The Foolish Lovers

by St. John G. Ervine

THE FIRST CHAPTER

I

Mr. Cairnduff's friend, George Hinde, met John at Euston Station. He was a stoutly-built, red-haired man, with an Ulster accent that had not been impaired in any degree by twenty years of association with Cocknies. "How're you!" he said, going up to John and seizing hold of his hand.

"Rightly, thank you! How did you know me?" John replied, laughing and astonished.

"That's a question and a half to ask!" Hinde exclaimed. "Wouldn't an Ulsterman know another Ulsterman the minute he clapped his eyes on him? Boys O, but it's grand to listen to a Belfast voice again. Here you," he said, turning quickly to a porter, "come here, I want you. Get this gentleman's luggage, and bring it to that hansom there. Do you hear me?"

"Yessir," the porter replied.

"What have you got with you?" he went on, turning to John.

"A trunk and a bag," John answered. "They have my name on them. John MacDermott!"

"Mac what, sir?" the porter asked.

"MacDermott. John MacDermott. Passenger from Ballyards to London, via Belfast and Liverpool!"

"It's no good telling him about Ballyards," Hinde interrupted. "The people of this place are ignorant: they've never heard of Ballyards. Go on, now," he said to the porter, "and get the stuff and bring it here!"

The porter hurried off to the luggage-van. "Ill only just be able to put you in the hansom," said Hinde to John, "and start you off home, I've got to go north, tonight to write a special report of a meeting!..."

"What sort of a meeting?" John enquired.

"Political. An address to Mugs by a Humbug. That's what it ought to be called. I was looking forward to having a good crack with you the night, but sure a newspaper man need never hope to have ten minutes to himself. I've given Miss Squibb orders to have a good warm supper ready for you. That's a thing the English people never think of having on a Sunday night. They're afraid God 'ud send them to hell if they didn't have cold beef for their Sunday supper. But there'll be a hot supper for you, anyway. A man that's been travelling all night and all day wants something better nor cold beef in his inside on a cold night!"

"It's very kind of you!..."

"Ah, what's kind about? Aren't you an Ulsterman? You've a great accent! Man, dear, but you've a great accent! If ever you lose it I'll never own you for a friend, and I'll get you the sack from any place you're working in. I'll blacken your character!..."

"You're a terrible cod," said John, laughing at him.

"Damn the cod there's about it! You listen to these Cockney fellows talking, and then you'll understand me. It's worse nor the Dublin adenoids voice. There's no people in the earthly world talks as fine as the Ulster people. Here's the man with your luggage!" The porter wheeled a truck, bearing John's trunk and bag, up to them as he spoke. "Is that all you have?"

"Aye," said John.

"And enough, too! What anybody wants with more, I never can make out, unless they're demented with the mania of owning things! That's a bit out of Walt Whitman. Ever read any of him?"

"No," said John.

"It's about time you begun then. Put this stuff in the hansom, will you?" he went on to the porter, and while the porter did so, he continued his conversation with John. "Miss Squibb ... that's the name of the landlady ... comic name, isn't it? ... like a name out of Dickens ... and she's a comic-looking woman, too ... hasn't got a spare sitting-room to let you have, but you can share mine 'til she has. My bedroom's on the same floor as the sitting-room, but yours is on the floor above. We're a rum crew in that house. There's a music-hall man and his wife on the ground-floor ... a great character altogether ... Cream is their name ... and a Mr. and Mrs. Tarpey ... but you'll see them all for yourself. I'll be back on Tuesday night. Give this porter sixpence, and the cabman's fare'll be three and sixpence, but you'd better give him four bob. If he tries to charge you more nor that, because you're a stranger, take his number. Good-bye, now, and don't forget I'll be back on Tuesday night!"

He helped John into the hansom, and after giving instructions to the cabman, stood back on the pavement, smiling and waving his hand, while the cab, with a flourish of whip from the driver and a jingle of harness, drove out of the station.

"I like that man," said John to himself, as he lay back against the cushions and gave himself up to the joy of riding in a hansom cab.

II

The house to which John was carried was in the Brixton Road, near to the White House public-house. Fifty years ago it had been a rich merchant's home and was almost a country house, but now, like many similar houses, it had fallen to a dingy estate: it was, without embroidery of description, a lodging-house. Miss Squibb, who opened the door to him, had a look of settled depression on her face that was not, as he at first imagined, due to disapproval of him, but, as he speedily discovered, to a deeply-rooted conviction that the rest of humanity was engaged in a conspiracy to defraud her. She eyed the cabman with so much suspicion that he became uneasy in his mind and deposited the trunk and the bag in the hall in silence, nor did he make any comment on the amount of his fare.

Miss Squibb helped John to carry the luggage to his room. Her niece, Lizzie, who usually performed such work, was spending the week-end with another aunt in North London, so Miss Squibb said, and she was due to return before midnight, but Miss Squibb would expect her when she saw her. It would not surprise her to find that Lizzie did not return to her home until Monday evening. Nothing would surprise Miss Squibb. Miss Squibb had long since ceased to be surprised at anything. No one had had more cause to feel surprised than Miss Squibb had had in the course of her life, but now she never felt surprised at anything. She prophesied that a time would come when John would cease to feel surprise at things....

She stood in the centre of his bedroom in a bent attitude, with her hands folded across her flat chest, and regarded him with large, protruding eyes. "You're Irish, aren't you?" she said, accusingly.

"Yes, Miss Squibb," he said, using her name with difficulty, because it created in him a desire to laugh.

"Like Mr. 'Inde?"

"Inde!" he repeated blankly, and then comprehension came to him. "Oh, Mr. Hinde! Yes! Oh, yes, yes!"

"I thought so," she continued. "You have the syme sort of talk. Funny talk, I calls it. Wot time du want your breakfis?"

"Eight o'clock," he said.

"I s'pose you'll do syme as Mr. 'Inde ... leave it to me to get the things for you, an' charge it up?"

"Oh, yes," John replied. "I'll do just what Mr. Hinde does!"

He looked around the dingy room, and as he did so, he felt depression coming over him; but Miss Squibb misjudged his appraising glance.

"It's a nice room," she said, as if she were confirming his judgment on it.

"Yes," he said dubiously, glancing at the bed and the table and the ricketty washstand. There were pictures and framed mottoes on the walls. Over his bed was a large motto-card, framed in stained deal, bearing the word: ETERNITY; and on the opposite wall, placed so that he should see it immediately he awoke, was a coloured picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, in which the lions seemed to be more dejected than Daniel.

"A gentleman wot used to be a lodger 'ere done that," said Miss Squibb when she saw that he was looking at the picture. "'E couldn't py 'is rent an' 'e offered to pynt the bath-room, but we 'aven't got a bath-room so 'e pynted that instead. It used to be a plyne picture 'til 'e pynted it. 'E sort of livened it up a bit. Very nice gentleman 'e was, only 'e did get so 'orribly drunk. Of course, 'e was artistic!"

