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Saturday.”
    “You’ve got another billet?”
    “No. That was a cover, in case something like this happened.”
    “You’ve got a character?”
    Soper shrugged. “I’ll use the ones I used to land that job, ones I wrote myself. I was in trouble at my last place. It soon gets around if you’re a militant.”
    “And Miriam?”
    “She can go back. Meadowes didn’t see her.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “I’m sure,” Romayne said. “She was last out and I knocked his glasses off while she was still in the corridor.”
    Pride in her took possession of him, going a short way to soothe the frustration and humiliation of the day. He said, “You all came out of it better than me. I was supposed to be lookout but I let him get that far. If Romayne hadn’t been sharp with that dust-sheet none of us would have got clear. I’m sorry I sneered, Soper. I had no right to. Your stake is a much bigger one than mine and I don’t have to remind you what can result from using forged references.”
    “That’s all right, Mr. Swann.” He put his arm round his girl and she winced. “It hurts horribly,” she said. “Do you suppose we could find a chemist open and get some arnica?”
    “You stay here,” Giles said. “I’ll find a chemist’s, and a pie-shop, too. You’ll be safe enough here until the crowds start dispersing. Then we can all go home. Will you wait with them, Soper?”
    “Anything you say, Mr. Swann.”
    He went out into the blinding sunshine, working his way west towards Trafalgar Square and King William IV Street where, on his way to the rendezvous, he had seen shops open. “Anything you say, Mr. Swan…” They all looked to him for a lead, not because he was more qualified to give one than the least of them, but because he was a renegade from the far side of the barricades, a man who owned his own house, wore tailored clothes, and had a famous father. It wasn’t good enough, not by a very long chalk, and somehow he would have to improve on it or leave them to get on with it alone. He found a chemist’s and bought a bottle of arnica, then a market coffeestand where he bought four meat pies and four bottles of ginger beer, carrying his purchases back to their refuge in the labyrinthine corridors of the market. Romayne took charge of the girl, coaxing her to unbutton her blouse and expose a great purple bruise above the prominent collarbone. He noticed that she flushed when her neck and shoulders were bared and he turned aside, taking Soper over to the grille. He said, quietly, “You’ll never get a billet after this and you know it. Have you any experience of clerical work?”
    “I was a ledger clerk at Patterson’s, the wholesalers, soon after I left school.”
    “Why didn’t you stick to book-keeping?”
    “I got sacked after asking for a rise. No shindig at Patterson’s, just a straight case of Oliver Twist on that occasion. Don’t bother about me, Mr. Swann. I’ll look out for myself.”
    He liked Soper’s spirit and wry sense of humour. Headstrong he might be, but if there were three Sopers in every city emporium the rough-and-ready tactics they had used today would be unnecessary. Real solidarity among the helots was what was needed, and it wasn’t impossible. It had already been successful in the heavy industries up north. Bargains could be struck between the vast numbers of havenots and the Gradgrinds in their plush suburban houses. But there were not three Sopers anywhere, much less in a drapery store. More often than not there wasn’t one prepared to risk his livelihood for a cause of this kind. He said, “I’ll get you a billet with my father’s firm. I can tell the truth about you to him. It’ll be a fresh start.”
    “And the Action Group, Mr. Swann?”
    “We shall have to work for parliamentary backing. It’s not impossible. Other trades have achieved it. What we need is some kind of charter to cover all the retail trades.”
    “That’s looking way ahead, isn’t