d’you think there’s any
chance of us getting all those orders cancelled here?”

Mr. Smeeth thought for a minute, then slowly shook
his head. “We’ve undertaken to deliver the stuff, Mr.
Dersingham, and there’s no getting out of that. I mean
to say, if our customers say We want it,’ then they’ll
have to have it, and they can compel us to let them have
it at the price we sold it, or compel us to go out of busi¬
ness. No argument about that at all, sir.”

THEY GO HOME

557

“What I’m wondering is this, Smeeth. It’s not our
fault this has happened. I mean to say, it’s not the
ordinary case of selling the stuff before you’ve bought it,
hoping for a fall in prices, and then getting nipped
because the price goes up when you have to deliver the
stuff. It’s nothing like that, you see. We’ve been let
down by sheer rotten trickery. Notour fault at all. Now
I’m wondering if our customers would agree to cancel
the orders if I explained the situation to them, told them
straight out that Golspie was a wrong ’un and we’ve
been let down. It’s worth trying, isn’t it? Where’s that
order book? I want to see who are about the biggest
buyers of these last lots that I can get hold of at once.
What about Brown and Gorstein? They’re not far
away.”

“And they’ve bought as much as anybody,” said Mr.
Smeeth. “We’ve a lot to deliver to them. You might
get hold of Mr. Gorstein.”

“I’ll ring up and see if he’s there.” And while he
waited, receiver in hand, he added: “Jot down what
Brown and Gorstein have bought, will you, Smeeth?”
By the time Mr. Smeeth had done this, Mr. Dersingham
had learned that Gorstein was still there and was willing
to see him at once. “I’ll go over at once,” said Mr.
Dersingham. “I’ll just tell my wife first not to expect
me back in a hurry. I believe we were going out to play
bridge with somebody. My hat!—I feel as much like play¬
ing bridge to-night as I do like-like-spinning tops.”

When the other had finished his telephoning, Mr.
Smeeth had the order book and some paper in front of
him. “While you’re there, Mr. Dersingham, I’ll try and
work out the whole thing on the new prices.”

“I was going to tell you to do that,” said Mr. Dersing-

55S ANGEL PAVEMENT

ham, as he took down his hat and coat. “Get it all
worked out while I’m up at Brown and Gorstein’s.
God!—we’re in a mess. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Left to himself, Mr. Smeeth did not think. He refused
to think. He applied himself sternly to the task before
him, and for the next quarter of an hour never looked
up from his books and his calculations. He was not
Herbert Norman Smeeth, but simply the master of the
neat little figures, and he added and subtracted and
multiplied them without letting his mind wander away
from their austere but calculable world, in which he had
spent so many pleasant hours. He had plenty to do. All
the orders of the last few weeks, back to the early part of
December, in fact, had to be estimated on the basis of
these new prices, and he had to add the usual costs and
then the commission already paid to Golspie. He did it
with his usual neatness, accuracy, thoroughness, produc¬
ing a statement that could be understood at a glance. At
the end of quarter of an hour, the telephone rang and
disturbed him, but it was not a call for them. Mechanic¬
ally, then, he filled his pipe, and spent a minute or two
listening idly to the various sounds that came from the
steps outside, from Angel Pavement, from the City be¬
yond, a sort of vague symphony, and the only one, it
seemed, that he would hear that night. He put his pipe
in his mouth unlit, and bent over his figures again. Time
slipped away as the totals mounted up on the statement,
and soon half an hour had gone. He turned now to other
books, to the general financial side of the matter, estimat¬
ing what they had in hand and what was due to them.

Mr. Dersingham came bursting in, large and active,
but a figure of misery. “It’s no use, Smeeth. We’re
absolutely done.”

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559

“What did Mr. Gorstein sav?’’

j

“I told them as much as I could, and they laughed at
me, they did, honestly they did, they just laughed at me.
Pretended not to, pretended to be very sympathetic and
all that, but I knew. That fellow Gorstein’s another
rotter, if you ask me. Very sorry and all that, hard luck
on us, but of course they’d bought what we’d offered
them, and they’d undertaken to supply their customers
and made contracts on what they’d bought from us, and
we’d have to deliver, and no nonsense about it. And
they practically told me that everybody else in the trade
would say the same thing, but only be a bit more damned
insolent about it. No, I see that now, plainly enough.
There’s no getting out of it.”

“But, Mr. Dersingham, it’s a terrible position we’re
in, it really is.”

“Good God! man, you’ve no need to tell me that. It’s
the foulest mess I ever dreamed of, and all because of
that dirty crook. Honestly, Smeeth, I don’t pretend to
be a bruiser or anything of that sort, but if I saw that
chap now, I’d go for him. I’d either knock him down or
he’d have to knock me down. Have you been working
it all out? What does it look like?”

Mr. Smeeth now considered his totals and the full
implication of them for the first time. He handed the
papers across the table.

Mr. Dersingham, running a finger across his teeth and
allowing his jaw to drop, stared at them for several
minutes without saying a word. Then he queried one
or two figures, and Mr. Smeeth worked them out again,
for his benefit. The order book was referred to several
times. But there was no escaping from those totals.

“I’ve just been working out how we stand, too, Mr.

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560

Dersingham. I thought you’d want to know now. This
is the position, counting everything in.”

They went over that now, spending about half an hour
in what was mostly futile discussion, as Mr. Smeeth, sick
at heart, knew only too well.

“It’s no good, Smeeth,” the other said finally, “there’s
no getting away from it. It was a tight squeeze paying
that swine all that commission in advance, and now
we’ve got to sell every square foot of stuff at a loss, on
all those orders.”

“It’s a terrible loss. The business as it is will never
stand it, Mr. Dersingham.”

“I know that. And what’s left of the business, even
supposing I could borrow enough to see me through this
mess? Where should we be? Only back where we were
before we began handling this stuff, before Golspie came,
doing just about enough trade to pay expenses, and on
top of that I’d be up to the neck in debt. I couldn’t carry
on a month. I’ve borrowed as much as I can, and even
if I could borrow any more, I wouldn’t—it’s only throw¬
ing money away. Honestly, Smeeth, how can I go
on?”

Mr. Smeeth looked through the papers again, though
there was no real meaning in the glances he gave them.
He was trying to think of a way out, but it was impossible
to find one.

“What are you going to do, then, Mr. Dersingham?”
he asked miserably.

“Nothing. Finish. What else can I do? I’ll buy what
I can of this lot, deliver it, and then finish. And if they
bankrupt the firm, they bankrupt it, and there’s the end
of it. If they don’t, I close down and clear out, anyhow,
and that’s the end of it, too. I don’t suppose it’s the

THEY GO HOME 561

first time a dam’ fool’s been robbed clean out of a busi¬
ness, is it?”

“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Dersingham.” And
Mr. Smeeth didn’t. He was staring at the opposite wall
in utter dejection.

“What’s the good of saying anything? But what
makes me sick is the way that rotter Golspie has cleared
out—”

“I thought at the time it was a bit fishy, sir, when he
wanted all that commission in advance.”

“Well, if you thought so, why the devil didn’t you say-
so at the time. No good saying so now.”

“I did say something at the time, Mr. Dersingham, I
did really.”

“Well, I must say I don’t remember you saying any¬
thing. Anyhow, it’s too late now. You know, Smeeth,
that fellow’s robbed me just as much as if he’d broken
into my flat—it’s worse, when you think of it. And there
isn’t even a charge against him. All he’s done is to
collect some commission and keep a letter back. You
can’t go to the police about that. The swine! That’s
what maddens me. What’s the time? Quarter-past eight?
Come on, let’s get out of this.”

They walked down the stairs and out of the building
together. Across the way, the only sign of life came from
the bar of the “White Horse.” “I don’t know about you,
Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, stopping, “but I want a
drink. It’s a long time since I wanted one so badly. You
could do with a spot, couldn’t you? Of course you could.
Let’s have one, while we can still pay for it.”

The private bar was completely deserted, except for a
long, grey cat that stretched itself arrogantly in front of
the little fire. The barmaid came round the corner.

562 ANGEL PAVEMENT

swept away several glasses, polished a foot or two of
counter, said “Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom” to the cat,
then smiled at the gentlemen in the way a lady ought to
smile, and “Good evening. Nicer now, iserntit?”

“Two double whiskies, please, and two small sodas,’'
said Mr. Dersingham.

“Two doubles,” murmured the barmaid.

Mr. Smeeth could not help being reminded of the
time when Mr. Golspie had brought him in here and
had insisted on his having a double whisky. That was
the night when Mr. Golspie had told him that he ought
to have a rise. Everything was going too wonderful that
night.

“Here’s luck, Smeeth,” said Mr. Dersingham, raising
his glass, “and I’m sorry for your sake it’s turned out like
this, though you’re not losing what I’m losing, not by a
long chalk. But here’s luck—here’s to your next job, and
I hope it’s a better one than Twigg and Dersingham
ever gave you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dersingham,” said Mr. Smeeth
shyly. “And here’s luck to you too, sir—”

“You’d think that cat, to look at it,” said the barmaid,
“was a good mouser if ever a cat was. Wouldn’t you
now? Well, it isn’t. No good at all. Won’t touch a
mouse. Will you, Tom? No, you won’t, you lazy old
rascal. Don’t earn your keep at all, you don’t. Come
here, Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom.”

“I’m going to try for a job out East as soon as I’ve
straightened things up,” said Mr. Dersingham con¬
fidentially. “No more City for me. I never did care
for it. Not really my style at all, y’know, Smeeth. I
always wanted to go out East. You get a gentleman's
life out there. A man I know—he’s just retired and he’s

THEY GO HOME

563

a neighbour of mine-told me some time ago he could
get me a good job out there any time. I shall have a
shot at it.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded and looked gloomy. There was
no job out East for him, and these remarks of Mr.
Dersingham’s suddenly opened out a vast, dreary pros¬
pect. At the moment, he preferred not to think about
the future.

