nd-brown fingers around it.
His teeth clashed at the thought of it! What would he have "to follow"?
Something rich and cold! A _meringue glacee_ was not good enough for the
occasion. A cream _bombe glacee_, or, better still, a _Peche Melba_. He
saw the red syrup stuff in the little glass plate that it would be
served on. And the peach--like the cheeks of a lovely child! At last, if
he could manage it--which he did not at the moment doubt--something in
the savoury omelette line. And to finish up with, the Egyptian should
bring him some coffee. He saw the Egyptian very clearly, with his little
red cap and his dusky cheeks. Then, last of all, the man with the cigars
and liqueurs wheeled his tray. A good cigar from the top tray, clipped
and lit by the man's lamp. Then to choose from the half score of bottles
on the lower tray. Chartreuse, Benedictine, better still, Grand
Marmier.

That really was all. Nothing to do now but lean back in his chair, and
between his sips gaze contentedly through his cigar smoke at the lights,
the mirrors, the palms, and whirring electric fans and the happy,
flushed diners, with that curious, strained, puzzled and amused look
that creeps into the backs of people's eyes at such times.

Then he pictured himself leaving the restaurant, climbing the stairs.
The glass door was thrown open for him to pass through, with a gesture
that was positively grandiloquent.

The cold air of the street was fanning his heated cheek. People were
sweeping by him as he walked down Coventry Street. Ships that passed in
the night! Passionate eyes stabbed him. Strange scents momentarily swept
over him....

There was a completeness of detail in all these pictures that wrung from
him a very grim smile. Would he remember the war as vividly as he then
remembered all that?

He saw himself pause in the gutter of Wardour Street while a taxi slid
by. He saw himself survive the lure of the Empire, saw himself deciding
not to cross the road, and go down to the Alhambra.

Eventually he reached a music hall. He was going in now. He was taking
his place that moment in the plush stall. On the stage a little pseudo
nigger was joking privately with the conductor. He laughed at one of the
jokes he remembered. Then a woman came on. She was tragic, stately. He
was thrilled by her slimness, her weirdness, her vitality. The whole
atmosphere of the theatre was electrified by her personality. She was
singing a song in a way that he had