'Let us get away from this,' he whispered, as if in profound mental
agony.
Ignoring everything, he passed out of the impregnable Safe Deposit, with
its flashing steel walls, on Simon's obedient arm.
CHAPTER XIV
TEA
Arrived on the ground-floor, Simon managed to avoid the busy parts of
the establishment, but he happened to choose a way to Hugo's private
lift which led past the service-door of the Hugo Grand Central
Restaurant. And Hugo, although apparently in a sort of torpor, noticed
it.
'Tea!' he ejaculated. 'If I could have some at once!'
And he directed Simon into the restaurant, and so came plump upon one of
the worst scenes in the entire place. The first day of the great annual
sale was closing in almost a riot, and there in the restaurant the
primeval and savage instincts of the vast, angry crowd were naturally to
be seen in their crudest form. The famous walnut buffet, eighty feet in
length, was besieged by an army of customers, chiefly women, who were
competing for food in a manner which ignored even the rudiments of
politeness. It would be difficult to deny that several scores of
well-dressed ladies, robbed of their self-possession and their lunch by
delays and vexations and impositions in the departments, were actually
fighting for food.
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