The place was filling up. A labouring man walked over from the bar with his pint, and sat down on the bench next to Froulish. Taking out a plug of twist, he began to cut shavings off it with a knife and collect them in the palm of his hand.

‘Now look here,’ said Charles in mounting excitement. ‘Who pays this guinea a week? Surely you—I mean—’

Among the nameless crimes he had seen hinted at in news­paper reports, or half-heard as a child in whispered conversations among scandalized elders, was one known as Living on Women. The phrase evidently embraced the whole range of possibilities from the full-scale organization of prostitution to the regular accepting of valuable presents from rich old ladies. Where did Froulish fit in? he wondered as he looked across at the twitching mask of dough with its pink deep-set eyes. At what point along the scale should he be placed? For surely, he was Living On A Woman.

‘Oh, yes, I dare say it shocks your bourgeois feelings,’ sneered Froulish bitterly. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Yes, Betty pays the guinea a week. And the two pounds odd it costs us for food and fuel every week. And it’s not nearly enough. We need more now and God knows what we shall need in the winter. But she pays it. And I suppose you, with your blasted conventionality—’

His tirade was drowned in an attack of choking, for the labourer next to him, after arranging the shavings of twist in a clay pipe, had actually gone to the length of lighting them. Dense blue smoke gathered around Froulish and forced its way into his eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. Charles started back before he, too, should be overwhelmed. Getting up, he took his drink and stood about six feet away from the evil-smelling volcano.

‘You say to yourself,’ came Froulish’s voice in a strangled shout, ‘ “What a spineless swine he must be to let a woman keep him! Why doesn’t he work for a blasted living like me?” ’ Again he collapsed into helpless coughing. The labourer puffed serenely on. ‘But you and your damned smug kind don’t care, oh blast this smoke, whether Art lives or dies. I’ve only got to finish this novel and I’ll be famous; then I’ll give her it all back with interest. And anyway, oh, God, I feel sick! Are you still there? Anyway, never mind the material aspect of it. Betty’s glad to help Art! She really cares, I’m going to faint any minute, whether the Novel—whether Literature lives or not! Damn this filthy smoke! Lumley! Where are you? I can’t see anything!’