The drawing was out of perspective, and John remarked upon the fact, but Miss Squibb, fixing him with her protruding eyes, said that she could not see that there was anything wrong with the picture. It was true, as she admitted, that if you were to look closely at the lion on the extreme right of the picture, you would find he had two tails, or rather, one tail and the remnant of another which the artist had not completely obliterated. But that was a trifle.

"Pictures ain't meant to be looked at close," said Miss Squibb, "an' any'ow you can't expect to 'ave everythink in this world. Some people's never satisfied without they're finding fault in things!"

John, feeling that her final sentence was a direct rebuke to himself, hurriedly looked away from the picture.

"There's a good view from the window," he said to console her for his depreciation of the picture.

"That's wot I often says myself," she replied. "People says it's 'igh up 'ere an' a long way to climb, but wot I says is, it's 'ealthy when you get 'ere, and you 'ave a view. I'll leave you now," she concluded. "When you've 'ad a wash, your supper'll be waitin' for you. in Mr. 'Inde's sitting-room. I expect you'll be glad to 'ave it!"

"I shall," he replied. "I'm hungry!"

"Yes, I expect so," she said, closing the door.

He sat down on the bed and again looked about the room, and the dreariness of it filled him with nostalgia. He had not yet unpacked his trunk or his bag, and he felt that he must immediately carry them down the stairs again, that he must call for a cabman and have his luggage and himself carried back to Euston Station so that he might return to his home. The clean air of Ballyards and the bright sunlit bedroom over the shop seemed incomparably lovely when he looked about the dingy Brixton bedroom. If this was the beginning of adventure!... He gazed at the picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, and wished that a lion would eat Daniel or that Daniel would eat a lion!...

Then he went to the washstand and washed his face and hands, and when he had done so, he went downstairs and ate his supper.

III

In the morning, there was a thump on his bedroom door, and before he had had time to consider what he should do, the door opened and a girl entered, carrying a tray. "Eight o'clock," she said, "an' 'ere's your breakfast! Aunt said you'd better 'ave it in bed 'smornin', after your journey!"

She set the tray down on the table so carelessly that she spilled some of the contents of the coffee-pot.

"Aunt forgot to ask would you have tea or coffee, so she sent up coffee. Mr. 'Inde always 'as coffee, so she thought you would, too! An' there's a 'addick. Mr. 'Inde likes 'addick. It ain't a bad fish!"

John looked at her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother, had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in bed. He had never in his life seen so untidy a woman as this. Her hair had been hastily pinned together in a shapeless lump on the top of her head, and loose ends straggled from it. Her dress was on her ... that was certain ... but how it was on her was more than he could understand. She seemed to bristle with safety-pins!...

Her total lack of shame, in the presence of a man, undressed and in bed, caused him to wonder whether she was one of the Bad Women against whom Mr. McCaughan had so solemnly warned him. If she, were, the warning was hardly necessary!...

"I think you got everythink?" she said briskly, glancing over the table to see that nothing was missing.

He saw now that, she bore some facial resemblance to Miss Squibb. She was not, as that lady was, ashen-hued, but her eyes, though less prominently, bulged. This must be Lizzie!...

"Who are you?" he asked, as she turned to leave the room. "Eih?"

"What's your name? I've not seen you before!"

"Naow," she exclaimed, "I've been awy! I'm Lizzie. 'Er niece!"

She nodded her head towards the door, and he interpreted this to mean Miss Squibb.

"Oh, yes," he said. "She told me about you. Were you very late last night?"

She laughed. "Naow," she replied, "I was very early this mornin'!"

She stood with her hand on the knob of the door. "If you want anythink else," she said, "just 'oller down, the stairs for it. An' you needn't 'urry to get up. I know wot travellin's like. I've travelled a bit myself in my time. That 'addick ain't as niffy as it smells!..."

She closed the door behind her and he could hear her quick steps all the way down the stairs to the ground floor.

"That's a queer sort of woman," he said to himself.

As he ate his breakfast, he wondered at Lizzie's lack of embarrassment as she stood in his bedroom and saw him lying in bed. She had behaved as coolly as if she had been in a dining-room and he had been completely clothed. What would his mother say if she knew that a girl had entered his bedroom as unconcernedly as if she were entering a tramcar? Never in all his life had such a thing happened to him before. He had been very conscious of his bare neck, for the collar of his night-shirt had come unfastened. He had tried to fasten it again, but in his desire to do so without drawing Lizzie's attention to his state, he had merely fumbled with it, and had, finally, to abandon the attempt. What astonished him was that Lizzie appeared to be totally unaware of anything unusual in the fact that she was in the bedroom of a strange man. She did not look like a Bad Woman ... and surely Mr. Hinde would not live in a house where Bad Women lived!... Perhaps Englishwomen were not so particular about things as Irishwomen!... Anyhow the haddock was good and the coffee tasted nice enough, although he would much rather have had tea.

He finished his meal, and then dressed himself and went downstairs to the sitting-room which he was to share with Hinde. It was less dreary than the bedroom from which he had just emerged, but what brightness it had was not due to any furnishing provided by Miss Squibb, but to a great case full of books which occupied one side of the room. "He's as great a man for books as my Uncle Matthew," John thought, examining a volume here and a volume there. He opened a book of poems by Walt Whitman. "That's the man he was telling me about last night," he said to himself, as he turned the pages. He read a passage aloud:

Come, Muse, migrate—from Greece and Ionia,
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas',
Odysseus' wanderings,
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy
Parnassus,
Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and
on Mount Moriah,
The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,
and Italian collections,
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you.

"That's strange poetry," he murmured, turning over more of the pages. "Queer stuff! I never read poetry like that before!" He began to read "The Song of the Broad Axe," at first to himself, and then aloud:

What do you think endures?
Do you think a great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing State? or a prepared Constitution? or
the best built steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chefs d'oeuvre of engineering,
forts, armaments?
Away! these are not to be cherished for themselves,
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,
The show passes, all does well, of course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the world.
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's
or woman's look!

He re-read aloud the last four lines, and then closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. "That man must have been terribly angry," he said to himself.

Lizzie came into the room. "I 'eard you," she said, "syin' poetry to yourself. You're as bad as Mr. 'Inde, you are. 'E's an' awful one for syin' poetry. Why down't you go out for a walk? You 'aven't seen nothink of London yet, an' 'ere you are wystin' the mornin' syin' poetry. If I was you, now, I'd go and see the Tahr of London where they used to be'ead people. An' the Monument, too! You can go up that for thruppence. An' the view you get! Miles an' miles an' miles! Well, you can see the Crystal Palace anywy! I do like a view! Or if you down't like the Tahr of London, you could go to the Zoo. Ow, the monkeys! Ow, dear! They're so yooman, I felt quite uncomfortable. Any'ow, I should go out if I was you, an' 'ave a look at London. Wot's the good of comin' to London if you don't 'ave a look at it!"

"I think I will," said John.

"I should," Lizzie added emphatically. "I don't suppose we'll see you until dinner time. Seven o'clock, we 'ave it!"

"I always had my dinner in the middle of the day at home," John replied.

