He moved on singing to himself and swinging his stick, and presently he came to a wide place over against a washing-machine factory. The road here was finely broad, but it was flanked on either side by mean little houses and forlorn little shops. It made the slow ascent of a long hill, and although there was plenty of traffic--trams, cabs, drays, lorries--it looked empty and desolate. There was not a tree in sight.
Serge stopped a man with a sandy moustache and a complexion like a suet-pudding and asked his direction to Fern Square.
"I'll take you there," said the man. "What number?"
"He's a good man is Mr. Folyat, and that kind to the poor, and they don't need to go to his church neither. Him and the Roman priest, Father Soledano, they does a lot of good, and there's a deal of good needs doing, there is. He gave me a job when I come out o' prison."
"'Spicious character. The p'leece put a jemmy in my carpenter's bag and found it there. Mr. Folyat 'e spoke for my repu-character, but you can't say nothing agin the p'leece. There it was, and I 'ad to do my six months. Here we are. You look like a sea-faring man."
Serge stood gazing at the door and then he turned and looked over the square at the Wesleyan Chapel. A factory hooter buzzed. From the inside of the house came the wailing of a violin.
Serge knocked at the door Minna opened it and stood peering out at him.
"Hullo!" said Serge. "Which are you? Mary?"
"All the better. You don't remember me, and I've been thinking of you as a baby. I'm Serge."
He stepped in. Minna rushed away, and he heard her calling all over the house:
There was a pattering of feet on the stairs, a banging of doors, and presently Gertrude, Mary, Mrs. Folyat and Minna came down upon him. He caught his mother up in a great hug and squeezed the breath out of her, and she stood talking and crying while he kissed Gertrude and Mary on the cheek and Minna full on the lips.
Mrs. Folyat led the way to the dining-room, and he sat at the table and they round him, and they devoured him with their eyes. He looked from one to the other. He thought that Gertrude looked sly, Mary plain, but he liked the mischief in Minna's eyes, and she had a wide friendly grin and a dimple in her cheek. His mother was so much older than he had imagined her and he wanted to tease her out of it. She was wearing a white woollen shawl, and she had shoved her spectacles up on to her forehead when Minna broke in upon her reading. The room was dark and rather oppressive and none of the windows were open.