In Lyons teashop, Rose exclaimed over the cheapness of the items on the menu. ‘Just look, Daisy, meals are only threepence or fourpence. We could eat out every day! What will you have? There’s poached egg on macaroni, Welsh rarebit, or sardines on toast.

‘I’ll have poached eggs on macaroni,’ said Daisy. Rose ordered Welsh rarebit.

‘That’s better,’ sighed Daisy when they were finished. ‘We didn’t have time for breakfast.’

‘It wasn’t much to eat,’ said Rose, looking around the restaurant and thinking that at home she would have had a choice of eight courses at least. ‘It’s not as if it’s expensive. I never saw this one – braised loin of mutton with carrots. Only sixpence, too.’ So they had the mutton with bread and butter, two slices at a penny each. And when they had finished that, they rounded off their meal with coffee, twopence a cup, and apple dumpling, four pennies each. When they finished and Daisy was complaining that she would need to loosen her stays when they got back to the office, they left the cosiness of the teashop with its white-and-gold frontage feeling sleepy with all they had eaten.

As they headed back to the office, the day was so dark that the street lamps were being lit, a man with a long brass pole moving from lamp to lamp and leaving a chain of lights behind him.

The air was not only cold but smelt of innumerable coal fires.

Mrs Danby was there promptly at two-thirty to make sure they were at their desks and then retreated.

After an hour, the door opened and a young man came in. He had a thick head of hair, liberally oiled with bear grease, a long nose and large mouth, and wore the City uniform of black coat and striped trousers.

He affected surprise when he saw them and said, ‘Wrong room. But I’d better introduce myself. I am Gerald King.’

‘I’m Daisy Levine and my friend is Miss Rose Summer.’

Gerald perched on the edge of the desk, his eyes on Rose.

‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

‘Very new,’ said Daisy. ‘First day.’

‘You enjoying it?’

‘Not much.’

‘Doesn’t your friend have a voice, Miss Levine?’

‘I do,’ said Rose, ‘when I am not being kept off my work.’

Gerald retreated. But during the afternoon, several bank clerks found an excuse to drop in.

‘You shouldn’t freeze them all off,’ complained Daisy. ‘One of them might buy us dinner.’

‘You are not in the music hall now,’ said Rose severely.

‘No, I ain’t,’ replied Daisy gloomily.

On Thursday, Mr Drevey went down to the country ‘on business’, which meant he was escaping to attend a house party.

On that same Thursday, one of the directors, Mr Beveridge, sent for Mrs Danby, and told her that his secretary was ill and he needed someone to take dictation.