"Edwin came steeply
out of the cinder-strewn back streets by Woodisun Bank [hill] into
Duck Square, nearly at the junction of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood
Street. A few yards down Woodisun Bank, cocks and hens were scurrying,
with necks horizontal, from all quarters, and were even flying, to the
call of a little old woman who threw grain from the top step of her
porch. On the level of the narrow pavement stood an immense constable,
clad in white trousers, with a gun under his arm for the killing of
mad dogs; he was talking to the woman, and their two heads were
exactly at the same height.
On a pair of small
double gates near the old woman's cottage were painted the words,
"Steam Printing Works. No admittance except on business."
And from as far as Duck Square could be heard the puff-puff which
proved the use of steam in this works to which idlers and mere
pleasure-seekers were forbidden access."
Bennett: Clayhanger
"At the southern
corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street, with Duck Square facing
it, the Dragon Hotel and Warm Lane to its right, and Woodisun Bank
creeping inconspicuously down to its left, stood a three-storey
building consisting of house and shop, the frontage being in Wedgwood
Street. Over the double-windowed shop was a discreet signboard in gilt
letters, "D. Clayhanger, Printer and Stationer," but above
the first floor was a later and much larger sign, with the single
word, "Steam-printing." All the brickwork of the façade was
painted yellow, and had obviously been painted yellow many times; the
woodwork of the plate-glass windows was a very dark green approaching
black. The upper windows were stumpy, almost square, some dirty and
some clean and curtained, with prominent sills and architraves. The
line of the projecting spouting at the base of the roof was slightly
curved through subsidence; at either end of the roof-ridge rose twin
chimneys each with three salmon-coloured chimney-pots. The gigantic
word 'Steam-printing' could be seen from the windows of the Dragon,
from the porch of the big Wesleyan chapel higher up the slope, from
the Conservative Club and the playground at the top of the slope; and
as for Duck Square itself, it could see little else. The left-hand
shop window was alluringly set out with the lighter apparatus of
writing and reading, and showed incidentally several rosy pictures of
ideal English maidens; that to the right was grim and heavy with
ledgers, inks, and variegated specimens of steam-printing."
Bennett: Clayhanger
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