why don't he go on, then?' the girl retorted; 'who is a-stopping him?'
Mr. Warbles had come down impressed with the idea that the proposition he had to make would be received with enthusiasm, but he now felt some doubt on the subject. He wondered for a moment whether it would be best to speak as Mrs. Phillips advised him or to stick to the story he had intended to tell. He concluded that the former way was the best.
'I am going to speak perfectly straight to you, Sally,' he began.
The girl looked keenly at him beneath her long eyelashes, and her face expressed considerable doubt.
'I am in the betting line,' he said; 'horse-racing, you know; and I am mixed up in other things, and there is many a job I might be able to carry out if I had a sharp girl to help me. I can see you are sharp enough – there is no fear about that – but you see sharpness is not the only thing. A girl to be of use must be able to dress herself up and pass as a lady, and to do that she must have some sort of education so as to be able to speak as ladies speak. I ought to have begun earlier with you, I know, but it was only when thinking of you a day or two ago that it struck me you would do for the work. You will have to go to school, or at least to be under the care of someone who can teach you, for three years. I don't suppose you like the thought of it, but you will have a good time afterwards. You will be well dressed and live comfortably, and all you will have to do will be to play a part occasionally, which to a clever girl will be nothing.'
'I should learn to read and write and to be able to understand books and such like?'
'Certainly you would.'
'Then I am ready,' she said firmly; 'I don't care what you do with me afterwards. What I want most of anything in the world is to be able to read and write. You can do nothing if you can't do that. I do not suppose I shall like schooling, but it cannot be so bad as tramping about the streets like this,' and she pointed to her clothes and dilapidated boots, 'so if you mean what you say I am ready.'
The thought that she was intended to bear a part in dishonest courses afterwards did not for a moment trouble her. Half of the inhabitants of the court were ready to steal anything worth selling if an opportunity offered. She herself had often done so. She had no moral sense of right or wrong whatever, and regarded theft as simply an exercise of skill and quickness, and as an incident in the war between herself and society as represented by the police. As to counterfeit coin, she had passed it again and again, for a man came up once a fortnight or so with a roll of coin for which Mrs. Phillips paid him about a fourth of its face value. These she never attempted to pass in Chelsea, but tramped far away to the North, South or East, carrying with her a jug hidden under her tattered shawl, and going into public houses for a pint of beer for father.
This she considered far more hazardous work than pilfering, and her quickness of eye and foot had alone saved her many times, as if the barman, instead of dropping the coin into the till, looked at it with suspicion and then proceeded to test it she was off like a deer, and was out of sight round the next turning long before the man could get to the door. The fact that she was evidently considered sharp enough to take part in frauds requiring cleverness and address gratified rather than inclined her to reject the proposition.
'It ain't very grateful of you, Sally, to be so willing to leave me after all I have done for you,' Mrs. Phillips said, rather hurt at her ready acceptance of the offer.
'Grateful for what?' the girl said scornfully, turning fiercely upon her; 'you have been paid for feeding me and what have you done more? Haven't I prigged for you, and run the risk of being sent to quod for getting rid of your dumps? Haven't you thrashed me pretty nigh every time you was drunk, till I got so big you daren't do it? I don't say as sometimes you haven't been kind, just in a way, but you have been a sight oftener unkind. I don't want to part bad friends. If you ain't showed me much kindness, you have shown me all as ever I have known, and yer might have been worse than you have. I suppose yer knows this man, and know that he is going to do as he says, and means to treat me fair, for mind you,' and here she turned darkly to Warbles, 'if you tries to do anything as is wrong with me I will stick a knife into you.'
'I am going to do you no harm, Sally,' he said hastily.
'Yer had better not,' she muttered.
'I mean exactly what I say, and nothing more. Mrs. Phillips may not have been quite as kind to you as she might, but she would not let you go with me if she did not know that no harm will be done with you.'
'Very well, then, I am ready,' the girl said, preparing to put on the tattered bonnet she had taken off when she came in, and had held swinging by its strings.
'No, no,' Mr. Warbles said, in dismay at the thought of walking out with this ragged figure by his side, 'we can't manage it as quickly as all that. In the first place, there are decent clothes to be bought for you. You cannot go anywhere as you are now. I will give Mrs. Phillips money for that.'
'Give it me,' the girl said, holding out her hand; 'she can't be trusted with it; she would be drunk in half an hour after you had gone, and would not get sober till it was all spent. You give it me, and let me buy the things; I will hand it over to her to pay for them.'
'That would be best,' Mrs. Phillips said, with a hard laugh; 'she is right, Warbles. I ain't to be trusted with money, and it is no use pretending I am. Sally knows what she is about. When she has got money she always hides it, and just brings it out as it is wanted; we have had many a fight about it, but she is just as obstinate as a mule, and next morning I am always ready to allow as she was right.'
'How much will you want, Kitty?'
'Well, I should say that to get three decent frocks and a fair stock of underclothes and boots would run nigh up to ten pounds. If it ain't so much she can give you back what there is of it. When will you come and fetch her?'
'We had better say three days. You can get all the things in a day, no doubt; but I shall have to make arrangements. I think I know just the woman that would do. She was a governess once in good families, I am told; but she went wrong, somehow, and went down pretty near to the bottom of the hill; she lives a few doors from me, and gets a few children to teach when she can. I expect I can arrange with her to take Sally, and teach her. If she won't do it, someone else will; but being close it would be handy to me. I could drop in sometimes of an evening and see how she was getting on.'
'Are you my father?' the girl asked suddenly.
'No, I am not,' he answered readily.
The girl was looking at him keenly, and was satisfied that he spoke the truth.
'I am glad of that,' she said. 'I always thought that if I had a father I should like to love him. If you had been my father I expect as you would have wanted me to love you, and I am sure I should never be able to do it.'
'You are an outspoken girl, Sally,' Mr. Warbles said, with an unpleasant attempt at a laugh. 'Why shouldn't you be able to love me?'
'Because I should never be able to trust you,' the girl said. 'I am ready to work for you and to be honest with you as long as you are honest with me. I s'pose you wouldn't be paying all this money and be going to take such pains with me if you didn't think as you would get it back again. I don't know much, but I know as much as that; so mind, I don't promise to love you, that ain't in the agreement.'
'Perhaps you will think differently some day, Sally; and, after all, two people can get on well enough together without much love. Well, have her ready in three days, Kitty; but there is no use in my coming here for her. Of course, the girl must have a box, and you will want a cab. Drive across Westminster Bridge and stop just across it on the right-hand side. Be there as near as you can at eight o'clock in the evening; that will
