The flower girl [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] There’s menners f’ yer!  Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady’s right.  She is not at all an attractive person.  She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older.  She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed.  Her hair needs washing rather badly:  its mousy color can hardly be natural.  She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist.  She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron.  Her boots are much the worse for wear.  She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty.  Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].

The mother.  How do you know that my son’s name is Freddy, pray?

The flower girl.  Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e?  Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy atbaht pyin.  Will ye-oo py me f’them? [Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.]

The daughter.  Do nothing of the sort, mother.  The idea!

The mother.  Please allow me, Clara.  Have you any pennies?

The daughter.  No.  I’ve nothing smaller than sixpence.

The flower girl [hopefully] I can give you change for a tanner, kind lady.

The mother [to Clara] Give it to me. [Clara parts reluctantly].  Now [to the girl] This is for your flowers.

The flower girl.  Thank you kindly, lady.

The daughter.  Make her give you the change.  These things are only a penny a bunch.

The mother.  Do hold your tongue, Clara. [To the girl].  You can keep the change.

The flower girl.  Oh, thank you, lady.

The mother.  Now tell me how you know that young gentleman’s name.

The flower girl.  I didn’t.

The mother.  I heard you call him by it.  Don’t try to deceive me.

The flower girl [protesting] Who’s trying to deceive you?  I called him Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself if you was talking to a stranger and wished to be pleasant. [She sits down beside her basket].

The daughter.  Sixpence thrown away!  Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy that. [She retreats in disgust behind the pillar].

An elderly gentleman of the amiable military type rushes into shelter, and closes a dripping umbrella.  He is in the same plight as Freddy, very wet about the ankles.  He is in evening dress, with a light overcoat.  He takes the place left vacant by the daughter’s retirement.