Boxing Day. In less than a minute, it seemed, they were jogging and rattling past the Bank. They wouldn’t be long at this rate. The lights were going nicely with them to – shining out with brilliant friendliness like bottles in a chemist’s shop.

He was an awful fool to be taking a taxi like this. It was all very well to say he had that ten pounds, but he wouldn’t have it if he went on like this. This would be six bob at least – probably seven with the tip. Nearly half of one of your ten pounds gone already!

Why had he taken a taxi! Why did he get into ‘states’ like this? He had suddenly got into a state of panic because he had thought Netta might not be in her flat, and he couldn’t wait to find out, couldn’t stand a train with a change. But what did it matter if Netta wasn’t in her flat? There was tomorrow, there was the day after, there was all next year. Why should he want to see Netta tonight? He wasn’t sure that he did want to see her: he would almost certainly go to bed happier if he didn’t. But he had got into a state and was rushing to her in a taxi. He was an awful fool.

How empty and bleak the streets were, and how he loathed this shut, shuttered, super-Sunday – the Christmas Holiday. He supposed it was all right for people who had to work all the year: but it made him feel terrible. Thank God it would all be over tomorrow. And Boxing Day wasn’t quite as ghastly and Sundayish as Christmas Day. The pubs were open normally – none of that awful seven to ten business. In fact the pubs were open already. That was a good thought. As soon as he got inside a pub tonight, it would be all right. After that he had only to get home and to bed, and then wake up to a normal world again tomorrow.

The fare came to six shillings and sixpence, and he gave a shilling to the man, who seemed to like it all right: he was obviously a cheerful man by nature. He went up the steps, and into the Fauconberg. He had to pass through the lounge on his way upstairs. It was all decorated for Christmas (he had forgotten that, although he had seen it decorated before he went away), and the only people about were some children who were trying to play blow-football (evidently a Christmas present) on one of the green baize tables normally used for bridge. He knew nobody in the little hotel – the large glorified boarding-house – and he did not mean to. He just slept in a small room at the top, and came down to breakfast when everyone else had gone. For the rest he slunk in and out,only exchanging the time of day with the gloomy porter.

He did a bit of unpacking, and washed in the bathroom along the passage – there was only a jug and basin in his room. He came back and brushed his hair, peering into the wardrobe mirror in the pink light of the fly-blown bulb. He had some gin left in a quarter bottle, and poured a double into his tooth glass, adding water from the glass bottle. He polished his shoes with a light-brown, polish-smeared pad he had got from Woolworth’s.

Then he put on his tweed overcoat, put up its collar, looked in the mirror again, and decided not to wear a hat. He went downstairs, through the lounge again, and out into the street.

He turned into Earl’s Court Road, and walked down towards the station. He passed the station and contemplated having a drink at one of the pubs on the right.