‘But it is true,’ he said; ‘and you must not be rude to your elders.’ He looked at her for a moment and, with satisfaction, identified her as a newcomer whose name he could remember....

‘Shut up! Will you not shut up, or am I to beat the devil out of both of you? Whatever you get, you want more! Do you think I’ll take you to the pictures again?...

Solly looked round the office. ‘You have done well here, Benno.’ ‘I have survived.’ ‘I meant that. The worst is over now?’ Dadda nodded. ‘I think so. It has been bad, and now it is...

During all his time at the office, Dadda had never yet been into a public-house in that district, and it was Solly who suggested The Grapes, a solid late-Victorian establishment whose great expanses of mirrors...

‘You are in the estate business?’ Maier said. ‘Let me get you both a drink. What are you having?’ Solly pointed to the glasses. ‘Beer.’ Maier said: ‘On my expense account no one ever drinks...

Mamma accepted the idea of the change, but without any enthusiasm. She told herself that she was afraid of Dadda overreaching himself, but the real trouble was something else: she was a child of the...

That night Dadda was back early. We sat in the kitchen, all four of us, drinking cocoa under a gas-mantle that flared nakedly because the shade had been packed, and Dadda spoke to us seriously....

‘Standards of behaviour,’ Aunt Peggy said stridently, ‘do count for so much. It is easy enough to poke fun at them, but they are the … the backbone of our society. Without decent behaviour, everything...

In the choice of friends, the illusion of free will is most strong. Some we seem to reject and others to claim, and the impression is built up in our minds that these men and...

She went to dancing lessons for over three months and then, one afternoon, she danced for Solly. It happened accidentally; he was sitting as he so often did, playing the piano for his own soul’s...