laughing with shrill mirth at their grotesque companions. Others were frightened, and angry. I saw one girl try to beat off the hands of men clambering about her car. They swarmed into it and paid no heed to her cries of protest. . . .
All the flappers were out in the Strand, and in Trafalgar Square, and many streets. They were factory-girls, shop-girls, office-girls, and their eyes were alight with adventure and a pagan ecstasy. Men teased them as they passed with the long "ticklers," and they, armed with the same weapon, fought duels with these aggressors, and then fled, and were pursued into the darkness of side-streets, where they were caught and kissed. Soldiers in uniform, English, Scots, Canadians, Australians, came lurching along in gangs, arm-in-arm, then mingled with the girls, changed head-gear with them, struggled and danced and stampeded with them. Seamen, three sheets in the wind, steered an uneven course through this turbulent sea of life, roaring out choruses, until each man had found a maid for the dance of joy.
London was a dark forest with nymphs and satyrs at play in the glades and Pan stamping his hoofs like a giddy goat. All the passions let loose by war, the breaking-down of old restraints, the gladness of youth at escape from death, provided the motive-power, unconscious and primitive, behind this Carnival of the London crowds.
From some church a procession came into Trafalgar Square, trying to make a pathway through the multitude. A golden Cross was raised high and clergymen in surplices, with acolytes and faithful women, came chanting solemn words. The crowd closed about them. A mirthful sailor teased the singing women with his tickler. Loud guffaws, shrill laughter, were in the wake of the procession, though some men stood to attention as the
