generally. She
completed her conquest by lightly touching his shoulder as she gave him
his check.

'Penny?' asked Bella, as the youth gone, Victoria slipped her fingers
under the cup.

'Gent,' replied Victoria, displaying three coppers.

Bella sighed. 'You've got all the luck, don't often get a twopenny;
never had a gent in my life.'

'I don't wonder you don't,' said Cora from the other side of the room,
'looking as pleasant as if you were being photographed. You got to give
the boys some sport.'

Bella sighed. 'It's all very well, Cora, I'm an ugly one, that's what it
is.'

'Get out; I'm not a blooming daisy. Try washing your hair . . .'

'It's wrong,' interposed Bella ponderously.

'Oh, shut it, _Miss_ Prodgitt, I've no patience with you.'

Cora walked away to the counter where Gladys was brewing tea. There was
a singular similarity between these two; both were short and plump; both
used henna to bring their hair up to a certain hue of redness; both had
complexions obviously too dark for the copper of their locks, belied as
it was already by their brown eyes. Indeed their resemblance frequently
created trouble, for each maintained that the other ruined her trade by
making her face cheap.

'Can't help it if you've got a cheap face,' was the invariable answer
from either. 'You go home and come back when the rhubarb's out,' usually
served as a retort.

The July afternoon oozed away. It was cool; now and then an effluvium of
tea came to Victoria, mingled with the scent of toast. Now and then too
the rumble of a dray or the clatter of a hansom filtered into the
dullness. Victoria almost slept.

The inner door opened. A tall, stout, elderly man entered, throwing a
savage glance round the shop. There was a little stir among the girls.
Bella's rigidity increased tenfold. Cora and Gladys suddenly stopped
talking. Alone Victoria and Lottie seemed unconcerned at the entrance of
Butty, for 'Butty' it was.

'Butty,' otherwise Mr Burton, the chairman of 'Rosebud, Ltd.,' continued
to glare theatrically. He wore a blue suit of a crude tint, a check
black and white waistcoat, a soft fronted brown shirt and, set in a
shilling poplin tie, a large black pearl. Under a grey bowler set far
back on his head his forehead sloped away to his wispy greying hair. His
nose was large and veined, his cheeks pendulous and touched with
rosacia; his hanging underlip revealed yellow teeth. The heavy dullness
of his face was somewhat r