“Well, sir, you’ll please excuse me, but I can’t stand chatterin’ here. We pore has got our work to do. That’s what I says to them ladies when they come botherin.’ I says, says I, ‘We pore has our work to do, and when ’tis done we want to sit still, and put our feet up, and take a cup o’ tea, and doze like; we don’t want to go strammarkin’ about to your concerts, and your readin’s, and your mothers’ meetin’s, and all them rubbishes, and see a duchess playin’ a banjo or hear a duke sing “Hot Codlins.”’ Let ’em keep in their place, and we’ll keep in ours. That’s what I says, sir, and I bring up my children to say it arter me.”
“Oh, I am aware, Mrs. Brown, you and those who resemble you, are a terrible stumbling-block to progress.”
“Please don’t call me names, sir. I’m a pore workin’ woman, but I’m one as hev allus kep’ my head above water. You’re in one speer, and we’re in another, as I hev allus told ye, but all the same I choose to be respecket.”
“My dear creature, no one can respect you more profoundly than I do.”
But Mrs. Brown is not appeased by this assurance; walks away in high dudgeon; there is meanwhile a great noise of yelling and shouting in the distance near the statue of Achilles.
“What are they doing?” Bertram asks of the constable, who, touching his helmet, answers:
“Well, sir, the Salvationists have got new banners, ‘Glory’ on one side, and ‘Eternal Fire’ on t’other; and the pop’lace don’t like ’em. Pop’lace very queer and touchy, sir. Never knows what it wants.”
“That is a hasty condemnation to pass on those who form the bulwarks of a nation.”
“Bulwarks, is it, sir? Not when they’ve got any beer in ’em.”
The uproar in the distance grows very loud indeed; some children are alarmed; the nurse who is with them asks the policeman if there is any danger of a riot.