It is much the
same with these creatures who are imprisoned in the barred cells of
London offices. By the time their day's work is ended their vitality
for enjoyment has been exhausted. They take their liberty much as
a man takes the sentence of penal servitude when he had expected to
be hanged.
Stand for a moment in this street that runs out from the Covent Garden
Market and watch the office windows before the lights are
extinguished. Is there one attitude, one movement, one gesture that
betrays the joy of freedom now that the day's work is over? Scarcely
one. That boy with the long dark hair drooping on his forehead,
contrasting so vividly against his sallow skin--you might imagine
from the listlessness of his actions that the day's work was just
beginning. At lunch time, when the vitality was yet in store, he might
have been seen, running out from the building in the gleeful
anticipation of an hour's rest. But now, when all the hours of the
night are before him, his nervous energy has been sapped away. You
get no spirit in a tired horse. It shies at nothing, but drags one
foot wearily after another until the stable door is reached.
This is the actual condition of things that the young men and women
find when they have burnt their boats, have left the country for the
illusory joys of the town.
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