'But what will you do when I am gone?'

'Well, you know, Sally, I gets a bit from men who comes round of an evening and gives me things to hide away under that board. They knows as they can trust me, and I have had five thousand pounds worth of diamonds and things hidden away there for weeks. No one would ever think of searching there for it. I ain't known to be mixed up with thieves, and this court ain't the sort of place that coppers would ever dream of searching for jewels. Sometimes nothing comes for weeks, sometimes there is a big haul; but they pay me something a week regular, and I gets a present after a good thing has been brought off, so you needn't worrit about me. I shan't be as well off as I have been, but there will be plenty to keep me going, and if I have to drink a bit less it won't do me any harm.'

'I wonder you ain't afraid to drink,' Sally said, 'lest you should let out something.'

'I am lucky that way, Sally. Drink acts some ways with some people, and some ways with others. It makes some people blab out just the things they don't want known; it makes some people quarrelsome; it shuts up some people's mouths altogether. That is the way with me. I take what I take quiet, and though the coppers round here see me drunk pretty often they can't never say as I am drunk and disorderly, so they just lets me find my way home as I can.'

'And this man has never said no more about me than he did that first time?' Sally asked. 'Why should he go on paying for me all this time?'

'He ain't never said a word. I've wondered over it scores of times. These betting chaps are free with their money when they win, but that ain't like going on paying year after year. I thought sometimes you might be the daughter of some old pal of his, and that he had promised him to take care of you. I thought that afterwards he had been sorry he had done so, but would not go back from his word and so went on paying, though he did not care a morsel whether you turned out well or bad. Now I am going out, Sally.'

'You don't want to go out no more to-day,' Sally said decidedly. 'You just stop in quietly these last three days with me.'

'I would like to,' the woman said, 'but I don't think it is in me. You do not know what it is, Sally. When drink is once your master there ain't no shaking it off. There is something in you as says you must go, and you can't help it; nothing but tying you down would do it.'

'Well, look here, give me ninepence. I will go out and get you another quart of beer and a quartern of gin to finish up with. I have never been out for spirits for you before, though you have beat me many a time 'cause I wouldn't, but for these three days I will go. That won't be enough to make you bad, and we can sit here and talk together, and when we have finished it we can turn in comfortable.'

The woman took the money from a corner of a stocking, and gave it to Sally, and that night went to bed sober for the first time for months. The next morning shopping began, and Sally, although not easily moved, was awe-struck at the number and variety of the garments purchased for her. The dresses were to be made up by the next evening, when she was to fetch them from the shop herself, as Mrs. Phillips shrunk from giving her address at Piper Court.