Again Philip's hand was enclosed in the hand of the lady. Nothing in the world mattered except that strong hot cup of tea, that bread and butter, that rasher, whatever a rasher was! As they walked through the empty streets, the kettle boiled before him on a fire of mirage, the slaver of his hunger rimmed his tongue, the "rasher" was frying ghostlily like a tail of fish on his mother's pan. He heard her moaning musically over his head, like the doves in the immemorial elms. It was a strange farrago of Arthurs and Berthas and mulberry trees. He made no effort to follow the wanderings of her mind, which now and again would reach indignantly the brick wall of her late dismissal. Street succeeded street blankly and he found her shuffling at last for a key. They entered the dark lobby of a house. "Go quiet, kid!" she murmured, "Rosie's got a pal in the parlour to-night, I think!" They entered a room and the lady lit the gas, revealing a large soft bed that dominated the apartment. There was a table in a corner where stood a few utensils and a portable cooking-jet on a small round of oilcloth. "I'll tell you what, Arthur!" she said, "You'd best undress yourself and get into bed. I'll get your rasher ready in a jiffy." Philip looked shyly up to her. He was not too faint to be unaffected by the thought of undressing before a strange lady. "I don't like," he muttered. "It's all right," she assured him, "I'm used to it!" "Perhaps you've got boys of your own?" Philip suggested helpfully. "Oh yes, I've got lots of boys!" He was tremendously tired. How invitingly that soft bed displayed its fat pillows. "I say, please!" he said awkwardly. "Will you look the other way?" She tittered soundlessly. He saw she had a succession of chins and that each vibrated to her mirth. "All right, kid, I'm getting on with the food." As he undressed, she cut the white bread into healthy slices and buttered them abundantly. Drowsily he saw her making the tea and he was almost asleep when he heard a loud simmering in a pan. He looked up, his mouth watering, and saw, impaled on her fork, a semi-translucent wafer of striped meat. He shook off the mist of sleep. "Tell me, if you don't mind. Is that a rasher?" "Of course it is!" "What is a rasher?" "Bless my soul, bacon, _of_ course!" "Please, please!" he exclaimed. "I daren't eat bacon. I can't eat bacon!" "That's how it is, is it?" She came closer curiously and examined his face. "Hum, yes! You're a little Jew-boy, aren't you?" "I am!" He wondered what it was going to mean. Would she send him back into the night hungry, faint to death? Who could fathom the attitude of a given Gentile, man or woman, towards any accidental Jew-boy?