Free Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton Page A

on a pier, and he went in and became like them – a different sort of person in a different sort of world – a muffled, urgent, anxious, private, ghostly world, composed not of human beings but of voices, disembodied communications – a world not unlike, so far as he could remember, the one he entered when he had one of his ‘dead’ moods.
    As soon as he was shut in, he lit a cigarette, and thought of what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. Then he put in his pennies and dialled.
    There was a click, and it began ringing at once… Brr-brr! … Brr-brr! … Brr-brr! …
    He was mystically transported to the unknown paradise – himself, an imaginary wire, and the bell ringing in her flat being all one instrument – ringing in her flat, ringing on the table by her bed…
    Brr-brr!… Brr-brr! … He was on the table by her bed, breaking into her privacy, adding another complication to the mysterious complications already prevailing! It was very thrilling to have got right into her flat, right into her bedroom, disguised as a bell, merely by paying twopence; but the suspense was horrid.
    Brr-brr!… Brr-brr! … Definitely Mrs Chope wasn’t there. Perhaps she was in her bath. Brr-brr! … Brr-brr! … ‘Do not dial’, he read, ‘until dialling tone is heard after lifting the receiver…’ Brr-brr! … Brr-brr! … ‘If you hear a high-pitched “buzz-buzz-buzz” (the “engaged” tone) it indicates that the number dialled or the connecting apparatus is engaged…’ Brr- brr .’… Brr-brr! … This was getting bad. Perhaps she wasn’t going to come to it at all. Anyway, if she did come now, she would be in a temper, because it was obvious that he had interrupted her in something. Brr-brr! … Brr-brr! … There was the longed-for click – a click which relieved the tension in his heart in rather the same way as the click in his head relieved him from one of his ‘dead’ moods – and he heard her say ‘Hullo!…

The Third Part
    PERRIER’S
    earnest, wistful, eager, breathless; fer-vent, -vid; gushing, passionate, warmhearted, hearty, cordial, sincere, zealous, enthusiastic, glowing, ardent, burning, red-hot, fiery, flaming; boiling, – over…
    impressed – , moved – , touched – , affected – , penetrated – , seized – , imbued &c. 820- with; devoured by; wrought up &c…. enraptured &c. 829.
Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
I can give not what men call love ;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not :
The desire of the moth for the star ,
Of the night for the morrow ,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
P. B. SHELLEY
    indifferent, lukewarm; careless, mindless, regardless; inattentive &c. 458; neglectful &c. 460; disregarding.
    unconcerned, nonchalant, pococurante, insouciant, sans souci ; unambitious &c. 866.
    un-affected, -ruffled, -impressed, -inspired, -excited, -moved, -stirred, -touched, -shocked, -struck; unblushing &c, ( shameless ) 885; unanimated; vegetative.
    callous, thick-skinned, pachydermatous, impervious; hard, -ened; inured, case-hardened; steeled – proof-against; imperturbable &c. ( inexcitable ) 826; unfelt.
    Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

Chapter One
    He pressed button A and heard his pennies fall. He said ‘Hullo’.
    ‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘Yes!’
    She was in a temper all right. He could tell that because there was an exclamation mark, instead of a note of interrogation, after her ‘Yes’. Funny how she got into these tempers – after being so peaceful and saying ‘Perhaps it’s because he’s so big that he’s so silly’ the night before – but oh, how characteristic! He knew his Netta all right by now.
    ‘Oh, hullo, Netta,’ he said in studiedly polite and gentle tones, though of course this would only add to her fury. ‘This is me.’
    ‘What? Who is it?…’
    ‘This is me. George’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Have I interrupted you in your bath