“No, sir, I don’t often come nigh fine folks,” answers Mrs. Brown. “But I’ve got to go to Prince’s Gate, number fifteen, and I turned in ’ere ’cos the traffic’s that crowded on the ’igh-road; ’is ’Ighness is agoin’ down to ’Ounslow.”
“Oh, to be sure. How are your people this morning?”
“My pore legs, sir, be as bad as ever—but there, we pore folks can’t stop for aches and pains, or we’d never do naught in this ’ere world; ’twasn’t made for the likes of us.”
“That is a sad reflection. But pray don’t say ‘sir’ to me.”
“It comes nat’ral, sir. I hev allus been one as did my humble duty to the quality.”
“Oh, I know! It is this terrible servility which has entered like blood-poisoning into the very marrow of the people.”
The policeman standing near listening grins behind his white-gloved hand.
“You are so used to stoop and cringe that you have lost the power to stand upright when you are invited to do so,” says Bertram, impatiently. “Where is your daughter?”
“Annie’s at Ealing, sir. It’s Primrose Day to-morrow.”
“And what is your opinion of Primrose Day, Mrs. Brown?”