w street
and fling a swift glance over her shoulder as she turned into
Northumberland Avenue, the author mounted a Barking 'bus and settled
himself in the front seat, a gay little Union Jack fluttering just
above his head, and gave himself up unreservedly to reflections evoked
by a return, after some years at sea, to his native air. Every foot of
the way eastward brought up memories long dormant beneath the swarms
of alien impressions received since going to sea, impressions that
ranged from the songs of an octaroon in a blind-tiger back of
Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, to the mellow _Boom-cling-clang_ of
temple-bells heard in the flawless dawn from a verandah above the
sampan-cluttered canals of Osaka. Between his nostrils and the ancient
odours of creosote blocks and of river mud drying at low tide came the
heavy scent of Arab quarters, the reek of Argentine slaughter-houses
and the subtle pervasions of Singapore. Since he had read with
careless neglect the familiar names over familiar shops where he
and his father had dealt in the common things of life, his eyes
had ached with the glittering hieroglyphics of Chinatown and the
incomprehensible futilities of Armenian and Cyrillic announcements.
So it came about that he regarded the cheerful, homely, and sun-lit
Strand with extraordinary delight, a delight enhanced by the
incorrigible conviction that in a few weeks he would quit it once
more for distant shores. Yet the charm, evanescent as it was, laid an
authentic hand upon his pulse and made it beat more quickly. Here he
had bought his first dress-suit. The tailor's shop was gone and a
restaurant with bulging glass windows thrust out a portly stomach into
the street. Here again he had lunched in days gone by on Saturdays,
and loitered far into the afternoon to flirt with the waitress. Here,
where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo
Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put
on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the
midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the
narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter
Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his
studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There,
under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring,
he had what was for him a tremendous emotional experience. In the
German class (for he wa