“Strangers, ain’t you?” she said, pleasantly, leaning on the bar and grinning at them.

“Yus.”  Cleek’s voice was sharp, emphatic.

“Thought so.  Sea-faring, I take it?”

“Yus,” said Cleek again, and gulped down the rest of his ale, pushing the tankard toward her and nodding at it significantly.

She sniffed, and then laughed.

“Want another, eh?  Ain’t wastin’ many words, are yer, matey?  ’Oo’s the little ’un?”

“Meaning me?” said Dollops, bridling.  “None of yer blarney ’ere, miss!  Me an’ my mate’s been on a walkin’ tooer—­come up from Lunnon, we ’ave.”

“You never did!”

Admiration mingled with disbelief in the barmaid’s voice.  A little stir of interest went round the crowded, smoky room and someone called out: 

“Lunnon, ‘ave yer?  Bin walkin’ a bit, matey.  Wot brought yer dahn ’ere?  An’ what’re sailor men doin’ in Lunnon, any’ow?”

“Wot most folks is doin’ nowadays—­lookin for a job!” replied Cleek, as he gulped down the second tankard and pushed it forward again to be replenished.  “Come from Southampton, we ’ave.  Got a parss up to Lunnon, ’cause a pal told us there’d be work at the factories.  But there weren’t no work.  Gawd’s truf!  What’re sailormen wantin’ wi’ clorth-makin’ and ‘ammering’ tin-pots?  Them’s the only jobs we wuz offered in Lunnon.  I don’t give a curse for the plyce....  No, Sammy an’ me we says to each other”—­he took another drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—­“we says this ain’t no plyce for us.  We’d just come over frum Jamaica—­”

“Go on!  Travellin’ in furrin parts was you!” this in admiration from the barmaid.

“—­and we ain’t seein’ oursel’s turning inter land-lubbers in no sich spot as that.  Pal told us there was a ’arbour down ’ere abahts, wiv a factory wot a sailorman might git work at an’ still ’old ’is self-respec’.  So we walked ’ere.”

“Wot energy!”

Black Whiskers—­as Dollops had called him—­broke in at this juncture, his thin mouth opening in a grin that showed two rows of blackened teeth.

Cleek twitched round sharply in his direction.

“Yus—­wasn’t it?  An’, funny enough, we’ve plenty more energy ter come!...  But what the ’ell is this factory work ‘ere, any’ow?  An’ any chawnce of a couple of men gittin’ a bit er work to keep the blinkin’ wolf from the door?  Who’ll tell us?”

A slight silence followed this, a silence in which man looked at man, and then back again at the ginger-headed lady behind the bar.  She raised her eyebrows and nodded, and then went off into little giggles that shook her plump figure.

A big man at Cleek’s left gave him the answer.

“Factory makes electric fittin’s an’ such-like, an’ ships ’em abroad,” he said, tersely.  “Happen you don’t unnerstan’ the business?  Happen the marster won’t want you.  Happen you’ll ’ave ter move on, I’m a-thinkin’.”