“Look at him, the silly old thing,” said the barmaid,
xvho had the long cat in her arms now. “Aren’t you a
silly old thing, Tom? He’s got nice markings though,
hasn’t he? Reg’lar, aren’t they? Go on then, go down
then, if you want to, Tom. There! Boo! Boo! Just
watch him. He can open the door by himself. Artful
as anything, I can tell you.”

Mr. Dersingham gulped down the rest of his whisky
and soda. “Rotten luck. The worst possible. Where I
made the mistake though, Smeeth, was not trusting to
what’s-it—instinct, intuition, you know. About Golspie,
I mean. I was trying to be the smart City bounder, with
an eye for a tricky bit of business and nothing else-
y’know, like that awful fellow, Gorstein, and all the rest
of ’em. Not my style at all, really. I didn’t like the chap
and I ought to have known he’d do me down. Never
mind, he’ll come to a sticky finish before he’s done. And
so will that daughter of his. You never met her, did you,
Smeeth? Very good-looking, in the film and chorus girl
style, but a terrible little minx. You ought to hear my
wife on Miss Golspie! She came to my place once-but
never again, never again. That was a cpieer business,
y’know, Smeeth, about Turgis and that girl, when
Golspie came and said Turgis would have to be sacked
because he’d been up to some mysterious games with the

ANGEL PAVEMENT

564

daughter. I never really understood what it was all
about—though I’d like to bet that Golspie’s daughter
was up to her tricks there—she looked that sort.”

“I never understood that business,” said Mr. Smeeth
mournfully. “I wasn’t properly told about it.”

“Neither was I, for that matter. But I didn’t bother
much, because I never thought that chap Turgis was
much good, anyhow, and was rather glad to get rid of
him. Thinking it over now, though, I feel a bit sorry
for the poor devil. Have you heard anything about h im ,
Smeeth?”

“Miss Sellers has seen him once or twice, I believe. I
fancy she’s a bit sweet on him. He’s not got another job
yet, of course, and it’s not likely he will for some time.”
He breathed hard, like a man who wants to sigh but has
forgotten how to do it, looked down at the remainder
of his drink, and slowly finished it.

“Well, I’d better be getting along,” said Mr. Dersing-
ham. “That drink’s made me feel hungry. I’ll stop at
the club and see if I can get a bite. I might see a fellow
there who could give me one or two tips about this
miserable business. Then I’ll go home, and that’s the
part I’m not looking forward to, I can tell you. Are
you going home now?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smeeth slowly, buttoning his over¬
coat. “I’m going home.”

2

As her bus turned into that hive of buses in front of
Victoria Station, Miss Matfield shivered a little. She was
nervous; she was excited; and her mind was facing two

THEY GO HOME

5%

different ways. She spent the next few minutes getting
from the bus to the station, which was very crowded and
week-endy, and then to the place where she had arranged
to meet Mr. Golspie, which was on the departure side,
between the bookstall and that large clock with four
faces. Mr. Golspie was not to be seen. This did not
surprise her, for she was rather early. She was somewhat
relieved to find that he was not there. It left her with
a welcome breathing space. She was by no means single-
minded about this adventure.

It had been planned, if a few hasty and last-minute
questions and answers can be called planning, three
days before, on Tuesday night, which was the last time
she had seen him. He had not been to the office since
and she had no message from him, but that did not worry
her. She had a strong suspicion that he was going away
very soon, but she did not know when he would be going
and she did not believe that he knew. Last Tuesday,
just before they parted, he had asked her once again to
go away for the week-end with him, anywhere she
pleased, and this time, moved obscurely by many
different feelings and forces, something genuinely eager
and passionate in the man’s voice, a sudden desire to
clutch at experience, to throw herself upon life, a con¬
tempt for her qualms and misgivings and timidities, she
had agreed to go. An hotel on the Sussex coast she had
once seen w r as to be their destination, and the time and
meeting-place were hastily settled. Several times since,
she had been tempted to write to him or ring him up,
to say that she had changed her mind. Her pride, how¬
ever, would not let her do this. She had said she would
go, and now she would carry it through. She had wanted
adventure, and though she would not have admitted it,

ANGEL PAVEMENT

566

there was always a man in this adventure, and now that
it offered itself and she had accepted it, she could not run
away. Yet there was a creature in her, and not merely
a brain phantom, but a creature that had some of her
rich blood flowing through it, that very blood which this
coarse, middle-aged man could so inspire that it dazzled
and inflamed her, a shrinking and fastidious creature
that cried to run away, to run away and hide. It pro¬
tested against the shabbiness and furtiveness of this
adventure, and pounced upon the sinister lack of fair¬
ness in it. It loathed the cheap imitation wedding ring
that was now tucked away in her bag, a ring that was
part of the adventure, and that had seemed rather a joke
when it first had been mentioned last Tuesday. She had
heard about those rings before, and they had always
seemed rather a joke, perky, glittering little stage
properties in amusing escapades, and it was not difficult
for her to force herself to see that ring in her bag in the
same theatrical light; but, nevertheless, the protest was
not silenced and the loathing remained. If Golspie had
asked her to marry him, no matter if he had told her
that they would have to settle in the most outlandish
place, she would have agreed; but he had not asked her
to marry him. Yet he wanted her, not idly either, and,
when all was said and done, that was a heartening and
exciting fact; and after this, he might want her still more,
the last traces of self-sufficiency in him (and he had
appeared unusually self-sufficient at first, and that had
made him all the more attractive) might vanish, and
then—well, everything might be different.

If you delight in movement and change, the appeal of
a large railway station is irresistible; you are still in the
dark cocoon in the City, but one end is splintering

THEY GO HOME

5G7

already and you can see the blue beyond; the rumbles
and shrieks and snortings are only part of the tuning up;
and even the smoky smell has the savour of adventure.
There had been moments during the last two days when
this week-end, this arrival at Victoria, had loomed in
Miss Matfield’s mind like some unusually desperate
appointment at the dentist’s, and at the thought of it
something coldly writhed inside her. Now that she was
here, however, she was less introspective and her spirits
gradually rose. It was almost better that something
extremely unpleasant should happen than that nothing
at all should happen; and it was very unlikely that
anything extremely unpleasant would happen. She
responded to the lively and adventurous bustle of the
station. "As she strolled over to the bookstall, carrying
her small suitcase, she felt tall, healthy, strong, a fine
woman of the world. One or two middle-aged men had
smiled in her direction and several young men had
looked earnestly at her, all of which meant that she was
looking her best. The bookstall offered her an almost
unlimited choice of reading matter, light periodicals,
heavy periodicals, books that were “amazing successes, ’
books that were “very outspoken,” books that were
simply “great bargains.” She did not accept any of
them, but the knowledge that they were there somehow
gave her pleasure. It was impossible to resist a holiday
feeling. The sight of all the fussy and bewildered
people, of whom there were an unusually large number,
the people who went rushing up to any man in a rail¬
way uniform, who looked in despair at the notice-boards,
who mopped their brows and snapped at one another,
who blankly surveyed great mounds of luggage, who
flitted like uneasy ghosts from one platform entrance to

ANGEL PAVEMENT

568

another, only brought her a pleasing sense of her own
superiority. They were nothing to do with her; she was
not behaving like that; and so she looked on, amused,
contemptuous, failing to see in this spectacle of the
harassed and inexperienced travellers any symbol of
this life of ours.

There were two trains, and they had hoped to catch
the earlier one. It was now only a few minutes from the
time of starting. She returned to her former place,
nearer the clock, and looked about her anxiously. He
would get the tickets, of course, before he came on to the
main platform, so that there was still plenty of time
for them to catch the train if he appeared at all. There
seemed to be more and more people about, though
round her there was a small clear space. It was just
possible that he might have missed her. Only two
minutes now. She hurried over to the entrance to No. 17
platform and looked over the barrier down the waiting
train. Then she returned, even more hastily, to her
place near the clock. From there she heard the train
go out.

It was annoying. They would have more than three-
quarters of an hour to wait now. It was her turn to keep
him waiting. Very deliberately, she made her way to the
tea-room, which was not very full, though it looked
vaguely as if it had been wrecked by a revolutionary
mob, and she spent ten minutes over a cup of tea and a
cigarette. She would have liked to have stayed longer,
but it is almost impossible to linger successfully with
only a sheet of glass between you and a host of trains
and passengers. She tried to loiter on her way back to
the four-faced clock and the bookstall, but an inner rest¬
lessness prevented her, and she arrived there as if her

THEY GO HOME

569

train might start any moment. He was not there. Now
she began making little circular tours with the clock as
their centre. After quarter of an hour of these; she re¬
turned to the meeting-place and remained there, her
suitcase at her feet, erect, motionless, sullen. She was
there, and he must find her. People came and went,
bought papers and books, looked at the clock, looked at
the departure board, glanced at her; porters wheeled
their loaded banows and trucks at this side of her and
that; the trains snorted and puffed and sent red gleams
to the glass roof; but now she paid no attention at all.
She was tired of Victoria, tired of waiting. This time,
when the later train was nearly due to start, she stayed
where she was and made no attempt to discover if he was
already on the platform. When the train had gone, she
stood quite still for a minute or two longer, then walked
away.

She had to wait again before she could get a telephone
call put through to his flat. The telephone boxes were
in brisk demand. She knew his telephone number and
knew, too, that the instrument at his flat, which had
been out of order the week before, was all right now.
But she would not have been surprised to find that there
was no reply to her call, for she was sure at least that
he would not be there. Something had gone wrong; and
even now he was probably trying to get to Victoria.
There was a reply, however, and it obviously came from
a maid.

