"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
"First bar," replied Simon. "First decent one, and look sharp."
The surly driver—Heavens, how the old hansom cabby of the sixties would have hailed such a fare, and with what joy!—closed the door without a word and started winding up the engine. He had difficulties, and as he went on winding the occupant put his head out of the window and addressed the station policeman who was looking on.
"Has the chap a licence for a barrel-organ?" asked Simon. "If he hasn't, ask him to drive on."
He shut the window. They started, and stopped at a bar in Leicester Square. Simon paid and entered.
It was a long bar, a glittering, loathsome, noxious place where, behind a long counter, six barmaids were serving all sorts of men with all sorts of drinks.
Simon seemed to find it all right. Puffing his cigar, he ordered a brandy cold—a brandy cold! And sipping his brandy cold, he took stock of the men around.
Even his innocence and newness—despite the crave for companionship now on him—recognised that there were undesirables, and as for the bar girls, they were frozen images—for him.