A muffled roar, like that of a nearing storm at sea, drowned the querulous voice.
"Move along here, please! Move on! Move on!"
The monotonous orders of the police rose above the loud drone of the angry crowd.
Motor-buses made perilous navigation through the narrow street. The hooting of horns on taxi-cabs played a brisk accompaniment to the mournful chant. Almost from the Courts to the trebly guarded entrance of the Chancery Legal Incorporated Credit Society Bank stretched that deep rank of victims. For, at the corner of Chancery Lane, the contents-bill of a daily paper thus displayed, in suitable order of precedence, the vital topics of the moment:
MISS PAULETTE DELOTUS NOT MARRIED
Australians' Plucky Fight
IS SÉVERAC BABLON IN VIENNA?
BIG CITY BANK SMASH
SLUMP IN NICARAGUAN RAILS
To some, those closed doors meant the sacrifice of jewellery, of some part of the luxury of life; to others, they meant—the drop-curtain that blacked out the future, the end of the act, the end of the play.