There was a great deal of noise. There were numbers of men--old gentlemen
who were there because they had always been there, young gentlemen who were
there because they had never been there before and a few gentlemen who had
come to see the Ballet.
The lights blazed, the heat and noise steadily accumulated, corks were
popped in the bar behind, promises were broken in the Promenade in front,
and soon after eleven, when everything had become so uncomfortable that the
very lights in the building protested, the doors were opened and the whole
Bubble and Squeak was flung out into the cool and starlit improprieties of
Leicester Square.
Peter could not have told you if he had been asked, that he had been there,
felt a devouring thirst and entered a building close at hand where there
were rows of little round tables and numbers of little round waiters.
Peter sat down at the first table that occurred to him and it was not until
he looked round about him that he discovered that a lady in a huge black
hat was sitting smiling opposite him. Her cheeks were rouged, her gloves
were soiled and her hair looked as though it might fall into a thousand
pieces at the slightest provocation, but her eyes were pathetic and tired.
They didn't belong to her face.
"Hullo, dear, let's have a drink. Haven't had a drink to-night."
He asked her what she would like and she told him.
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