Page:Tales of Space and Time.djvu/259

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A Story of the Days to Come
247

An anæmic little woman in horrible coarse blue canvas pointed a little girl to one of this string of hurrying advertisements.

"Look!" said the anaemic woman: "there's yer father."

"Which?" said the little girl.

"'Im wiv his nose coloured red," said the anæmic woman.

The little girl began to cry, and Elizabeth could have cried too.

"Ain't 'e kickin' 'is legs!—just!" said the anæmic woman in blue, trying to make things bright again. "Looky—now!" On the facade to the right a huge intensely bright disc of weird colour span incessantly, and letters of fire that came and went spelt out—

"Does this make you Giddy?"

Then a pause, followed by

"Take a Purkinje's Digestive Pill."

A vast and desolating braying began. "If you love Swagger Literature, put your telephone on to Bruggles, the Greatest Author of all Time. The Greatest Thinker of all Time. Teaches you Morals up to your Scalp! The very image of Socrates, except the back of his head, which is