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At thismoment he saw himself with frightful clarity.
Hetried to shout, choked,
and let fall the beer-pot. You will pay five pounds or go to prison for
fourteen days. She says, What am I hanging on to the beer-handle for?
You
justsplurge it frantically away, like a sailor in a bawdy-house hisfirst night
ashore.
Ravelston, farther down the bar and hemmed in by several men, sawwhat
Gordon was doing. He wanted herbadly, and he did not want to waste time over
preliminaries.
He said with a sort of philosophic interest:Look at the Neon
lights! Helooked from Dora to Gordon, from Gordon to Barbara.
And I dont mind
telling you Mother Wisbeach is onyour track. It seemed quite natural to
Ravelston to waste several days ingetting Gordon out of his scrape. Until the
afternoon Gordon felt sick and weak. Her arm round his waist, supporting him,
Dora drew him aside. Ravelston thought this must be the flush ofdrunkenness.
At
thismoment he saw himself with frightful clarity. Of course he couldnt pay his
fine himself. Down on the left PiccadillyCircus blazed, a horrible pool of
light.
He walked past them with small mean mouth tightened, pretending notto
see them.
Shes gone, said Gordon, with a wave of his hand which was meantto
explain everything.
With guilty restless movements he kept himselfapart from
Barbara. Look here, Gordon, its time you were in bed. Thememory of that stupid
dull debauch rolled back upon him withbeastly vividness.
Having seen this much
he lay down and pulled the blanket over himagain. His face shrank with disgust
as helooked at the chilly white-tiled place with its shameless W. He wished
that boring business of going up to thecourt could be avoided somehow.
McKechnie cant keep me on after Ive beenin the clink.
At this moment a
frightful spasm of nausea overcame him.
He turnedhis face to the wall and
pulled the blanket over his head to shutout the light. Andthe worst was that
nearly all of them used the W. Sober halfstill knew with ice-cold clarity what
he had done and what he wasdoing. Actually he seldom stirred until Mrs Beaver,
thecharwoman, arrived at eight. Youll get em back before you go upto court.
This seemed tohim to have been going on for several minutes.
We had a bloke
hung himself with his tie, once. He had wanted to come here, but he was no
sooner herethan he wanted to escape.
He recoiled from the thought; he fled back
intohis drunkenness as into a refuge.
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