The answer to his question was Pinkey, dishevelled, sweating in beads, covered with dust, her sleeves tucked up to the elbows, showing two arms as thick as pipe-stems. She flushed pink under the sweat and grime, feeling for her apron to wipe her face. They had not seen each other since the fight, for in a sudden revulsion of feeling Pinkey had decided that Chook was too handy with his fists to make a desirable bloke, and a change of address on the following Monday had enabled her to give him the slip easily. And after waiting at street corners till he was tired, Chook had returned to his old love, the two-up school. Pinkey broke the silence with a question that was furthest from her thoughts. "'Ow are yez sellin' yer peas?" Chook dropped his basket and roared with laughter. "If yer only come ter poke borak, yer better go," cried Pinkey, with an angry flush. Chook sobered instantly. "No 'arm meant," he said, quite humbly, "but yer gimme the knock-out every time I see yer. But wot are yez doin'?" he asked. "We're movin'," said Pinkey, with an important air. "Oh, are yez?" said Chook, looking round with interest. "Yous an' old Jimmy there?" He nodded familiarly to the vanman, who was filling his pipe. "Well, yer must excuse me, but I'm on in this act." "Wotcher mean?" said Pinkey, looking innocent, but she flushed with pleasure. "Nuthin'," said Chook, seizing the leg of a table; "but wait till I put the nosebag on the moke." "Whose cart is it?" inquired Pinkey. "Jack Ryan's," answered Chook; "'e's bin shickered since last We'n'sday, an' I'm takin' it round fer 'is missis an' the kids." Mrs Partridge received Chook very graciously when she learned that he was a friend of Pinkey's and had offered to help in passing. She had been reading a penny novelette under great difficulties, and furtively eating some slices of bread-and-butter which she had thoughtfully put in her pocket. But now she perked up under the eyes of this vigorous young man, and even attempted to help by carrying small objects round the room and then putting them back where she found them. In an hour the van was empty, and Jimmy was told to call next week for his money. It was well into the afternoon when Chook resumed his hawking with the cart and then only because Pinkey resolutely pushed him out of the door. Chook's previous love-affairs had all been conducted in the open air. Following the law of Cardigan Street, he met the girl at the street corner and spent the night in the park or the dance-room. Rarely, if she forgot the appointment, he would saunter past the house, and whistle till she came out. What passed within the house was no concern of his. Parents were his natural enemies, who regarded him with the eyes of a butcher watching a hungry dog. But his affair with Pinkey had been full of surprises, and this was not the least, that chance had given him an informal introduction to Pinkey's stepmother and the furniture.