I began drifting along the lines of shelves. As far as most of it went, 'miscellaneous' was pretty near the mark: a ball of string, a stethoscope, a fan, a muff, some sort of automatic machine, a pair of field-glasses, a length of lace, sundry pictures, hair brush, shovel, leather hatbox, tin ditto, scent bottle, whistle, a pair of scissors, a clock, a lamp, a china figure, a box of collars, a pair of braces, a knife, a thermometer, a birdcage, a pail, a fishing rod. Sometimes like met like: one shelf contained only good cloaks, wrapped in brown paper – against moth, as I supposed. All the top shelves contained nothing but ticketed hats. Walking sticks and travelling rugs had shelves to themselves while another was for gloves by the hundred. And there were more umbrellas at the back, too.

The porter returned, dustier than before, with my blue portmanteau in his hand, and began loading my magazines from several of the metal tins back into it.

I said: 'A charge is made for collection, I suppose.'

'Thruppence,' said the porter.

I fished out the coin from my pocket, and handed it over.

'You've to sign the ledger' he said, 'and put down your address.' So we went over to the counter again.

'You've a lot of umbrellas in here' I said.

No reply from the porter.

'I daresay everyone says that' I said, setting down my name and address in the ledger. 'The brollies ought by rights to be stood up' I said, looking up from the book. The porter had unwrapped his buffet from brown paper. He was sitting on the high stool formerly occupied by Parkinson, and starting to eat bread.