PADDY'S MARKET


Chook was standing near the entrance to the market where his mates had
promised to meet him, but he found that he had still half an hour to spare,
as he had come down early to mark a pak-ah-pu ticket at the Chinaman's in
Hay Street. So he lit a cigarette and sauntered idly through the markets
to kill time.

The three long, dingy arcades were flooded with the glare from clusters
of naked gas-jets, and the people, wedged in a dense mass, moved slowly
like water in motion between the banks of stalls. From the stone flags
underneath rose a sustained, continuous noise--the leisurely tread and
shuffle of a multitude blending with the deep hum of many voices, and over
it all, like the upper notes in a symphony, the shrill, discordant cries
of the dealers.

Overhead, the light spent its brightness in a gloomy vault, like the roof
of a vast cathedral fallen into decay, its ancient timbers blackened with
the smoke and grime of half a century. On Saturdays the great market,
silent and deserted for six nights in the week, was a debauch of sound
and colour and smell. Strange, pungent odours assailed the nostrils;
the ear was surprised with the sharp, broken cries of dealers, the cackle
of poultry, and the murmur of innumerable voices; the stalls, splashed
with colour, astonished the eye like a picture, immensely powerful,
immensely crude.

The long rows of stalls were packed with the drift and refuse of a great
City. For here the smug respectability of the shops were cast aside,
and you were deep in the romance of traffic in merchandise fallen from