cupolas. It was brutally, tyrannously imposing. It towered above its
neighbours, dwarfing the long sky-line of the Strand; its flushed
cupolas mocked the white and heavenly soaring of St. Mary's. Whether
you approached it from the river, or from the City, or from the west,
you could see nothing else, so monstrous was it, so flagrant and so
new. Though the day was not yet done, the electric light streamed over
the pavement from the huge windows of the ground floor; a coronal of
dazzling globes hung over the doorway at the corner; there, as you
turned, the sombre windows of the second-hand department stretched
half way down the side street; here, in the great thoroughfare, the
newest of new books stood out, solicitous and alluring, in suits of
blazing scarlet and vivid green, of vellum and gilt, of polished
leather that shone like amber and malachite and lapis lazuli.

Within, a wall broken by a wide and lofty arch divided the front from
the back shop. On the right of the arch was the mahogany pew of the
cashier, on the left, a tall pillar stove radiating intolerable heat.
Four steps led through the arch into the back shop, the floor of
which was raised in a sort of platform. On the platform was a table,
and at the table sat the young man compiling the Quarterly Catalogue.

Front shop and back shop reeked with the smells of new mahogany, dust,
pillar-stove, gum, hot-pressed paper and Russia leather. He sat in the
middle of them, in an atmosphere so thick that it could be seen
hanging about him like an aura, luminous in the glare of the electric
light. His slender, nervous hands worked rapidly, with a business-like
air of dexterity and dispatch. But every now and then he raised his
head and stared for quite a long time at the round, white, foolish
face of the clock, and whenever he did this his eyes were the eyes of
a young man who has no adequate sense of his surroundings.

The remarkable thing about the new shop was that already, like a bar
or a restaurant, it drew to it a certain group of young men,
punctually, irresistibly. A small group--you could almost count them
on the fingers of one hand--they came from Fleet Street, from the
Temple, from the Junior Journalists' Club over the way. They were
never seen looking in at the windows or hanging about the counter;
they were not the least bit of good to the shop, those customers. But
they were evidently some good to the young man. Whatever they did or
did not do, they a