thers would be pinning a bunch of violets into their
button-holes, or brushing the shoulders of their coats. These were
the ones who had finished for the day. It could always be known when
they had taken their departure. The heads of the clerks would twist
towards the interior of the room. You could almost imagine the
wistful expression on their faces from the bare outlines of their
attitudes as they turned in their chairs. Then, a minute later, the
main door of the house would open, the figure of a man emerge; for
a moment he would turn his face up to the sky, then the umbrella would
go up and he would walk away into the darkness of the street, for
one brief moment an individual with an identity; the next, a mere
unit in the great herd of human beings.

There were many departures such as these before, at last, the clerks
rose from their chairs. When finally they did move, it was with a
lethargy that almost concealed the relief which the cessation of work
had brought them. One might have expected to see the slamming of books
and the rushing for hats like children released from school. But
there was no such energy of delight as that. Ledgers were closed
wearily, as though they were weighted with leaden covers; papers were
put in tiny heaps as if they were a pile of death-warrants.
Typewriters were covered with such slowness and such care that one
might think they were delicate instruments of music with silver
strings, instead of treadmills for tired hands.

Some reason must explain why these young men and girls, when their
superiors took their departure, showed so plainly the envy that they
felt and now are apparently unmoved by the prospect of their own
freedom. It is simply this. Vitality is an exhaustible quality. It
may last up to a certain moment, then it burns out like the hungry
wick of a candle that has no more grease to feed it. You can
incarcerate a man for such a length of time that when at last you
do give him his liberty he has no love left for it. It is much the
same with these creatures who are imprisoned in the barred cells of
London offices. By the time their day's work is ended their vitality
for enjoyment has been exhausted. They take their liberty much as
a man takes the sentence of penal servitude when he had expected to
be hanged.

Stand for a moment in this street that runs out from the Covent Garden
Market and watch the office windows before the lights are
extinguished. Is there one attitude,