“Is Mr. Golspie there, please?”

“No, he’s not. He’s gone. So has Miss Golspie.
They’ve both gone,” said the voice.

“Gone? Do you mean—he’s out?”

“No, gone. Gone for good.”

T

ANGEL PAVEMENT

57°

“But-I don’t understand. Are you sure? I had an
appointment with him to-night.”

“All I know is-he’s gone, Miss Golspie too. They’ve
gone to South Africa or South America or one of them
places. In a boat, I do know. I helped ’em to pack, and
a job it was too, and a nice mess they’ve left this place in,
I can tell you. I’m cleaning it up now, after ’em, 'cos
they only took it furnished and I stayed on with the
place. There ivas a gentleman came when I was having
my dinner,” the voice continued, as if it was rather
pleased to have a little chat with somebody, “and he
wanted Mr. Golspie badly, but I couldn’t tell him any¬
thing except they’d gone, went this morning, luggage
and everything, and you never saw such a pile.”

“Did Mr. Golspie leave any message—for anybody?”

“No, he just went—”

“All right, thank you,” said Miss Matfield, interrupt¬
ing and then ringing off.

He had gone, left the country, without even telling
her he was going, without even telling her he could not
keep this appointment at the station. He had simply
tossed the week-end away, and her with it, as if it had
been a crumpled bit of paper. If he had not forgotten
all about it, then he had not cared enough to see her for
the last time or even to send a message. And this was
the man—oh, the humiliation of it all! She left the
station, burning with shame and resentment. An hour
earlier she might have felt relieved if Mr. Golspie had
come and told her that it would be impossible for them
to go away this week-end. But she had waited there, suit¬
case in hand, that filthy little ring in her bag,-had waited
there, and all the time he was miles away, not caring if
she spent the rest of her life standing in Victoria Station-

THEY GO HOME

571

Never before had she felt such bitter contempt for her¬
self. She could have cried and cried, not because he had
gone and she would probably never set eyes on him
again, but because his sudden indifference, at this time
of all times, left her feeling pitiably small and silly. The
misery of it was like the onslaught of some unexpected,
terrible disease. Her mingled pride bled and ached in¬
side her, so that she felt faint.

That was why she did not return, as a sudden impulse
commanded her to do, to the station and take the first
train anywhere, to get away for the week-end at any cost
from London and the Club. She could not do it; all
energy and initiative were drained away; she was too
tired. She found a No. 2 bus, climbed on top, and then
watched, with smarting eyes that refused to see anything
properly, the glitter and blue murk of half London go
lumbering past, Hyde Park Corner, Park Lane, Oxford
Street, Baker Street, Finchley Road, all a meaningless
jumble of light and dark, offering nothing to Lilian
Matfield, no more than if it had been some Chinese
river flickering past on a cinema screen.

Once in the Club, she hurried upstairs, as if she had
stolen the suitcase she carried. Hastily, mechanically,
she washed, tidied her hair, changed her dress, powdered
her face, and then went down to the dining-room. She
did not really want food, but something impelled her to
throw herself back into the routine of the Club. But she
was careful to find one of those nondescript tables for
late-comers, at which there was little talk, and what talk
there was merely the occasional impersonal remarks of
acquaintances. She ate little, and the sight and smell of
the food, the look of everybody there, the high chatter
and clatter of the room, made her feel sick. Neverthe-

ANGEL PAVEMENT

572

less, she stayed on, and had her coffee with the rest.
When she got back to her room, she began examining
all her clothes and grimly set aside some stockings to be
mended. Then she remembered something.

“Can I come in?” said Miss Morrison. “Hello, Mat-
field, what on earth are you doing? Something desperate,
by the look of you.”

“Hello, Morrison. I was only throwing something
away,” she replied, closing the window. Somewhere out
there was a cheap imitation of a wedding ring.

Miss Morrison, who was wearing bedroom slippers,
contrived to shuffle elegantly—for she never quite lost
her slim elegance—into the room, and hoisted herself on
to the bottom of the bed, resting her back against the
wall. “Oh, by the way,” she cried, “you oughtn’t to be
here. Weren’t you going away for the week-end?”

“I was,” said Miss Matfield shortly, hanging a dress
up, “but I changed my mind.”

“Good!”' And that wais all Miss Morrison had to say
about that. It was one of her virtues, as Miss Matfield
had begun to notice, that she did hot ask questions when
they were obviously unwelcome, made no attempt,
except in fun, to nose things out of you. Most girls at
the Burpenfield, if you were on room-visiting terms with
them, did not allow you to have any private life of your
own. “I ought to have gone out to-night,” Miss
Morrison continued, in her usual languid manner, “but
I can’t bother to. I feel foul. I never remember feeling
more completely foul, except when I’ve had ’flu or some¬
thing like that. I’d go and see a doctor only I can’t
afford to, and then again I disapprove of the way we
females run after doctors and worship them. Cadnam's
just been raving to me about some doctor she’s just been

THEY GO HOME

573

to. ‘He’s fifty, of course, and heavily married,’ she said,
‘but the most marvellously attractive man, my dear.’
She went raving on and on. I think it’s revolting the
way these young females adore their doctors and
dentists. I refuse to join in, don’t you? After that it’ll
be vicars and curates and dear, dear doggies-vile! But,
as I said before, I feel thoroughly ill. It’s partly the
idiocy of my respected employer, who really is the silliest
woman there ever was—she gets sillier—and then again
it’s partly the time of year. Don’t you honestly think
this is the very, very foulest time of all the year? It’s
such a long way from anything or anywhere interest¬
ing, isn’t it? Just fiendishly dull. I don’t blame all those
illustrated paper people—Lady Chagworth, Colonel
Mush, and Friend—for going away and slacking about
on the Riviera or in Madeira, or wherever it is they do
go. I say ‘good luck to them!’—don’t you? Though I
must say it oughtn’t to be the same people who go every
year and the same people who stay at home, like us, and
push into buses on wet nights. They ought to change
round a bit. Your turn this year. Our turn next year.
That sort of thing.”

“I should think so,” said Miss Matfield, somewhat in¬
differently. She was still busy putting clothes away. “I
call it beastly unfair. I think I’ll turn Bolshie."

“I’ve often thought of turning something,” said Miss
Morrison meditatively. “Have you got a cigarette, by
the way?”

“Some over there somewhere. Can you reach over
and get them? I’ll have one, too.”

Having found the cigarettes, Miss Morrison handed
one over, accompanying it with a curious glance. I
went to that Chehov play last night. I didn t tell you,

angel pavement

574

did I? My dear, don’t go. I wept and wept-yes,
honestly I did. It was just like the Burpenfield with
the lid off, really it was—awful! When I got back last
night, I said to myself, 1 can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.’ ”

“I think that’s stupid, Morrison,” said Miss Matfield,
sitting in the only chair.

“What’s stupid?”

“AH that-about not bearing it and about the Club
being the Chehov play. It’s not a bit like it.”

“How do you know, my dear? You haven’t seen the
play.”

“I’ve read it.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the same, just reading it. I admit
it’s not like this at all on the surface, but honestly it’s
got the same what-is-it—atmosphere.”

“It hasn’t a bit, I tell you,” said Miss Matfield
earnestly. “And I really think it’s stupid talking like
that about this place. It’s ridiculous—all silly exaggera¬
tion. When you talk like that, Morrison, you annoy
me—”

“Since when, my dear?”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind that it’s simply absurd,
besides being terribly depressing, going about talking
like that about the life we lead here. It makes it seem
fifty times worse than it is. And, anyhow, it’s not bad
really. It’s our own fault if it is. Yes, it is.”

"My dear, you can’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do mean it.”

Having said this, Miss Matfield put down her
cigarette, looked at the floor for a minute, then quite
suddenly and unaccountably burst into tears.

“Sorry!” she cried, five minutes later, when it was all
over. “I’m not going mad, though I dare say it seemed

THEY GO HOME 575

like it. I think-I’ve been feeling rotten too, all strung
up, you know.”

“My dear,” said Miss Morrison, who had been very
tactful, “if I hadn’t wept buckets last night at that play,
I don’t know what I’d be doing to-night.”

“Listen,” cried Miss Matfield, jumping to hei feet and
smiling damply. “I’ve made up my mind now. Yes, I
have. It’s serious. Listen. I’m going to work properly,
and I’m going to get a better job and make more
money.”

“You’re not going to leave your present job, are you?”

“The Lord forbid! If I did, the scheme wouldn’t work
at all. No, but I’m going to tell them there isn’t any¬
thing in the office, or connected with it, I won’t and can’t
do, if they’ll only give me a chance. I’m going to be
really in business, not just sort of hanging on there. I’ve
got a jolly good chance because my firm’s very busy now
and we’re short-handed, and the man who really sold all
the veneers and inlays has just left us—”

“Not the man you told me about, the fascinating
one?'*

“Yes,” Miss Matfield continued hurriedly. “He’s gone,
and that means there’ll be an awful lot to do and they’ll
have to get new people. Well, I’m going down to Angel
Pavement in the morning-and I needn’t go if I don’t
want, because I got the morning off when I thought I
was going away for the week-end—”

“Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that you’ve
actually got the morning off and yet you’re going all the
same? You do? My dear, it sounds desperate.”

