"Well, I never! What will she say next, I wonder!"
And so the conversation waxed louder and louder. At length the girl in bed half sprang out.
"I shall go and tell the Lieutenant how you're talking. She'll put you out!"
With that the offender moved off to her cubicle.
The other girl kept muttering, "Well, I never! Did ever you hear! Me that has never been inside a pub! I'll tell the Lieutenant in the morning."
It was fortunate that the offender had paid for a sixpenny bed, as at one time they seemed almost coming to blows.
The noisy woman in a bed on the opposite side kept up a conversation with herself, or with anyone who would speak to her. Finally, the Lieutenant, who seemed to keep a sort of patrol, but was not round frequently enough to preserve peace, caught her talking, though not at her loudest. She was engaged in relating portions of her past life to a woman who said it was the anniversary of her wedding-day. The story of the courtship and marriage took some time to tell, but the crowning incident was that, having been ill for some days, her friends encouraged her to take "a small whisky," which apparently led to more, and she became so "blind drunk" that she remembered nothing further.
Several women with children came in. Some on meeting congratulated each other on having money enough to get in.
"Thank God I'm in to-night," said one.
It made me realise how many are living on the very edge of starvation, for several had only lodging-money, not a halfpenny for food.[105]