Then she walked down Swallow Street into Piccadilly, and at once a young man in loud checks was at her side. She looked up into his face, her smile full of covert promise as they went into the Vesuvius together. Victoria was now at home in the market place, and could exchange a quip with the frequenters. Languidly she dropped her cloak into the hands of the porter and preceded the young man into the supper-room. As they sat at the little table before the liqueur, her eyes saw the garish room through a film. How deadening it all was, and how lethal the draughts sold here. An immense weariness was upon her, an immense disgust, as she smiled full-toothed on the young man in checks. He was a cheerful rattle, suggested the man who has got beyond the retail trade without reaching the professions, a house agent's clerk perhaps. 'Oh, yes, I'm a merry devil, ha! ha!' He winked a pleasant grey eye. Victoria noticed that his clothes were too new, his boots too new, his manners too a recent acquisition. 'Don't worry. That's how you keep young, ha! ha! Besides, don't have much time to mope in my trade!' 'What's that?' asked Victoria vacuously. Men generally lied as to their occupation, but she had noticed that when their imagination was stimulated their temper improved. 'Inspector of bun-punchers, ha! ha!' 'Bun-punchers?' 'Yes, bun-punchers. South Eastern Railway, you know. Got to have them dated now. New Act of Parliament, ha! ha!' Victoria laughed, for his cockney joviality was infectious. Then again the room faded and rematerialised as his voice rose and fell. 'The wife don't know I'm out on the tiles, ha! ha! She's in Streatham, looking after the smalls. . . . Oh, no, none of your common or garden brass fenders. . . .' Victoria pulled herself together. This was what she could not bear. Brutality, the obscene even, were preferable to this dreary trickling of the inane masquerading as wit. Yet she smiled at him. 'You're saucy,' she said. 'You're my fancy to-night.' A shadow passed over the man's face. Then again he was rattling along. 'Talk of inventions? What'd you think of mine: indiarubber books to read in your bath? ha! ha! . . .'