Peter was very soon in the thick of it. The grey silences of Bennett Square and Bloomsbury were left behind and with them the emotions of those tender partings. After all, it would only be a very few weeks before he would be back again among them all, telling them of his success on some paper and going back perhaps to live with them all when his income was assured.

And, anyhow, here he was, out to seek his fortune and with Stephen to help him! He battled with the crowd dragging the black bag with him and shouting sometimes in sheer excitement and good spirits. Young women tickled him with feathers, once some one linked arms with him and dragged him along, always he was surrounded with this sea of shouting, exultant humanity--this was life!

By the lion Stephen was waiting for him, standing huge and solemn as the crowd surged past. He pressed Peter's arm to show that he was pleased to see him and then, without speaking, they pushed through, past Charing Cross station, and down the hill to the Underground.

Here, once again, there was startling silence. No one seemed to be using the trains at all.

"I'm afraid it ain't much of a place that I'm taking yer to," Stephen said. "We can't pick and choose yer know and I was there before and she's a good woman."

A chill seemed to come with them into the carriage. Suddenly to Peter the comforts of Brockett's stretched out alluring arms, then he pulled himself together.

"I'm sure it will be splendid," he said, "and it will be just lovely being with you after all this time."

They got out and plunged into a city of black night. Around them, on every side there was silence--even the broad central thoroughfare seemed to be deserted and on either side of it, to right and left, black grim roads like open mouths, lay waiting for the unwary traveller.

Down one of these they plunged; Peter was conscious of faces watching them. "Bucket Lane" was the street's title to fame. Windows showed dim candles, in the distance a sharp cry broke the silence and then fell away again. The street was very narrow and from the running gutters there stole into the air the odour of stale cabbage.

"This is the 'ouse." Stephen stopped. Somewhere, above their heads, a child was crying.

CHAPTER VI

THE WORLD AND BUCKET LANE

I

A light flashed in the upper windows, stayed for a moment, and disappeared. There was a pause and then the door slowly opened and a woman's head protruded.

She stared at them without speaking.

"Mr. Brant," Stephen said. "I'm come back, Mrs. Williams 'oping you might 'ave that same room me and my friend might use if it's agreeable."

She stepped forward then and looked at them more carefully. She was a stout red-faced woman, her hair hanging about her face, her dirty bodice drawn tightly over her enormous bosom and her skirt pulled up in front and hanging, draggled behind her. Her long, dirty fingers went up to her face continually; she had a way of pushing at her teeth with them.

She seemed, however, pleased to see Stephen.

"Well, Mr. Brant," she said, "come in. It's a surprise I must say but Lord! as I'm always telling Mrs. Griggs oo's on the bottom floor when she can afford 'er rent which 'asn't been often lately, poor thing, owing to 'aving 'er tenth only three weeks back, quite unexpected, and 'er man being turned off 'is 'ouse-painting business what 'e's been at this ten year and more--well come along in, I'm sure--"

They _were_ in by this time having been urged by their hostess into the very narrowest, darkest and smelliest passage that Peter had ever encountered. Somewhere behind the walls, the world was moving. On every side of him above and below, children were crying, voices swearing, murmuring, complaining, arguing; Peter could feel Mrs. Williams' breath hot against his cheek. Up the wheezy stairs she panted, they following her. Peter had never heard such loquacity. It poured from her as though she meant nothing whatever by it and was scarcely aware indeed of the things that she was saying. "And it's a long time, Mr. Brant, since we 'ad the pleasure of seeing you. My last 'usband's left me since yer was 'ere--indeed 'e 'av--all along of a fight 'e 'ad with old Colly Moles down Three Barrer walk--penal servitude, poor feller and all along of 'is nasty temper as I was always tellin' 'im. Why the very morning before it 'appened I remember sayin' to 'im when 'e up and threw a knife at me for contradictin' 'is words I remember sayin' to 'im that 'is temper would be the settlin' of me but 'e wouldn't listen, not 'e.

Obstinate! Lord! that simply isn't the word for it ... but 'ere's the room and nobody been in it since Sairy Grace and she was always bringin'

men along with 'er, dirty slut and that's a month since she's been and gone and I always like 'aving yer, Mr. Brant, for you're quiet enough and no trouble at all--and your friend looks pleasant I must say."

The room was, indeed, remarkably respectable--not blessed with much furniture in addition to two beds and two chairs but roomy and with a large and moderately clean window.

"Now what about terms for me and my friend?" said Stephen.

Now followed friendly argument in which the lady and Stephen seemed perfectly to understand one another. After asserting that under no circumstances whatever could she possibly take less than at least double the price that Stephen offered her she suddenly, at the sound of a child's shrill crying from below, shrugged her shoulders with: "There's young 'Lisbeth Anne again ... well, Mr. Brant, 'ave it your own way--I'm contented enough I'm sure," and vanished.

But the little discussion had brought Peter to a sharp realisation of the immediate business of ways and means. Sitting on one of the beds afterwards with Stephen beside him he inquired--

"How much have we got, Stephen? I've got thirty bob."

