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his hobby, the imaginary construction of neon advertisements in the most prominent positions in the City.
    There were, as usual, a few clerks and secretaries already there, standing by the window that overlooked the scaffolding of the new building.
    “Good morning,” said Blackett, the senior clerk, as Harold joined them. “I don’t see how they ever get a building finished at all, do you? Look at them, sitting there drinking tea.”
    “Oh, but they start earlier than us,” said Sheila, Mr Scott’s secretary.
    “Yes,” said Blackett. “I dare say that’s true, Sheila. They arrive here before we do, certainly. But what do they do? They have breakfast. And when breakfast’s over it’s time for the first tea-break, isn’t it?”
    Harold said nothing, thinking how nice it must be to lay bricks and carry hods and work cranes and drink tea all day, knowing that when it came to knocking-off time you had at least something physically there to show for your efforts. Blackett he had always put down as a Daily Telegraph reader, and possibly even a contributor of letters to the editor about the need for tightening up on the unions, the sort of man who would carry a stopwatch about with him when he retired soas to report the exact amount of time spent not-working by manual labourers. That sort of thing could easily become an obsession.
    Not, of course, that people weren’t idle, anyone with any sense scrounged a few minutes a day from his employer, it gave the dreariness of work a little adventure to see just how much one could get away with. But the sense of moral superiority that the Blacketts of life waved about like the membership card of some exclusive club, or an invitation to a royal garden party, was simply disgusting. And anyway Blackett, with his finicky hands and passion for paper-clips, was one of the things Harold disliked most about Fenway, Crocker and Broke. It wasn’t anything specific that Harold disliked, it was simply the sum of Blackett, the individually harmless characteristics which amounted to a porcupine of irritations. His way of rubbing his hands together, for instance , after leaving the lavatory, as though no towel could ever quite get them dry. The bifocals, for another, which he used for such self-conscious effects of eye manœuvre. The careful creases in his shiny trousers, so that one could tell they were pressed every night and probably cleaned only once every six months, and the way his sideboards were trimmed above the ear-pieces of his spectacles, particularly annoyed Harold. And then he had a peculiar snuffling little laugh, like a stifled whinny. But none of these things really depressed Harold in themselves, it was the total effect of assurance and probity and correctness, the undeviating loyalty to the firm, the unfailing catching of trains, all of which shone out of his grey eyes and from his bald head. Mr Hansett always said that Fenway, Crocker and Broke would collapse when Blackett left, and he didn’t know how they would ever get on without him. Blackett’s pigeon chest would swell, stuffed with these crumbs of conventional praise, till Harold wished it would burst. He could get on without Blackett perfectly well right now.
    He went to his desk and began to prepare a graph. The one thing to be said for this hack work was that it didn’t require any imagination at all, and left Harold plenty of time to think about other things, such as Helen Gallagher. He’d met her almost a year ago at a party, and she had been slightly tight by the time they went home, and allowed him to kiss her with some ardour and to tamper with fair success with her underwear. Encouraged by this Harold had pursued her again, this time to meet a sober indignation.
    “But you allowed me to do that last time,” he said, feeling his cheek where she’d slapped him suddenly and hard.
    She turned scarlet. “Did I?”
    “Yes. And furthermore——”
    “Then you must have taken advantage of me. I knew