He walked a short distance among the crowd, then found the noise oppressive and turned into a by-way.

As he did so, a street organ began to play in front of a public-house close by.

Grail drew near; there were children forming a dance, and he stood to watch them.
Do you know that music of the obscure ways, to which children dance?
Not if you have only heard it ground to your ears' affliction beneath your windows in the square.

To hear it aright you must stand in the darkness of such a by-street as this, and for the moment be at one with those who dwell around, in the blear-eyed houses, in the dim burrows of poverty, in the unmapped haunts of the semi-human.

Then you will know the significance of that vulgar clanging of melody; a pathos of which you did not dream will touch you, and therein the secret of hidden London will be half revealed.