Constance was obliged to join her sister on the top step. Sophia descended to the second step.
“Fresh mussels and cockles all alive oh!” bawled the hawker, looking across the road in the April breeze. He was the celebrated Hollins, a professional Irish drunkard, aged in iniquity, who cheerfully saluted magistrates in the street, and referred to the workhouse, which he occasionally visited, as the Bastile.
Sophia was trembling from head to foot.
“What ARE you laughing at, you silly thing?” Constance demanded.
Sophia surreptitiously showed the pliers, which she had partly thrust into her pocket. Between their points was a most perceptible, and even recognizable, fragment of Mr. Povey.
This was the crown of Sophia’s career as a perpetrator of the unutterable.
“What!” Constance’s face showed the final contortions of that horrified incredulity which is forced to believe.
Sophia nudged her violently to remind her that they were in the street, and also quite close to Mr. Povey.
“Now, my little missies,” said the vile Hollins. “Three pence a pint, and how’s your honoured mother to-day? Yes, fresh, so help me God!”