“There’ll be that _doctor_ to pay! And it’ll be the _rent_ again in three weeks’ time! It’s _always_ being the rent, in this place, Tots! It _never_ was at home. And _I_ haven’t got any money saved now that I’ve bought that bicycle for Saturday afternoons. Isn’t it perfectly awful? Hurp, hurp! Oh, girls at home who get doctors and dentists and washing and everything _f-found_ for them, hurp! are so fond of _envying_ girls who earn their own livings because it’s so free and independent—how _can_ they? _They_ wouldn’t want to earn their horrible livings if they _only_ knew how ghastly it was as soon as you got ill and hadn’t anything but a few shillings between you and goodness knows!” “‘_Earned increment is sweet, but that unearned is sweeter_,’” I quoted bitterly. “Oh, you laugh at everything, Tots! This is serious. _S-s-s-seven-and-sixpence!_ That’s all I’ve got left in the whole wide world! And _you’ve_ nothing but your twenty-five bob a week!” (Yes! I thought; and even that modest salary will be lost to me to-morrow. For when I tell the Governor that I find I can’t accept his offer, he’s pretty certain to sack me. After his allusion to my “work,” after Mr. Dundonald’s “warrrnings,” what else need I expect? But this wasn’t the moment to tell my poor, distracted chum my own bit of bad luck. Even if we _were_ both out of work and on those rocks together, it must, for the present at least, be kept from _her_.) “Now look here, don’t you worry,” I said, more cheerfully than I felt. “You _know_ you’re no end of a ‘find’ as a mannequin, because you’ve got the voice that goes with the figure. It must be rather a shock when Madame’s clients ask something that looks like a young duchess in a dream of a gown ‘_What did you say the price was?_’ and get told in the accents of Whitechapel ‘_Twenty-ite paounds, Madam!_’ That’s the pull _you’ve_ got, so you know you’re sure of another good place as soon as your foot’s right. Until then I—I can manage perfectly well for the two of us. What about something to eat? Mrs. Skinner coming back to cook to-night?”—Mrs. Skinner is _supposed_ to “do” for us. I often think that, in another sense, she _will_! “No. She’s off for the whole day to go to a funeral. You said she might, this morning.” “So I did. I thought it was a week ago—it feels like it. Well, I’ll get supper.” * * * * * As I passed into our little dark cubby-hole of a kitchen, I saw something that I’d overlooked before—a letter left lying on the mat, as it had dropped through the letter-box. I picked it up. It was addressed to me. And at the sight of the thin foreign envelope and the South African stamp my heart sank even lower. I had a presentiment that I hadn’t come to the worst yet.