"Ow, yes, in Ireland," said Lizzie tolerantly. "But this is London. London's different from Ireland, you know. You'll find things very diff'rent 'ere from wot they are in Ireland. I've 'eard a lot about Ireland. Mr. 'Inde ... 'e does go on about it. Anybody would think to 'ear 'im there wasn't any other plyce in the world!..." She changed the subject abruptly, speaking in a more hurried tone. "I ought reely to be dustin' this room ... only of course you're in it!"

John apologised to her. "I'm interfering with your work," he murmured in confusion.

"Ow, no you ain't. It don't matter if it's dusted or not ... reely. Only Aunt goes on about it. Mr. 'Inde wouldn't notice if it was never dusted. I think he likes dust reely. I suppose you're goin' to do some work now you're 'ere, or are you a writer, too, like Mr. 'Inde?"

"I want to be a writer," John shyly answered.

"Well, there's no 'arm in it," Lizzie said, "But it ain't reg'lar. I believe in reg'lar work myself. Of course, there's no 'arm in bein' a writer, but you'd be much better with a tryde or a nice business, I should think. Reely!"

"Oh, yes," John murmured. "Well, I think I'll go out now!"

"Are you goin' to the Tahr, then?" "No," he answered. "No, I hadn't thought of that. I want to see Fleet Street!..."

"Fleet Street!" Lizzie exclaimed. "Wotever is there to see there."

"Oh, I don't know. I want to see it. That's all!"

"You 'ave got funny tyste. I should, 'ave thought you'd go to see the Tahr reely!..." She broke off as she observed him moving to the door. "Mind, be back at seven sharp. I 'ate the dinner kep' 'angin' about. I don't get no time to myself if people aren't punctual. Mr. 'Inde's awful, 'e is. 'E don't care about no one else, 'e don't. Comes in any time, 'e does, an' expects a 'ot dinner just the syme. Never thinks nobody else never wants to go nowhere!..."

"I'll be back in time," said John, hurrying from the room.

"Well, mind you are," she called after him.

IV

In the street, he remembered that he had forgotten to ask Lizzie to tell him how to find Fleet Street, but her capacity for conversation prevented him from returning to the house to ask her. The number of trams and 'buses of different colours bewildered him, as he stood opposite to the White Horse, and watched them go by: and the accents of the conductors, when they called out their destinations, were unintelligible to him. He heard a man shouting "Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng, BENGK!" in a voice that sounded like a quick-firing gun, but the noise had no meaning for him. He saw names of places that were familiar to him through his reading or his talk with Uncle Matthew, painted on the side of the trams and buses, but he could not see the name of Fleet Street among them. He turned to a policeman and asked for advice, and the policeman put him in the care of a 'bus-conductor.

"You 'op on top, an' I'll tell you where to git off," the 'bus conductor said, and John did as he was bid.

He took a seat in the front of the 'bus, just behind the driver, for he had often heard stories of the witty sayings of London 'busmen and he was anxious to hear a 'bus-driver's wit being uttered.

"That's a nice day," he said, when the 'bus had gone some distance.

The driver, red-faced, obese and sleepy-eyed, slowly turned and regarded John, and having done so, nodded his head, and turned away again.

"Nice pair of horses you have," John continued affably.

"Yes," the driver grunted, without looking around.

John felt dashed by the morose manner of the driver and he remained silent for a few moments, but he leant forward again and said, "I expect you see a good deal of life on this 'bus?"

"Eih?" said the driver, glancing sharply at him. "Wot you sy?"

"I suppose you've seen a good many queer things from that seat?" John answered.

"'Ow you mean ... queer things?"

"Well, strange things!..."

The driver turned away and whipped up the horses.

"I've never seen anythink strynge in my life," he said. "Kimmup there! Kimmup!..."

"But I thought that 'bus-drivers always saw romantic things!"

"I dunno wot you're talkin' abaht. Look 'ere, young feller, are you a reporter, or wot are you?"

"A reporter!"

"Yus. One of these 'ere noospyper chaps?"

"No."

"Well, anybody'd think you was, you ast so many questions!"

John's face coloured. "I beg your pardon," he said in confusion. "I didn't mean to be inquisitive!"

"That's awright. No need to 'pologise. I can see you down't mean no 'arm!" His manner relaxed a little, as if he would atone to John for his former surliness. "That's the 'Orns," he said, pointing to a large public-house. "Well-known 'ouse, that is. Best known 'ouse in Sahth London, that is. Bert ... that's the conductor ... 'e says the White 'Orse at Brixton is better-known, an' I know a chep wot says the Elephant an' Castle is!..."

"It's mentioned in Shakespeare," John eagerly interrupted.

"Wot is?"

"The Elephant and Castle. In Twelfth Night. My Uncle, who knew Shakespeare by heart, told me about it. It was a public-house in those days, too. But I never heard of the Horns!"

The 'bus-driver was impressed by this statement, but he would not lightly yield in the argument. "Of course," he said, "The Elephant my 'ave been well-known in them dys, and I don't sy it ain't well-known in these dys, but I do sy thet it ain't so well-known now as wot the 'Orns is. There ain't a music-'all chep in London wot down't know the 'Orns. Not one!"

"Shakespeare didn't know it," John exclaimed.

"Well, 'e didn't know everythink did 'e?" the driver retorted. "P'raps the 'Orns wasn't built then. I dessay not. 'E'd 'ave mentioned it if 'e'd 'ave known abaht it. All these actor cheps know it, so of course 'e'd 'a' known abaht it, too. We'll be at the Elephant presently. I always sy to Bert we 'ave the most interestin' pubs in London on this route, White 'Orse, the 'Orns, the Elephant an' the Ayngel. Ever 'eard of the Ayngel at Islington?"

"Yes," said John, "That's where Paine wrote The Rights of Man."

"Did 'e?" the driver answered. "Well, I dessay 'e did. It's a celebrated 'ouse, it is. Celebrated in 'istory. There's a song abaht it. You know it, down't you!...

Up and dahn the City Rowd,
In at the Ayngel...
Thet's the wy the money gows,
Pop gows the weasel.

Ever 'eard thet?"

"Oh, yes," John replied, smiling. "I used to sing that song at home!"

"Did you nah. An' w'ere is your 'ome?"

"In Ireland!"

"Ow! Thet acahnts for it. I couldn't myke aht 'ow it was you never 'eard of the 'Orns. Fency you hearin' abaht the Elephant in Ireland!"

"Well, you see, Shakespeare mentions it!..."

"I down't tyke much interest in 'im. 'Ere's the Elephant! Thet's Spurgeon's Tabernacle over there!..."

The driver became absorbed in the business of pulling up at the stopping-place and alluring fresh passengers on to the 'bus in place of those who were now leaving it, and John had time to look about him. The public-house was big and garish and even at this hour of the morning the hot odour of spirits floated out of it when a door was swung open. "I don't suppose it was like that in Shakespeare's day," he said to himself, as he turned away and gazed at the flow of people and traffic that passed without ceasing through the circus where the six great roads of South London meet and cross. It seemed to him that an accident must happen, that these streams of carts and trams and 'buses and hurrying people must become so involved that disaster must follow. He became reassured when he observed how imperturbed everyone was. There were moments when the whole traffic seemed to become chaotic and the roads were choked, and then as suddenly as the congestion was created, it was relieved. He felt enthralled by this wonder of traffic, of great crowds moving with ease through a criss-cross of confusing streets.

