With a word of thanks he went down the court, waited two or three minutes near the entrance, and then walked in the direction of the public-house. He had gone but a short distance, however, when he saw the two women come out. They stood gossiping for three or four minutes, and then the woman he was in search of came towards him, while the other went on down the street. 'Hello, Mr. Warbles!' Mrs. Phillips exclaimed when she came near to him; 'who would have thought of seeing you? Why, it is a year or more since you were here last, though I must say as your money comes every month regular; not as it goes far, I can tell you, for that girl is enough to eat one out of 'arth and 'ome.' 'Well, never mind that now,' he said impatiently, 'that will keep till we get upstairs. I have been up there and found that you were out. I want to have a talk with you. Where is the girl?' 'Ah, where indeed, Mr. Warbles; there is never no telling where Sal is; maybe she is in the next court, maybe she is the other side of town. She is allus on the move. I have locked up her boots sometimes, but it is no odds to Sal. She would just as lief go barefoot as not.' By this time they arrived at the door of the room, and after some fumbling in her pocket the woman produced the key and they went in. It was a poverty-stricken room; a rickety table and two chairs, a small bed in one corner and some straw with a ragged rug thrown over it in another, a kettle and a frying-pan, formed its whole furniture. Mr. Warbles looked round with an air of disgust. 'You ought to be able to do better than this, Kitty,' he said. 'I s'pose as I ought,' she said philosophically, 'but you know me, Warbles; it's the drink as does it.' 'The drink has done it in your case, surely enough,' he said, as he saw in his mind's eye a trim figure behind the bar of a country public-house, and looked at the coarse, bloated, untidy creature before him.'