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wonder——” He was cut off in mid-sentence. The dizziness began again, and he felt his hands and feet grow cold. He could not think any longer. Fear and memory,memory and fear made a confusion in his mind. He heard Mike say, “I say, are you all right? You’re making some very strange faces. Look out, Tony. I think he’s going to faint.”
    “No,” Julian said, “no; don’t bother. I’m sorry. I’m not feeling very well. It’s probably flu or something.”
    “My dear chap, you should have told us. I thought you looked a bit off colour.”
    “I feel awful. I think I ought to go, if you don’t mind.”
    “Would you like Tony to go with you?”
    “Where?”
    Tony said, “Well—take you home or something.”
    “No. No, thanks. I’ll manage, thanks. I think I’ll go now.”
    Everybody stood up as Julian left. He wanted to say, “I’m not bloody royalty, you know,” but then he felt himself begin to shake, so he got out as quickly as he could. He went out into the corridor, found a lavatory, and washed his face in cold water. He had no towel, and there were none in the dispenser. He tried to dry his face with toilet paper, and while he was still doing this, a boy from Production came in, so he left with bits of tissue still sticking to him. He went down the stairs and into the street. He had no idea where to go, but he knew that he ought to keep moving. Only in that way could he kill the hours.
    *
    At Julian’s semi-progressive prep school, the authorities had believed in reason; before any child could be punished, he had to be convinced that he
should
be punished. “What did you hope to solve, Baker, by running away?” they had said to him, and Julian, twelve and a half years old then, flushed and feverish after a night huddled among old pads and batting gloves in the pavilion, had answered, “Nothing, sir”.
    “Quite right, Baker. Perfectly right,” the headmaster had said, “nothing is solved by running away.”
    Nothing is solved, because there is nowhere to go. There is no compartment, no watertight bulkhead, that will close as you pass through it, shutting off the past and beginning the future from scratch—a new man on a new road, responsibility and memory all left behind. Nothing had been solved for Julian then, because there was nowhere to go. And now that he found himself in the street outside the agency, why there was still nowhere to go. He could not go home. He could not stay where he was. He walked about the West End until he was tired. He sat in Hyde Park, paid the attendant for his deckchair, then threw the ticket on the grass and began to walk again. People left their offices. The public houses opened. He could get drunk, but he was afraid to get drunk, and only had a couple of drinks to pass the time. He bought an evening paper, and read it. He went to a cinema. If only he could spend the rest of his life in the anonymity of parks and pubs and cinemas, and never meet anyone he knew! He saw the programme through one and a half times, and then the cinema closed, and it was only eleven o’clock. The cinemas were closed, and the pubs were closed, and still he could not go home. He had a cup of tea at the Coventry Street Corner House. He must find somewhere to spend the night. He had heard that a Turkish Bath is cheaper than a hotel. Julian went to a Turkish Bath.
    It cost fifteen shillings to get in; Julian was left with a pound and about six shillings in change. He gave his watch and his wallet to one attendant, his shoes to another, and proceeded on stockinged feet into a curtained gloom, in which beds were grouped by couples. Here and there, people had already gone to bed, lying in the warm air under a single sheet. Some of them watched Julian,and some kept their eyes closed. But it was still early, and most of the bathers were in the hot rooms.
    Julian picked out a bed for himself, undressed, and hung up his clothes in the locker at the bedside. The second attendant had given