Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/117

 and a couple of coats of stone-colour. I would have expected to see a better rear wall to the backyard of the Bank of England, for, of course, I thought the front of the building must be round in a main street. I asked the Buster's Dad if we'd go round by the front?

"That's the front," he said.

The Buster's Dad lived in a terrace built in a half-circle, back from the street, the space in front filled by a half-moon of stone or cement, with posts round it, and seats on it. The Buster's Bad says he remembers when trees grew there. On the opposite side of the street was a big hoarding covered with advertisements. After tea, when we had told them all about the Buster's family in Australia, I sat by the window (it was Saturday evening) and watched the 'buses and horse-trams go by, painted pink and blue and yellow, according to their routes, and covered with advertisements; and I watched the people who drifted round and rested on the dusty seats of the dusty little stone half-moon. It was a hot day, and dust and straw and bits of paper drifted round.

There were draggled girls with rag babies—at least the babies were mostly rags—who came from back courts; there were shapeless, rusty black bundles, tied round the middle, with dingy shawls three-corner-wise over the shoulders, and knobs on top, in the shape of black bonnets: old women who met on their way from the pubs, with jugs half under their shawls, and who rested a while on a seat and helped, no doubt, to blacken a dirty, mean street with their tongues. It