'Kicks up a reg'lar shindy, don't 'e?'

'Yes. We can't do nothin' 'ere--ain't enough'--whether of space or of
spirited young men he did not specify.

As they lit their cigarettes the company received further additions--one
obviously otherwise employed than with politics. Her progress--was it
symbolic?--was necessarily slow, for a small child clung to her skirt,
and she trundled a sickly boy in a go-cart. The still sniffling person
in possession of the middle seat on the other side (her anxious and
watery eye fixed on the penny) was told by Miss Levering to make room
for the new-comers. The child's way of doing so was to crowd closer to
the neighbourhood of the fascinating coin. But that mandate to 'make
room' had proved a conversational opening through which poured--or
trickled rather--the mother's sorry little history. Her husband was
employed in the clothing department of the Army and Navy Stores--yes,
nine years now. He was considered very lucky to keep his place when the
staff was reduced. But the costliness of raising the children! It was
well that three were dead. If she had it all to do over again--no! no!

The seeming heartlessness with which she envisaged the non-existence of
her babies contrasted strangely with her patient tenderness to the
querulous boy in the go-cart.

Meanwhile Miss Levering had not forgotten her earlier acquaintance. As
the wan mother watched the end of the transaction which left the
sniffler now quite consoled, in possession of the modest coin, she said
naively--

'When anybody gives one of my children a penny, I always save half of it
for them the next day.'

Vida Levering turned her head away, and in so doing met Lord
Borrodaile's eyes over the back of the bench. She gave a faint start of
surprise, and then--

'She saves half of it!' was all she said.

Borrodaile, glancing shrewdly over the further augmented gathering,
asked the invariable question--

'How do you account for the fact that so few women are here to show
their interest in a matter that's supposed to concern them so much?'
Vida craned her head. 'Beside you, only one!' Borrodaile's mocking voice
went on. 'Isn't this an instance of your sex's indifference to the whole
thing? Isn't it equally an instance of man's keenness about public
questions?' He couldn't forbear adding in a whisper, 'Even such a
question, and such men?'

Vida still craned, searching in vain for refutation in female form. But
she did not take