You take it to make a short cut, to gain a few minutes.

It is traversed by busy people whose sole aim is to go quick and straight before them.

You see apprentices there in their working-aprons, work-girls taking home their work, persons of both sexes with parcels under their arms.

There are also old men who drag themselves forward in the sad gloaming that falls from the glazed roof, and bands of small children who come to the arcade on leaving school, to make a noise by stamping their feet on the tiles as they run along.

Throughout the day a sharp hurried ring of footsteps, resounds on the stone with irritating irregularity.