as anythin' at all, I _don't_ know; and if I ever did know I
think it was somethin' connected in some roundabout fashion, it was,
with drains. But he died early, and that was an end of _him_. My poor
mother, she was a laundress--a beautiful laundress she was, a very
beautiful laundress--and she used to do for a gentleman who was a
dissentin' minister--a dissentin' minister he was--and most particular
about his linen, and lived in the big square just by the church at the
corner, number five; and I've knowed my poor mother fret herself almost
to death, she would, if one of them little blisters ever come up on the
gentleman's shirt-fronts. And I used to help my poor mother, I did, by
carryin' the gentleman's linen to number five in the big square, and
that was the fust job I ever did for my poor mother, and proud she was,
and proud I was, too, that I could be sich a help to her.

"We was poorer than 'most anybody in Blackfriars, where we lived, and a
terribly poor neighbourhood it were--terribly poor; and so one of my
sisters got married, she did, and a wonderfully big family she had, but
most of 'em died sharp, so _that_ was all right, excep' that the
berryin' cost a tidy bit of money, it did. Then my other sister went out
to service in Brixton. I useter go there one day a week--Toosday it
was--to clean the silver and the soup tureens, and they give me a
shillin', they did, I useter help sister in the kitchen--not a cook I
wasn't, you must understand, but I useter help with the vegetables and
the dishin'-up, and they give me a shillin'. It was a very nice house; a
nice house, and no mistake about it. The lady had married a gardener--a
gentleman's gardener, he was; and there was a carpet all over the
dining-room floor--a nice carpet, a Brussels carpet, an ol' Brussels
carpet; and she kep' a parrot--oh, a nasty, spiteful parrot, it was--I
useter hate it, I did, the nasty, squawlin' beast; and it was more to
her than any baby; and I useter clean the silver and the soup tureens,
and do the vegetables and dish-up, Toosdays it was; and they give me a
shillin'.

"All by meself I useter go, there and back, and one night"--she lifts
her claws and gurgles at the memory, with a slow smile creepin'
gradually through all the wrinkles on her face--"Oh, didn't I give my
poor mother a fright, and no mistake about it! It was one of them nasty,
stinkin' cold, freezin' nights; the streets like ice, they was, and the
'bus horses couldn't ge