May Fair : $b being an entertainment purporting to reveal to gentlefolk the real state of affairs existing in the very heart of London during the fifteenth and sixteenth years of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: together with suitable reflections on the last follies, misadventures and galanteries of these charming peopleArlen, Michael
History
May Fair : $b being an entertainment purporting to reveal to gentlefolk the real state of affairs existing in the very heart of London during the fifteenth and sixteenth years of the reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: together with suitable reflections on the last follies, misadventures and galanteries of these charming people
Arlen, Michael
Great Britain -- History -- George V, 1910-1936 -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
“Wotcherdothatfor?” he asked bitterly.
“Come on now, lend a hand!” said the young policeman sternly.
A tall, fair, serious-looking young man had alighted quickly from the
limousine, and with him a young lady in a chinchilla coat.
“My, there’s a girl underneath!” she sobbed in a faint American accent.
“There was!” said the taxi-driver bitterly.
“Good God, she’s pinned there!” cried the tall, fair young man.
“George, and on our honeymoon!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla
coat.
“Come on now, give us room!” said the policeman sharply. “Now then, sir,
just help me lift this wheel off the young lady.”
It was the lean young man who was helping the policeman. He had followed
Miss Wych. As the tall fair young man and his young wife in the
chinchilla coat pressed forward through the crowd, the lean young man
looked up at him, and his face was very stern. The tall fair young man
looked back with bewildered, wretched eyes.
“Don’t say she’s dead!” he whispered.
“Now, sir,” said the young policeman, “I’ll keep this up while you bring
her through sharp as you like. Now!”
The lithe young body was broken and still. The crowd pressed round.
“She’s dead orl right!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.
The last flames of sunset over Admiralty Arch lit the peering faces, and
they looked as impersonal as gargoyles. Some took off their hats.
“Oh, she’s dead!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat.
“Such a pretty young lady!” said the taxi-driver bitterly, wiping the
blood from his face.
The lean young man and the young policeman knelt beside the still,
broken body and tried to find life where no life was. The
orange-and-banana merchant took off his hat. The policeman’s helmet fell
to the ground and rolled a little way down towards the Strand. The tall
fair young man held his silk hat in his hand. The lean young man looked
up at him through a blinding mist of tears and stammered: “Aren’t you
sorry, aren’t you sorry?”
“George,” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat, “why is he
looking at you like that?”
“Blessed if I know!” stammered the tall fair young man.
“By gum, look at the cop!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.
The lean young man darted a look at the policeman kneeling beside him,
and he saw that the policeman wept, and he saw that the tip of the
policeman’s nose was quivering.
“She died,” stammered the lean young man, “while keeping her promise to
you. But you had failed her.”
“I’ve failed at everything in every country,” said the young policeman.
“And now I’ll probably get the sack from this job too for crying on my
beat.”
“’Ere, give ’im back ’is ’elmet,” said the taxi-driver bitterly. “A cop
without a ’elmet don’t look natchral.”
“And who’s goin’ to give me back my oranges and bananas?” said the
orange-and-banana merchant. “Isn’t there no justice in this world,
that’s wot I want to know?”
IV: THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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