dirty, greasy hands; and there was grease on her bodice, grease on her apron, grease on her skirt.  She was called Mrs. Fletcher, but everyone addressed her as `Ma’; she was really fond of the shop assistants, whom she called her boys; she never minded giving credit towards the end of the month, and it was known that now and then she had lent someone or other a few shillings when he was in straits.  She was a good woman.  When they were leaving or when they came back from the holidays, the boys kissed her fat red cheek; and more than one, dismissed and unable to find another job, had got for nothing food to keep body and soul together.  The boys were sensible of her large heart and repaid her with genuine affection.  There was a story they liked to tell of a man who had done well for himself at Bradford, and had five shops of his own, and had come back after fifteen years and visited Ma Fletcher and given her a gold watch.

Philip found himself with eighteen shillings left out of his month’s pay.  It was the first money he had ever earned in his life.  It gave him none of the pride which might have been expected, but merely a feeling of dismay.  The smallness of the sum emphasised the hopelessness of his position.  He took fifteen shillings to Mrs. Athelny to pay back part of what he owed her, but she would not take more than half a sovereign.

“D’you know, at that rate it’ll take me eight months to settle up with you.”

“As long as Athelny’s in work I can afford to wait, and who knows, p’raps they’ll give you a rise.”

Athelny kept on saying that he would speak to the manager about Philip, it was absurd that no use should be made of his talents; but he did nothing, and Philip soon came to the conclusion that the press-agent was not a person of so much importance in the manager’s eyes as in his own.  Occasionally he saw Athelny in the shop.  His flamboyance was extinguished; and in neat, commonplace, shabby clothes he hurried, a subdued, unassuming little man, through the departments as though anxious to escape notice.

“When I think of how I’m wasted there,” he said at home, “I’m almost tempted to give in my notice.  There’s no scope for a man like me.  I’m stunted, I’m starved.”

Mrs. Athelny, quietly sewing, took no notice of his complaints.  Her mouth tightened a little.

“It’s very hard to get jobs in these times.  It’s regular and it’s safe; I expect you’ll stay there as long as you give satisfaction.”

It was evident that Athelny would.  It was interesting to see the ascendency which the uneducated woman, bound to him by no legal tie, had acquired over the brilliant, unstable man.  Mrs. Athelny treated Philip with motherly kindness now that he was in a different position, and he was touched by her anxiety that he should make a good meal.  It was the solace of his life (and when he grew used to it, the monotony of it was what chiefly appalled him) that he could