Mrs. Pottage gasped.
“Well, of all the impudence I ever did hear! Well, I passed the remark to the policeman that you looked like a potted shrimp, but shrimp sauce is more what you ought to be called.”
“It’s easy to see what you are,” Miss Fewkes spat out venomously. “The sort of woman you are is plain to any one who’s sharp and has eyes.”
At this point, the burly cab-driver, who was evidently afraid of being involved in this feminine dispute, retired downstairs until the matter was settled.
“It is easy to see what I am,” Mrs. Pottage agreed. “Because I’m a decent-made woman. But it’s far from easy to see what you are, let me tell you, very far from easy, because you aren’t as big as a second helping of underdone mutton at an eating-house. You may have eyes. So’s a needle. You may be sharp. So’s a needle. And I wouldn’t care to look for you in a haystack any more than what I would a needle, and that’s the solid truth I’m telling you. You asked for it, ma’am, and now you’ve had it, and if you’ll kindly stand on one side you won’t get carried out with the luggage like a speck of dust off of your own dusty banisters.”
“This luggage don’t leave my house before my account’s been settled,” Miss Fewkes shrilled. “Not if I have to fetch in a policeman to you.”
“Fetch a policeman?” Mrs. Pottage jeered. “Well, for a woman who looks like last night’s buttonhole or a sucked sweet as a kid’s spat out on the pavement, you’ve got a tidy nerve.”
Nancy thought that it was time to interfere, because she did not want Letizia to be frightened by the quarrel.
“I’m quite willing to pay your bill, Miss Fewkes, if you suspect that I’m trying to give you the slip,” she said.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Pottage interposed. “It’s beyond reason giving in to such as she. Let her call this policeman we’ve heard so much about, and it’s my opinion he’ll laugh in her face, that is if he could tell it was her face, which I don’t think.”