"See here," he said with singular courage to the attendant. "I've never
been into one of these resorts before. Where do I go?"

The attendant, who was a bare-footed mild child dressed in the Moorish
mode, reassuringly charged himself with Mr. Prohack's well-being, and
led the aspirant into a vast mosque with a roof of domes and little
glowing windows of coloured glass. In the midst of the mosque was a pale
green pool. White figures reclined in alcoves, round the walls. A
fountain played--the only orchestra. There was an eastern sound of hands
clapped, and another attendant glided across the carpeted warm floor.
Mr. Prohack understood that, in this immense seclusion, when you desired
no matter what you clapped your hands and were served. A beautiful peace
descended upon him and enveloped him; and he thought: "This is the most
wonderful place in the world. I have been waiting for this place for
twenty years."

He yielded without reserve to its unique invitation. But some time
elapsed before he could recover from the unquestionable fact that he was
still within a quarter of a mile of Piccadilly Circus.

From the explanations of the attendant and from the precise orders which
he had received from Dr. Veiga regarding the right method of conduct in
a Turkish bath, Mr. Prohack, being a man of quick mind, soon devised the
order of the ceremonial suited to his case, and began to put it into
execution. At first he found the ceremonial exacting. To part from all
his clothes and to parade through the mosque in attire of which the
principal items were a towel and the key of his valuables (adorning his
wrist) was ever so slightly an ordeal to one of his temperament and
upbringing. To sit unsheltered in blinding steam was not amusing, though
it was exciting. But the steam-chapel (as it might be called) of the