Out of the subway they emerged into a noisy tenement street.

Roger had known such streets as this, but only in the night-time, as picturesque and adventurous ways in an underground world he had explored in search of strange old glittering rings.

It was different now.

Gone were the Rembrandt shadows, the leaping flare of torches, the dark surging masses of weird uncouth humanity.

Here in garish daylight were poverty and ugliness, here were heaps of refuse and heavy smells and clamor.