"He did not explain. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing!"
"What an irrelevant reply."
"Well, I was only thinking that Jim usually prefers the West End to the quarters of the poor," said Hench guardedly. He was not quite certain if he had mentioned his sojourn at Bethnal Green to Mrs. Perage, and resolved to do so now, as--so far as he was able--he wished to be quite straight and above-board with the keen old lady. "I stayed there for six months."
"In Bethnal Green?" said Gwen, amazed. "And what were you doing in such a horrible place, Mr. Hench?"
"Well, as Jim would put it, I was doing a perish. I am a poor man, Miss Evans, and have lived for many years in Queer Street."
"Queer Street?" Gwen looked puzzled.
"It is the name given to the locality where those unsuccessful people who are trying for what they can't get live in penury."
Gwen looked at Hench's well-cut suit of evening clothes, at his well-bred face, and considered his general debonair appearance. "You don't look poor."
"There is poverty and poverty," said Mrs. Perage gruffly. "Mr. Hench is not yet in the workhouse, Gwen. For my part I think 'a perish,' as you say Jim calls it, is not a bad thing for a young man. It gives him experience of life----"