PANEL ONE: a chip shop on a wet street, half past closing.
PANEL TWO: the door goes. Something ducks to get under the frame.
PANEL THREE — and this is the panel they printed too dark, the one everybody argued about — something enormous and shaggy standing at the counter in the sodium light, patient as anything, waiting its turn like a gentleman.
"Two of the cod," it said. "And mind the batter."
The kid behind the fryer took the order. What else was he going to do? It had queued. In this city that counts for a great deal.
It paid in coins still warm from someone's pocket, said ta, and went out into the rain toward the park.
By Tuesday there were forty more of them, and the queue went round the block, and everyone was terribly polite about it.
