“Kindness be ... oh, dear, now that’s twice in the last half hour I’ve nearly said that word. It comes of keeping company with Mr. Currie. Let me see, you won’t have heard of him, because he’s only been courting me since I gave the go-by to Watcher and Hopkins. He’s a very hasty-tempered man, and his language is a bit of a coloured supplement. Mrs. Bugbird passed the remark to me I’d really have to mind my p’s and q’s, and I said it wasn’t my p’s and q’s I had to look out for, it was my b’s and d’s. Of course, Mrs. Bugbird herself didn’t mind. Oh, no, she’s a very broad-minded woman. In fact her father, so she’s often told me, used to preach regularly at street corners against any kind of religion at all. But I shan’t keep this Currie hanging around much longer. No, he gets me into bad habits, and the next time he proposes marriage will be the last. Besides, even if I liked him, I don’t like his business which is fried fish. Fancy me in a fried-fish shop for the rest of my life! Why, I’d sooner marry an engine driver and live in a railway station. Well, an engine driver did propose to me once. But I saw he had the habit of driving too much, and that would never have suited me. Why, even of a Sunday afternoon he wasn’t happy if he couldn’t walk me round Greenwich Park at sixty miles an hour. I remember once just for a joke I started whistling the same as an engine might, and everybody stopped and begun staring, and which made him a bit annoyed. In fact he thought I was touched in my head, and that Sunday was his last. Well, he’s the only one of all my many who didn’t wait for me to say ‘no’ definite, but went and hooked it himself. And going back to the subject of my language this last month, it wouldn’t do at all if Letichia’s coming home with me, so I think I’ll drop him a p.c. and not wait for the third time of asking.”
“Am I coming home with you, Mrs. Porridge?” Letizia asked, clapping her hands.
“You’re coming home with me this blessed afternoon just as soon as your dear ma’s packed up your tiddlies. Your friend Mrs. Bugbird will be popping in, and we’ll have a sprat tea together. And dear Aggie Wilkinson’s dancing about on her pore crutches, because you’re coming home to your Mrs. Porridge.” She took Nancy aside, and continued in a lower voice. “I read between the lines of your letter, dearie, and I knew you didn’t want to come near Greenwich. So I just skipped into my Sunday best and come along to fetch her. She can stay as long as you like. I’d say she could stay for ever. Only she wants a better bringing-up than what a woman like me could give her.”
“Oh, but I’m sure to get an engagement very soon, Mrs. Pottage, and then of course she’ll go on tour again with me. I wouldn’t have bothered you now, if I hadn’t thought you’d be glad to have her for a while, and if I hadn’t wanted to leave these rooms as soon as possible.”
“And I don’t blame you. I’d sooner live in a dustbin. But where are you going when you leave here?”
“Oh, I shall find somewhere to-morrow. I’m so glad you did come to-day for Letizia. It will make it ever so much easier for me. The only thing I’m worrying about is the luggage.”
“Well, why don’t you let me take what luggage you don’t want down to Greenwich, and then when I bring you Letichia, I can bring you your luggage at the same time. There’s no sense in travelling a lot of luggage round with you like a peacock’s tail. We can just pop what you don’t want into a four-wheeler and take it to London Bridge.”
Nancy hesitated. She was wondering if she had enough money left to pay the cab now, and Miss Fewkes’s bill to-morrow morning. However, if she hadn’t, she could visit the pawnbroker early and pledge some odds and ends, so she decided to accept Mrs. Pottage’s offer.
“Now who’s going to fetch the four-wheeler?” Mrs. Pottage wanted to know when the packing was finished. “Shall I give a holler to Her Landladyship upstairs?”
“Ask Miss Fewkes to fetch a cab?” Nancy exclaimed. “Why, she’d....” Words failed her to express what Miss Fewkes would do.