Well, there was justice in what he said.  He always did have sense, and I took his order.  You don’t often see anybody put it away like that girl did.  I took it she hadn’t had a square meal for many a long day.  She polished off a ninepenny haddick, skin and all, and after that she had two penny rashers, with six slices of bread and butter—­“doorsteps,” as we used to call them—­and two half pints of cocoa, which is a meal in itself the way we used to make it.  “Kipper” must have had a bit of luck that day.  He couldn’t have urged her on more had it been a free feed.

“’Ave an egg,” he suggested, the moment the rashers had disappeared.  “One of these eggs will just about finish yer.”

“I don’t really think as I can,” says she, after considering like.

“Well, you know your own strength,” he answers.  “Perhaps you’re best without it.  Speshully if yer not used to ’igh living.”

I was glad to see them finish, ’cause I was beginning to get a bit nervous about the coin, but he paid up right enough, and giv me a ha’penny for myself.

That was the first time I ever waited upon those two, but it wasn’t to be the last by many a long chalk, as you’ll see.  He often used to bring her in after that.  Who she was and what she was he didn’t know, and she didn’t know, so there was a pair of them.  She’d run away from an old woman down Limehouse way, who used to beat her.  That was all she could tell him.  He got her a lodging with an old woman, who had an attic in the same house where he slept—­when it would run to that—­taught her to yell “Speshul!” and found a corner for her.  There ain’t room for boys and girls in the Mile-End Road.  They’re either kids down there or they’re grown-ups.  “Kipper” and “Carrots”—­as we named her—­looked upon themselves as sweethearts, though he couldn’t have been more than fifteen, and she barely twelve; and that he was regular gone on her anyone could see with half an eye.  Not that he was soft about it—­that wasn’t his style.  He kept her in order, and she had just to mind, which I guess was a good thing for her, and when she wanted it he’d use his hand on her, and make no bones about it.  That’s the way among that class.  They up and give the old woman a friendly clump, just as you or me would swear at the missus, or fling a boot-jack at her.  They don’t mean anything more.

I left the coffee shop later on for a place in the city, and saw nothing more of them for five years.  When I did it was at a restaurant in Oxford Street—­one of those amatoor shows run by a lot of women, who know nothing about the business, and spend the whole day gossiping and flirting—­“love-shops,” I call ’em.  There was a yellow-haired lady manageress who never heard you when you spoke to her, ’cause she was always trying to hear what some seedy old fool would be whispering to her across the counter.  Then there were waitresses, and their notion of waiting was to spend an hour talking to