"_She_ won't be 'ere likely, o' Monday," sniggered one of two girls, their hair already in curling-pins against the evening's outing, as they passed a weary-looking woman whose thin shawl failed to conceal her figure, and whose heavy foot dragged over the greasy pavement. "Wot ever did she go and get married for, an' to sech a drunken fellar too. She was a good-lookin' gel and 'ad a good time four year back." "Oh! She'll be at it agin in a month's time none the worse," giggled the other girl pertly. "She lost 'er two fust, an' this 'un 'ull go too, you'll see. Just as well, and they comin' so rapid. My! They is fair beasts, they husbands; but I'd see mine futher fust, I would!" And then, as they hurried home to dress, they fell to discussing the new hats which were "to do the real trick with their boys" on Sunday, when a long cycle ride was to end in a midnight train, a late supper, and after that bed--if there was time! Even in their mill garb, they helped to swell the general tendency to lark and titter in the streets; but in truth those same streets were a somewhat curious sight on Saturday afternoons, when, with money in its pocket, humanity was, at last, at leisure to be human; to loiter, to laugh, and to make love. For the upper crust of Blackborough society--the old red-sandstone section labelled "Court" in the social stratification of the postal directory--made a point of rural week-ends, so leaving the human pie free from any covering of culture. It was amusing to watch. Advocates of realism would have found pictures and to spare amid the overdressed girls whose week's wage had been squandered on their finery, in the undersized boys prematurely given to ogle who had spent theirs on football, bets, and cheap cigarettes. And as the daylight died down the squalor of it all showed still more clearly beneath the flaring gas-jets. Especially in the market streets where all the week's refuse of the great city was exposed for sale, warranted sound, while buyer and seller alike winked over the warranty! Purple heaps of fly--blown meat labelled "prime cuts" in the butcher-shops, battered tomatoes on the barrows with "best home-grown" flaunting in green and gold lettering above them; "genuine" butter, "fresh" eggs, and "selected dairy-fed pork," jostling each other in a booth. Such is the market which centuries of civilisation have provided for the poor. And the endless crowd passed and repassed, with money in its pocket, lingering in groups about the gin shines at the corners, giggling, cursing, gossiping, quarrelling; each person treading on the heels of the next, and leaving no human footfall on the oozy pavement; only blisters and scars, only the certainty that some living thing had walked through the mire and carried some of the dirt away with it.