Michael rose and stood by his tall cousin.

"I think we English have got it," he said. "At least, the English you
and I know have got it. But I don't believe the Germans, for instance,
have. They're in deadly earnest about all sorts of things--music among
them, which is the point that concerns me. The music of the world is
German, you know!"

Francis demurred to this.

"Oh, I don't think so," he said. "This thing at the Gaiety is ripping, I
believe. Do come and see."


Michael resisted this chance of revising his opinion about the German
origin of music, and Francis drifted out into Piccadilly. It was already
getting on for seven o'clock, and the roadway and pavements were full of
people who seemed rather to contradict Michael's theory that the nation
generally suffered from the malady of not wanting, so eagerly and
numerously were they on the quest for amusement. Already the street was
a mass of taxicabs and private motors containing, each one of them, men
and women in evening dress, hurrying out to dine before the theatre
or the opera. Bright, eager faces peered out, with sheen of silk and
glitter of gems; they all seemed alert and prosperous and keen for the
daily hours of evening entertainment. A crowd similar in spirit pervaded
the pavements, white-shirted men with coat on arm stepped in and out
of swinging club doors and the example set by the leisured class seemed
copiously copied by those whom desks and shops had made prisoners
all day. The air of the whole town, swarming with the nation that is