"Now I expect Mr. Earlforward's settled your wages with you?"
"No, 'm."
"Not said anything at all?"
"No, 'm. But it'll be all right."
Mrs. Arb was once again amazed at Henry's marvellous faculty for letting things go.
"Oh, well, perhaps he was leaving it to me, though I've nothing to do with this house till to-morrow. Now, what wages do you want, Elsie?"
"I prefer to leave it to you, 'm," said Elsie diffidently.
"Well, of course, Elsie, being a 'general' is a very different thing from being a char. You have a good home and all your food. And a regular situation. No going about from one place to another and being told you aren't wanted to-day, or aren't wanted to-morrow, and only half a day the next day and so on and so on! A regular place. No worries about shall I or shan't I earn my day's wage to-day.... You see, don't you?"
"Oh yes, 'm."
"I'll just show you what I cut out of the West London Observer yesterday." She drew her purse from her pocket, and from the purse an advertisement of a Domestic Servants' Agency, offering innumerable places. "'Generals £20 to £25 a year,'" she read. "Suppose you start with £20? Of course it's very high, but wages are high in these days. I don't know why. But they are. And we have to put up with it."