Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/174



By Sidney Benson Thorp

dusky little row comprising No. 79 quivered like a jelly as railway or post-office vans, making a short cut between two principal thoroughfares, roared over the boulders of Wickham Road, N.W.

To the left front shone a public-house, another to the right. Before each an Italian musician had set up his rest (for it was ten o'clock and a fine, warm night), and thence, reckless of unhappy beings at the confluence, in friendly rivalry they teemed forth contradictory tunes. From a neighbouring street floated tepid air charged with the vibrations of inflated brass; the voices of the inhabitants, seeking on their doorsteps comparative cool at the close of a tropical day, fantastically varied the echoes. Linked bands of frolicsome youth patrolled beneath the window of No. 79, shouting a parody of Wagner wedded to words by an imitator of Mr. George R. Sims — the latest success of the halls. Splutters of gurgling laughter betrayed the whereabouts of amorous pairs. And the man staring from the open window of the first-floor front neither saw nor heard.

Within the room a pale circle of light fell, from beneath the opaque shade of a single candle, directly upon a litter of manuscript and a few odd volumes of standard literature. The feebler rays Rh