'It ain't rubbish at all,' retorted Annie West. 'Now didn't you see your husband, Loo, with a card charm before you'd ever really set eyes on him?'

'Course I did,' assented Mrs. Allchin, aged fifteen.

'Here's another book I'm going to get,' pursued Annie, referring to an advertisement on the cover. 'It tells you no end of things--see here!'

'How to bewitch your enemies,' 'How to render yourself invisible,' 'How to grow young again,' 'How to read sealed letters,' 'How to see at long distances,' and heaps more. 'Price one and sixpence, or, post free, twenty stamps.''

'Don't be a fool and waste your money!' was Totty's uncompromising advice. 'It's only sillies believes things like that.'

'Totty ain't no need of charms!' piped Tilly, with sweets in her mouth.

'She knows who _she's_ going to marry.'

'Do I, miss?' Totty exclaimed, scornfully. 'Do you know as much for yourself, I wonder?'

'Oh, Tilly's a-going to marry the p'liceman with red hair as stands on the Embankment!' came from Mrs. Allchin; whereupon followed inextinguishable laughter.

But they wore determined to tease Totty, and began to talk from one to the other about Luke Ackroyd, not mentioning his name, but using signs and symbols.

'If you two wait for husbands till I'm married,' said Totty at length to the laughing girls, 'you've a good chance to die old maids. I prefer to keep my earnings for my own spending, thank you.'

'When's Thyrza Trent going to be married?' asked Mrs. Allchin. 'Do you know, Totty?'

'In about a fortnight, I think.'

'Is the bands puts up?'

'They're going to be married at the Registry Office.'

'Well, I never!' cried Annie West. 'You wouldn't catch me doing without a proper wedding! I suppose that's why Thyrza won't talk about it. But I believe he's a rum sort of man, isn't he?'

Nobody could reply from personal acquaintance with Gilbert Grail. Totty did not choose to give her opinion.

'I say,' she exclaimed, 'we've had enough about marriages. Tilly, make yourself useful, child, and cut some bread.'

For a couple of hours at least gossip was unintermittent. Then Mrs.

Allchin declared that her husband would be 'making a row' if she stayed from home any later. Tilly Roach took leave at the same time. Totty and Miss West chatted a little longer, then put on their hats to have a ramble in Lambeth Walk.

They had not gone many paces from the house when they were overtaken by some one, who said:

'Totty! I want to speak to you.'

Totty would not look round. It was Ackroyd's voice.

'I say, Totty!'

But she walked on. Ackroyd remained on the edge of the pavement. In a minute or two he saw that Miss Nancarrow was coming towards him unaccompanied.

'Oh, it's you, is it?' she said. 'What do you want, Mr. Ackroyd?'

'Why didn't you come this afternoon?'

'Well, I like that! Why didn't _you_ come?'

'I was a bit late. I really couldn't help it, Totty. Did you go away before I came?'

'Why, of course I did. How long was I to wait?'

'I'm very sorry. Let's go somewhere now. I've been waiting about for more than an hour on the chance of seeing you.'

He mentioned the chief music-hall of the neighbourhood.

'I don't mind,' said Totty. 'But I can't go beyond sixpence.'

'Oh, all right! I'll see to that.'

'No, you won't. I pay for myself, or I don't go at all. That's my rule.'

'As you like.'

The place of entertainment was only just open; they went in with a crowd of people and found seats. The prevailing odours of the hall were stale beer and stale tobacco; the latter was speedily freshened by the fumes from pipes. Ackroyd ordered a glass of beer, and deposited it on a little ledge before him, an arrangement similar to that for different purposes in a church pew; Totty would have nothing.

Ackroyd had changed a good deal during the last few months. The coarser elements of his face had acquired a disagreeable prominence, and when he laughed, as he did constantly, the sound lacked the old genuineness.

To-night he was evidently trying hard to believe that he enjoyed the music-hall entertainment; in former days he would have dismissed anything of the kind with a few contemptuous words. When the people about him roared at imbecilities unspeakable, he threw back his head and roared with them; when they stamped, he raised as much dust as any one. Totty had no need to affect amusement; her tendency to laughter was such that very little sufficed to keep her in the carelessly merry frame of mind which agreed with her, and on the whole it was not disagreeable to be sitting by Luke Ackroyd; she glanced at him surreptitiously at times.

He drank two or three glasses of beer, then felt a need of stronger beverage. Totty remonstrated with him: he laughed, and drank on out of boastfulness. At length Totty would countenance it no longer; after a useless final warning, she left her place and pressed through the crowd to the door. Ackroyd sprang up and followed her. His face was flushed, and grew more so in the sudden night air.

'What's the matter?' he said, putting his arm through the girl's.

'You're not going to leave me in that way, Totty? Well, let's walk about then.'

'Look here, Mr. Ackroyd,' began Totty, 'I'm surprised at you! It ain't like a man of your kind to go muddling his head night after night, in this way.'

'I know that as well as you do, Totty. See!' He made her stop, and added in a lower voice, 'Say you'll marry me, and I'll stop it from to-night.'

'I've told you already I shan't do nothing of the kind. So don't be silly! You can be sensible enough if you like, and then I can get along well enough with you.'

'Very well, then I'll drink for another week, and then be off to Canada.'

'You'd better go at once, I should think.'

She had moved a little apart from him. Just then a half-drunken fellow came along the pavement, and in a freak caught Totty about the waist.

Ackroyd was in the very mood for an incident of this kind. In an instant he had planted so direct a blow that the fellow staggered back into the gutter, Totty with difficulty preventing herself from being dragged with him. The thoroughfare was crowded, street urchins ran together with yells of anticipatory delight, and maturer loafers formed the wonted ring even before the man assaulted had recovered himself.

Then came the play of fists; Ackroyd from the first had far the best of it, but the other managed to hold his ground.

And the result of it was that in something less than a quarter of an hour from his leaving the music-hall, Ackroyd found himself on the way to the police-station, his adversary following in the care of a second constable, all the way loudly accusing him of being the assailant.

Totty walked in the rear of the crowd; she had been frightened by the scene of violence, and there were marks of tears on her cheeks. She entered the station, eager to get a hearing for a plain story. Ackroyd turned and saw her.

'It's no good saying anything now,' he said to her. 'This blackguard has plenty more lies ready. Go to the house and tell my brother-in-law, will you? I dare say he'll come and be bail.'

She went at once, and ran all the way to Paradise Street, so that when in reply to her knock Mrs. Poole appeared at the door, she had to wait yet a moment before her breath would suffice for speaking. She did not know Mrs. Poole.