Well, as I was saying, in she comes to the supper rooms, and toffy enough she looked in her diamonds and furs, and as for haughtiness there wasn't a born Marchioness she couldn't have given points to. She comes straight up to my table and sits down. Her husband was with her, but he didn't seem to have much to say, except to repeat her orders. Of course I looked as if I'd never set eyes on her before in all my life, though all the time she was a-pecking at the mayonnaise and a-sipping at the Giessler, I was thinking of the coffee-shop and of the ninepenny haddick and the pint of cocoa.
“Go and fetch my cloak,” she says to him after a while. “I am cold.”
And up he gets and goes out.
She never moved her head, and spoke as though she was merely giving me some order, and I stands behind her chair, respectful like, and answers according to the same tip.
“Ever hear from 'Kipper'?” she says to me.
“I have had one or two letters from him, your ladyship,” I answers.
“Oh, stow that,” she says. “I am sick of 'your ladyship.' Talk English; I don't hear much of it. How's he getting on?”
“Seems to be doing himself well,” I says. “He's started an hotel, and is regular raking it in, he tells me.”
“Wish I was behind the bar with him!” says she.
“Why, don't it work then?” I asks.