They were passing down a long, grey, curving road, whose narrow houses, hopelessly unpainted, showed marks of grinding poverty. The Spring wind was ruffling straw and little bits of paper in the gutters; under the bright sunlight a bleak and bitter struggle seemed raging. Thyme said:
“This street gives me a hollow feeling.”
Martin nodded. “Worse than the real article. There's half a mile of this. Here it's all grim fighting. Farther on they've given it up.”
And still they went on up the curving street, with its few pinched shops and its unending narrow grimness.
At the corner of a by-street Martin said: “We'll go down here.”
Thyme stood still, wrinkling her nose. Martin eyed her.
“Don't funk!”
“I'm not funking, Martin, only I can't stand the smells.”
“You'll have to get used to them.”
“Yes, I know; but—but I forgot my eucalyptus.”