sergeants, and the Cockney who vows that water is spoilt in making
every cup of coffee he drinks, all come here, and all love the place.

I have come to like the place and do most of my writing there,
catching snatches of conversation and reminiscence as they float
across to me.

"I wasn't meanin' to 'urt ole Ginger Nobby nohow, but the muck I
throwed took 'im dead on the jor. 'Wot's yer gime?' 'e 'ollers at me.
'Wot's my gime?' I says back to 'im. 'Nuffin', if ye want ter know!' I
says. 'I was just shyin' at squidges.'"

Thus spoke the bright-eyed Cockney at the table next me, gazing
regretfully at his empty coffee-cup and cutting away a fringe of
rag-nails from his finger with a clasp-knife. The time was eight
o'clock of the evening, and the youth was recounting an adventure
which he had had in the morning when throwing mud at sparrows on the
parade ground. A lump of clay had struck a red-haired non-commissioned
officer on the jaw, and the officer became angry. The above was the
Cockney version of the story. One of my friends, an army unit with the
Oxford drawl, was voluble on another subject.

"Russian writers have had a great effect on our literature," he said,
deep in a favourite topic. "They have stripped bare the soul of man
with a realism that shrivels up our civilisation and proves--Two
coffees, please."

A tall, well-set waitress, with several rings on her fingers, took the
order as gravely as if she were performing some religious function;
then she turned to the Cockney.