"It isn't her washing day neither, though it would be late for a lady like 'er to be out all alone. Drink this."
"But it's stout," said Mavis, as Mrs Bilkins lit the gas.
"I call it jacky. A glass will do you good."
Mavis drank some of the liquor and certainly felt the better for it.
"I bought you a quarter of German," declared Mrs Bilkins, as she enrolled a paper parcel.
"You mean German sausage," said Mavis, as she caught sight of the mottled meat, a commodity which her old friend Mr Siggers sold.
"I always call it German," remarked Mrs Bilkins, a trifle huffily.
"But what am I to eat it on?"
"That is funny. I'm always forgetting," said Mrs Bilkins, as she faded from the room.
After some time, she came back with a coarse cloth, a thick plate, a wooden-handled knife, together with a fork made of some pliant material; these she put before Mavis.