“You mean it’s no good?” said the man.

“Not the least, not a bit.  And never could be.”

Mr. Gammon nodded several times, as if calculating the force of the blow, and nerving himself to bear it.

“Well, if you say it,” he replied at length, “I suppose it’s a fact—­but I call it hard lines.  Ever since I was old enough to think of marrying I’ve been looking out for the right girl—­always looking out, and now I thought I’d found her.  Hanged if it isn’t hard lines!  I could have married scores—­scores; but do you suppose I’d have a girl that showed she was only waiting for me to say the word?  Not me!  That’s what took me in Minnie.  She’s the first of that kind I ever knew—­the only one.  But, I say, do you mean you won’t let me try?  You surely don’t mean that, Mrs. Clover?”

“Yes, I do.  I mean just that, Mr. Gammon.”

“Why?  Because I haven’t got a permanency?”

“Oh, no.”

“Because I—­because I go to Dulwich?”

“No.”

“Why, then?”

“I can’t tell you why, and I don’t know why, but I mean it.  And what’s more”—­her eyes sparkled—­“if ever you say such word to Minnie you never pass my door again.”

This seemed to take Mr. Gammon’s breath away.  After a rather long silence he looked about for his hat, then for his dog-whip.

“I’ll say good night, Mrs. Clover.  Hot, isn’t it?  Hottest day yet.  I say, you’re not riled with me?  That’s all right.  See you again before long.”

He did not make straight for home, but rambled in a circuit for the next hour.  When darkness had fallen he found himself again near the china shop, and paused, for a moment only, by the door.  On the opposite side of the street stood a man who had also paused in a slow walk, and who also looked towards the shop.  But Mr. Gammon went his way without so much as a glance at that dim figure.

CHAPTER IV

POLLY AND MR. PARISH

Two first-rate quarrels in one day put Polly Sparkes into high good humour.  On leaving her aunt’s house in the afternoon she strolled into Battersea Park, and there treated herself to tea and cakes at a little round table in the open air.  Mrs. Clover, though the quarrel was prolonged until four o’clock, had offered no refreshments, which seemed to Miss Sparkes a very gross instance of meanness and inhospitality.

At a table near to her sat two girls, for some reason taking a holiday, who conversed in a way which proved them to be “mantle hands,” and Polly listened and smiled.  Did she not well remember the day when the poverty of home sent her, a little girl, to be “trotter” in a workroom?  But she soon found her way out of that.  A sharp tongue, a bold eye, and a brilliant complexion helped her on, step by step, or jump by jump, till she had found much more agreeable ways of supporting herself.  All unimpeachable, for Polly was fiercely virtuous, and put a very high value indeed upon such affections as she had to dispose of.