uality gives.

"Let's get back," said Brun. He turned, but, at that moment, someone
from behind him cried, "Oo are yer shoving there?" He was pushed, with
Christopher, half falling, half clutching at arms and shoulders, forward
into the street.

They righted themselves, Brun fastened upon Christopher's arm, shouting
into his ear, "We'd better go along with the crowd for a bit. We'll get
a chance of cutting up Half Moon Street. Can't do anything else."

They were pressed forward. Now, received into the bosom of the crowd,
they were conscious both of the human element and of the stronger
composite spirit that was mightier than anything human, a creation of
the City against whose walls they were now so riotously shouting.

Next to Christopher was a young man in evening dress; his hat had
disappeared, his collar was torn, sweat was pouring down his forehead
and at the top of his voice he screamed again and again:

"Good old England! Good old England! Good old Bobs! Good old Bobs!"
Squeezed up against Christopher's arm was a stout body that looked as
though it had once belonged to some elderly gentleman who liked white
waistcoats and brass buttons. From somewhere, in obvious connection with
these buttons, came a weak, breathless voice: "You'll excuse me hanging
on so, sir. It's familiar--not my way--but this crowd ..."

A girl, with crimson face, leant against Christopher, put her arm round
his neck, tickled his face with a feather; she screamed with laughter:
"Oo-ray! Oo-ray--Oo-bloody-ray!"

"Look out, you swine!" somebody shouted.

"And 'e shouted out, did Bobs
Come along, you stinking nobs,
We will show you--"

Around them, above them, below them there tossed a whirlpool of noise,
something outside and beyond the immediate sounds that they were making.
Bells, voices, shouts that seemed to have no human origin, the very
walls and stones of the City crying aloud.

Then, opposite the entrance to Half Moon Street another crowd seemed to
meet them. There was pause. "Get out of it!" "Go the other way." "Damn
yer eyes, step off it." "Go back, carn't yer?"

It was then that for the briefest moment and for the first time in his
life Christopher was afraid. Someone was pressing into his back until
surely it would break, some other was leaning, and driving his chest in,
driving it so that the breath flooded his face, his eyes, his nose.
Colours rose and fell; someone's evil breath burnt upon his cheeks.
Li