Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their
haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they
look. Still their neigh can be very irritating.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. All
weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. VOGLIO E
NON. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying
syllables as they pass. He hummed:


LA CI DAREM LA MANO
LA LA LALA LA LA.


He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted
in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks.
Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court
with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a
squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A
wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb
them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it.
And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She liked
mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. And Mr? He opened the letter within the
newspaper.

A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?