"It's wonderful," he said, leaning forward and speaking almost in a whisper to the driver.

"Wot is?"

"All that traffic!"

"Ow, thet's nothink. We think nothink of thet owver 'ere," the driver replied. "We down't tyke no notice of a little lot like thet!"

The conductor rang his bell, and the driver whipped up his horses, and the 'bus proceeded on its way.

John remembered that he had not heard any witticisms from the driver. Uncle Matthew had told him that one could always depend upon a 'busman to provide comic entertainment, but this man, although, after a while, he had become talkative enough, had not said one funny thing. He had not chaffed a policeman or a footpassenger or another 'busman, and now that they had passed away from the Elephant and Castle, his conversation seemed to have dried up. The 'bus tooled through the Newington Butts, along the Borough High Street (past the very inn where Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, although John was then unaware that he was passing it) and under the railway bridge at St. Saviour's Cathedral Church of Southwark.

"What's that place?" John said to the driver, pointing to the Cathedral.

"Eih? Ow, thet! Thet's a cathedral!"

"A cathedral! Hidden away like that!..."

A hideous railway bridge cramped St. Saviour's on one side, and hideous warehouses and offices cramped it on the other. There was a mess of vegetable debris lying about the Cathedral pavement, the refuse from the Borough Market.

"What cathedral is it?" John demanded.

"Southwark!" the driver replied, pronouncing it "Suth-ark." "Suthark!" John said vaguely. "Do you mean Southwark?..." He pronounced the name as it is spelt.

"We call it Suthark!" said the driver. "Yes, thet's it, Southwark Cathedral!..."

"But that's where Shakespeare used to go to church!" John exclaimed.

"Ow!" the driver replied.

"And look at it!..."

"Wot's wrong with it?" The 'bus was now rolling over London Bridge, and the Cathedral could not be seen.

"They've hidden it. That awful bridge!..."

"I down't see nothink wrong with it," the driver interrupted.

"Nothing wrong with it! You'd think they were ashamed of it, they've hidden it so!"

"I down't see nothink wrong with it. Wot you gettin' so excited abaht?"

"Shakespeare said his prayers there!" John ejaculated.

"Well, wot if 'e did?" the driver replied. "We down't think nothink of Cathedrals owver 'ere! We've got 'undreds of 'em!"

John sat back in his seat and stared at the driver. He was incapable of speaking, and the driver, busy with his horses, said no more. The 'bus crossed the river, drove along King William Street into Prince's Street, and stopped. The conductor climbed to the roof and called to John. "You chynge 'ere," he said, beckoning him.

"Good-morning," John said to the driver as he rose from his seat.

"Goo'-mornin'!" said the driver. He paused while John got out of the seat into the gangway. "You know," he went on, "you wown't git so excited abaht things after you bin 'ere a bit. You'll tyke things more calm. Like me. I down't go an' lose my 'ead abaht Shykespeare!..."

"Good-morning," said John.

"Ow, goo'-mornin'!" said the driver.

The conductor was standing on the pavement when John descended.

"You'll get a 'bus owver there at the Mansion 'Ouse," he said, "thet'll tyke you right into Fleet Street. Or you can walk it easy from 'ere. 'Long Cheapside, just rahnd the corner!..."

"Cheapside!" John said with interest. Uncle Matthew had told him that Herrick, the poet, was born in Cheapside, and that Richard Whittington, resting in Highgate Woods, had heard Bow Bells pealing from a Cheapside steeple, bidding him return to be Lord Mayor of London and marry the mercer's daughter.

"Yus, Cheapside!" the conductor dully repeated. "Go 'long Cheapside, turn to the left pas' St. Paul's, and you'll be in Ludgate 'ill. After thet, follow your nowse! See?"

"Thank you!" said John.

The throng of traffic seemed to be greater here than it had been at Elephant and Castle, and John, confused by it, stood looking about him. "Thet's the Benk of England, thet!" the conductor hurriedly continued, pointing across the street to the low, squat, dirty-looking building which occupied the whole of one side of the street. "An' thet's the Royal Exchynge owver there, an' this 'ere is the Mansion 'Ouse where the Lord Mayor lives. I can't stop to tell you no more. Ayngel, Ayngel, Ayngel! Any more for the Ayngel?..."

Several persons climbed on to the 'bus, and then, after attempting to persuade people, anxious to go to Charing Cross, to go to the Angel at Islington instead, the conductor rang his bell. He waved his hand in farewell to John, who smiled at him. The 'bus lumbered off, John watched it roll out of sight and, when it had gone, turned to find Cheapside. There was an immense pressure of people in the streets, and for a few moments he imagined that he had wandered into the middle of a procession.

"Is there anything up?" he said to a lounger.

"Up?" the man repeated in a puzzled tone.

"Yes. All these people!..."

"Oh, no," the man said, "It's always like this!"

Always like this!...

He had never seen so many people or so much traffic before. The crowd of workmen pouring out of the shipyards in Belfast was more impressive than this London crowd, but not so perturbing, for that was a definite crowd, having a beginning and an end and a meaning: it was composed entirely of men engaged in a common enterprise; but this crowd had no beginning and no end and no meaning: there was no common enterprise. It was an amorphous herd, and almost it frightened him. If that herd were to become excited ... to lose its head!... Hardly had the thought come into his mind when an accident happened. A four-wheeler cab, trundling across Mansion House Place towards Liverpool Street, overbalanced and fell on its side. The driver was thrown into the road, and John, imagining that he must be killed by a passing vehicle, shut his eyes so that he might not see the horrible thing happen.... When he opened his eyes again, the driver was on his feet and, assisted by policemen and some passers-by, was freeing his horse from its harness, while two other policemen dragged an old lady through the window of the cab and placed her on the pavement.

"Really, driver!" she said, "you ought to be mere careful. I shall lose my train!"

"You'd think I'd done it a-purpose to 'ear 'er," the driver mumbled.

And the traffic swept by on either side of the overturned cab, and there was no confusion, no excitement, no disaster. The careless, traffic of the streets which seemed so likely to end in disorder never ended otherwise than satisfactorily. There was control over it, but the control was not obtrusive.

