Tension was snapped by a quarrel between Mr. Bat Miller and his young wife. There were times when Mrs. Bat Miller was obtrusively affectionate with her husband; as compensation, occasions flew in when she became half mad with jealousy. The Duchess and Mr. Leigh at these crises acted as peacemakers, a task at times not easy; in this particular case they failed entirely. The young woman tore her red hair with fury; she screamed so loudly that, common as such exhibitions were in Ely Place, neighbours began to show some interest in the front door. In this difficulty Mr. Bat Miller, pained and distressed, appealed to Bobbie to state whether so far from having been walking with the sister of Nose, the boy of Drysdale Street, between the hours of nine and ten that evening, he had not as a matter of fact been in the company of Bobbie at Liverpool Street Station. To this question Bobbie (who at the hours mentioned had been having a gloomy and quite solitary game of hop-scotch at the Kingsland Road end of Ely Place) answered promptly, “Yus!” and Mrs. Bat Miller confronted with this proof of alibi burst into regretful tears and reproached herself for a silly woman, one who allowed herself to be taken in by the gossip of any spiteful cat of a neighbour. Mr. Miller, grateful to Bobbie for this timely assistance, persuaded the quiet Leigh to allow the boy to resume his position in their confidence. After some hesitation Mr. Leigh agreed, adding, however, that he hoped Bobbie would see that the first duty of little boys was to be seen and not heard; the second, not to go about interfering with what did not concern them. These Mr. Leigh declared to be ever golden rules, not to be broken without danger. Bobbie promised to bear the advice carefully in mind, and re-assumed his position in the house with satisfaction.
The two women were nearly always kind to him, and to them he became indebted for cheerful hours. The proudest memory of the Duchess’s was that of her one appearance on the music hall stage. It seemed that another young lady and herself, having, in the late sixties, saved their money, had made their bow from the small stage of a small hall attached to a small public-house in Banner Street, St. Luke’s. They called themselves the Sisters Montmorency (on the urgent recommendation of the agent), and sang a song which still remained her favourite air. When in very good temper and when Bobbie had been a very good boy, she would go out of the room, and re-enter with a fine swish of the skirts singing in a thin, quavering voice this verse:—
You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,
You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls;
We’re daughters of nobility, so they treat us with ceevility,
For of well-bred, high-class damsels we’re the pearls.
It appeared that the two débutantes quarrelled with each other after the first performance over some point of etiquette and fought in Banner Street, St. Luke’s; as a consequence the partnership had thereupon been dissolved, and the Duchess’s career as an artiste of the music halls found itself checked and stopped.
Proud in the ownership of a new bowler hat; magnificent in the possession of a four-bladed knife with a corkscrew, which had come to him as his share of the contents of a portmanteau labelled from Scarborough to King’s Cross, and taken possession of at the latter station by Mr. Miller before the owner had time to claim it, Bobbie strolled along Old Street one evening, smoking a cigarette, and pushing small girls off the pavement into the roadway. Behind him walked Miss Trixie Bell, feathered hatted and a skirt furtively let out after departure from her mother’s shop in Pimlico Walk; Miss Bell, in crossing lakes on the pavement, felt justified in lifting her skirt carefully to avoid contact with the ground, which it cleared by about twelve inches. At a junction of the City Road the boy stopped to allow the confused trams to untie themselves, and looking round saw her.
“Cheer!” said Miss Bell with defiant shyness. “How’s the world using you?” Bobbie did not answer. “You ain’t seen me for a long time.”
“Ain’t wanted,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been away in the country,” said the young woman, in no way disconcerted. “’Mongst medders and pigs and farm yards and nuts, and I don’t know what all.”
“Well,” he said, “what of it?”
“You still living in Ely Place?”