“Yes, I am. And I’m going to Mr. Dersingbam, and
I shall tell him that I believe I could do anything that
any man could do-and I don’t care if it’s going round

ANGEL PAVEMENT

57 6

to the weirdest Jewy East End furniture places selling
veneers-and that he ought to give me a chance. I be¬
lieve he will too, particularly now, when business is so
good and he’s so short of people. He could easily get
another girl to do my typing, and that sort of thing, and
I’d go and do some real work and then ask for more
money. Very soon, I might have a real job, with a decent
salary and proper responsibility and everything.”

“Quite crazy! Though I believe you could do it, if
they’d give you a chance.”

“They’ll have to give me a chance, and I’m sure I
could do it.”

She kept returning to the subject for the next hour,
and then, when Miss Morrison had gone, she made up
her mind all over again, and saw Messrs. Twigg and
Dersingham growing more and more prosperous and
herself, a real member of the firm, growing more and
more prosperous with it. She arrived at Angel Pavement
in a neat little car, and stepped out of it a cool, capable
business woman, dressed with a certain austerity, but
still attractive. Before she finally got to sleep, she had
furnished not only her tiny flat in town, but also her
little week-end cottage, which was the delighted admira¬
tion of her mother and other occasional guests. “Lilian,
you are lucky,” they cried; but she told them it was all
the result of sheer hard work. This was the last dream
of the day, and it was very pleasant. The dreams that
followed in the night, the dreams that came without
being asked, were curiously different, all dark and
troubled, like the dreams of a child who has been
hurried away to a strange place.

rHEY GO HOME

577

3

Mrs. Dersingham, Miss Verever and Mr. and Mrs.
Pearson were playing bridge upstairs at 34, Barkfield
Gardens, in the Pearsons’ drawing-room. Mr. Dersing¬
ham should have been there, but he had telephoned to
say that urgent business kept him at the office, so Miss
Verever, who was usually abroad at this time of the year
but had stayed in London because she w r as quarrelling
with her solicitors, had taken his place. She was always
ready to take anybody’s place at any dining or bridge
tables, though she never gave the least sign that she was
enjoying herself. The card table was in the middle of
the room, and there was only just space enough for it
and its four players, in spite of the fact that this was a
large room, larger than any of the Dersinghams’ down¬
stairs. The trouble was that the Pearsons had so many
things. They had furnished the room first with good
solid late Victorian furniture, and then they had poured
into it the glittering East, all the loot of Singapore. If
the Federated Malay States had been destroyed by an
earthquake and a great tidal wave, their life could have
been re-constructed out of that room, which put any
missionary exhibition to shame. Everybody looked out
of place in it, and nobody more out of place than the
Pearsons themselves.

They were now playing their third rubber of auction.
Mrs. Dersingham had Mr. Pearson for her partner, and
they were not badly paired, for she was rather a bold,
slap-dash player, while he was very dull, cautious,
obvious, though he always tried to give the impression
of immense cunning. Nobody believed in this cunning

u

ANGEL PAVEMENT

578

of his except his wife, who would shake her mysterious
dark curls at him and girlishly protest against his
sinister subtlety. “Isn’t he dreadful?” she would cry,
after Mr. Pearson, with much stroking of his chin and
narrowing of his eyes, had succeeded in some common¬
place finesse. Mrs. Pearson, though she had been sitting
at bridge tables for years, was one of those cheerfully
bad players who continually ask for and receive advice,
but have not the slightest intention of improving their
play. Probably she only saw the cards as so many vague
pieces of pasteboard, and what was real to her was simply
the social scene, the faces round the green cloth and the
pleasant chatter between games. If somebody had sug¬
gested playing Snap with the cards or telling fortunes
with them, she would have been delighted, but as people
seemed to prefer bridge, whether in Singapore or in
London, she gladly made one at the table. And if all
Barkfield Gardens had been combed, it would have been
impossible to find a worse partner for Miss Verever,who
played a good, keen, close, give-no-quarter game, and
loathed all idle chatterers at the table, all idiots who
would not get trumps out, all the fools who clung to
their wretched aces, all the witless monsters who said,
“Have you seen her lately? I haven’t seen her for weeks
and weeks. Let me see, what are trumps?” Mrs. Pear¬
son combined smilingly every fault in bridge-playing
known to Miss Verever, and Miss Verever’s glances and
tone of voice, queer and disturbing at any time, were
now more queer and disturbing than ever, so that Mrs.
Dersingham felt quite frightened and wished she had
never asked her to take Howard’s place. On Mrs. Pear¬
son herself, however, these very peculiar glances, these
biting accents seemed to have no effect.

THEY GO HOME

579

h *‘ WeI1 >” said Mr. Pearson, picking up his pencil,
that s three down, doubled—three hundred to us.
Simple honours to you, eighteen. Didn’t do badly that
time, eh, partner? Must make something while we can.
Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee. ”

“Isn’t he dreadful?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “And vou’re
nearly as bad, my dear, you’re encouraging him. You
see what it is, playing against my husband, Miss Verever.
He’s a dreadful man. Never mind, we’ll do better next
time, won’t we?”

“But was it necessary to go Three Spades?” Miss
Verever inquired bitterly.

“Well, wasn’t it? Oh, do tell me if it wasn’t. When
you’d gone One, you see, and I had some spades, I
thought we might win the rubber if we played the
spades. If you think I did anything wrong, Miss Verever,
don’t be afraid of telling me, because I know you’re
ever so much better than I am. Should I have played
that King first?”

Miss Verever drew a deep breath, but Mrs. Dersing-
ham was too quick for her. “Oh, don’t let’s have post¬
mortems,” she cried. “Whose deal is it? Mine, isn’t it?”

“I suppose Mr. Dersingham will come up when he
gets back, won’t he?” said Mrs. Pearson, who never
failed to snatch at any little opportunity for a chat.
“He’s late, isn’t he? It must be so tiring for him, poor
man. We know what it is, don’t we?”

“We do,” replied her husband. “At least I do, my
dear. Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“He used to work terribly late sometimes out in
Singapore,” Mrs. Pearson explained. “Night after
night, sometimes in the hot season, too.”

“Couldn’t grumble though,” said Mr. Pearson. “It

580 ANGEL PAVEMENT

meant that business was good.”

“Yes, of course, that’s what I feel,” said Mrs. Dersing-
ham, pausing in her dealing. “I suppose they’ve had a
sudden rush or something.”

“That’s splendid, isn’t it?” cried Mrs. Pearson. “I do
like to hear of anybody I know doing so well. So many
people don’t now, do they?”

“It’s made a great difference to Howard, being so
busy,” said Mrs. Dersingham, still with the cards motion¬
less in her hand. “He really likes being in the City now.
He was getting very depressed about it some time ago.
Now let me see—”

“The next card should be mine,” said Miss Verever
coldly.

“Oh, should it? That’s all right, then.” And she con¬
tinued dealing.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, my
dear,” Mrs. Pearson began, but she was cut short. Mrs.
Dersingham looked up to see Miss Verever, on her right,
giving her a terrible glance, and so she hastily declared
“Pass.”

“But I thought he seemed rather depressed about it,
too,” Mrs. Pearson continued. “About six months ago,
wasn’t it?”

“One Heart,” said Miss Verever, quietly, but with a
fearful intonation. “One Heart.”

“Oh dear, have you started bidding already? How
quick you are with your cards!” Mrs. Pearson began
sorting hers in a frantic fashion. “Did you say One
Heart? You did, didn’t you? Well, after last time, I
shall say—nothing.”

"But it’s not your turn to say anything,” Mr. Pearson
pointed out. “In this game, your husband for once gets

THEY GO HOME

581

a chance to speak. And I say-One No Trumps. Yes,
this is where your husband’s allowed to speak, my dear.
Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

They were a game all in this rubber, so Miss Verever
struggled up to Three Hearts, but her opponents went
Three No Trumps, got them, won the rubber, and put
her down eight hundred points.

“Is there time for another rubber?” said Mrs. Pear¬
son, who was always quite willing to go on playing,
perhaps because she never really started.

“I hardly think there is,” said Miss Verever, with one
of her peculiar smiles.

“No, let’s stop now,” cried Mrs. Dersingham.

“Somebody owes me four and ninepence,” Mr. Pear¬
son pointed out.

“Listen to him! Isn’t he really a dreadful man when
he plays this game. I believe I’ve lost four and nine—
or is it five and nine?” Mrs. Pearson shook her curls at
the score. “But I refuse to pay you anything, so there!”

“Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“Well, I suppose I must pay my debts,” said Miss
Verever, looking at her score as if it was composed of
something filthy, then glancing round without removing
all the last expression from her face. “I pay you, I think,
my dear. I’m afraid-yes, I’m afraid—I shall have to ask
you for change.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. Dersingham hastily.
“I haven’t got any change.”

“Please remind me then, the next time.” Miss
Verever said this as if they would soon be meeting in
some torture chamber.

Somebody had arrived. It must be—it was-Mr.
Dersingham. He came forward, blinking a little. His

Pj 82 ANGEL PAVEMENT

wife did not like the look of him. He was flushed and
rather untidy.

Mrs. Pearson rushed at him. “Come along, you poor,
poor man! Sit down here. Make yourself comfortable.
You’ve been working all this time while we’ve been em
joying ourselves. Walter, give poor Mr. Dersingham a,
drink this minute. I’m sure you’d like one, wouldn’t
you?”

Mr. Dersingham said that he would, and the next
minute he was taking a good swig of a large whisky and
soda. When he put the glass down he caught his wife’s
eye, and for a moment he just stared at her. She liked
the look of him now less than ever. To begin with, this
was by no means the first large whisky he had had that
night. She saw that at once. But that was not all.
There was something wrong. She glanced round and
saw Miss Verever staring at him, and decided immedi¬
ately that the sooner Miss Verever left them the better.
She did not mind much about the Pearsons, who were
kind and homely people, but she did not want Maud
Verever to see or hear anything. She was about to
suggest that they must go, when Mr. Pearson spoke.