He felt reassured in a measure, but a sense of loneliness filled him. He stood with his back, against the wall of a large building and regarded the scene. Wherever he looked there were masses of people and vehicles and tall buildings. Crowds and crowds of people with no common, interest save that of speedily reaching a destination. He might stand there for hours, with his back to this wall, and not see the end of that crowd. In Belfast, at twelve o'clock on Saturday morning, the workmen would hurry over the bridge to their homes: a thick, black, unyielding mass of men; but at thirty minutes after twelve, that thick, black, seemingly solid mass would be dissolved into the ordinary groupings of a provincial city and there would be no sign of it. This London crowd would never dissolve. The man had told him that "it's always like this"!... There were nearly seven millions of men and women and children in London, but he did not know one of them. He had seen George Hinde for a few moments, and he had spoken to Miss Squibb, and to Lizzie ... but he did not know anyone. He was alone in this seven-million-fold herd, without a relative or an intimate friend. He might stand at this corner for days, for weeks, on end, viewing the passersby until his eyes were sore with the sight of them, and never see one person whom he knew even slightly. In Ballyards, he could not walk a dozen yards without encountering an acquaintance. In Belfast, he was certain to see someone whom he knew in the course of a day. But in this place!... He became horrified at the thought that if he were suddenly to drop dead at that moment, none of the persons who would gather round his body could say who he was. He would be carried off to a morgue and laid on a marble slab in the hope that someone would turn up and identify him ... and he might never be identified; he might be buried as "a person unknown." He determined to keep a note of his name and address in his breast-pocket, together with a note of his mother's name and address.

"I'm not going to run the risk of them burying me without knowing who I am." he murmured to himself.

Someone jostled him roughly, and mumbling "Sorry!" hurried on. In Ireland, John thought to himself, had a man jostled a stranger so rudely, he would have stopped and apologised to him and would have asked for assurance that he had not hurt him. "I beg your pardon, sir," he would have said. "I'm very sorry. I hope I haven't hurt you!" But this stranger who had roughly shoved against him, had not paused in his rude progress. He had shouted "Sorry!" at him, but he had barely turned his head to do it.

"Of course, I ought not to be standing here, blocking the way!" John admitted to himself. "I wonder is London always like this, rough and in a hurry!"

He crossed the street, not without alarm, and stood by the entrance to the Central London Railway. There were some flower-sellers sitting by the railings, but they had no resemblance to the flower-girls of whom Uncle Matthew had often told him. He glanced at them with distaste. "It's queer," he thought, "how disappointed I am with everything!" and then, as if he would account for his disappointment, he added, "I'm bitter. That's what's wrong with me! I'm bitter about Maggie Carmichael!"

He turned to a man who was leaning against the iron railings. "What's down there?" he asked, pointing to the stairs leading to the Central London Railway.

"The Toob," said the man.

"The what?"

"The Toob. The Tuppeny Toob. Undergrahnd Rylewy!"

"Oh, is that what you call the Tuppeny Tube?" John exclaimed, as comprehension came to him. He had read of the Underground Railway built in the shape of two long tubes stretching from the centre of the City to Shepherd's Bush, but he had imagined a much more dramatic entrance to it than this dull flight of steps.

"But you walk into it," he exclaimed to his informant.

"There's lifts down below," the man replied unemotionally.

"I thought it would be different," John continued.

"Different? 'Ow ... different?"

"Well ... different!"

The man spat. "I down't see wot more you could expect," he said. "It's there, ain't it? Wot more du want?"

"Oh, it's there, of course ... only!..."

The man interrupted him. "Wot's a toob for?" he said. He answered his own question. "To travel by. Well, you can travel by it. Wot more du want?"

"But I thought it would be exciting!..."

"An' 'oo the 'ell wants excitement in a toob!" the man answered.

John considered the matter for a moment or two. "I expect you're right," he said, and then, more briskly, added, "Yes, of course. Of course, you're right. Travelling in a train would not be pleasant if it were exciting."

"It would not," the man answered.

"But it sounded such an extraordinary thing, a Tube, when I read about it that I expected to see something different," John continued.

"Well, it is an extraordinary thing," the man said. "You walk down them steps there, an' get into a lift, an' wot'll 'appen to you? You'll be dropped 'undreds of feet into the earth, an' when you get ta the bottom, you'll find trains runnin' by electricity. I call that extraordinary, if you down't ... only I down't want to myke a song abaht it!"

John felt that he had been rebuked for an excess of enthusiasm. The Englishman was right about the Tube. It was a wonderful thing, more wonderful, perhaps, because of the quietness of its approach: it would not be any more wonderful if people were to go about the town uttering shouts of astonishment over it, nor was it any less wonderful because the English people treated it as if it were an ordinary affair.

He looked across the road at the Bank of England, devoid equally of dignity and sensation, and then turned and looked at the Royal Exchange. A pigeon flew up from the ground and perched among the figures carved over the portico, and as he watched it, he read the inscription beneath the figure of Justice: The Earth is the Lord's and the Fullness Thereof.

"Dear me!" he said, turning away again.

He began to feel hungry, and he moved away to search for a place in which to find a meal.

"Good-morning," he said to the man who had instructed him concerning the Tube.

"Oh. goo'-mornin'!"

V

He walked along Queen Victoria Street and, without considering what he was doing, turned into a narrow street that ran off it at an angle of seventy-five degrees. It was a perilous street to traverse for every building in it seemed to have a crane near its roof, and every crane seemed to have a heavy bale dangling from it in mid-air; and from the narrow pavement cellar flaps were raised so that an unwary person might suddenly find himself descending into deep, dark holes in the ground. The roadway was occupied by lorries, and John had to turn and cross, and cross and turn many times before he could extricate himself from the labyrinth into which he had so carelessly intruded. While he was crossing the street at one point, and passing between two lorries, he found himself in front of a coffee-house, and again aware of his hunger, he entered it. He passed to the back of the L-shaped shop, and sat down at a small marble-topped table and waited for a waitress to come and take his order. There was a girl sitting on the other side of the table, but he did not observe her particularly, for her head was bent over a letter which she was reading. He looked about him. The room was full of men and young women, all eating or waiting to eat, and from a corner of the room came a babble of conversation carried on by a group of young clerks, and while John looked at them, a waitress came to him, and said, "Yes, sir?"

He looked up at her hurriedly. "Oh, I want something to eat!" he said. She waited for him to proceed. "What have you?" he asked. She handed a bill of fare to him, and he glanced through it, feeling incapable of choice.

"The sausages are very nice," the waitress suggested.

"I'll have sausages," he replied, thankful for the suggestion.

"Two?"

He nodded his head.

"Tea or coffee?"

"Tea, please. And a roll and butter!"

The waitress left him, and he sat back in his chair, and now he regarded the bent head of the girl sitting opposite to him, and as he did so, she looked up and their eyes met. She looked away.

"What lovely eyes she has," John said to himself.

She stood up as he thought this, and prepared to leave the restaurant, and he saw again that her eyes were very beautiful: blue eyes that had a dark look in them; and he said to himself that a woman who had beautiful eyes had everything. He wished that he had come earlier to the restaurant or that she had come later, so that they might have sat opposite to each other for a longer time. He listened while she asked the waitress for her bill. The softness of her voice was like gentle music. He thought of the tiny noise of a small stream, of the song of a bird heard at a distance, of leaves slightly stirring in a quiet wind, and told himself that the sound of her voice had the quality of all these. He wondered what it was that brought her to the City of London. Perhaps she was employed in an office. Perhaps she had come up to do some shopping.... She moved away, and as she did so, he saw that she had left her letter lying on the table. He leant over and picked it up, reading the name written on the envelope: Miss Eleanor Moore. He got up and hurried after her.

