's tessellated
pavements were covered with moisture, and, moreover, day had not yet
conquered night. But the seven crowds, growing larger each moment,
recked nothing of these inconveniences. They waited stolidly, silently,
in a suppressed and dangerous fever, as besiegers await the signal for
an attack. Between the various entrances, on the three facades of the
establishment, ran the long lines of windows dressed with all the
materials for happiness, and behind these ramparts of materials could
be glimpsed Hugo's assistants moving about in anxious expectation under
the electric lights, which burned red in the foggy gloom. Over every
portal was a purple warning: 'Beware of pickpockets, male and female.'
No possible male pickpockets, however, were visible to the eye; perhaps
they were disguised as ladies. The seven crowds wedged themselves closer
and closer, clutched tighter and tighter their purses, and stared at the
golden commissionaires through the glass doors with a glance more and
more ferocious. Then suddenly something went off with a boom; it was the
first stroke of the great Hugo clock under the dome. Six pairs of double
doors opened simultaneously, six pairs of golden commissionaires were
overthrown like ninepins, and in a fraction of time six companies of
determined and remorseless women had swept like Prussian cavalry into
the interior of the doomed edifice.

But the seventh crowd was left on the pavement, for the seventh pair of
doors had not opened. And this was the more extraordinary in that the
seventh crowd was the largest crowd, and stood before the entrance
nearest to the principal scene of the day's operations. Instantly the
world became aware that Hugo's management was less perfect than usual,
and people recalled incidents in his business during the previous four
months which had not been to his credit. The seventh crowd was
staggered, furious, and homicidal. If glances could have killed the
impassive pair of golden commissionaires behind the seventh portal, they
would certainly have fallen down dead. If the glass of the seventh
portal had not been set in small squares of immense thickness, it would
have been shattered to bits, and the stronghold forced. Many women cried
out that justice had come to an end in England, for was it not an
elementary principle of justice that all doors should open together? A
few women, more practical, and near the edge of the enraged horde,
slipped away to other entrance