“Had a long day, Dersingham, eh?” said Mr. Pear¬
son, his cheeks wobbling sympathetically. “We were
just talking about it. I know what it is. I’ve had these
rushes, you know, working half the night—in the hot
season, too, not a breath of air. Takes it out of you, I’ll
tell you. Still, it’s good for business, isn’t it? Better
than the other way round, eh? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

“I think I really ought to be going now,” said Miss
Verever, with one of her dreadful smiles.

“Enjoyed yourself?” said Mr. Dersingham.

She started back. “Oh—of course,” she replied, keep-

THEY GO HOME 583

ing her eyes fixed on him.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I like to hear of anybody
enjoying themselves, and specially you, Miss Verever.”

There was something very extraordinary about this,
but Miss Verever did not care to stop and investigate it.
She began saying good night. Mrs. Dersingham said that
they must go too, but Mr. Dersingham refused to stir, so
Miss Verever left by herself, though Mrs. Dersingham
accompanied her down the stairs.

“Howard doesn’t seem to be very well to-night, does
he?” said Miss Verever, when they reached the hall be¬
low, in the Dersingham half of the building.

“He’s tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s very well.
He’s been working tremendously hard. It’s terribly
tiring working late like this down in the City.”

“I suppose it is.” And it would be impossible to
cram a larger amount of dubiety into four words than
Miss Verever did into those four.

“Of course it is,” cried Mrs. Dersingham, a trifle im¬
patiently. “You just try it and see.”

“Why, have you tried it, my dear? If you have, it’s
news to me. However, I hope Howard’s better soon. He
shouldn’t tire himself out like that. It must be very bad
for him. Don’t you think so? Well, it was very nice of
you to ask me to make the four up and play with Mrs
Pearson. Good-bye, my dear.”

Mrs. Dersingham hurried back to the Pearsons,
slightly alarmed and considerably annoyed. It looked
as if Howard had not been kept late at the office at all,
but had sneaked off to his club, where he had had more
drinks than were good for him. There was always just
a little, a little, danger of that with Howard. She found
him sitting with his legs stretched out straight in front

584 ANGEL PAVEMENT

of him, listening to the Pearsons, who were still talking
about Singapore.

“Taking it all round, y’know, the good with the bad,”
Mr. Pearson concluded, “it’s not such a bad life out
there, though it’s not so good as it was. It isn’t any¬
where in the East. Still, even so, I believe if I’d my time
over again, I’d go out there again, I really believe I
would.”

“Good!” said Mr. Dersingham, with a kind of dreary
solemnity. “All right then, Pearson, what about that job
out there you promised to get me.”

“Any time, any time! Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee. When would
you like it? Tee-tee-tee.” Mr. Pearson evidently re¬
garded this as a great joke.”

“You can start getting it for me now, old man.”

Mrs. Pearson joined in the joke. “You’d better be
getting your clothes ready, my dear,” she told Mrs.
Dersingham, who smiled, though not very brightly. She
did not see anything very funny in all this, and her hus¬
band was behaving very stupidly. It was time she got
him away.

“I’m serious, y’know,” he declared now, with the
same dreary solemnity. “I’m not joking. You get me
that job out there as soon as you can. I’m serious.”

“That’s right. So are we. When would you like it
then? Tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.”

Mr. Dersingham drained his glass, then examined
what was left in it, the last golden drops, with ^
thoroughness that suggested he was conducting a
chemical experiment.

“We really must go, yes, really we must,” cried Mrs.
Dersingham, with a farced brightness; and in less than
two minutes she had said all there was to say and had

THEY GO HOME 585

hustled her husband and herself out of the room. There
was no fire in the drawing-room below, but there was
the whitening ruin of one in the dining-room, and im¬
mediately he stumped in there in a heavy sort of wa y
and sat down. She walked in after him, but did not sit
down.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced coldly.

“Just a minute,” he said, in a muffled voice.

“I prefer to go to bed. I’m tired, even if you’re not.”
And she turned away.

“No, don’t go,” he cried, quite sharply now, with
hardly anything of that thickness in his voice that had
been there before. “You mustn’t, Pongo. I’ve got some¬
thing to tell you.”

She closed the door and came back. “Pongo” was his
old special silly delightful name for her, and even now,
when she was annoyed with him, when he was a large,
pink, sagging creature, whose every stupidity she knew
by heart, when he was sitting there, flushed and thick
with whisky, not at all the sort of man she ever imagined
she was marrying, a hundred times less attentive and
considerate and clever and courageous, even now, the
sound of that “Pongo” gave her a little thrill. She was
annoyed with herself for feeling it. If he imagined he
was going to be forgiven at once, simply because he had
called her by that name, he was sadly mistaken.

She took up a position on the other side of the hearth,
and stood looking down on him. “I should think you
have something to say! Have you been to the club?”

He nodded and waved an impatient hand. “That was
nothing,” he muttered.

“No, but if you must pretend you have to work late
and then you go on to the club and fuddle yourself with

v*

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5 8b

drinks, you might at least have the sense to keep out of
the way, instead of barging in like that and behaving so
stupidly. No, Howard, I’m really disgusted. You know
I’m not silly about drinking, as some women are. But
there’s a limit. I believe you’re drinking a jolly sight
too much these days, a lot more than is good for you.
Yes, I mean it. Anybody could see what was the matter
with you to-night, up there.”

“Oh, could they?” He gave a little laugh.

“Yes, of course they could.”

“Well, believe me, my dear, they couldn’t. Not one
of ’em. Not you, even. No, not you.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Howard.”

“I’m not being silly. I wish to God I was. You know
when I asked Pearson about that job? I suppose you
thought I was being funny then, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think you were being particularly funny,”
she told him, “though you obviously thought you were.
If you want to know what I thought, it was that you
were just being rather stupid.”

“Well, I wasn’t, Pongo,” he said quietly. “I was quite
serious. No, listen. We’re absolutely done—I mean the
firm, Twigg and Dersingham—completely finished.”

“Howard, you don’t mean it?"

“Yes, I do. That’s what kept me to-night. I had a
drink or two just because I felt played out, and I sup¬
pose I did show it-sorry about that—but I’ve had a hell
of a day. Golspie’s cleared out and left us—”

“But you told me the other day that even if Golspie
did go, it wouldn’t matter and you’d arranged every¬
thing so that you could do without him.”

“I know, but the rotten swine did me down—”

“But how? I don’t understand. Howard, you don’t

THEY GO HOME ^87

really mean it’s as serious as all that? The firm can go
on, can't it?“'

He shook his head, and kept his face turned away.
He looked like a great foolish baby. She swept down on
him. “Tell me what’s happened. Why didn’t you teil
me at once? I’m sorry I was cross with you. I didn’t
know it was anything serious—naturally. Now tell me.”

He told her the whole wretched story.

“But do you mean to say that brute has gone and you
can’t do anything, anything at all? But it’s ridiculous.
Can’t you tell the police? Why, it’s just as bad as
burglary or swindling. It is swindling. But I knew, I
knew all the time that something would happen be¬
cause of that man. He hated us after that night he came
here and I lost my temper with that vile little minx of a
daughter. I felt all the time he did. I told you to get
rid of him, didn’t I? Oh, Howard, you have been stupid.
Yes, you have. I’ll never believe in you again as a busi¬
ness man. You used to tell me I didn’t understand about
these things, but I’m sure I understand about people—
and that’s the main thing—better than you. But what s
going to happen now?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled miserably, and he ex¬
plained as best he could the position they were in. As
she listened, she suddenly saw the four walls enclosing
them, the table and chairs and sideboard, everything in
sight, no longer as solid objects, fixed, rooted in a secure
existence, but as things brittle as glass, unstable and
wavering as water. Nor did her imagination stop there.
It explored the whole maisonette, the drawing-room,
the kitchen below, the nursery and bedrooms, and dis¬
covered nothing substantial there, except the two
children asleep upstairs and a few personal possessions

ANGEL PAVEMENT

588

that had long ceased to be mere things. She realised
now, with a shock of dismay, that something absurd and
fantastic could happen in Angel Pavement, far away,
that could change all this. Their life here in Barkfield
Gardens, not their personal life, but everything else, all
the cleaning and cooking and shopping and visiting, was
a mere candle-flame—one puff of wind, a wind that came
from nowhere, and it was gone. She understood how
millions of people live. It was a moment of revelation.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied wearily. “Give me
time. I haven’t had a chance to think yet. Hang it all,
this has all been dropped on me like a ton of bricks.
God!—I’m tired.”

He sounded helpless, looked helpless. Her mind
began working furiously now, and the effect, after
months and months of stagnation, of pretending and
dreaming and vague discontent, was curiously exhilarat¬
ing. “Do you think Mr. Pearson could get you a job
out East?”

“No, I don’t.”

“But why? You haven’t asked him properly. He
doesn’t know you want one—if you really do want one,
and I’m not sure about that.”

“I know he doesn’t, my dear. But I’m sure when he
does, he’ll change his tune. I felt that when he was talk¬
ing to-night. It’s all right,” he added bitterly, as if he
had suddenly discovered what the world was like and
what men were made of, “while it’s still a joke. The
minute he finds I’m serious, he’ll pull a long face. I
don’t mean he’s not a decent chap and all that. But he
thinks he’s talking to a prosperous business man who
doesn’t really want a job. That’s the difference.”

they go home

5 S 9

“I must have some tea,” she announced. “It’s no good,
we must talk it over-if I went to bed I shouldn’t sleep
a wink-and if we’re going to stay up, I must have some
tea. I’ll go down and make some. No, I can do it by
myself. You stay here, and, Howard, do, do try and
think of something. Try and find out how much money
well have left—and everything.”

