In the back parlour Charley found more people drinking, and among them three ladies of Mrs. Davis's acquaintance. They were all very fine in their apparel, and very comfortable as to their immediate employment, for each had before her a glass of hot tipple. One of them, a florid-faced dame about fifty, Charley had seen before, and knew to be the wife of a pork butcher and sausage maker in the neighbourhood. Directly he entered the room, Mrs. Davis formally introduced him to them all. 'A very particular friend of mine, Mrs. Allchops; and of Norah's too, I can assure you,' said Mrs. Davis.
'Ah, Mr. Tudor, and how be you? A sight of you is good for sore eyes,' said she of the sausages, rising with some difficulty from her chair, and grasping Charley's hand with all the pleasant cordiality of old friendship.
'The gen'leman seems to be a little too late for the fair,' said a severe lodging-house keeper from Cecil Street.
'Them as wills not, when they may,
When they wills they shall have nay,'
said a sarcastic rival barmaid from a neighbouring public, to whom all Norah's wrongs and all Mr. Tudor's false promises were fully known.
Charley was not the fellow to allow himself to be put down, even by feminine raillery; so he plucked up his spirit, sad as he was at heart, and replied to them all en masse.
'Well, ladies, what's in the wind now? You seem to be very cosy here, all of you; suppose you allow me to join you.'
'With a 'eart and a 'alf,' said Mrs. Allchops, squeezing her corpulence up to the end of the horsehair sofa, so as to make room for him between herself and the poetic barmaid. 'I'd sooner have a gentleman next to me nor a lady hany day of the week; so come and sit down, my birdie.'
But Charley, as he was about to accept the invitation of his friend Mrs. Allchops, caught Mrs. Davis's eye, and followed her out of the room into the passage. 'Step up to the landing, Mr. Tudor,' said she; and Charley stepped up. 'Come in here, Mr. Tudor—you won't mind my bedroom for once.' And Charley followed her in, not minding her bedroom.
'Of course you know what has happened, Mr. Tudor?' said she.