Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat. In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house or shop and carried away what he could of its beauties, and brought them home to Thomas, saying, "Anyhow, here's something for us to go on with." He was in the mood in which some people take to drink, only Peter didn't like any drinks except non-alcoholic ones; or to reckless gambling, only he didn't find gambling amusing; or to some adventure of love, only to Peter love meant one thing only, and that was beyond his reach. But when he had put Thomas to bed, in his little common cheap night-shirt, he went out into the streets with his weekly earnings in his pockets and spent them. He spent every penny he had. First he went to a florist's and bought daffodils, in great golden sheaves. Then he went to a toyshop and got a splendid family of fluffy beasts, and a musical box, and a Noah's Ark, and a flute. He had spent all his money by then, so he pawned his watch and signet ring and bought Thomas some pretty cambric clothes and a rocking cradle. He had nothing else much to pawn. But he badly wanted some Japanese paintings to put in the place of the pictures that at present adorned the sitting-room. Thomas and he must have something nice and gay to look at, instead of the Royal Family and the Monarch of the Glen and "Grace Sufficient" worked in crewels. So he went into a shop in Holborn and chose some paintings, and ordered them to be sent up, and said, "Please enter them to me," so firmly that they did. Having done that once, he repeated it at several other shops, and sometimes they obeyed him and sometimes said that goods could not be sent up without pre-payment. Pre-payment (or, indeed, as far as Peter could look forward, post-payment) being out of the question, those goods had to be left where they were. But Peter, though handicapped by shabby attire, had an engaging way with him, and most shopmen are trustful and obliging. If they lost by the transaction, thought Peter recklessly, it was their turn to lose, not his. It was his turn to acquire, and he had every intention of doing so. He had a glorious evening, till the shops shut. Then he went home, and found that the daffodils had come, and he filled the room with them, converting its dingy ugliness into a shining glory. Then he took down all the horrible pictures and texts and stacked them behind the sofa, awaiting the arrival of the Japanese paintings. He thought Thomas would like the paintings as much as he did himself. Their room in future should be a bright and pleasant place, fit for human beings to live in.