"Me ignorant of Shepherd Market. I don't think!" declared Mrs. Darling indignantly. "I 'aven't lived in it for thirty-five years for nothink. Why, there isn't a shop or a person I----" "Not so fast, Mrs. Darling. I was referring to London as a whole, of which Shepherd Market is as a needle in a haystack. And your knowledge even of the Market and its surroundings is purely superficial. I suppose you are not aware that Shepherd Market is the place where the fair, which gave Mayfair its name, was held up to the middle of the eighteenth century, and that the Market itself is nearly two hundred years old. No doubt you are also in ignorance of the fact that Kitty Fisher lived in Carrington Street: Kitty, the celebrated courtesan who married John Norris and gave herself up to repairing two dilapidated fortunes, thus proving the inaccuracy of the statement that the leopard cannot change its spots, and challenging the baseness and the scurvy malevolence of those 'little scribblers' who accused her of having 'neither sense nor wit, but only impudence'." "Well, sir, I must admit I _didn't_ know all them things." "Of course you didn't; but cheer up, it isn't too late to learn. What d'you say to our having some outings together? Suppose we make a start this afternoon? London's at its best on these calm autumn days." "What, _me_ and _you_?" "Yes--why not?" "'Spose we met any of yer grand friends? Me, in my ole plush coat I've 'ad this ten years. It's true I got a new 'at, ten and eleven at Selfridge's bargain basement, but a hat ain't everythink." "No, you certainly want more than that. But clothes, also, aren't everything. It's your company I hanker after, Mrs. Darling. I seek a virgin mind on which to make first impressions. I'm tired of people who _know everything_. In seeing things through your eyes I shall----" But Mrs. Darling interrupted the speaker to remark with a scandalised air that there wasn't much of the virgin about _her_, seeing she'd been married thirty-three years, and a widow too, not to speak of being the mother of four children. This drew forth from the Honourable George a charge of frivolity coupled with a long-winded explanation of his newly conceived idea, and an equally long-winded explanation of the benefit Mrs. Darling might derive from it. The listener, who had been standing first on one leg, then on the other, her mind racked by a suspicion that the potatoes would be reduced to pulp, made a reckless promise at the first pause, and then beat a precipitate retreat to her flat below. "'E gets worse and worse," she meditated, as she strained off the potatoes--just in time. "Talk about balmy--if this don't take the bun! But if it gives 'im any pleasure, it won't do me no 'arm. I'll go this once, just to pacify 'im. I bet 'e won't ask me again!" and Mrs. Darling's smile had a quality of grim humour.