ext step is simple.

In the ordinary way, short of desperate impulse and decision--unless
by some happy chance I had relinquished the burden of this pen and
taken happy service with one of the wine merchants who store their
treasure there--I should never have entered Lower Robert Street at
all, for it goes nowhere and runs under the earth, and it is damp
and mouldy, and the only doors, leading to this vault and that,
are locked. But for all these disabilities Lower Robert Street is,
in Gotha and Zeppelin times, a very present help and refuge. There
assemble, with more or less fortitude and philosophy, the denizens
of the Adelphi, thankful indeed that the brothers Adam established
their streets and terrace on so useful a foundation; and there twice
recently have I joined them. And an odd assembly we have made, ranging
as we do from successful dramatists to needy journalists, with an
actress or so to keep us manly.

There for long hours have we waited until the "All clear" has
sounded--or, at any rate, some have done so. As for myself, on the
last occasion, taking advantage of a lull in the uproar, I crept away
to bed, and, after falling into the sleep of exhaustion, had the
ironical experience of being rudely awakened by the reassuring bugles
and my night again ruined.

Having taken cover only in Lower Robert Street, which is open to
all, I cannot with any personal knowledge speak of the camaraderie
of private basements; but I suppose that that exists and is another
of the War's byproducts. I take it that, in the event of a sudden
alarm, no householder with a cellar would be so inhuman as to
refuse admittance to a stranger, and already probably a myriad
new friendships and not a few engagements have resulted. Our own
camaraderie is admirable. The federation of the barrage breaks down
every obstacle; while a piece of shrapnel that one can display is more
valuable than any letter of introduction, no matter who wrote it.
Hence we all talk; and sometimes we sing too--choruses of the moment,
for the most part, in one of which the depth of our affection for our
maternal relative is measured and regulated by the floridity of the
roses growing on her porch.

And yet, when at last friendliness is upon the town, there are
people--and not only alien Hebrews either--who have been hurrying away
from London! When London has become more interesting than ever before
in its history there are people who leave it!

Personally I mean