When she returned with the tea, he was still sitting in
the same huddled fashion. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,”
she began, almost gaily. But seeing him there, a large
melancholy heap of man, she put down the tray, came
across, pushed him back in his chair, and stood looking
down at him, her hands still on his shoulders.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

He found this question as difficult as ever, but this
time there was none of that masculine impatience or
grinning tolerance. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he told
her in a shame-faced mumble, “but I don’t feel this is
the time to say so.”

“Of course it is. Why not?”

“Well, I’ve let you down. I’ve let you down badly.
I’ve been a fool. I’ll admit I have. But I never liked
the business, you know that, don’t you? If it hadn’t
been for the cursed War, I’d never have gone into it.
Not my style at all. I always hated it realiy-Angel
Pavement and all those damned furniture places and
sniffling East End Jews, and the whole thing. I’ve tried
my best, but it’s always gone against the grain. I’m
not excusing myself, mind, though, honestly I think any¬
body might have been let down the same way by that
artful devil. Smeeth-and he’s been in business all his
life-never had a suspicion. He was more surprised than
I was. And a fellow I talked to at the club said he’d

ANGEL PAVEMENT

59°

never heard of such a thing, said I couldn’t be blamed
at all. But there it is. What bothers me is that there’s
some of your money gone, too. I’m sorry, Pongo. I seem
to have made a mess of it.”

“I have some money left, though.”

“Not much,” he told her gloomily. “About twelve
hundred, perhaps. No, not quite that.”

“Well, that’s something, isn’t it? It’s quite a lot really.
And after all you’ve had very good business experience
now. Then-you remember what Uncle Phil said? Just
a minute, I’ll pour out the tea. Yes, you must have
some.” She did not sound at all depressed.

• She was not depressed. In a few weeks, she might be
miserable—she knew that too; she seemed to know every¬
thing to-night-but now, at this moment, she might have
just had good news instead of very bad. Unlike her hus¬
band, who appeared to be only half the man he usually
was, a listless lump, she felt twice her customary self. The
footlights had blazed out, the curtain had shot up, and
she had responded at once to the call of the drama. But
there was more in it than that. She was no longer play¬
ing and pretending in the background. The situation,
leaving him crushed, challenged her, and there was some¬
thing exhilarating in accepting the challenge. Every¬
thing was suddenly real and exciting. Plans by the score,
some of them born of old idle day-dreams, were stirring
in her mind, and now while he listened, sometimes
shaking his head, sometimes looking at her hopefully,
they came tumbling out. “Of course, we’ll give this place
up as soon as we can—we ought to get a decent premium
too, look what we’ve spent on the decoration—and then
I’m sure Mother would take the children for a few
months. . .

THEY GO HOME

59 1

4

Yes, Mr. Smeeth was going home. It never occurred to
him to go and hear what was left of the concert. He
had done with Brahms & Co. for a long time, perhaps
for ever. As he waited for his tram, he remembered
that tune again —Ta turn ta ta turn turn—and now it
seemed like something that was going on a long, long
way oft, like a birthday party in Australia. He said
good-bye to that tune. As the tram w T ent lumbering and
groaning up the City Road, he said good-bye to many
things.

He was feeling rather queer. He had missed his usual
evening meal and was empty; that double whisky had
had its effect; there was undoubtedly a pain somewhere
in his side; and then of course there was the shock of
the bad news. He had for years moved gingerly, appre¬
hensively, through a world in which the w’orst might
happen at any moment. The worst had happened. He
could have said to himself, with satisfaction: “What
did I tell you?” Perhaps there ought not to have been
any shock. But it w f as not as simple as that. He had
never expected to be hurled out of his job in this fashion.
He had always seen danger coming from many quarters,
but nevertheless this blow had arrived from quite an
unexpected quarter. The more he thought about it, the
angrier he grew. His anger was not directed against Mr.
Dersingham, not even against Golspie, but against the
whole world, the very nature of things.

You go on for years and years building up a position
for yourself until at last you have a place of your own,
a little world of your own, in which the figures do what

ANGEL PAVEMENT

59 2

you tell them to do, the books reveal their secrets, the
fellows at the bank say “Good morning, Mr. Smeeth,"
and everything is snug and sensible. Then a chap turns
up from nowhere, looks at a trade directory and happens
to choose your firm, wanders into Angel Pavement, and
then, in less than six months’ time, without your having
any hand or say in it, he blows you clean out of it all,
without even knowing or caring a thing about it. You
are quietly finishing off for the day, and then suddenly-
bang! What was the good of trams going up and down
the City Road and conductors taking fares and nobody
smoking inside or spitting on top under penalty of a
fine; what was the good of having a City Road at all and
lighting it with street lamps and opening shops and send¬
ing policemen to walk up and down it; what was the
good of paying rates and taxes and shaving yourself and
seeing that you had a clean collar and going round to
doctors and dentists and reading the newspapers and
voting, if this is what could happen any minute? My
God!—what was the good of it all?

This blanched middle-aged man, sitting in a corner of
the moving tram, an unlighted pipe trembling beneath
his grey moustache, the wrinkles on his face deeper thaa
ever, peering through his glasses now at the familiar pan¬
orama of the North London roads and saw not a glimmer
of it. His gaze was really fixed on the crazy structure of
things, and of that he could make neither head nor tail.
He was shaking a little, but not with fear, but with in¬
dignation. For years there had been a great shadow
haunting and terrifying him, for he had seen all the little
lighted things of his life menaced by it. Now the lights
had gone, blown out; he sat in the shadow itself; the
tram was crawling through it; the Stoke Newington

THEY GO HOME

593

Road was in it; and all his fear had been used up before
by that shadow, when he had been a man who had some¬
thing precious to lose. Now he had lost it. In a week or
two, he would have to start again, and at a time when
even the boys were lining up in their hundreds for a
chance of a mere beginning at ten shillings a week. It
wasn’t good enough. That was the phrase he used, the
first that sprang into his mind, and he repeated it over
and over again with tremendous emphasis. “Not good
enough,’’ he said as he left the tram. “Not good
enough,” as he made his way to Chaucer Road, “not
good enough.”

It was only too evident, he told himself grimly, that
they were not expecting him back so soon at 17, Chaucer
Road. Everything seemed to be in full swing there. You
might have thought somebody had just been left a
fortune. He heard a great noise coming from the front
room, and he saw a light in the dining-room. He chose
the dining-room, and found George there, tinkering
about with the wireless set.

“Who’s in there?” asked Mr. Smeeth.

“The Mitty crowd,” said George, with a tiny grin. “I
came in here out of the way. I’ve had enough of that lot.
Mitty owes me a quid, too. He’s no good.” He looked
curiously at his father. “Anything up, Dad?”

“You got anything to do yet, George?”

“Not yet. I thought I was on to something to-day,
but it was no go. I’m going round to see a chap to¬
morrow morning, big garage up at Stamford Hill. Why?
Anything wrong?”

“Yes. I look like being out of a job within the next
fortnight, and you know what that means.”

It was not the tragedy to George that it was to his

tJ94 ANGEL PAVEMENT

father, not merely because George was much younger,
but also because his whole outlook was different, for he
lived in a newer world in which jobs came and went and
nobody troubled to spend years consolidating a position.
Nevertheless, the youth had sufficient imagination to
realise what this meant to his father. “I’m sorry about
that, Dad—by gosh, I am. Rotten luck, isn’t it? How’d
it happen? They’d never sack you, would they? Has
the firm gone broke?”

“That’s it. Try and get something as soon as you can,
George. You know how we’ll be fixed.”

“Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll get something soon, something
good, too. Edna’s not earning anything now, either, is
she? She’d better make another start, too, hadn’t she?”

“I’ll attend to that. We’ll all have to make another
start now, if you ask me,” said Mr. Smeeth grimly. They
looked at one another, with approval on both sides, in
silence for a moment. They could hear sounds of merri¬
ment from the other room. “Seem to be enjoying them¬
selves in there,” said Mr. Smeeth, his temper rising.

George came nearer. “Dad, boot ’em out. I would if
it was my house. I told Mother so too—”

“Taking something on yourself, boy, aren’t you, these
days?”

“Well, I did. I can’t stand that lot. That’s why I
came in here.”

Mr. Smeeth nodded. “That’s just what I’m going to
do, George. I want some peace and quietness to-night,
and I’m going to have it.” He walked out, and his son
followed him.

The front room was just as it had been the first time
the Mitty family visited them. There were only five
people in it, Mitty and his wife and daughter. Mrs,

THEY GO HOME

595

Sraeeth and Edna, but it seemed quite crowded and as
thick, hot, and smelly, as if people had been eating,
drinking and smoking in it for weeks. It made Mr.
Smeeth feel very angry and disgusted.

Mrs. Smeeth stared at him, and looked uneasy.
“Hello, Dad,” she cried. “I didn’t expect you back so
soon.”

“So it seems.”

“Didn’t you go to the concert?"

Fred Mitty, very flushed, was about to help himself
from a bottle that stood, with other bottles, glasses, and
some cake and biscuits, on a little table in the centre of
the room. He was leaning forward, but straightened
himself when he saw Mr. Smeeth standing there.
“Thought you was having some classical music to-night,
Pa,” he roared. “Gave it a miss, eh?”

Mr. Smeeth advanced into the room, breathing hard.
He looked at Mitty. “I’ve been working hard,” he said
pointedly, “and I want some peace and quietness now,
So I’ll say good night.”

“What d’you mean, Dad?” cried Mrs. Smeeth.

