"Poor old thing!" mused Strauss. "You've not moved very far and that's a fact! At about your age--I think my calculations are right--I'd spent three or four week-ends with Marjorie in Brighton ... Oh, curse the man! Him and his dirty Doomington manners!" The youth scowled uglily. Somebody, evidently displeased by the expansive manner Strauss had adopted for his procession down Transfer Street, had thrust a vicious elbow into the grey tweed waist. For one horrible moment it seemed that Strauss was mobilizing his resources for a punitive expectoration, but the West End reassumed control in time and Strauss continued:-- "Oh, yes, Brighton, Marjorie, as I was saying! That girl was a sponge, nothing more or less! She'd just open her mouth and pour the stuff down like rainwater pouring down a spout. Gee, that's a while ago now! Still, I don't think--damn those motors!--a show like Transfer Street is the place for one's confessions, what do you say? One oughtn't to let oneself rip like this, but you've got the sort of face one can trust, Massel, if I may say so. Somehow I generally manage to land on my feet when I arrive in a strange town, though I take no credit to myself for it, mark you! I remember once, first time I landed in Bordeaux ... But for God's sake let's go somewhere and have some tea. Then we can discuss the boarding-house business and the way the wind blows in Doomington. How do you feel about it?" They had arrived some time ago at the point where Transfer Street crosses the pride of the city, the thoroughfare called Labour Street. A stream of vehicles passing transversely had held them up, but when at last the policeman raised a hand in potent arrest, the two youths crossed and found themselves facing the Crystal Café. "This looks rather the kind of place!" exclaimed Strauss. "What's it like?" The inside of the gilded eating-houses that threw the glare of their lamps and the smells of their cooking into Labour Street had hitherto occupied Philip's attention for a curious moment at most. His ignorance seemed now to be a grave lacuna in his education. "Sorry, not the vaguest idea!" he protested ruefully.