He laid his hand on her arm, and pressed it warningly. “Hush!” he said, under his breath. “We’ll talk about that, after the lecture.” His bright shifty black eyes turned furtively towards Phoebe--and Mrs. Sowler noticed it. The girl’s savings in service had paid for his jewelry and his fine clothes. She silently resented his rudeness in telling her to “hold her tongue”; sitting, sullen, with her impudent little nose in the air. Jervy tried to include her indirectly in his conversation with his shabby old friend. “This young lady,” he said, “knows Mr. Goldenheart. She feels sure he’ll break down; and we’ve come here to see the fun. I don’t hold with Socialism myself--I am for, what my favourite newspaper calls, the Altar and the Throne. In short, my politics are Conservative.” “Your politics are in your girl’s pocket,” muttered Mrs. Sowler. “How long will her money last?” Jervy turned a deaf ear to the interruption. “And what has brought you here?” he went on, in his most ingratiating way. “Did you see the advertisement in the papers?” Mrs. Sowler answered loud enough to be heard above the hum of talking in the sixpenny places. “I was having a drop of gin, and I saw the paper at the public-house. I’m one of the discontented poor. I hate rich people; and I’m ready to pay my sixpence to hear them abused.” “Hear, hear!” said a man near, who looked like a shoemaker. “I hope he’ll give it to the aristocracy,” added one of the shoemaker’s neighbours, apparently a groom out of place. “I’m sick of the aristocracy,” cried a woman with a fiery face and a crushed bonnet. “It’s them as swallows up the money. What business have they with their palaces and their parks, when my husband’s out of work, and my children hungry at home?” The acquiescent shoemaker listened with admiration. “Very well put,” he said; “very well put.” These expressions of popular feeling reached the respectable ears of Mr. Farnaby. “Do you hear those wretches?” he said to his wife. Mrs. Farnaby seized the welcome opportunity of irritating him. “Poor things!” she answered. “In their place, we should talk as they do.” “You had better go into the reserved seats,” rejoined her husband, turning from her with a look of disgust. “There’s plenty of room. Why do you stop here?” “I couldn’t think of leaving you, my dear! How did you like my American friend?” “I am astonished at your taking the liberty of introducing him to me. You knew perfectly well that I was here incognito. What do I care about a wandering American?” Mrs. Farnaby persisted as maliciously as ever. “Ah, but you see, I like him. The wandering American is my ally.” “Your ally! What do you mean?”