for him, perched at the back of his head. He plays the guitar. A little
chap in white canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like
a broken wing, breathes into a flute; and a tall thin fellow, with
bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons--long, twisted, streaming
ribbons--of tune out of a fiddle. They stand, unsmiling, but not
serious, in the broad sunlight opposite the fruit-shop; the pink
spider of a hand beats the guitar, the little squat hand, with a
brass-and-turquoise ring, forces the reluctant flute, and the fiddler's
arm tries to saw the fiddle in two.

A crowd collects, eating oranges and bananas, tearing off the skins,
dividing, sharing. One young girl has even a basket of strawberries,
but she does not eat them. "Aren't they dear!" She stares at the tiny
pointed fruits as if she were afraid of them. The Australian soldier
laughs. "Here, go on, there's not more than a mouthful." But he doesn't
want her to eat them, either. He likes to watch her little frightened
face, and her puzzled eyes lifted to his: "Aren't they a price!" He
pushes out his chest and grins. Old fat women in velvet bodices--old
dusty pin-cushions--lean old hags like worn umbrellas with a quivering
bonnet on top; young women, in muslins, with hats that might have grown
on hedges, and high pointed shoes; men in khaki, sailors, shabby clerks,
young Jews in fine cloth suits with padded shoulders and wide trousers,
"hospital boys" in blue--the sun discovers them--the loud, bold music
holds them together in one big knot for a moment. The young ones are
larking, pushing each other on and off the pavement, dodging, nudging;
the old ones are talking: "So I said to 'im, if you wants the doctor to
yourself, fetch 'im, says I."

"An' by the time they was cooked there wasn't so much as you could put
in the palm of me 'and!"

The only ones who are quiet are the ragged children. They stand, as
close up to the musicians as they can get, their hands behind their
backs, their eyes big. Occasionally a leg hops, an arm wags. A tiny
staggerer, overcome, turns round twice, sits down solemn, and then gets
up again.

"Ain't it lovely?" whispers a small girl behind her hand.

And the music breaks into bright pieces, and joins together again, and
again breaks, and is dissolved, and the crowd scatters, moving slowly up
the hill.

At the corner of the road the stalls begin.

"Ticklers! Tuppence a tickler! 'Ool 'ave a tickler? Tickle 'em up,
boys