"Miss Rose."
"Yes, sir."
The speaker was one of those flowers of girlhood which bloom here and there in the slums. She might have been a princess in exile and disguise. Even her hands and feet were fine and delicate. And if in her expression there was a certain nervousness, there was none of fear.
"Stand up."
She rose in her place; the corners of her mouth trembled a little, but curled steadily upward.
"Stand out where I can see you."
She did so, with a certain defiant grace.
"Turn around, slowly."
She might have been one of those young ladies at a fashionable dressmaker's upon whom the effect of the latest Parisian models is continually tried. While she slowly gyrated, the legless man, looking up at her, spoke aloud.
"Muck! Muck!" he said. "And yet she's the pick of the bunch."