Second Girl. Oh, nothing—­there was nothing he could say, but I could see he was struck.  She behaved very mean to the last—­she wouldn’t send back the German concertina.

First Girl. You don’t say so!  Well, I wouldn’t have thought that of her, bad as she is.

Second Girl. No, she stuck to it that it wasn’t like a regular present, being got through a grocer, and as she couldn’t send him back the tea, being drunk,—­but did you hear how she treated EMMA over the crinoline ’at she got for her?

First Girl (to the immense relief of the rest). No, what was that?

Second Girl. Well, I had it from EMMA her own self.  ELIZA wrote up to her and says, in a postscript like,—­Why, this is Tottenham Court Road, I get out here.  Good-bye, dear, I must tell you the rest another day.

[Gets out, leaving the tantalised audience inconsolable, and longing for courage to question her companion as to the precise details of ELIZA’S heartless behaviour to GEORGE. The companion, however, relapses into a stony reserve.  Enter a Chatty Old Gentleman who has no secrets from anybody, and of course selects as the first recipient of his confidence the one person who hates to be talked to in an omnibus.

The Chatty O.G. I’ve just been having a talk with the policeman at the corner there—­what do you think I said to him?

His Opposite Neighbour. I—­I really don’t know.

The C.O.G. Well, I told him he was a rich man compared to me.  He said, “I only get thirty shillings a week, Sir.”  “Ah,” I said, “but look at your expenses, compared to mine.  What would you do if you had to spend eight hundred a year on your children’s education?  I spend that—­every penny of it, Sir.

His Opp.  N. (utterly uninterested). Do you indeed?—­dear me!

C.O.G. Not that I grudge it—­a good education is a fortune in itself, and as I’ve always told my boys, they must make the best of it, for it’s all they’ll get.  They’re good enough lads, but I’ve had a deal of trouble with them one way and another—­a deal of trouble. (Pauses for some expression of sympathy—­which does not come—­and he continues:) There are my two eldest sons—­what must they do but fall in love with the same lady—­the same lady.  Sir! (No one seems to care much for these domestic revelations—­possibly because they are too obviously addressed to the general ear.) And, to make matters worse, she was a married woman—­(his principal hearer looks another way uneasily)—­the wife of a godson of mine, which made it all the more awkward, y’know. (His Opposite Neighbour giving no sign, the C. O. G. tries one Passenger after another.) Well, I went to him—­(here he fixes an old Lady, who immediately passes up coppers out of her glove to the_ Conductor)—­went to him, and said—­(addressing a smartly dressed young