When Ern entered, she looked up at him not unkindly through her spectacles.
"What is it, Ernie?" she asked.
He rushed out his request.
"Please, mum," he panted, "could you let me have a shilling?"
He was determined not to give his father away.
To his relief his mother rose without a word, went to a drawer, unlocked it, took out half a sovereign and gave it to him.
Ernie ran out without his hat, took the old horse-bus at Billing's Corner, and riding on the top under a night splendid with stars that hung in the elms of Saffrons Croft, he went down the hill, through the Chestnuts, past the railway station, and along the gay main-street.
Just before Cornfield Road reaches the sea he exchanged the horse-bus for the electric tram that swung him down Pevensey Road through the thronged and always thickening East-end.
At the Barbary Corsair in Sea-gate he descended, turned down a side-street, and entered a door over which hung the three golden balls taken from the coat-of-arms of the banker Medici.
Mr. Goldmann was a short, fair Jew, without a neck, immensely thick throughout, though still under thirty. When he walked he carried his arms away from his side as though to aid him to inflate; and winter or summer he could be found behind his counter, perspiring freely. His trousers were always too short, and his little legs protruded from them like pillars. He spoke Cockney without a trace of Yiddish. His manner was hearty; but he was honest of his kind. The police had nothing against him, while his innumerable clients complained less of him than of his rivals.