“Not yet awhile. I’ve no fancy fer startin’ too soon an’ bein’ brought up with a jerk, an’ I wants ter myke sure of a comferble plyce ter begin with,” which showed me what I had always known, namely, that Belinda Ann was in many ways above her class. “I means ter ’ave a room ter myself any’ow,” she went on. “Why, ef you’ll berlieve me”—warming with her subject—“down Spitalfields wy there was once four families as ’ad one room atween ’em. They each ’ad one corner, an’ one man lived in the middle, but dear, they didn’t mind, an’ got on well enough till the man in the middle took in a lodger, an’ then there was a row ’cos they sed that was jest a little too much.” I heartily agreed, though the story was not new to me any more than it will be to you. We parted, having made an appointment for the following week, so a few days afterwards found me under her guidance, trying to find out something about the clubs. As we walked she showed me notices in various shop-windows of “Clubs held here,” but the one we finally entered was of a very humble description, and the proprietress, a wizened little hunchback, looked suspiciously at me and was most reluctant, even at Belinda Ann’s request, to explain the mode of procedure. There was not much to tell, she said stiffly, and nothing to see. The girls just paid their sixpence a week, and the number of members, of course, had to tally with the value of what they wanted. Hers was a boot-club, and, as coster girls are notoriously fastidious about the quality of their boots, seven-and-six and eight-and-six is the price aimed at, so she had fifteen members just now, and a friend of hers had seventeen. They were strictly honourable, and always “stood up” to what they had undertaken, even though they might find it a tax to produce the weekly subscription regularly; and when a girl had secured the article for which she had joined the club, she never by any chance “cried off,” but went on paying till all the members were supplied. Of course it was not everyone who could be admitted to these privileges, and, as a rule, strangers were not particularly welcomed unless well vouched for by an old member, as there was always the chance of their being winners early and then “crying off” the rest of their subscription. The club was mainly composed of friends who rarely met at the “club-holder’s,” except on the occasion of the weekly draw. Of course, if a girl could spare the money, there was no objection to her buying two tickets, thus enjoying two chances and also helping to hasten matters, and there had been cases where the members, hearing that one of their old “chums” (or “pals,” as they call it) was in sore want, voluntarily kept the club going another week, and then handed it all over to her, with the club-holder’s consent, of course.