The only remark that he made was: "It's much
better than the pictures outside Martin's, isn't it, Uncle Samuel?" to
which Uncle Samuel, who had been railing for weeks at the deflowering
of Polchester by those abominable posters, could truthfully reply, "Much
better." Little by little he withdrew himself from the other world and
realised his own. He could see that he and his uncle were certainly not
amongst the Quality. Large ladies, their dresses tucked up over their
knees, sucked oranges. Country farmers with huge knobbly looking sticks
were there, and even some sailors, on their way probably to Drymouth.
He recognised the lady who kept charge of the small Orange Street
post-office, and waved to her with delighted excitement. The atmosphere
was thick with gas and oranges, and I'm afraid that Uncle Samuel must
have suffered a great deal. I can only put it on record that he, the
most selfish of human beings, never breathed a word of complaint.

They were all packed very closely together up there in the gallery,
where seventy years before an orchestra straight from Jane Austen's
novels had played to the dancing of the contemporaries of Elizabeth
Bennett, Emma Woodhouse, and the dear lady of "Persuasion." Another
thirty-two years and that same gallery would be listening to recruiting
appeals and echoing the drums and fifes of a martial band. The best
times are always the old times. The huge lady in the seat next to Jeremy
almost swallowed him up, so that he peered out from under her thick
arm, and heard every crunch and crackle of the peppermints that she was
enjoying. He grew hotter and hotter, so that at last he seemed, as once
he had read in some warning tract about a greedy boy that Aunt Amy had
given him, "to swim in his own fat." But he did not mind. Discomfort
only emphasised his happiness. Then, peering forward beneath that stout
black arm, he suddenly perceived, far below in the swimming distance,
the back of his mother, the tops of the heads of Mary and Helen, the
stiff white collar of his father, and the well-known coral necklace of
Aunt Amy. For a moment dismay seized him, the morning's lie which he
had entirely forgotten suddenly jumping up and facing him. But they had
forgiven him.

"Shall I wave to them?" he asked excitedly of Uncle Samuel.

"No, no," said his uncle very hurriedly. "Nonsense. They wouldn't see
you if you did. Leave them alone."

He felt immensely superior to them up where he was, and he