CHAPTER XI

SALE


Strange sights are to be seen in London.

At five minutes to nine a.m. on the first day of the year seven vast
crowds stood before the seven principal entrances to Hugo's; seven
crowds of immortal souls enclosed in the bodies of women. They meant to
begin the year well by an honest attempt to get something for nothing.
It was a cold, dank, raw, and formidable morning; Hugo's tessellated
pavements were covered with moisture, and, moreover, day had not yet
conquered night. But the seven crowds, growing larger each moment,
recked nothing of these inconveniences. They waited stolidly, silently,
in a suppressed and dangerous fever, as besiegers await the signal for
an attack. Between the various entrances, on the three façades of the
establishment, ran the long lines of windows dressed with all the
materials for happiness, and behind these ramparts of materials could
be glimpsed Hugo's assistants moving about in anxious expectation under
the electric lights, which burned red in the foggy gloom. Over every
portal was a purple warning: 'Beware of pickpockets, male and female.'
No possible male pickpockets, however, were visible to the eye; perhaps
they were disguised as ladies. The seven crowds wedged themselves closer
and closer, clutched tighter and tighter their purses, and stared at the
golden commissionaires through the glass doors with a glance more and