"I shall never see sixty again," said the woman. "Nor I shan't see seventy. Nor eighty. I'm old."
"And you mean to tell me," cried the doctor, with sudden heat, "that you do not care for tripe? Good tripe, mind you—tender tripe, very well boiled, with just a flavouring of onions?"
"And if I did," protested the woman, "who's to cook it for me? There's so many young women to get the favours now I find, and me so old. Can't I have a little morphium, Doctor: the brown mixture, ye know? To soothe meself down with."
"The young ones get the favouring, eh? Do you live with a young woman?"
"I lives with two on 'em—worse luck."
"Daughters?"
"Daughters? Me? No, sir. I'm a maiden, I am.... It's me landlady what I lives with."
"Doesn't she cook for you? I've got some tripe in the kitchen, and I thought—but, of course, if it can't be cooked, why—— What's all this about?"
The rosy-cheeked old maiden was crying, "I'm too old," she sobbed; "it's the young ones gets the favouring."
"Oh," said the doctor, "and so your landlady is unkind?"