It had been a mistake to drink beer. He was feeling drowsy and miserable. But if he switched to something short, now, he would get drunk. What a wasted evening! Was this what you had to do to give yourself a change from going out with Rosa? He thought of the little room over Mr. Braceweight’s garage; imagination showed it as a quiet retreat, rather like a cottage on a calendar, with roses climbing round a lattice window. What rubbish, it was probably more like a pre-fab in a slum, with the petrol fumes seeping up through the floor. He must get a grip on himself, a real grip.

He went up to the bar and ordered a whisky. Just one ought not to make any difference to him, and in any case it was difference he wanted, in any direction. He had just paid for it and was about to take it back to his seat, when his eye fell on an object lying on the bar at his elbow. It was a bar with tall red stools, repulsively suggesting a milk-bar, and a girl was sitting on the stool next to where he stood. She was with a man he did not bother to look at.

The object lying on the counter was the girl’s handbag. It was of a rather distinctive shape, square and chunky, with a clip that looked like a coiled golden serpent.

The whisky could not very well spill out of his glass, for it was only about half an inch at the bottom. But it climbed steeply up the sides and circled there giddily. His hand could not keep still; he put the glass down. The girl, without looking at him, turned to get her handkerchief out of the handbag. Her fingers unfastened the coiled golden serpent. They were the wrong fingers, rather chubby, too many rings, bottle-green on the nails.