We had proceeded a short distance when on the further side of the street
I descried a golden halo which outlined the silhouette of a coffee
stall. It occurred to me that a cup of hot coffee would be a good tonic
to disperse the last symptoms of my friend's indiscretion, so I
deflected him across the road, and we brought up, together, alongside
the coffee-stall's counter.
Lest the reader should be unacquainted with that unique creation, the
coffee-stall, I must explain that it is nocturnal in habit, emerging
from its lair only between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. It is an
equipage of which the interior is inhabited by a fat, jolly man (at
least according to my experience he is always fat and jolly) surrounded
by steaming urns, plates of cake, buns of a citron-yellow hue, pale
pastries, ham sandwiches and packets of cigarettes. The upper panels of
one of its sides unfold to form a bar below and a penthouse roof above,
the latter being generally extended into an awning. The awning is a
protection for the customer not against the sun--a luminary from whose
assaults the London coffee-stalls have little to fear--but against the
rain.
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