“Who is Mrs Bale?” asked Mavis, much annoyed at the intrusion.

“Wait till you see her,” cried Mrs Gowler, as if her coming were a matter of rare good fortune.

Mavis had not long to wait.  In a few moments a tall, spare, masculine-looking woman strode into the room.  Mrs Bale’s red face seemed to be framed in spacious black bonnet strings.  Mavis thought that she had never seen such a long upper lip as this woman had.  This was surmounted by a broken, turned-up nose, on either side of which were boiled, staring eyes, which did not hold expression of any kind.  If Mavis had frequented music halls, she would have recognised the woman as the original of a type frequently seen on the boards of those resorts, played by male impersonators.  Directly she saw Mavis, Mrs Bale hurried to the bedside and seized the baby, to dandle it in her arms, the while she made a clucking noise not unlike the cackling of a hen.

Mavis noticed that Mrs Bale’s breath reeked of gin.

“Put my baby down,” said Mavis.

“I’ll leave you two ladies to settle it between yer,” remarked Mrs Gowler, as she left the room.

“I’m not going to put my baby out to nurse.  Good morning.”

“Not for five shillings a week?” asked Mrs Bale.

“Good morning.”

“Say I made it four and six?”

Mavis made no reply, at which Mrs Bale sat down and began to weep.

“What about the trouble and expense of coming all the way here?” asked Mrs Bale.

“I never asked you to come.”

“Well, I shan’t leave this room till you give me six-pence for refreshment to get me to the station.”

“I won’t give it to you; I’ll give it to Mrs Gowler.”

“An’ a lot of it I’d see.”

Mrs Gowler, who had been listening at the door, came into the room and demanded to know what Mrs Bale meant.

Then followed a stream of recriminations, in which each accused the other of a Newgate calendar of crime.  Mavis at last got rid of them by giving them threepence each.

Three nights before Mavis left Durley Road, she was awakened by the noise of Jill’s subdued growling.  Thinking she heard someone outside her room, she went stealthily to the door; she opened it quickly, to find Mrs Gowler on hands and knees before her box, which she was trying to open with a bunch of keys.

“What are you doing?” asked Mavis.

The woman entered into a confused explanation, which Mavis cut short by saying: 

“I’ve heard about your tricks.  If I have any more bother from you, I shall go straight from here to the police station.”

“Gawd’s truth!  Why did I ever take you in?” grumbled Mrs Gowler as she waddled downstairs.  “I might ’ave known you was a cat by the colour of your ’air.”

The time came when Mavis was able to leave Durley Road.  Whither she was going she knew not.  She paid her bill, refusing to discuss the many extras which Mrs Gowler tried to charge, had her box taken by a porter to the cloak room at the station, dressed her darling baby, said good-bye to Piggy and went downstairs, to shudder as she walked along the passage to the front door.  She had not walked far, when an ordinary-looking man came up, who barely lifted his hat.