ward and covered something up—a limb I suppose. . . . I was only anxious of course that my wife should see nothing . . . she was considerably affected. . . .”
So Mr. Harris of Cheapside, with the assistance of an eager and talented young journalist. But the fact remained in the heart of the crowd—blasted foreigner had had a shot at the Old Lady and missed her, therefore whatever gaiety may have been originally intended let it now be redoubled, shouted into frenzy—and frenzy it was.
“There was no clue,” an evening paper added to the criminal's identity. . . . The police were blamed, of course. . . . Such a thing must never be allowed to occur again. It was reported that the Queen had in no way suffered from the shock—was in capital health.
Outside the bookshop Stephen and Peter had parted.
“I'll meet you about half-past ten, Trafalgar Square by the lion that faces Whitehall; I must go back to Brockett's, have supper and get my things, and say good-bye. Then I'll join you . . . half-past ten.”
“Peter boy, we'll have to rough it—”
“Oh! at last! Life's beginning. We'll soon get work, both of us—where do you mean to go?”
“There's a place I been before—down East End—not much of a place for your sort, but just for a bit. . . .”
For a moment Peter's thoughts swept back to the shop.
“Poor Zanti!” He half turned. “After so many years . . . the good old chap.” Then he pulled himself up and set his shoulders. “Well, half-past ten—”
The streets were, at the instant, almost deserted. It was about five o'clock now and at seven o'clock they would be closed to all traffic. Then the surging crowds would come sweeping down.
Peter, furiously excited, hurried through the grimy deserts of Bloomsbury, to Brockett's. To his singing, beating heart the thin ribbon of the grey street with the faint dim blue of the evening sky was out of place, ill-judged as a setting to his exultations. He had swept in the tempestuous way that was natural to him, the shop and all that it had been to him, behind him. Even Brockett's must go with the rest. Of course he could not stay there now that the weekly two pounds had stopped. He quite savagely desired
