By this time general interest was being roused in our conversation. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I was aware that they had been heard with more attention than anything I yet had said. Though why that should be the case was beyond my capacity of perception. "Only took one and ninepence at the door one night, did we? Oh! Looks as if someone had been talking. From whom might you have heard that piece of news?" "And one week weren't there less than two pounds to divide among seven? You could not live on that. No one could. It's not to be done. It simply means starvation." I merely repeated, with all the earnestness of which I was capable, what I had heard the governesses saying. My remarks were followed by what even I felt was a significant silence. My interlocutor, bringing forward with his foot what looked like an empty egg-box, placed himself upon a corner. It creaked under his weight. "It would seem as if somebody knows almost as much about this temple of the drama as it knows about itself. And it certainly is true that, regarded as a week's earnings, two pounds isn't much between seven. So you thought--?" "I thought I'd come and help you." "Come and help us? By acting?" "If I'm going to be a Wonderful Girl--and I am going to be--it's quite time I was beginning. Young Betty was at the height of his fame when he was twelve. So I thought I would commence by making a lot of money for you here, which would keep you all from starving; and then, of course, I shall go on to London and make the rest of my fortune there." "I see. Well, this bangs Banagher. Banagher it bangs." What he meant I could not say. But he should have been a capital actor, because not a muscle of his face moved. A man behind him laughed--stinging me as with the lash of a whip. The big woman delivered herself of her former ejaculation. "Poor dear!" The potato washer remarked,-- "Strikes me, my girl, that you've a good opinion of yourself." The grey-headed man had his eyes upon what I had in my hand. "What might you happen to have there?" "It's some food which I have brought for you." "For me in particular, or for all the lot of us?" "It's for the seven." "The seven? I see. The seven who divided those two sovereigns." "Yes. It's some German sausage. I hope you like German sausage." "It's my favourite joint." I endeavoured to correct what I imagined to be a still further display of his ignorance. "I don't think that German sausage is a joint. It's not generally looked upon as such. It's a long, round, cold thing, off which, you know, they cut it in slices."