Page:Soullondonasurv00fordgoog.djvu/90

RV 73 (WORK IN LONDON) contending in the dim atmosphere with the delicate fragrance of coffee—in a City Mecca, in fact—you will see men sit. Their faces of the palest, of the ruddiest, of the blondest, of the most black-avised, will be all united into one serious frown over black and white stones, like smaller tombstones standing or lying prone as if in a disastrously wrecked graveyard. A man will rise in a far corner, pull the lapels of his coat one towards another, shake his umbrella a little, and walk away with a swift step and a half self-conscious air. A young man will look up and lose for a moment his engrossed expression. He will stop his companion's domino in mid air with "Do you know who that is? Why, Plumly!"—"What, Plumly of the Dash United?" They will gaze with half awe at the disappearing trouser-ends and boot-heels on the stairs.

"Yes. Plumly was only an auctioneers' clerk in Honiton, where my father is. And now look what he's worth! That was what made me come to town." The eyes of both young men will have serious and reflective expressions before they resume their game. They will both be thinking, in one way or another, that what man has done man can do.

Or, on the seat before the ferryman's hut in a small harbour you may see a hook-nosed, bearded, begrimed, weather-soiled and wonderfully alert London bargeman. He will wave his tiny pipe at the faces of half a dozen young fishermen standing in a circle before him.

"Yes," he will say, "you're too young to remember 73