“Then what am I going to do?”
“That’d be for Mr. Rash to sye. If it was me––”
The necessity for getting an armchair exactly beneath a portrait seemed to cut this sentence short.
“Well, if it was you—what then?”
“Before I’d give ’er money I’d teach ’er the ’ang of our kind o’ life, like. That’s what she’s aichin’ and cryvin’ for. A born lydy she is, and ’ankerin’ after a lydy’s wyes, and with no one to learn ’em to ’er––”
“But, good heavens, I can’t do that.”
“No, Mr. Rash, but I could, if you was to leave ’er ’ere for a bit. I could learn ’er to be a lydy in the course of a few weeks, and ’er so quick to pick up. 157 Then if you was to settle a little hincome on ’er she wouldn’t––”
Allerton took the bull by the horns. “She wouldn’t be so likely to go to the bad. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Moving behind Allerton, who continued to stand on the hearthrug, Steptoe began poking the embers, making them safe for the night.
“Did Mr. Rash ever notice that goin’ to the bad, as ’e calls it, ain’t the syme for them as ’ave nothink as it looks to them as ’ave everythink? When you’re ’ungry for food you heats the first thing you can lie your ’ands on; and when you’re ’ungry for life you do the first thing as’ll promise you the good you’re lookin’ for. What people like you and me is hapt to call goin’ to the bad ain’t mostly no more than a ’ankerin’ for good which nothink don’t seem to feed.”