He sat in the middle of them, in an atmosphere so thick that it could be seen hanging about him like an aura, luminous in the glare of the electric light.

His slender, nervous hands worked rapidly, with a business-like air of dexterity and dispatch.

But every now and then he raised his head and stared for quite a long time at the round, white, foolish face of the clock, and whenever he did this his eyes were the eyes of a young man who has no adequate sense of his surroundings.
The remarkable thing about the new shop was that already, like a bar or a restaurant, it drew to it a certain group of young men, punctually, irresistibly.

A small group--you could almost count them on the fingers of one hand--they came from Fleet Street, from the Temple, from the Junior Journalists' Club over the way.

They were never seen looking in at the windows or hanging about the counter; they were not the least bit of good to the shop, those customers.