"Never you mind, Peter. We'll soon be gettin' work."

"Why, of course. I'll force 'em to take me. That's all you want in these things--to look fierce and say you won't go until they give you something--a trial anyhow."

And sitting there on the bed with Stephen beside him he felt immensely confident. There was nothing that he could not do. With one swift movement he seemed to have flung from him all the things that were beginning to crowd in between him and his work. He must never, never allow that to happen again--how could one ever be expected to work if one were always thinking of other people, interested in them and their doings, involved with anarchists and bombs and romantic adventures. Why here he was with nothing in the world to hold him or to interfere and no one except dear old Stephen with whom he must talk. Ambition crept very close to him that night--ambition with its glittering, shining rewards, its music and colours--close to him as he sat in that bare, naked room.

"I'd rather be with you than any one in the world--we'll have such times, you and I."

Perhaps Stephen knew more about the world; perhaps during the years that he had been tumbled and knocked about he had realised that the world was no easy nut to crack and that loaves and fishes don't come to the hungry for the asking. But Peter that night was to be appalled by nothing.

They sat up into the early morning, talking. The noises in the house and in the streets about them rose and fell. Some distant cry would climb into the silence and draw from it other cries set like notes of music to tumble back into a common scheme together.

"Steve, tell me about Zanti. Is he really a scoundrel?"

"A scoundrel? No, poor feller. Why, Mr. Peter, you ought to know better than that. 'E ain't got a spark of malice in him but 'e's always after adventure. 'E knows all the queer people in Europe--and more'n Europe too. There's nothin' 'e don't put 'is nose into in a clumsy, childish way but always, you understand, Mr. Peter, because 'e's after 'is romantic fancies. It was when 'e was after gold down in Cornwall--some old treasure story--that I came across 'im and 'e was kind to me.... 'E was a kind-'earted man, Mr. Zanti, and never meant 'arm to a soul. And 'e's very fond of you, Mr. Peter."

"Yes, I know." Peter was vaguely troubled. "I hope I haven't been unkind about him. I suppose it was the shock of the whole thing. But it was time I went anyway. But tell me, Stephen, what you've been doing all these years. And why you let me be all that time without seeing you--"

"Well, Mr. Peter, I didn't think it would be good for you--I was knowing lots o' strange people time and again and then you might have been mixed up with me. I'm safe enough now, I'm thinking, and I'd have been safe enough all the time the way Cornwall was then and every one sympathising with me--"

"But what have you been doing all the time?"

"I was in America a bit and there are few things I haven't worked at in my time--always waiting for 'er to come--and she will come some time--it's only patience that's wanted."

"Have you ever heard from her?"

"There was a line once--just a line--_she's_ all right." His great body seemed to glow with confidence.

Peter would like then to have spoken about Clare Rossiter. But no--some shyness held him--one day he would tell Stephen.

He unpacked his few possessions carefully and then, on a very hard bed, dreaming of bombs, of Mrs. Brockett dressed as a ballet dancer, of Mr.

Zanti digging for treasure beneath the grey flags of Bennett Square, of Clare Elizabeth Rossiter riding down Oxford Street amidst the shouts of the populace, of the world as a coloured globe on which he, Peter Westcott, the author of that masterpiece, "Reuben Hallard," had set his foot ... so, triumphant, he slept.

II

On the next morning the Attack on London began. The house in Bucket Lane was dark and grim when he left it--the street was hidden from the light and hung like a strip of black ribbon between the sunshine of the broader highways that lay at each end of it. It was a Jewish quarter-notices in Yiddish were in all the little grimy shop windows, in the bakers and the sweetshops and the laundries. But it was not, this Bucket Lane, a street without its dignity and its own personal little cleanliness. It had its attempts at such things. His own room and Mrs.

Williams' tea and bread and butter had been clean.

But as he came down out of these strange murmuring places with their sense of hiding from the world at large the things that they were occupied in doing, Bucket Lane stuck in his head as a dark little quarry into which he must at the day's end, whatever gorgeous places he had meanwhile encountered, creep. "Creeping" was the only way to get into such a place.

Meanwhile he had put on his best, had blackened his shoes until they shone like little mirrors, had brushed his bowler hat again and again and looked finally like a sailor on shore for a holiday. Seven years in Charing Cross Road had not taken the brown from his cheeks, nor bent his broad shoulders.

At the Mansion House he climbed on to the top of a lumbering omnibus and sailed down through the City. It was now that he discovered how seldom during his seven years he had ventured beyond his little square of country. Below him, on either side of him, black swarms stirred and moved, now forming ahead of him patterns, squares, circles, then suddenly rising it appeared like insects and in a cloud surging against the high stone buildings. All men--men moving with eyes straight ahead of them, bent furiously upon some business, but assembling, retreating, advancing, it seemed, by the order of some giant hand that in the air above them played a game. Imagine that, in some moment of boredom, the Hand were to brush the little pieces aside, were to close the board and put it away, then, with what ignominy and feeble helplessness would these little black figures topple clumsily into heaps.