“Kindness be ... oh, dear, now that’s twice in the last half hour I’ve nearly said that word. It comes of keeping company with Mr. Currie. Let me see, you won’t have heard of him, because he’s only been courting me since I gave the go-by to Watcher and Hopkins. He’s a very hasty-tempered man, and his language is a bit of a coloured supplement. Mrs. Bugbird passed the remark to me I’d really have to mind my p’s and q’s, and I said it wasn’t my p’s and q’s I had to look out for, it was my b’s and d’s. Of course, Mrs. Bugbird herself didn’t mind. Oh, no, she’s a very broad-minded woman. In fact her father, so she’s often told me, used to preach regularly at street corners against any kind of religion at all. But I shan’t keep this Currie hanging around much longer. No, he gets me into bad habits, and the next time he proposes marriage will be the last. Besides, even if I liked _him_, I don’t like his business which is fried fish. Fancy me in a fried-fish shop for the rest of my life! Why, I’d sooner marry an engine driver and live in a railway station. Well, an engine driver did propose to me once. But I saw he had the habit of driving too much, and that would never have suited me. Why, even of a Sunday afternoon he wasn’t happy if he couldn’t walk me round Greenwich Park at sixty miles an hour. I remember once just for a joke I started whistling the same as an engine might, and everybody stopped and begun staring, and which made him a bit annoyed. In fact he thought I was touched in my head, and that Sunday was his last. Well, he’s the only one of all my many who didn’t wait for me to say ‘no’ definite, but went and hooked it himself. And going back to the subject of my language this last month, it wouldn’t do at all if Letichia’s coming home with me, so I think I’ll drop him a p.c. and not wait for the third time of asking.” “Am I coming home with you, Mrs. Porridge?” Letizia asked, clapping her hands. “You’re coming home with me this blessed afternoon just as soon as your dear ma’s packed up your tiddlies. Your friend Mrs. Bugbird will be popping in, and we’ll have a sprat tea together. And dear Aggie Wilkinson’s dancing about on her pore crutches, because you’re coming home to your Mrs. Porridge.” She took Nancy aside, and continued in a lower voice. “I read between the lines of your letter, dearie, and I knew you didn’t want to come near Greenwich. So I just skipped into my Sunday best and come along to fetch her. She can stay as long as you like. I’d say she could stay for ever. Only she wants a better bringing-up than what a woman like me could give her.” “Oh, but I’m sure to get an engagement very soon, Mrs. Pottage, and then of course she’ll go on tour again with me. I wouldn’t have bothered you now, if I hadn’t thought you’d be glad to have her for a while, and if I hadn’t wanted to leave these rooms as soon as possible.” “And I don’t blame you. I’d sooner live in a dustbin. But where are you going when you leave here?”