“Sophy said there was a Wish ’Ouse in Wadloes Road--just a few streets off, on the way to our green-grocer’s. All you ’ad to do, she said, was to ring the bell an’ wish your wish through the slit o’ the letter-box. I asked ’er if the fairies give it ’er? ‘Don’t ye know,’ she says, ‘there’s no fairies in a Wish ’Ouse? There’s only a Token.’” “Goo’ Lord A’mighty! Where did she come by _that_ word?” cried Mrs. Fettley; for a Token is a wraith of the dead or, worse still, of the living. “The caravan-girl ’ad told ’er, she said. Well, Liz, it troubled me to ’ear ’er, an’ lyin’ in me arms she must ha’ felt it. ‘That’s very kind o’ you,’ I says, holdin’ ’er tight, ‘to wish me ’eddick away. But why didn’t ye ask somethin’ nice for yourself?’ ‘You can’t do that,’ she says. ‘All you’ll get at a Wish ’Ouse is leave to take some one else’s trouble. I’ve took Ma’s ’eadaches, when she’s been kind to me; but this is the first time I’ve been able to do aught for you. Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft, I _do_ just-about love you.’ An’ she goes on all like that. Liz, I tell you my ’air e’en a’most stood on end to ’ear ’er. I asked ’er what like a Token was. ‘I dunno,’ she says, ‘but after you’ve ringed the bell, you’ll ’ear it run up from the basement, to the front door. Then say your wish,’ she says, ‘an’ go away.’ ‘The Token don’t open de door to ye, then?’ I says. ‘Oh, no,’ she says. ‘You on’y ’ear gigglin’, like, be’ind the front door. Then you say you’ll take the trouble off of ’oo ever ’tis you’ve chose for your love; an’ ye’ll get it,’ she says. I didn’t ask no more--she was too ’ot an’ fevered. I made much of ’er till it come time to light de gas, an’ a liddle after that, ’er ’eddick--mine, I suppose--took off, an’ she got down an’ played with the cat.” “Well, I never!” said Mrs. Fettley. “Did--did ye foller it up, anyways?” “She askt me to, but I wouldn’t ’ave no such dealin’s with a child.” “What _did_ ye do, then?” “’Sat in me own room ’stid o’ the kitchen when me ’eddicks come on. But it lay at de back o’ me mind.” “’Twould. Did she tell ye more, ever?” “No. Besides what the Gippo girl ’ad told ’er, she knew naught, ’cept that the charm worked. An’, next after that--in May ’twas--I suffered the summer out in Lunnon. ’Twas hot an’ windy for weeks, an’ the streets stinkin’ o’ dried ’orse-dung blowin’ from side to side an’ lyin’ level with the kerb. We don’t get that nowadays. I ’ad my ’ol’day just before hoppin’,[2] an’ come down ’ere to stay with Bessie again. She noticed I’d lost flesh, an’ was all poochy under the eyes.” “Did ye see ’Arry?”