The restaurant was a narrow cramped one, and it was not easy for him to make his way through the people who were entering or leaving it, and he feared that he would not be able to catch up with her before she had reached the street. Customers in that restaurant, however, had to stop at the counter to pay their bills, and so he reached her in time.

"Excuse me," he said. "I think you left this letter behind you."

She looked up in a startled manner, and then, seeing the letter which he held out to her, smiled and said, "Oh, thank you! Thank you very much. I left it on the table!"

She took it from him, and put it in a pocket of her coat.

"Thank you very much," she said again, and turned to take her change from the man behind the counter.

John stood for a moment, looking at her, and then, remembering his manners, went back to his seat and began to eat his meal of tea and bread and butter and sausages.

"Eleanor Moore!" he murmured to himself as he cut off a large piece of sausage and put it into his mouth. "That's a very nice name!" He munched the sausage. "A very nice name," he thought again. "Much nicer than Maggie Carmichael."

VI

He left the restaurant and, having enquired the way, proceeded along Cheapside towards Fleet Street. There was nothing of interest to him in Cheapside, and so, in spite of its memories of Richard Whittington and Robert Herrick, he hurried out of it. He turned into St. Paul's Churchyard, eager to see the Cathedral, but as he did so, his heart fell. The Eastern end of the Cathedral does not impress the beholder. John ought to have seen St. Paul's first from Ludgate Hill, but, coming on it from Cheapside, he could not get a proper view of it. He had expected to turn a corner and see before him, immense and wonderful, the great church, rich in tradition and dignity, rearing itself high above the houses like a strong man rising up from the midst of pigmies ... and he had turned a corner and seen only a grimy, blackened thing, huddled into a corner ... jostled almost ... by greedy shopkeepers and warehousemen. A narrow passage, congested by carts, separated the eastern end of the cathedral from ugly buildings; a narrower passage separated the railings of the churchyard from shops where men sold baby linen and women's blouses and kitchen ranges and buns and milk....

His Uncle Matthew had told him that the dome of St. Paul's could be seen from every part of London. "If ever you lose yourself in London," he had said, "search the sky 'til you see the dome of St. Paul's and then work your way towards it!" And here, in the very churchyard of the Cathedral, the dome was not visible because the shop-keepers had not left enough of room for a man to stand back and view it properly. John wondered whether the whole of London would disappoint him so much as St. Paul's had done. The English seemed to have very little regard for their cathedrals, for they put them into cramped areas and allowed merchants to encircle them with ugly shops and offices. In Southwark, he had seen the church where Shakespeare prayed, hidden behind a hideous railway bridge, with its pavement fouled by rotting cabbage leaves and the stinking debris of a vegetable market. And here, now, was St. Paul's surrounded by dingy, desolating houses, as if an effort were being made to conceal the church from view.

He hurried through the churchyard until he reached the western end of the Cathedral, where some of his disappointment dropped out of his mind. The great front of the church, with its wide, deep steps and its great, strong pillars, black and grey from the smoke and fog of London, filled him with a sense of imperturbable dignity. Men might build their dingy, little shops and their graceless, scrambling warehouses, and try to crowd the Cathedral into a corner, but the great church would still retain its dignity and strength however much they might succeed in obscuring it. He walked across the pavement, scattering the pigeons as he did so, undecided whether to enter the Cathedral or not, until he reached the flagstone on which is chiselled the statement that "Here Queen Victoria Returned Thanks to Almighty God for the Sixtieth Anniversary of Her Accession. June 22, 1897." As he contemplated the flagstone, he forgot about the Cathedral, and remembered only his Uncle Matthew. On this spot, a little, old woman had said her thankful prayers, the little, old woman for whom his Uncle, who had never seen her, had cracked a haberdasher's window and suffered disgrace; and she and he were dead, and the little, old lady was of no more account than the simple-minded man who had nearly been sent to gaol because of his devotion to her memory. Many times in his life, had John heard people speak of "the Queen" almost in an awe-stricken fashion, until, now and then, she seemed to him to be a legendary woman, a great creature in a heroic story, someone of whom he might dream, but of whom he might never hope to catch a glimpse. It startled him to think that she had human qualities, that she ate and drank and slept and suffered pain and laughed and cried like other people. She was "the Queen": she owned the British Empire and all that it contained. She owned white men and black men and yellow men and red men; she owned islands and continents and deserts and seas; a great tract of the world belonged to her ... and here he was standing on the very spot where she had sat in her carriage, offering thanks in old quavering accents to the Almighty God for allowing her to reign for sixty years. The fact that he was able to stand on that very spot seemed comical to him. There ought to have been a burning bush on the place where "the Queen" had said her prayers. Uncle Matthew would have expected something of that sort ... but there was nothing more dramatic than this plainly-chiselled inscription. And the little, old woman was as dusty in her grave as Uncle Matthew was in his....

VII

He passed down Ludgate Hill, across Ludgate Circus, into Fleet Street, turning for a few moments to look back at the Cathedral. Again, he had a sense of anger against the English people who could allow a railway company to fling an ugly bridge across the foot of Ludgate Hill and destroy the view of St. Paul's from the Circus; but he had had too many shocks that morning to feel a deep anger then, and so, turning his back on the Cathedral, he walked up Fleet Street. He stared about him with interest, gazing up at the names of the newspapers that were exhibited in large letters on the fronts of the houses. The street seemed to be shouting at him, yelling out names as if it were afraid to be silent. It was a disorderly street. It seemed to straggle up the hill to the Strand, as if it had not had time to put its clothes on properly. All along its length, he could see, at intervals, scaffold-poles and builders' hoardings. Houses and offices were being altered or repaired or rebuilt. He felt that the street had been constructed for a great game of hide-and-seek, for the flow of the buildings was irregular: here, a house stood forward; there, a house stood back. In one of these bays, a player might hide from a seeker!... Somewhere in this street, John remembered, Dr. Johnson had lived, and he tried to imagine the scene that took place on the night of misery when Oliver Goldsmith went to the Doctor and wept over the failure of The Good Natured Man, and was called a ninny for his pains. But he could not make the scene come alive because of the noise and confusion in the street. The air of immediacy which enveloped him made quiet imagination impossible. His head began to ache with the sounds that filled his ears, and he wished that he could escape from the shouting herd into some little soundless place where his mind could become easy again and free from pain. He stared around him, glancing at the big-lettered signs over the newspaper offices, at the omnibuses, at the crowds of men and women, and once his heart leaped into his throat as he saw a boy on a bicycle, carrying a bag stuffed with newspapers on his back, ride rapidly out of a side street into the middle of the congested traffic as if there were nothing substantial to hinder his progress ... and as he stared about him, it seemed to him that Fleet Street was on the verge of a nervous breakdown....

"I must get out of this," he said to himself, turning aimlessly out of the street.

