linger in the long aisles, to see the
tumbled counters being swiftly brought to order, to hear the pungent
cynicisms of the weary shopgirls. To these, by the way, he was a bit of
a mystery. The punctilio of his manner, the extreme courtliness of his
remarks, embarrassed them a little. Behind his back they spoke of him as
"The Duke" and admired him hugely; little Miss Whippet, at the stocking
counter, said that he was an English noble of long pedigree, who had
been unjustly deprived of his estates.

Down in the basement of this palatial store was a little dressing
room and lavatory for the floorwalkers, where they doffed their formal
raiment and resumed street attire. His colleagues grumbled and hastened
to depart, but Gissing made himself entirely comfortable. In his locker
he kept a baby's bathtub, which he leisurely filled with hot water at
one of the basins. Then he sat serenely and bathed his feet; although it
was against the rules he often managed to smoke a pipe while doing so.
Then he hung up his store clothes neatly, and went off refreshed into
the summer evening.

A warm rosy light floods the city at that hour. At the foot of every
crosstown street is a bonfire of sunset. What a mood of secret smiling
beset him as he viewed the great territory of his enjoyment. "The
freedom of the city"--a phrase he had somewhere heard--echoed in his
mind. The freedom of the city! A magnificent saying, Electric signs,
first burning wanly in the pink air, then brightened and grew strong.
"Not light, but rather darkness visible," in that magic hour that just
holds the balance between paling day and the spendthrift jewellery
of evening. Or, if it rained, to sit blithely on the roof of a bus,
revelling in the gust and whipping of the shower. Why had no one told
him of the glory of the city? She was pride, she was exultation, she
was madness. She was what he had obscurely craved. In every line of
her gallant profile he saw conquest, triumph, victory! Empty conquest,
futile triumph, doomed victory--but that was the essence of the drama.
In thunderclaps of dumb ecstasy he saw her whole gigantic fabric,
leaning and clamouring upward with terrible yearning. Burnt with
pitiless sunlight, drenched with purple explosions of summer storm, he
saw her cleansed and pure. Where were her recreant poets that they had
never made these things plain?

And then, after the senseless day, after its happy but meaningless
triviality, the throng and mi