Henry Wiggin lifted the jug from the coverless deal table, inverted it on his face, held it for a moment, then set it down with a crack, voluptuously rolling his lips. That was all right, that was. Heaven help the chaps what hadn’t got no beer that night; that’s all he’d got to say. He was leading from this to a few brief but sincere observations to his brother Bert on the prices of malt liquors, when, on the grimy window, which, in the fashion of the district, stood flush with the pavement, came two or three secret taps. Each started; each in different ways. Henry half rose from his chair, and became at once alert, commanding, standing out. Bert’s glance shot to half-a-dozen points at once, and he seemed to dissolve into himself. For a few seconds the room was chokingly silent. Then, with a swift, gliding movement, Henry reached the window, and, as Bert flung back from the light’s radius, he stealthily opened it. It creaked yearningly, and immediately a yellow face filled its vacancy.
“Ullo. It is I—Ho Ling. Lady here—all same lah-de-dah—going—how you say—slumming. Parted half-a-bar. Wants to see inside places. Will my serene friend go halves if she come into here, and part more half-bars? How you say?”
“Wotto. I’m on. Wait ’alf-a-jiff.” He closed the window, and made for the door. “’S all right, Bert. On’y a toff gointer shell out. Wants to squint round our place. We go halves with Chinky whatever she parts.”
“Sure it’s a toff?” in a voice meant to be a whisper but suggesting the friction of sand-paper. “Sure it ain’t a plant?”
“Course it ain’t. Old ’O Ling’s all right.” He fiddled with the handle of the door, opened it, and stood back, only mildly interested in the lah-de-dah who was invading the privacy of his home. If he had any feeling at all, it was a slight impatience of this aloof creature of the world above; the sort of mild irritation that the convicts feel when they stand on railway stations, the objects of the curious stares of hundreds of people who are at liberty and think nothing of being so.
There was a moment’s hesitation; then, into the fishy, beery, shaggy atmosphere of the room stole a whiff of the ampler ether and diviner air of Mayfair. Into the arc of yellow candle-light, into the astonished gaze of Henry, and into the professionally quickened stare of Bert, stepped the warm, human actuality of A Duke’s Daughter, from last year’s academy. Behind her, in the doorway, calm and inscrutable as a Pentonville warder, stood Ho Ling, careful to be a witness of the amount parted. Behind him, in the deep, dark gloom of the archway, was the groom.
Lady Dorothy gazed around. She saw a carpetless room, furnished only with a bed on the floor, a couple of chairs, and a table littered with fried fish and chips and a couple of stone jugs. In the elusive twilight, it was impossible to obtain a single full view, and the bobbing candle made this still more difficult. By the table stood Henry, in all his greasy glory, a tasteful set-off to the walls which dripped with moisture from the railway above.
Oh! And again—oh! And did people really live down here? Was it allowed? Didn’t the authorities——? Was this all there was—one room? Did they eat and sleep and do everything here? And was this all the furniture? Really? But however did they manage? Did they really mean to say.... But they couldn’t, surely.... How ... well.... Was that the bed—that thing over there? And had they no.... Dear-dear. How terrible. How——