He found himself presently in a narrow lane, and, looking up at the sign, saw that it was called "Hanging Sword Alley." He looked at the bye-way, a mere gutter of a street, and wondered what sort of a man had given it that romantic name; and while he wondered, it seemed to him that his mind had suddenly become illuminated. His Uncle Matthew had had romantic imaginings all his life about everything except the things that were under his nose. He had never seen Queen Victoria, but he had suffered for her sake. He had never seen London, but he had declared it to be a city of romance and colour and vivid happenings. Perhaps Uncle Matthew was like the man who had named this dull, grimy, narrow passage, "Hanging Sword Alley"! Perhaps Queen Victoria was not quite ... not quite all that Uncle Matthew had imagined her to be. The thought staggered him, and he felt as if he had filled his mind with treason and sedition!... He could not say what Queen Victoria was, but with his own eyes he had seen London, and London had as little of romance in it as Hanging Sword Alley had. There were noise and scuffle and dingy distraction and mobs of little white-faced, nervous men and women, and a drab content with blotched beauty ... but none of these things had romance in them. He had been told that London flower-girls were pretty ... and he had seen only coarse and unclean women, with towsled hair. He had been told that London 'busdrivers were cheerful, witty men ... but the driver to whom he had spoken had been surly at the beginning and witless to the end. If Uncle Matthew had come into this dirty bye-way, he would have seen only the name of Hanging Sword Alley, but John had seen more than the name: he had seen the inadequacy of the bye-way to the name it bore.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, "I can't see the romance in things. Mebbe, Uncle Matthew could see more than I can!..."

His head ached more severely now, and he wandered into Tudor Street. A great rurr-rurr came from the cellars of the houses, and glancing into them, he could see big machines working, and he guessed that these were the engines that printed the newspapers. The thump of the presses, as they turned great rolls of white paper into printed sheets, seemed to beat inside his head, causing him pain with every stroke. He pressed his fingers, against his temples in an effort to relieve the ache, but it would not be relieved. "Oh!" he exclaimed aloud after one very sharp twinge, and then, as he spoke, he found himself before a gate and, heedless of what he was doing, he passed through it ... and found himself in an oasis in a desert of noise. The harsh sounds died down, the rurr-rurr-rurr of the machines ceased to trouble him, the scuffle and haste no longer offended his sense of decency. He was in a place of cool cloisters and wide green lawns. He could see young men in white flannels playing tennis ... in Ballyards it was called "bat and ball" ... and beyond the tennis-courts, he saw the shining river.

"What place is this?" he said to a man who went by.

"Temple Gardens!" the man replied.

He walked about the Gardens, delighting in the quiet and the coolness. Pigeons flew down from the roof of a house and began to pick bread-crumbs almost at his feet. There was a sweet noise of birds....

He looked at the names of the barristers painted on the doorways of the houses, and wondered which of them were judges. He wished he could see a judge in his crimson robes and his long, curly wig, coming out of the chambers, and while he wished for this splendid spectacle, he saw a barrister in his black gown and horse-hair wig, come down a narrow passage from the Strand and enter the doorway of one of the houses. He walked on into Pump Court and watched the sparrows washing themselves in the fountain where Tom Pinch met Ruth ... and while he watched them, his sense of loneliness returned to him. His head still ached and now his heart ached, too. Disappointment had come to him all day. He was alone in a city full of people who knew nothing of him and cared nothing for him. And his heart was aching. The peace of Pump Court only served to make him more aware of the ache in his head. As he dipped his hand in the water of the fountain, he wished that he could go round a corner and meet Uncle William or Mr. Cairnduff or the minister or even Aggie Logan ... meet someone whom he knew!...

"I'd give the world for a cup of tea," he said to himself suddenly, and then, "I wonder could I find that place where I saw the girl. Mebbe she'd be there again!..."

He looked about him in an indeterminate way. Then he moved from the fountain in the direction of the Strand. "I can try anyway!" he said.

VIII

The girl was sitting at a large table in a corner of the restaurant, and he saw with joy that there was a vacant seat immediately opposite to her. He looked at her as he sat down, but she gave no sign of recognition. He had hoped that their encounter earlier in the day would have entitled him to a smile from her, but her features remained unrelaxed, although he knew that she was aware of him and remembered him. Her eyes and his had met, and he had been ready to answer her smile with another smile, but she averted her eyes from his stare and looked down at her plate. What eyes she had ... grey at one moment and blue at another as her face turned in the light! When she looked downwards, he could see long lashes fringing her eyelids, and when she looked up, the changing colour of her irises and the blue tinge that suffused the cornea, caused him to think of her eyes as pools of light. Her face was pale, and in repose it had an appearance of puzzled pathos that made him feel that he must instantly offer comfort to her, and he would have done so had not her nervous reticence prevented him. What would she do if he were to speak to her? There was an illustrated paper lying close to her plate. He leant across the table and, pointing to the paper, said, "Are you using that?"

She started, and then, without a smile, said, "No," and passed the paper to him.

"Thank you!" he murmured, taking it from her.

It was an old paper, and he did not wish to read it, but he had to pretend to be interested in it, for the girl showed no desire to offer any more than the casual civilities of one stranger to another. He hoped that he might suddenly look up and find that she was regarding him intently ... she would hurriedly glance away from him with an air of pretty confusion ... but although he looked up at her many times, he never caught her gazing at him. He wished that she would take her hat, a wide-brimmed one, off so that he might see her hair. How ridiculous it was of women to sit at meals with hats on!... He could just see a wave of dark brown hair under the brim of her hat, flowing across her broad brow. Her eyebrows were dark and level and very firm, and he thought how wonderfully the darkness of her eyebrows and her eyelids and the pallor of her skin served to enrich the beauty of her eyes. Maggie Carmichael's eyes had had laughter in them ... they seemed always to be sparkling with merriment ... but this girl's eyes had tears in them. She might often smile, John told himself, but she would seldom laugh. Her air of listening for an alarm and the nervous movement of her fingers made him imagine that a magician had changed some swift and beautiful and timid animal into a woman. The magicians in the Arabian Nights frequently turned men and women into hounds and antelopes, but the process had been reversed with this girl: an antelope had been turned into a woman.... If only she would give him an opportunity of speaking to her, of making friends with her! He suddenly held out the paper to her. "Thank you!" he said.

"It isn't mine," she answered indifferently.

He became confused and clumsy, and he put the paper down on the table so that it upset a spoon on to the floor with a noise that seemed loud enough to wake the dead; and as he stooped to pick it up, he pushed the paper against her plate, causing it almost to fall into her lap.

"I beg your pardon," he exclaimed.

"It's all right," she replied coldly.

He could feel the blood running hotly through his body, and the warm flush of it spreading over his cheeks. "That was a cut," he said to himself, and wondered what he should do or say next. What a fool he must appear to her! ... It would be ridiculous to ask her to tell him the time, for there was a large and palpable clock over her head so fixed that he could not fail to see it. It was very odd, he thought, that she should not wish to speak to him when he so ardently wished to speak to her. She had finished her meal and he knew that in a moment or two she would rise and go out of the restaurant. He leant across the table.

"Miss Moore," he said, "I wish you would be friends with me!"

She looked at him as if she were not certain that he had spoken to her, and as she saw how earnestly he gazed at her, the expression of her face changed from one of astonishment to one of alarm.

