They went out into a dimly-lighted lane and Norah took stock of her new friend. The woman was almost bent double with age; a few rags covered her body, she wore no shoes, and a dusty, grimy clout was tied round one of her feet. As if conscious of Norah’s scrutiny she turned to the girl.
“Ah! Ye wouldn’t think, would ye, that I had once the finest room in the Cowcaddens, the finest—at its price?”
“The Rat-pit’s a lodgin’ place for women,” the old creature croaked after an interval. “There are good beds there; threepence a night ye pay for them. Beg pardon, but maybe ye’ll pay for my bunk for the night. That’s just how I live; it’s only one night after another in my life. Beg pardon, but that’s how it is.” She seemed to be apologising for the crime of existing. “But ye’ll maybe have a kid’s eye to spare for my bunk?” she asked.
“All right, decent woman,” said Norah.
“What do they cry ye?”
“Norah Ryan.”
“A pretty name; and my name’s Maudie Stiddart,” said the old woman.
II
TEN minutes later the two women were seated in the kitchen of the Rat-pit, frying a chop which Norah had bought on their way to the lodging-house.
The place was crowded with women of all ages, some young, children almost, their hair hanging down their backs, and the blouses that their pinched breasts could not fill sagging loose at the bosom. There were six or seven of these girls, queer weedy things that smoked cigarettes and used foul words whenever they spoke. The face of one was pitted with small-pox; another had both eyes blackened, the result of a fight; a third, clean of face and limb, was telling how she had just served two months in prison for importuning men on the streets. Several of the elder females were drunk; two fought in the kitchen, pulling handfuls of hair from one another’s heads. Nobody interfered; when the struggle came to an end the combatants sat down together and warmed their hands at the stove. At this juncture a bare-footed woman, with clay caked brown behind her ankles and a hairy wart on her chin, came up to Norah.