‘I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?’
‘Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep’ him off an’ on till he couldn’t bear it no longer; then he went an’ married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it ‘ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he’d give her poison an’ risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an’ Bob fightin’ one Bank-holiday—you should a’ seen ’em go at it! Jack went an’ got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their ’ome an’ threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out—I thought I should a’ died o’ laughin’ when I saw him next mornin’.’
The hearer became uproarious in merriment.
‘Tell you what it is, Clem,’ he cried, ‘you’re something like a girl! Darn me if I don’t like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter’s grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an’ she was sort of sisters, wasn’t you?’
He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
‘Queer sort o’ sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.’
‘Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?’
‘Where she went to?’ repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, ‘I never said nothing about it, ’cause I didn’t know.’
‘Well, I shan’t cry about her, and I don’t suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I’m a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can’t you? I shouldn’t wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.’
‘Dessay I do. What sort do you want?’