"Won't you?" he said.

She gave a little gasp and rose hurriedly from her seat.

"Miss Moore!" he said appealingly.

"I don't know you," she replied, hurrying away.

He sat still. It seemed to him that every person in the restaurant must be looking at him and condemning him for his behaviour. He had spoken to a girl who did not know him, and he had frightened her. The look of alarm in her face was unmistakable. What must she think of him? Would she ever believe that he had no wish to frighten her, that he wished only to be her friend, to talk to her? If he had told her that he did not know anyone in London and was feeling miserably lonely, perhaps she would have been kind to him ... but what opportunity had he had to tell her anything. Well, that was the end of that! He was not likely to see Eleanor Moore again, and even if he were, he could hardly hope, after such a rebuff, to win her friendship unless a miracle were to happen ... and he had begun to feel dubious about miracles since he had arrived in London. Perhaps, if he were to follow her and explain matters to her!...

He hurried out of the restaurant, and stood for a moment or two on the pavement glancing up and down the street. She was turning out of the lane into Queen Victoria Street, and as he stood looking at her, she turned round the corner and he lost sight of her.

"I'll go after her," he said.

IX

He ran into Queen Victoria Street and glanced eagerly about him. It was difficult in the press of people to distinguish a single person, but fortunately the street was fairly clear of traffic, and he saw her crossing the road near the Mansion House. He hastened after her and saw her enter a block of offices in Cornhill. He reached the door of this building in time to see her being carried out of sight in the lift. He entered the hall and stood by the gate until the lift had descended.

"Can you tell me which of these offices that lady works in?" he said to the liftman. "The lady you've just taken up, Miss Moore?"

The liftman looked at him suspiciously.

"Wot you want to know for?" he demanded.

"Oh, I ... I'm a friend of hers," John answered lamely.

"Well, if you're a friend of 'ers, I daresay she'll tell you 'erself next time she sees you," said the liftman. "Any-'ow, I sha'n't. See?"

"But I particularly want to know," John persisted. "Look here, I'll give you half-a-crown if you'll tell me!..."

"An' I'll give you a thick ear if you don't 'op it out of this quick," the liftman retorted angrily. "I know you. Nosey Parker, that's wot you are! Comin' 'round 'ere, annoyin' girls! I know you! I seen fellers like you before, I 'ave!..."

"What do you mean?" said John.

"Mean! 'Ere's wot I mean. You're either a broker's man!..."

"No, I'm not," John interrupted.

"Or you're up to no good, see! An' wotever you are, you can just 'op it, see! You'll get no information out of me, Mr. Nosey Parker, see! An' if I ketch you 'angin' about 'ere, annoyin' 'er or anybody else I'll 'it you on the jawr, see, an' then I'll 'and you over to the police. An' that'll learn you!"

John stared at the man. "Do you mean to say?..."

"I mean to say wot I 'ave said," the liftman interjected. "An' I don't mean to say no more. 'Op it. That's all. Or it'll be the worse for you!"

The lift bell rang, and the man entered the lift and closed the gate. Then he ascended out of sight. John gaped through the gate into the well of the lift.

"I've a good mind to break that chap's skull," he said to himself as he turned away.

He left the block of offices and went towards Prince's Street.

"It's no good hanging about here any longer," he said. "I'll go home!"

A 'bus drove up as he reached the corner, and he climbed into it. "I'll come again to-morrow," he said, "and try and find her. She'll have to listen to me. I'm really in love this time!"

He had been provided with a latch-key before leaving Miss Squibb's house in the morning, and, with an air of responsibility, he let himself in. Lizzie, carrying a tray of dishes, came into the hall as he opened the door.

"Just in time," she said affably. "If you'd 'a' been a bit sooner, you'd 'a' seen the Creams. They come back just after you went out 'smornin'. I told 'em all about you ... you bein' Irish an' littery an' never 'avin' been to the Zoo or anythink. They was interested!"

"Oh!"

"'E's such a nice man, Mr. Cream is. She ain't bad, but 'e's nice. They gone to the Oxford now. I wish you'd seen 'em start off in their broom!"

"Broom?"

"Yes, their carriage. They 'ave to 'ire one when they're in London so's to get about from one 'all to another. They act in two or three 'alls a night in London. I do like to see 'em go off in their broom of a evenin'. Mykes the 'ouse look a bit classy, I think, but Aunt says they're living in sin an' she down't feel 'appy about it. But wot I sy is, wot's it matter so long as they pys their rent reg'lar an' down't go an' myke no fuss. They couldn't be less trouble. They keep on their rooms 'ere, just the same whether they're 'ere or not, an' sometimes they're away for months at a stretch. It ain't every dy you get lodgers like them, and wot I sy is, if they are livin' in sin, it's them that'll ave to go to 'ell for it, not us. Aunt's very religious, but she can see sense syme's anybody else, so she 'olds 'er tongue about it. I down't 'old with sin myself, mind you, but I down't believe in cuttin' off your nose to spite someone else's fyce. You go an' wash your 'ands, an' I'll 'ave your dinner up in 'alf a jiff!..."

John stared at her. "I don't know what you mean by living in sin," he said.

"Well, you are innercent," she replied. "'Aven't you never 'eard of no one livin' together without bein' married?"

"I've read about it!..."

"Well, that's livin' in sin, that is. Pers'nally, I down't see wot diff'rence it mykes. They be'ave about the syme, married or not. 'E's a bit more lovin', per'aps, than a 'usband, but otherwise it's about the syme!"

The bluntness of Lizzie's speech disconcerted him, and yet the simplicity of it reassured him. He did not now feel, as he has felt in the morning, that she was a Bad Woman; but he could not completely comprehend her. Girls in Ballyards did not speak as she spoke. One knew that there were Bad Women in the world and that there was much sin in love-making, but one did not speak of it, except in shuddering whispers. Lizzie, however, spoke of it almost as if she were talking of the weather. Evidently, life and habit in England were very different from life and habit in Ballyards.... He went up the stairs to his room, in a mood partly of horror and partly of curiosity. He was shocked to think that he was living in the same house with guilty sinners, but he had an odd desire to see them.

When he had reached the first landing, Lizzie called after him. "There's a poce-card for you," she said. "From Mr. 'Inde. 'E says 'e'll be 'ome to-morrow, an' 'e asts you to give me 'is love. Saucy 'ound! 'E's a one, 'e is!"

John turned towards her. "It won't be necessary for me to give his love to you, will it?" he said sarcastically. "You seem to have taken it already!"

She was unaware of his sarcasm. "So I 'ave," she said. "I'll tell 'im that when 'e comes back!"

"Do you always read post-cards, Lizzie?" he asked.

"Of course I do," she answered. "So does everybody. You 'urry on now, an' I'll 'ave your dinner up before you finish dryin' your fyce!" She contemplated him for a moment. "You got nice 'air," she said, "only it wants brushin'. An' cuttin', too!"

Then she disappeared down the stairs leading to the basement.

"That's a very rum sort of a woman," John murmured to himself as he proceeded to his room.