"And her nurse," declared Mrs Budd, not without a touch of pride.
When Mrs Perkins arrived, she was wearing a picture hat, decorated with white ostrich feathers, a soiled fawn dust-coat, and high-heeled patent leather shoes. She brought with her innumerable flimsy parcels (causing, by comparison, a collapsible Japanese basket to look substantially built), and a gaily-dressed baby carried by a London slut, whose face had been polished with soap and water for the occasion.
After the dust-cloak had settled with the driver, it advanced self-consciously to the steps leading to the front door, the while it called to the London slut:
"Come along, nurse, and be careful of baby."
Mavis, who saw and heard this from the window of her sitting-room, noticed that Mrs Perkins greeted her mother, who was waiting at the door, with some condescension. When the last flimsy parcel had been taken within, Mrs Budd brought in Mrs Perkins and the baby to introduce them to Mavis. Mrs Perkins sat down and assumed a manner of superfine gentility, while she talked with a Cockney accent. Her mother remained standing. The dust-cloak lived in Kensington, it informed Mavis, "which was so convenient for the West End: it was only an hour's 'bus ride from town."
"Less than that," said Mavis to the dust-cloak.
"I have known it to take fifty-five minutes when it hasn't been stopped by funerals," declared Mrs Perkins.
Mavis looked at the dust-cloak in surprise.
"I always thought it took a quarter of an hour at the outside," remarked Mavis.
"For my part, when I go to London, I'm afraid of the 'buses," said Mrs Budd. "I always take the train to Willesden Junction. Florrie's house is only five minutes from there."