when others supply it—­nothing but the very finest quality of food, that the heads of sheep and bullocks are peculiarly offensive to its stomach, that a saving effected on sacks of peas outrages its dearest sensibilities.  What was the result?  Shooter’s Gardens, convinced of the fraud practised upon them, nobly brought back their quarts of soup to the kitchen, and with proud independence of language demanded to have their money returned.  On being met with a refusal, they—­what think you ?—­emptied the soup on to the floor, and went away with heads exalted.

Vast was the indignation of Miss Lant and the other ladies.  ’This is their gratitude!’ Now if you or I had been there, what an opportunity for easing our minds!  ’Gratitude, mesdames?  You have entered upon this work with expectation of gratitude?—­And can you not perceive that these people of Shooter’s Gardens are poor, besotted, disease-struck creatures, of whom—­in the mass—­ scarcely a human quality is to be expected?  Have you still to learn what this nether world has been made by those who belong to the sphere above it?—­Gratitude, quotha?—­Nay, do you be grateful that these hapless, half-starved women do not turn and rend you.  At present they satisfy themselves with insolence.  Take it silently, you who at all events hold some count of their dire state; and endeavour to feed them without arousing their animosity!’

Well, the kitchen threatened to be a failure.  It turned out that the cheaper peas were, in fact, of inferior quality, and the ladies hastened to go back to the dealer in Clerkenwell.  This was something, but now came a new trouble; the complaint with which Mr. and Mrs. Batterby had known so well how to deal revived in view of the concessions made by the new managers.  Shooter’s Gardens would have no more peas; let some other vegetable be used.  Again the point was conceded; a trial was made of barley soup.  Shooter’s Gardens came, looked, smelt, and shook their heads. ‘it don’t look nice,’ was their comment; they would none of it.

For two or three weeks, just at this crisis in the kitchen’s fate, Jane Snowdon attended with Miss Lant to help in the dispensing of the decoction.  Jane was made very nervous by the disturbances that went on, but she was able to review the matter at issue in a far more fruitful way than Miss Lant and the other ladies.  Her opinion was not asked, however.  In the homely grey dress, with her modest, retiring manner, her gentle, diffident countenance, she was taken by the customers for a paid servant, and if ever it happened that she could not supply a can of soup quickly enough sharp words reached her ear.  ‘Now then, you gyurl there!  Are you goin’ to keep me all d’y?  I’ve got somethink else to do but stand ‘ere.’  And Jane, by her timid hastening, confirmed the original impression, with the result that she was treated yet more unceremoniously next time.  Of all forms of insolence there is none more flagrant than that of the degraded poor receiving charity which they have come to regard as a right.