More men, more voices, noise rising, low and dull, but growing loud all the same. They stand at the bar, sit on stools, flicking glowing cigarette butts into the trough at the bottom of the bar, the trough smouldering, resting their elbows against the brass pole that runs flush with the bar, the plating scratched and gouged through to the steel by the knives of men bored or angry or just drunk and the many silver cuts flash along the pole and the men lean against it, pots in their hands, pots on the bar towel, pots on the cardboard coasters with the emblems of breweries going sodden from running suds and they take off their hats, weary from the day.