The car stops. A couple of men get off. An old woman. Some children. But no Hetty.
Hetty is gone. So is the lad with the frock coat and cane.
Back into the cab, we drive up Brixton Road. We pass Glenshore Mansions—a more prosperous neighbourhood. Glenshore Mansions, which meant a step upward to me, where I had my Turkish carpets and my red lights in the beginning of my prosperity.
We pull up at The Horns for a drink. The same Horns. Used to adjoin the saloon bar. It has changed. Its arrangement is different. I do not recognise the keeper. I feel very much the foreigner now; do not know what to order. I am out of place. There's a barmaid.
How strange, this lady with the coiffured hair and neat little shirtwaist!
"What can I do for you, sir?"
I am swept off my feet. Impressed. I want to feel very much the foreigner. I find myself acting.
"What have you got?"
She looks surprised.
"Ah, give me ginger beer." I find myself becoming a little bit affected. I refuse to understand the money—the shillings and the pence. It is thoroughly explained to me as each piece is counted before me. I go over each one separately and then leave it all on the table.