"Will you be quiet?" hissed Mrs. Bindle.
"Mind you don't grow up like that, kid," whispered an amorous youth to a full-busted young woman, whose hand he was grasping with interlaced fingers.
Mrs. Bindle heard the remark and drew in her lips still further.
"Been gettin' yer face sticky, mate?" enquired a little man sitting next to Bindle, in a voice of sympathy.
Bindle turned and gave him a wink.
No sooner had they alighted from the tram at The King's Head, than Mrs. Bindle's restraint vanished. All the way to Fenton Street she reviled Bindle for humiliating her before other people. She gave full rein to the anger that had been simmering within her all the evening. Millie should be told of his conduct. Charley should learn to hate him, and Little Joey to execrate the very mention of his name.
"But you shouldn't go a-jabbin' yer elbows in people's——" Bindle paused for a word sufficiently delicate for Mrs. Bindle's ears and which, at the same time, would leave no doubt as to the actual portion of the anatomy to which he referred.
"I'll jab my elbows into you, if you're not careful," was the uncompromising response. "I'm referring to the tarts."
And Bindle made a bolt for it.
"Now this all comes through tryin' to sit on a safety-valve," he muttered. "Mrs. B. 'as got to blow-orf some'ow, or she'd bust."