"Ach no! Dese girls are full-timers. You are only a greener [meaning a beginner] so you vill not expect anything like so much."
At that his daughter repeated her assurance that I was quicker than the girl she had called Leah; but the Jew, with an air of parental majesty, told her to be silent, and then said that as I was an "improver" he could only take me "on piece," naming the price (a very small one) per half-dozen buttons and buttonholes, with the condition that I found my own twist and did the work in my own home.
Seeing that I should be no match for the Jew at a bargain, and being so eager to get to work at any price, I closed with his offer, and then he left the room, after telling me to come back the next day.
"And vhere do you lif, my dear?" said the Jewess.
I told her Bayswater, making some excuse for being in the East End, and getting as near to the truth as I dare venture, but feeling instinctively, after my sight of the master of the house, that I dared say nothing about my child.
She told me I must live nearer to my work, and I said that was exactly what I wished to do—asking if she knew where I could find a room.
Fortunately the Jewess herself had two rooms vacant at that moment, and we went upstairs to look at them.
Both were at the top of the house, and one of them I could have for two shillings a week, but it was dark and cheerless, being at the back and looking into the space over the yards in which the tenants dried their washing on lines stretched from pulleys.
The other, which would cost a shilling a week more, was a lean slit of a room, very sparsely furnished, but it was to the front, and looked down into the varied life of the street, so I took it instantly and asked when I could move in.
"Ven you like," said the Jewess. "Everyding is ready."