But the most shamefully mercenary engagement that I think Amenda ever entered into, was one with a ’bus conductor.  We were living in the north of London then, and she had a young man, a cheesemonger, who kept a shop in Lupus Street, Chelsea.  He could not come up to her because of the shop, so once a week she used to go down to him.  One did not ride ten miles for a penny in those days, and she found the fare from Holloway to Victoria and back a severe tax upon her purse.  The same ’bus that took her down at six brought her back at ten.  During the first journey the ’bus conductor stared at Amenda; during the second he talked to her, during the third he gave her a cocoanut, during the fourth he proposed to her, and was promptly accepted.  After that, Amenda was enabled to visit her cheesemonger without expense.

He was a quaint character himself, this ’bus conductor.  I often rode with him to Fleet Street.  He knew me quite well (I suppose Amenda must have pointed me out to him), and would always ask me after her—­aloud, before all the other passengers, which was trying—­and give me messages to take back to her.  Where women were concerned he had what is called “a way” with him, and from the extent and variety of his female acquaintance, and the evident tenderness with which the majority of them regarded him, I am inclined to hope that Amenda’s desertion of him (which happened contemporaneously with her jilting of the cheesemonger) caused him less prolonged suffering than might otherwise have been the case.

He was a man from whom I derived a good deal of amusement one way and another.  Thinking of him brings back to my mind a somewhat odd incident.

One afternoon, I jumped upon his ’bus in the Seven Sisters Road.  An elderly Frenchman was the only other occupant of the vehicle.  “You vil not forget me,” the Frenchman was saying as I entered, “I desire Sharing Cross.”

“I won’t forget yer,” answered the conductor, “you shall ’ave yer Sharing Cross.  Don’t make a fuss about it.”

“That’s the third time ’ee’s arst me not to forget ’im,” he remarked to me in a stentorian aside; “‘ee don’t giv’ yer much chance of doin’ it, does ’ee?”

At the corner of the Holloway Road we drew up, and our conductor began to shout after the manner of his species:  “Charing Cross—­Charing Cross—­’ere yer are—­Come along, lady—­Charing Cross.”

The little Frenchman jumped up, and prepared to exit; the conductor pushed him back.

“Sit down and don’t be silly,” he said; “this ain’t Charing Cross.”

The Frenchman looked puzzled, but collapsed meekly.  We picked up a few passengers, and proceeded on our way.  Half a mile up the Liverpool Road a lady stood on the kerb regarding us as we passed with that pathetic mingling of desire and distrust which is the average woman’s attitude towards conveyances of all kinds.  Our conductor stopped.

“Where d’yer want to go to?” he asked her severely—­“Strand—­Charing Cross?”