a savage, barking rhythm which could not
exactly be called music, but resembled the beating of a drum. Roared out by
hundreds of voices to the tramp of marching feet, it was terrifying. The
proles had taken a fancy to it, and in the midnight streets it competed
with the still-popular 'It was only a hopeless fancy'. The Parsons children
played it at all hours of the night and day, unbearably, on a comb and a
piece of toilet paper. Winston's evenings were fuller than ever. Squads of
volunteers, organized by Parsons, were preparing the street for Hate Week,
stitching banners, painting posters, erecting flagstaffs on the roofs, and
perilously slinging wires across the street for the reception of streamers.
Parsons boasted that Victory Mansions alone would display four hundred
metres of bunting. He was in his native element and as happy as a lark. The
heat and the manual work had even given him a pretext for reverting to
shorts and an open shirt in the evenings. He was everywhere