'Mind Butty doesn't catch you,' said Victoria.
'Oh, he's all right,' said Gertie, 'we're pals.'
Fat Bella, chewing the cud at the table, shot a malevolent glance at her. Gertie took no notice of her, tied on her veil with a snap, and collected her steel purse, parasol, and long white cotton gloves.
'Bye, everybody,' she said, 'be good. Bye, Miss Prodgitt; wish yer luck with yer perliceman, but you take my tip; all what glitters isn't coppers.'
Before Miss Prodgitt could find a retort to this ruthless exposure of her idyll, Gertie had vanished down the stairs. Lottie dreamily turned to the last page of London Opinion and vainly attempted to sound the middle of her back; she was clearly disturbed by the advertisement of a patent medicine. Victoria watched her amusedly.
They were not bad sorts, any of them. Lottie, in her sharp way, had been a kindly guide in the early days, explained the meaning of 'checks,' shown her how to distinguish the inflexion on the word 'bill,' that tells whether a customer wants the bill of fare or the bill of costs, imparted too the wonderful mnemonics which enable a waitress to sort four simultaneous orders. Gertie, the only frankly common member of the staff, barked ever but bit never. As for Bella, poor soul, she represented neutrality. The thread of her life was woven; she would marry her policeman when he got his stripe, and bear him dull company to the grave. Gertie would no doubt look after herself. Not being likely to marry, she might keep straight and end as a manageress, probably save nothing and end in the workhouse, or go wrong and live somehow, and then die as quickly as a robin passing from the sunshine to the darkness. Lottie was a greater problem; in her intelligence lay danger; she had imagination, which in girls of her class is a perilous possession. Her enthusiasm might take her anywhere, but very much more likely to misery than to happiness. However, as she was visibly weak-chested, Victoria took comfort in the thought that the air of the underground smoking-room would some day settle her troubles.
Victoria did not follow up her own line of life because as for all young things, there was no end for her—nothing but mist ahead, with a rosy tinge in it. Sufficient was it that she was in receipt of a fairly regular income, not exactly overworked, neither happy nor miserable. Apart from the two hours rush in the middle of the day, there was nothing to worry her. After two months she had worked up a fair connection; she could not rival the experienced Lottie, nor even Gertie whose forward little ways always 'caught on,' but she kept up an average of some fourteen shillings a week in tips. Thus she scored over Gladys and Cora, whose looks and manners were unimpressive, lymphatic Bella being of course outclassed by everybody. Twenty-one and six a week was none too much for Victoria, whose ideas of clothes were fatally upper middle class; good, and not too cheap. Still, she was enough of her class to live within her income, and even add a shilling now and then to her little hoard.
A door opened downstairs. 'Four o'clock! Come down! Vic! Bella! Lottie! Vat are you doing? gn?'
Bella jumped up in terror, her fat cheeks quivering like jelly. 'Coming, Mr Stein, coming,' she cried, making for the stairs. Victoria followed more slowly. Lottie, secure in her privileges as head waitress, did not move until she heard the door below slam behind them.
Victoria lazily made for her tables. They were unoccupied save by a youth of the junior clerk type.