But the irrepressible Fred could not resist this. “Well,
night-night, Pa,” he yelled, “if you’re going to bed.
Don’t let me keep you.” He looked round with a grin,
asking for applause, and got it from the two girls, who
giggled. Then he made a move towards the bottle again.

“I’m not going to bed, just yet,” said Mr. Smeeth,
his voice trembling. “But you re going home. That s
what I meant.”

“Here, half a minute, Dad.” Mrs. Smeeth’s voice rose
in indignation. “What a way to talk!”

“I should think so indeed, cried Mrs. Mitty, sitting

up sharply.

ANGEL PAVEMENT

5S 6

“For the more we are too-gether,” Fred sang, as his
hand closed round the whisky bottle, “the merrier we
will bee-yer.”

The fuse had been burning briskly for some time, and
now its travelling spark reached the explosive. Mr.
Smeeth blew up. “Get out,” he screamed at Mitty. “Get
out of here. Go on. Get out.”

“That’s the stuff,” shouted George from the doorway.

But that scream was not enough for such an explosion
of wrath. Two seconds later, Mr. Smeeth had fiuna:
down the little table and sent whisky and port and dirty
glasses and cake and biscuits and oranges flying about
the room. All was roaring chaos, with Fred Mitty
shouting, the two wives screaming, Dot Mitty shrieking
with laughter, Edna bursting into tears, George charging
forward, and Mr. Smeeth standing in the middle, bellow¬
ing and stamping among the ruins. All the others
jumped up and there was a pushing and jostling and Mr.
Smeeth lost his eyeglasses and had no hope of finding
them in the scrimmage. Nothing could be plainly heard
in the din, and now, for Mr. Smeeth, robbed of his
glasses, nothing could be plainly seen. His wife seemed
to be shaking his arm and shrieking at him; Mrs. Mitty
seemed to have hurled herself at Fred, to prevent further
violence; and George appeared to be taking a hand in
all the proceedings. But in another minute, he was alone
in the room, and all the others seemed to be talking at
the top of their voices outside. Feeling shaky, he made
a step or two towards a chair, and trod on some glass.
His own eyeglasses were still on the floor somewhere,
and no doubt somebody had trodden on them. He
collapsed into the chair, and in a dazed fashion removed
a strange soggy substance from his left bootsole. It was

THEY GO HOME

597

what’had once been a very generous slice of sandwich
cake. Then a piece of broken glass, a jagged fragment of
tumbler, cut his hand. He felt ill. It would not have
been very difficult for him to have been sick on the spot.
The sound of the voices outside did not abate for several
minutes, but he stayed where he was. They could argue
it out between them, could say and do what they liked;
he didn’t care.

The door had been left open, and he heard the Mitty
family go, and then he heard George say something to

Mrs. Smeeth and Edna. The three of them went into
the dining-room and closed the door behind them, but
the sound of their voices, raised in heated discussion,
came to him in his armchair. He had groped about a
little with the hand that was not cut, but all he had
found were two biscuits and these he had eaten in that
mechanical fashion in which biscuits are nearly always
eaten. The voices were lower now and suggested that
their owners were no longer merely shouting at one
another, but were really talking. More minutes passed,
and then he heard Edna go upstairs to bed. Then, after
a short interval, during which he listened intently,
shakily, to every sound, his wife came into the room. She
did not burst in, as he had expected her to do; she came
in quietly and shut the door after her. But this did not
necessarily mean that there would not be a storm, and

he braced himself to meet it.

There was no storm, however. Mrs. Smeeth s first
fury had passed, though she was still very agitated. . If
it hadn’t been for George, I was going to say something
to you, Herbert, you wouldn’t forget for a long, long
time But he says you’re very upset about your work.

“I am,” said Mr. Smeeth in a very low voice.

598 angel pavement

“He says you’re going to lose your job. Is that right?”

“That’s right, Edie. It’s all up with Twigg and
Dersingham. In a week or two I’ll be finding myself
without a job.”

“You’re sure this time, Dad? I mean—it’s not one of
your false alarms, is it?”

“I wish it was. No, there’s no false alarm about it
this time.”

“Mind you,” cried Mrs. Smeeth hastily, shakily, “that’s
no reason why you should have gone and behaved like
this. My word, if anybody’d told me you’d have gone
and done a thing like this—you of all men—my word,
I’d have told them something! Smashing the place up,
too! Look at this room! Look at yourself! But I suppose
if you were upset, you weren’t responsible. Here, Dad,
are you sure, really sure, about your job? You’re not—
you’re not trying to frighten me again, are you?”

“No, of course I’m not.”

“I can’t believe it. Here, what happened?”

He tried to tell her what had happened, and at least
succeeded in convincing her that he was entirely serious.
“And if you think I’m going to get another job as good
as that, or a job worth having at all, in a hurry, you’re
mistaken, Edie. I know what it is, with office jobs; and
it’ll have to be an office job because that’s what I’ve
always done. I’m nearly fifty, and I look it. I dare say
I look older—”

“That you don’t, Dad.”

“Well, that’s your opinion, but you won’t be employ¬
ing me. I know what it is.” And there came back to
him, suddenly, poignantly, the memory of that tiny
scene outside the office door, several months ago, when
he had said to that anxious man, the last in the line of

THEY GO HOME

599

applicants, “Good luck!” and had received the ghost of
a smile. “There are four of us here. George is out of
work, though he might get something soon. He’s a good
lad, really. There’s Edna. She’s earning nothing now.”

“She will be before this time next week,” said Mrs.
Smeeth quickly. “I’ll see to that.”

“She might be, and then again, she might not. And
in a week or two I’ll be among the unemployed. And
we’ve got about forty odd pounds saved up, that’s what
we’ve got, all told, unless you count this furniture.”

“I can work,” cried Mrs. Smeeth fiercely. “You
needn’t think there’ll be me to keep in idleness. I'll get
something. I’ll go out charring first.”

“But I don’t want you to go out charring,” Mr.
Smeeth told her, almost shouting. “I didn’t marry you
and I haven’t worked all this time, never missing a
minute if I could help it, and we didn’t save and plan
to get this home together, so you could go out charring.
My God, it’s not good enough. When I think of the way
I’ve worked and planned and gone without things to get
us a decent position—!” His voice dropped.

“We’ll manage somehow.” And having said this, Mrs.
Smeeth, the gay and confident partner, suddenly and
astonishingly burst into tears.

“Manage? We’ll have to manage,” Mr. Smeeth had
Degun, grimly. Then he changed his tone. Here, Edie.
That’s all right, that’s all right. Now then, now then.

I’m sorry I lost my temper too—”

“It was my fault,” she sobbed. “Yes, it is. I deserved
it. I know I’ve spent too much money. Yes, I have.”

“Oh, never mind. You weren’t to know the firm was
going broke like that. I didn’t know myself. Never
more surprised in my life. Here, Edie. Now then, now

6oo

ANGEL PAVEMENT

then.’.’ He was standing beside her now.

“Oh dear,” she gasped, a few minutes later, trying to
wipe her eyes. She was both laughing and crying now.
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear!”

He looked at her solemnly.

"Oh dear, dear, you do look a sight, Dad. I don’t
know who looks the worst, you or this room. I never
saw such a sketch, though I expect I’m bad enough, good
ness knows!”

“I’ve dropped my eyeglasses, that’s all that’s wrong
with me,” Mr. Smeeth announced, not without dignity.

“I can see that, Dad, I can see that,” she told him,
dabbing at her face. “Here, I’ll look for them. You sit
down. But, mind you, if they’re broken, don’t blame me.
It wasn’t me that started throwing things about to-night,
was it? Here they are.”

“Broken?”

“Yes, somebody made no mistake when they trod on
them. You’ll have to wear your old ones for a day or
two, that’s all. I’ll go and get them for you, and then
you can help me to clear this mess up.”

“All right, Edie.” Mr. Smeeth hesitated. “Is there
anything to eat in the house. I’m getting hungry now.”

“Didn’t you have anything? Haven’t you had any¬
thing at all to-night? You silly man, why didn’t you
say so? I’ll go and get you something now. You go and
get your glasses, you know where they are—in the drawer
upstairs.' If you can’t see them, you can feel for them.
Yes, in the top drawer. And I’ll get you something to
eat while you’re finding them. Oh dear, what a life!
Still, it’s the only one we’ve got, I suppose, so we’d better
make what we can out of it.”

She bustled out and Mr. Smeeth followed her. He

THEY GO HOME 601

was very short-sighted, almost helpless, without his
glasses, and after he had stumbled upstairs to their bed¬
room, he spent some time groping about for the old pair.
Annoyed by the dim shapelessness of everything, he told
himself that he ought to have been wearing his glasses
before he started on such a search. Then he saw the
irony of it, and was quite entertained for a few moments,
during which he felt for the first time for a long while
a curiously reassuring detachment from things, and
when he found the old glasses and put them on, he
seemed, for one brief interval, to be staring at another
and smaller world, and it was a world that could play
all manner of tricks with Herbert Norman Smeeth, but
could never capture, swallow, and digest the whole of
him. The newly-born ironist then returned downstairs,
to eat his supper.

Epilogue

M R. GOLSPIE, pottering about in his cabin,
would not have known she was moving off if
he had not suddenly seen a blue funnel go
wandering across the open porthole. He could feel no
motion, but then she was not moving under her own
steam, but was being taken out of the docks by tugs.
Mr. Golspie put his head into the next cabin, where his
daughter was still fussing about with her things. “We’re
off,” he said, grinning at her. Lena showed no sign of
excitement. You might have thought she had been
travelling to the River Plate all her life.

“Coming out?” said her father.

“Not yet. Are we really going? There doesn’t seem
to be any excitement.”

