Sweet-heart, remember when days are forlorn
It al-ways is dar-kest before the dawn.
But the person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out. There were grey crabs all the way down the street slopping water over grey stone steps. With his strange, hawking cry and the jangle of the cans the milk boy went his rounds. Outside Brittweiler’s Swiss House he made a splash, and an old brown cat without a tail appeared from nowhere, and began greedily and silently drinking up the spill. It gave Miss Moss a queer feeling to watch—a sinking—as you might say.
But when she came to the A B C she found the door propped open; a man went in and out carrying trays of rolls, and there was nobody inside except a waitress doing her hair and the cashier unlocking cash-boxes. She stood in the middle of the floor but neither of them saw her.
“My boy came home last night,” sang the waitress.
“Oh, I say—how topping for you!” gurgled the cashier.
“Yes, wasn’t it,” sang the waitress. “He brought me a sweet little brooch. Look, it’s got ‘Dieppe’ written on it.”
The cashier ran across to look and put her arm round the waitress’ neck.
“Oh, I say—how topping for you.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” said the waitress. “O-oh, he is brahn. ‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘hullo, old mahogany.’”
“Oh, I say,” gurgled the cashier, running back into her cage and nearly bumping into Miss Moss on the way. “You are a treat!” Then the man with the rolls came in again, swerving past her.