“Wait a minute,” he said. “Can your child see?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I can’t.”
The young man turned. He put one finger on the plateglass window, pointing.
“Look, Sonny, what’s in there?” he asked.
“Not Sonny,” the child objected.
“Go on, Mary. Tell the gentleman,” her mother encouraged her.
“Pretty ladies,” said the child.
The man took the woman by the arm and felt his way to the next window.
“And what’s in here?” he asked again.
“Apples and fings,” the child told him.
“Fine!” said the young man.
He pulled off his shoe and hit the window a smart smack with the heel of it. He was inexperienced; the first blow did not do it, but the second did. The crash reverberated up and down the street. He restored his shoe, put an arm cautiously through the broken window, and felt about until he found a couple of oranges. One he gave to the woman and one to the child. He felt about again, found one for himself, and began to peel it. The woman fingered hers.
“But——” she began.
“What’s the matter? Don’t like oranges?” he asked.
“But it isn’t right,” she said. “We didn’t ought to take ’em. Not like this.”
“How else are you going to get food?” he inquired.
“I suppose—well, I don’t know,” she admitted doubtfully.
“Very well. That’s the answer. Eat it up now, and we’ll go and find something more substantial.”
She still held the orange in her hand, head bent down as though she were looking at it.
“All the same, it don’t seem right,” she said again, but there was less conviction in her tone.
Presently she put the child down and began to peel the orange…
* * *
—
Piccadilly Circus was the most populous place I had found so far. It seemed crowded after the rest, though there were probably less than a hundred people there, all told. Mostly they were wearing queer, ill-assorted clothes and were prowling restlessly around as though still semidazed. Occasionally a mishap would bring an outburst of profanity and futile rage—rather alarming to hear, because it was itself the product of fright, and childish in temper. But with one exception there was little talk and little noise. It seemed as though their blindness had shut people into themselves.
The exception had found himself a position out on one of the traffic islands. He was a tall, elderly, gaunt man with a bush of wiry gray hair, and he was holding forth emphatically about repentance, the wrath to come, and the uncomfortable prospects for sinners. Nobody was paying him any attention; for most of them the day of wrath had already arrived.
Then, from a distance, came a sound which caught everyone’s attention: a gradually swelling chorus:
And when I die,
Don’t bury me at all,
Just pickle my bones
In alcohol.
Dreary and untuneful, it slurred through the empty streets, echoing dismally back and forth. Every head in the Circus was turning now left, now right, trying to place its direction. The prophet of doom raised his voice against the competition. The song wailed discordantly closer:
Lay a bottle of booze
At my head and my feet,
And then I’m sure