We went to three night-clubs in quick succession. They were sad and sleazy and awful in a way I’d never quite come across before. It was the sadness mainly. The what-went-wrong look on the waiters’ faces as they stood staring bewilderedly at an empty room most certainly on the brink of bankruptcy. One thing that went wrong was the night-club comic with his hair too long and combed all funny singing “There’s no business like Shoe Business” to “There’s no business like etc.,” and doing impersonations of King Kong falling for a butterfly. Another wrong thing was the young man with a guitar who sang dirty Scottish ballads about goats sleeping with women (Trad.). Another was the girl in tights with a stocking cap pulled down over her eyes and ears who did a totally inexplicable dance with the lights out, mostly writhing on the floor. And lastly, the audience—a sprinkling of debs and their escorts who jeered and hurled pennies on the stage as the acts progressed—they were awfully wrong. It was discouraging. How was I going to get C. D. hooked on this dissolute way of life—let alone how was I myself going to bear it? How was I going to keep him out till dawn every night, exhausted and spent and running downhill until the final—what?—how about a heart attack?—would carry him off? What I had in mind was some divine little boîte that had good jazz and a sensational entertainer; one that was dark, smoky, and unhealthy and served rot-gut strong enough to melt the mind, rip out the lining of the stomach, explode the liver, and curdle the kidneys. Or, if that was too much to ask, at least a place interesting enough to keep him up late. He went to bed much too early. They all did in London. I never saw such people for leaving each other’s houses at the stroke of midnight.

The fourth night-club was a strip-tease joint. I got us out of there even faster. I wasn’t going to have him going around with erotic images other than my own on his mind if I could help it. The fifth—an enormous one—had not only tumblers but ice-skaters and a ventriloquist. We left during the juggling act.