“There isn’t. If that’s what you want, we ought to
have gone on a liner and then you’d have had palaver
enough-kissing and crying and cheering and God knows
what. These boats do it quietly.”

“Well, I’m disappointed. But I’ll come out when
there’s something to see and I’ve put these things away.
I’m rather tired of staring at these silly docks, though.
Tell me when anything happens."

He nodded, grinned again at her, then withdrew, and
went out on to the main deck, where several of the other
passengers were standing. There were only a dozen
passengers, all told, for this was primarily a cargo boat.
One of these fellow travellers caught Mr. Golspie’s eye,
nodded, and then came nearer. They had exchanged a

6o»

EPILOGUE

603

few remarks already, each having recognised in the other
an old hand and a kindred spirit. They knew even now
that the moment the steward was at liberty to dispense
his liquors, they would be having a drink together, the
first of many, many drinks. This other man, Sugden,
was a tallish fellow with a long bony face and a vast
shaven upper lip, a Lancashire man who travelled for
some chemical firm. He had one of those hard, flat,
Lancashire voices that give every statement they make a
lugubrious and disillusioned air.

“Moving,” that voice announced now, to Mr. Golspie.

“Moving,” said Mr. Golspie.

They stood together, two solid middle-aged men, and
together they watched the long line of masts and funnels
in the Royal Albert Dock go sliding away. They were
still in London, and no great distance from the buses and
trams, the teashops and the pubs, yet all that London
seemed to have disappeared long ago. Here was another
city with streets and squares of dark water, a city of
wharves and sheds, masts and funnels and cranes, barges,
tugs, and lighters. Wherever you looked there appeared
to be nothing but these things, though in the far distance
a haze of smoke, hanging above the multitudinous
chimney pots of Poplar and Bow, suggested that the
other London, the brick and paving-stone London, was
still there. It was not a bad morning for the time of
year. Now and then the sunlight struggled through and
set the water glittering or brought out ghostly rainbow
hues on the darker oilier patches.

'“This where they bring all the meat,” said Sugden.
“This and Liverpool. If you blocked this place up for
a week or two, a lot o’ people would find themselves
without their Sunday dinners. Not me, though. Give

604 ANGEL PAVEMENT

me English meat, when I can get it. And when I’m at
home, I insist on having it. Get enough o’ the other sort
when I’m away.”

“You’ve been on these boats before, haven’t you?”

“I have. I’ve been on this very ship twice before.
They know me here. You ask ’em.”

“Food all right?”

“Suits me,” replied Sudgen. “Should suit you, too.
Good quality and plenty of it. Nothing fancy, y’know
—not like these liners, with their chefs and what not—
but plenty o’ good solid stuff. That’s what I like.”

Apparently it was what Mr. Golspie liked too. He
produced a cigar case, and the two men lit up and
through a fragrant dribble of smoke regarded the
moving docks with half-closed eyes and a vague air of
patronage.

“This port of London’s a bit of an eye-opener to me,”
Mr. Golspie remarked.

“Ever been all round it? Tremendous—oh tre¬
mendous! There’s the West India Docks further up
here, and then the Surrey Commercial on the other side.
You never saw such a place. It’s a hard day’s work look¬
ing round the Surrey Commercial. Chap tried to show
me once, but I gave it up. And then you’ve got the
London Docks further up still. And Tilbury, of course.
If you go out on one of the regular liners and mail boats,
you get on down at Tilbury. I’ve done that once or
twice, but this suits me better. When I’m aboard a ship,
I like to travel quietly. I don’t like all this floating
hotel, song-and-dance, fancy-dress ball business. What
d’you say?”

“Haven’t been on one of those big ships for donkeys’
years,” Mr. Golspie confessed. “Fve never been out to

EPILOGUE

605

South America before, as a matter of fact. I’ve been to
the States, in my time, and I’ve been to Central America,
but not to South. But an old pal of mine’s out there—
Montevideo’s his headquarters—and he’s put up a good
proposition, so I’m going to see what it looks like.”

“Plenty 0’ money there, plenty. Only place where
there is now, there and the States. I shouldn’t like to
live there though. Wouldn’t suit me.”

“And where do you live when you’re at home?”

“St. Helens. That’s where my firm is, and that’s
where I live. Been there all my life. D’you know it?”

“Saw it once from the train,” Mr. Golspie replied.
“Bit ugly, isn’t it?”

Mr. Sugden was not surprised. Obviously he had
heard this before. “Yes, it’s a bit ugly, if you’re not used
to it. But I’m a bit ugly myself. And if it comes to
that, you’re no beauty.” And he roared with laughter.

Mr. Golspie laughed too, companionably. They
strolled round the deck, on which Miss Lena Golspie,
in a fur coat and with a scarlet scarf about her neck,
soon made an appearance, to the delight of several of
the younger male passengers and ship’s officers, who had
been waiting for this moment, after hoping, with the
despair born of many previous disappointments, that she
was not merely a fleeting vision, one of those lovely
creatures who come aboard for an hour or two and then
depart, leaving the whole ship under a shadow. She
joined her father and was introduced to Mr. Sugden
(not an impressionable man), and then wandered away,
to stare with disdainful interest at the other ships and to
gather out of the corners of her brilliant eyes a good deal
of exciting preliminary information about her fellow
passengers. The scene before her-the ship had stopped

6o6

ANGEL PAVEMENT

now in that unaccountable fashion that ships have-
seemed to her very ugly and dull, and it was incredible
that this dirty water and drab messiness should be the
beginning of a voyage to South America, of which her
fancy entertained the liveliest and most exciting pictures,
chiefly derived from the films. After that awful night
with the boy from the office, she had been only too glad
to leave London, which seemed to her, on the whole, a
stupid place, but she could hardly believe now that in a
fortnight or so she would be staring at South American
young men with black side-whiskers and absurd hats.
She was annoyed with the ship for stopping like this, as
if it had nothing better to do than loiter about these
dingy sheds and flat boats full of barrels, and when one
of the officers hung about, looking as if he wanted to
pour out information, she gave him a haughty glance
and walked away.

Her father and his new acquaintance, having finished
their cigars, leaned over the rail, and decided that they
were ready for lunch. Meanwhile, they talked idly.

“I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Sudgen. “I don’t like
London myself—never did. I had a year there once.
Didn’t like it at all. I couldn’t get on with the
Londoners—too much of this haw-haw-haw stuff and the
striped trousers and black coat and white spat business.
Didn’t suit me, I can tell you. They thought they were
smart, too.”

“They’re not-most of 'em,” said Mr. Golspie. “I soon
found that out.”

“So did I,” the other continued in his curiously flat
mournful voice, “and when I did find it out and told ’em
as much, they didn’t like it. No, they didn’t like it.”
Mr. Sugden did not go on to explain why they should

EPILOGUE

607

have liked it. He merely repeated several times more
that they didn’t like it. But he was yawning rather than
talking.

“Well, I’ve just had about four or five months of it,"
said Mr. Golspie, indifferently, “and that was quite
enough for me. They’re half dead, most of 'em—half
dead. No dash. No guts. I want a place where every¬
body’s alive, where there’s something doing.”

“Where were you in London?”

“What—working? Well, my headquarters were in a
funny little street—I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it—
down in the City it is.”

“I know the City fairly well.”

“I wonder if you know this place. I’d never heard of
it before. Angel Pavem&at.”

“Angel Pavement? No, I never heard of that. You
win. Well, I must say I’m ready for my lunch. I think
I’ll slip dow r n and wash my hands. Well, well, well,
we-ell.” He sang these, at the same time stifling a yawn.
“Meet any angels there?”

“What, in Angel Pavement? I can’t say I did.”

“Not on view, eh?”

“Not while I was there. I met somebody who nearly
turned into one, but not quite. No, they were all just
human, and they hadn’t got too dam’ much of that. I
was sorry for the poor devils—some of ’em.”

“All I’m sorry for just now is my inside,” said Mr.
Sugden, with great deliberation. “It’s crying out for a
piece of steak nicely done and a few chips. Hello, there
go the Customs chaps. We ought to be moving again
soon. And-my word!-it’s time they thought about a
bit 0’lunch. Look at the time. Let’s go down.”

“Listen. That’s it,” said Mr. Golspie. “Come on

608 angel pavement

■ Oh, I’ll get hold of that daughter of mine.”

When they returned after lunch, they found that they
had left the docks behind and were now in the river.
There vtas a new chill freshness in the air and a vague
hint of the sea. On one side, the last of Woolwich was
straggling past, with a misty Shooters Hill behind; and
on the other side there were some old piers and a gas
works.

“Better take a last look at London,” said Mr. Golspie
to his daughter, as they walked round the deck. “There
it is, see?”

“There’s nothing to see,” said Lena, looking back at
the glislening streaky water and the haze and shadows
beyond. “Not worth looking at.”

“All gone in smoke, eh? I mean the proper London.
As a matter of fact, we’re not out of London yet. That’s
right, isn’t it?”

“Not quite out of it yet,” replied Mr. Sugden, “but-
you’ve seen all there is to see. I think I’ll go down and
have my little afternoon snooze.”

A string of barges passed them, moving slowly on to
die very heart of the city. A gull dropped, wheeled,
flashed, was gone, and with it went what little sun there
was. The gleam faded from the face of the river; a chill
wind stirred; the distant banks, a higgledy-piggledy of
little buildings and green patches, retreated; and even
the smoky haze of London City slipped away from them,
thinning out into grey sky. “Well, the sun’s gone in,
said Mr. Golspie, “so I’ll go in, too.” Somewhere a
steamer hooted twice out of the ghostliness. He gave a
last look, then turned away. “And that’s that.”

THE JEHU