club-windows.

"My!" she exclaimed again, and I saw an ecstatic look pass between her
and a still smaller girl with her, whom she referred to as a neighbour.

I waited coldly. William's wife, I was informed, had looked like nothing
but a dead one till she got the brandy.

"Hush, child," I said, shocked. "You don't know how the dead look."

"Bless yer!" she replied.

Assisted by her friend, who was evidently enormously impressed by
Irene's intimacy with me, she gave me a good deal of miscellaneous
information, as that William's real name was Mr. Hicking, but that he
was known in their street, because of the number of his shirts, as Toff
Hicking. That the street held he should get away from the club before
two in the morning, for his missus needed him more than the club needed
him. That William replied (very sensibly) that if the club was short of
waiters at supper-time some of the gentlemen might be kept waiting for
their marrow-bone. That he sat up with his missus most of the night, and
pretended to her that he got some nice long naps at the club. That what
she talked to him about mostly was the kid. That the kid was in another
part of London (in charge of a person called the old woman), because
there was an epidemic in Irene's street.

"And what does the doctor say about your mother?"

"He sometimes says she would have a chance if she could get her kid
back."

"Nonsense."

"And if she was took to the country."

"Then why does not William take her?"

"My! And if she drank porty wine."

"Doesn't she?"

"No. But father, he tells her 'bout how the gentlemen drinks it."

I turned from her with relief, but she came after me.

"Ain't yer going to do it this time?" she demanded with a falling face.
"You done it last time. I tell her you done it"--she pointed to her
friend who was looking wistfully at me--"ain't you to let her see you
doing of it?"

For a moment I thought that her desire was another shilling, but by a
piece of pantomime she showed that she wanted me to lift my hat to her.
So I lifted it, and when I looked behind she had her head in the air and
her neighbour was gazing at her awestruck. These little creatures are
really not without merit.

About a week afterward I was in a hired landau, holding a newspaper
before my face lest anyone should see me in company of a waiter and his
wife. William was taking her into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of
mine, and Irene was with us, wearing the most