an' say I've jes gone out to
get a little Jacky."

Mavis waited in the dark room of the deserted house. Had she not been
tired and heartsick, she would have been amused at this strange
experience. A quarter of an hour passed without anyone calling, when
she heard the sound of a key in the latch, and Mrs Bilkins returned.

"No Mrs Bonus?"

"No one's been."

"It isn't her washing day neither, though it would be late for a lady
like 'er to be out all alone. Drink this."

"But it's stout," said Mavis, as Mrs Bilkins lit the gas.

"I call it jacky. A glass will do you good."

Mavis drank some of the liquor and certainly felt the better for it.

"I bought you a quarter of German," declared Mrs Bilkins, as she
enrolled a paper parcel.

"You mean German sausage," said Mavis, as she caught sight of the
mottled meat, a commodity which her old friend Mr Siggers sold.

"I always call it German," remarked Mrs Bilkins, a trifle huffily.

"But what am I to eat it on?"

"That is funny. I'm always forgetting," said Mrs Bilkins, as she faded
from the room.

After some time, she came back with a coarse cloth, a thick plate, a
wooden-handled knife, together with a fork made of some pliant
material; these she put before Mavis.

The coarse food and more of the stout put fresh heart into the girl.
She got a room from Mrs Bilkins for six shillings a week, on the
understanding that she did not give much trouble.

"There's only one thing. I suppose you have a bath of some sort?" said
Mavis.

"That is funny," said Mrs Bilkins. "I've never been asked such a thing
in my life."

"Don't you wash?"

"In penny pieces; a bit at a time."

"But never all over, properly?"

"You are funny. Why, three years ago, I had the rheumatics; then I was
covered all over with flannel. Now I don't know which is flannel and
which is skin."

It was arranged, however, that, if Mrs Bilkins could not borrow a bath
from a neighbour in the morning, she would bring Mavis her washing-tin,
which would answer the same purpose. Mavis slept soundly in a fairly
clean room, her wanderings after leaving "Dawes'" having tired her out.

The next morning she came down to a breakfast of which the tea was
smoked and her solitary egg was scarcely warm; when she opened this
latter, the yolk successfully eluded the efforts of her spoon to get it
out. It may be said at once that this meal was a piece with the entire
conduct of Mrs Bilkins's house, she being a uni