Pennyloaf speedily returned with a ha’p’orth of milk, a pennyworth of tea, and seven pounds (also price one penny) of coals in an apron.  It was very seldom indeed that the Candys had more of anything in their room than would last them for the current day.  There being no kettle, water was put on to boil in a tin saucepan; the tea was made in a jug.  Pennyloaf had always been a good girl to her mother; she tended her as well as she could to-night; but there was no word of affection from either.  Kindly speech was stifled by the atmosphere of Shooter’s Gardens.

Having drunk her tea, Mrs. Candy lay down, as she was, on the already extended mattress, and drew the ragged coverings about her.  In half an hour she slept.

Pennyloaf then put on her hat and jacket again and left the house.  She walked away from the denser regions of Clerkenwell, came to Sadler’s Wells Theatre (gloomy in its profitless recollection of the last worthy manager that London knew), and there turned into Myddelton Passage.  It is a narrow paved walk between brick walls seven feet high; on the one hand lies the New River Head, on the other are small gardens behind Myddelton Square.  The branches of a few trees hang over; there are doors, seemingly never opened, belonging one to each garden; a couple of gas-lamps shed feeble light.  Pennyloaf paced the length of the Passage several times, meeting no one.  Then a policeman came along with echoing tread, and eyed her suspiciously.  She had to wait more than a quarter of an hour before Bob Hewett made his appearance.  Greeting her with a nod and a laugh, he took up a leaning position against the wall, and began to put questions concerning the state of things at her home.

’And what’ll your mother do if the old man don’t give her nothing to live on?’ he inquired, when he had listened good-naturedly to the recital of domestic difficulties.

‘Don’t knew,’ replied the girl, shaking her head, the habitual surprise of her countenance becoming a blank interrogation of destiny.

Bob kept kicking the wall, first with one heel, then with the other.  He whistled a few bars of the last song he had learnt at the music-hall.

‘Say, Penny,’ he remarked at length, with something of shamefacedness, ’there’s a namesake of mine here as I shan’t miss, if you can do any good with it.’

He held a shilling towards her under his hand.  Pennyloaf turned away, casting down her eyes and looking troubled.

‘We can get on for a bit,’ she said indistinctly.

Bob returned the coin to his pocket.  He whistled again for a moment, then asked abruptly: 

‘Say! have you seen Clem again?’

‘No,’ replied the girl, examining him with sudden acuteness.  ’What about her?’

‘Nothing much.  She’s got her back up a bit, that’s all.’

‘About me?’ Pennyloaf asked anxiously.

Bob nodded.  As he was making some further remarks on the subject, a man’s figure appeared at a little distance, and almost immediately withdrew again round a winding of the Passage.  A moment after there sounded from that direction a shrill whistle.  Bob and the girl regarded each other.