The island Pharisees Author:John Galsworthy Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III A ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN AFTER his journey up from Dover, Sheltcn was still gathering his luggage at Charing Cross, when the foreign girl passed him... more », and, in spite of his desire to say something'cheering, he could get nothing out but a shame-faced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurly-burly; one of his bags had gone astray, and so all thought of her soon faded from his mind. His cab, however, overtook the foreign vagrant marching along towards Pall Mall with a curious, lengthy stride— an observant, disillusioned figure. The first bustle of installation over, time hung heavy on his hands. July loomed distant, as in some future century; Antonia's eyes beckoned him faintly, hopelessly. She would not even be coming back to England for another month. ... I met a young foreigner in the train from Dover [he wrote to her]—-a curious sort of person altogether, who seems to have infected me. Everything here has gone flat and unprofitable; the only good things in life are your letters. . . . John Noble dined with me yesterday; the poor fellow tried to persuade me to stand for Parliament. Why should I think myself fit to legislate for the unhappy wretches onesees about in the streets? If people's faces are a fair test of their happiness, I' d rather not feel in any way responsible. . .. . The streets, in fact, after his long absence in the East, afforded him much food for thought:— the curious smugness of the passers-by; the utterly unending bustle; the fearful medley of miserable, overdriven women, and full-fed men, with leering, bull-beef eyes, whom he saw everywhere—in club windows, on their beats, on box seats, on the steps of hotels, discharging dilatory duties; the appalling choas of hard-eyed, capable dames with defiant clothes, and white-cheeked hun...« less