Well (to continue my account of my day), I addressed envelopes or read
aloud from interminable lists until one o'clock, and then I lunched.
This we were not allowed to do in the office, so that usually I ate from
a paper bag in one of the quieter streets, or else had a scone and milk
at an A.B.C. shop round the corner in Cheapside. I was alone. My
fellow-stuff from the agency, always on the lookout for a pretext of
mistrust, found one in my (I admit) uncommon face. I put in the time
until two, when I was not smothering up annoyance at those who would
turn round to stare at a man who had been made half a head taller than
the rest of the world, in wondering whether those about me were as rich
or worse off than I, and whether they were able to procure a bath as
cheaply and easily; and then I returned to Rixon Tebb & Masters' again.
At six-thirty I proceeded home, washed, and went out to dinner. I dined
at one of the establishments near the corner of Pentonville Road; you
have seen them, there is an arrangement of gas-jets behind a steamy
window, and, in galvanised iron trays, sausages and onions and saveloys
fry. The proprietor of the "pull-up" fetched my dinner out of the window
on the prongs of a toasting fork, and I ate it in a small matchboard
compartment, or, when these _cabinets particuliers_ happened to be all
pre-occupied, at an oilcloth-covered table that ran down the middle of
the shop. During and after my meal I read the whole of _The Echo_--I was
allowed as a habitué to retain my seat longer than the casual diner. But
on the nights on which I took a bath (did I say I sponged on Archie
Merridew for this convenience, carrying my clean shirt in a paper that
also served for the wrapping-up of the one I had removed?), I added to
my obligation by supping with him also, and then we walked on to the
Business College together. My clothes I bought in Lamb's Conduit Street,
my boots in Red Lion Passage. I had always the greatest difficulty in
getting a fit in either. At one time I had the misfortune to make myself
very unpopular among the proprietors of a row of barrows not far from
Southampton Row. This was over the purchase of a collar, and the cub
under the naphtha lamp had made some joke or other about the uncommon
size I required, saying that the horse collars were to be had in St
Martin's Lane. The blow under the ear I gave him was heavier than I
intended; I am afraid I broke his jaw, and I avoided the street for a
long time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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