“But, Henry, what does it matter?”
“What does it matter? My dear Lucy, in London everything matters—”
She was excited. “In Kensington perhaps, but in London—”
“Allow me, my dear Lucy, to decide for you. When you are my age—”
Peter went to sleep again.
II
The vast iron-girdled station was very dark and Mr. Zanti explained that this was because, outside, there was a Fog—
“The Fog,” he added, as though it had been a huge and ferocious animal, “is very yellow and has eaten up London. It will take us a very long time to find our home.”
To Peter, short and square, in his rough suit shouldering his bag, this was all as the infernal regions. The vast place towered high, into misty distances above him. Trains, like huge beasts, stretched their limbs into infinity; screams, piercing and angry, broke suddenly the voices and busy movement that flooded the place with sounds. He was jostled and pushed aside and people turned and swore at him and a heated porter ran a truck into his legs. And through it and above it all the yellow fog came twisting in coils from the dark street beyond and every one coughed and choked and cursed England.
Mr. Zanti, after five minutes' angry pursuit, caught a reluctant and very shabby four-wheeler, and they both climbed into its cavernous depths and Peter's nose was filled with something that had leather and oranges and paper bags and whisky in it; he felt exactly as though Mr. Zanti (looking very like an ogre in the mysterious yellow light with his bowler on the back of his head and mopping his face with a huge crimson handkerchief) were decoying him away to some terrible fastness where it was always dark and smelly.