med, a
treatise on coffee-stalls. This I shall refrain from doing. The one
point it is necessary for me to mention is that the fat, jolly man,
being deplorably distrustful, does not supply casual customers with
teaspoons. You may have a cup of alleged tea (one penny) or a cup of
alleged coffee (one penny); a dollop of sugar is dropped into the cup;
the fat, jolly man gives the mixture a stir-round with a teaspoon; then
he places the cup before you on the bar; but the teaspoon is still in
his grasp. I dare say he would lend you the teaspoon if you requested
him to do so; but unless you have that audacity he prefers to keep the
teaspoon on his side of the bar, out of harm's way. This may seem
strange, when you perceive that the teaspoon is fashioned of a metal
unknown to silversmiths and might be priced at threepence. But even a
threepenny teaspoon is a souvenir which some collectors would not
despise.

Presumably regular customers receive teaspoons, for teaspoons lie in a
heap on the fat, jolly man's side of the counter. This was the case at
the coffee-stall before which the young soldier and I ranged ourselves.
And the heap of teaspoons seemed to exercise a curious fascination upon
the soldier. He continued to stare at them for some minutes after I had
set in front of him his cup of coffee. Then he stared at the fat, jolly
man, who was cutting slabs from a loaf. He stared for a long time,
making no reply to my remarks.

Rain began to patter on the awning--it had rained earlier in the
night--and I became aware of a figure, lurking in the background on the
pavement, beyond the awning's shelter, but within the radius of the haze
of light projected therefrom. It was a wretched, slinking figure, that
of an elderly man with bleared eyes and a red nose: one of those pariahs
who haunt cabstands and promote the cabs up the rank when the front
vehicle is hailed. This special specimen of his breed appeared to be a
satellite of the coffee-stall proprietor: perhaps he helped to tow the
stall to its berth. Whatever might be his function, he lingered on the
outskirts of the ring of light, watching us; and the young soldier, in
his slow scrutiny of the stall and its surroundings, caught sight of
him, and stared stolidly, as he had stared at everything else.

I was in the act of drinking my coffee when the soldier suddenly leant
across the counter, picked up a spoon, turned, and threw it at the
derelict whose face wavered on the edge