"Well?"
"Where's the whistle?"
Mrs. Brigg came to the bottom of the kitchen stairs.
"What d' yer want it for?"
"A cab, of course," cried Cuckoo, in the narrow voice of one in a hurry.
"A cab!" rejoined Mrs. Brigg, ascending the dark stairs all the time she was speaking. "And what do you want with cabs, I should like to know? Who pays for 'em, that's what I say; who's to do it?"
Her grey head hove in sight.
"Where are you going? Piccadilly?"
"No; get the whistle."
"What—and no hat!"