'Don't bother me with your rubbish!' cried Totty.
'It ain't rubbish at all,' retorted Annie West. 'Now didn't you see your husband, Loo, with a card charm before you'd ever really set eyes on him?'
'Course I did,' assented Mrs. Allchin, aged fifteen.
'Here's another book I'm going to get,' pursued Annie, referring to an advertisement on the cover. 'It tells you no end of things—see here!' 'How to bewitch your enemies,' 'How to render yourself invisible,' 'How to grow young again,' 'How to read sealed letters,' 'How to see at long distances,' and heaps more. 'Price one and sixpence, or, post free, twenty stamps.''
'Don't be a fool and waste your money!' was Totty's uncompromising advice. 'It's only sillies believes things like that.'
'Totty ain't no need of charms!' piped Tilly, with sweets in her mouth. 'She knows who she's going to marry.'
'Do I, miss?' Totty exclaimed, scornfully. 'Do you know as much for yourself, I wonder?'
'Oh, Tilly's a-going to marry the p'liceman with red hair as stands on the Embankment!' came from Mrs. Allchin; whereupon followed inextinguishable laughter.
But they wore determined to tease Totty, and began to talk from one to the other about Luke Ackroyd, not mentioning his name, but using signs and symbols.
'If you two wait for husbands till I'm married,' said Totty at length to the laughing girls, 'you've a good chance to die old maids. I prefer to keep my earnings for my own spending, thank you.'