There was something about a fête which drew Arthur Rowe irresistibly, bound him a helpless victim to the distant blare of a band and the knock-knock of wooden balls against coconuts. Of course this year there were no coconuts because there was a war on: you could tell that too from the untidy gaps between the Bloomsbury houses - a flat fireplace half-way up a wall, like the painted fireplace in a cheap dolls' house, and lots of mirrors and green wallpapers, and from round a corner of the sunny afternoon the sound of glass being swept up, like the lazy noise of the sea on a singled beach. Otherwise the square was doing its best with the flags of the free nations and a mass of bunting which had obviously been preserved by somebody ever since the jubilee.
- From The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
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