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After a night of intermittent rain, sunrise had produced a steamy mist, almost meriting the description of fog. Visibility was reduced to a few yards, and Sawby's stall with its bright urns and lights, around which a cheerful rattle of cups prevailed, formed a welcome oasis. In once orderly Bond Street hard by, a street which had come to resemble the lower jaw of a giant following extensive dental operations (and extraction by bomb is by no means painless dentistry), early traffic was just beginning to stir. But wartime London that morning, much of it still wearing its black-out night cap, possessed a sort of hollow, echoing quality, vaultlike, cavernesque and alien. The soul of a city is its people; and Mayfair had lost its soul.

Many of Sawby's patrons were regular customers: Sergeant Roper from Vine Street, his bicycle resting against the stall; Tom Wilkins, the milkman, his white pony, forefeet on the pavement, eating biscuits out of his hand; Smith, the postman, setting forth on his round; a steel helmeted warden, who in private life was a famous King's Counsel; and Mrs. Ryley, the charlady who "did for" the silversmiths on the corner. One or two others stood by; but these were accredited members of this unique early morning club, good companions between whom no social barriers existed.