The signs were lit above the theatres; traffic was scanty, the streets a long dawdle of what vehicles and humans were about. He came to Leicester Square and sat down on a bench. The lights all round him brightened slowly under the dusk--theatre lights, street lamps. And the pity of things smote him, sitting there. So much of everything; and one got so little of anything! Adding figures up all day, going home to Alice--that was life! Well, it wasn’t so bad when Alice was nice to him. But--crikey!--what one missed! That book about the South Sea Islands--places, peoples, sights, sounds, scents, all over the world! Four pound ten a week, a wife, a baby! Well, you couldn’t have things both ways--but had he got them either way? Not with the Alice on the landing! Ah! Well! Poor Alice; jolly hard on her to miss her holiday! But she might have given him the chance to tell her that he would pawn his bicycle. Or was it all a bad dream? Had he ever really been in the police court, seen them herding those girls to prison--girls who did what they did because--well, like himself, they had missed too much. They’d catch a fresh lot to-night. What a fool he’d been to pay that fine! ‘Glad I didn’t go into that girl’s house, anyway,’ he thought. ‘I would have felt a scum!’ The only decent thing about it all had been her look when she said: “Ow! thank you!” That gave him a little feeling of warmth even now; and then--it, too, chilled away. Nothing for it! When he had done sitting there, he must go home! If Alice had thought him a wrong-un before, what would she think when he returned? Well, there it was! The milk was spilt! But he did wish she hadn’t got such a virtue on her. The sky deepened and darkened, the lights stared white; the square garden with its flower-beds seemed all cut out and stiff--like scenery on a stage. Must go back and ‘stick’ it! No good to worry! He got up from the bench, and gave himself a shake. His eyes, turned towards the lights of the Alhambra, were round, candid, decent, like the eyes of a baby. 1922. CONSCIENCE