Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/25

 air quivered with light, with the mingled odours of the men's bodies and of the trades they worked in, with the grateful smell of wine and spirits. The din of voices crashed against the rows of delicately shining glasses. Flushed, laughing, or argumentative faces were reflected in the long mirrors. Someone on the street outside was playing a Jew's-harp. Fergussen began to do a hornpipe in his crowded corner, now and again uttering a sharp yell. Edwin Silk, a broken-down remittance man, feebly drunk, tried to pull him off his feet. "Don't dance, you damned fishmonger," he ordered, "it makesh me dizhy." Fergussen knocked him down without ceasing to dance. At a nod from Bastien, Charley Bye helped Silk to his feet and mildly led him outside.

Lovering, with his eternal lazy smile, still strummed with his fingers on the bar. "Now, about this lass, Kirke. Tell me more about her. What is her name?"

Two bright spots burned on Kirke's high cheek-bones. "Delight," he returned slowly, as though he savoured the name on his tongue, and he proceeded to give a minute description of her.

Upstairs, in a small room, lighted by a smoky oil lamp, the two girls were getting ready for bed. May Phillips, in pink stays and a short, wrinkled green silk petticoat, was trying to drag a comb through her frizzed hair. Hairpins flew in all directions.

"Ow, damn my 'air!" she exclaimed. "I 'ave to pull it out by the roots almost, to comb it. I 'ope I don't reely look the speckled beauty this glass shows me. Where's my curling-pins now? Kid! Do you know?"

"In the little pink bag. Why don't you give your hair