"A precious sight worse," said Blooming Bess, with a reckless laugh. "Oh, let him get at me if he likes! Who cares? I don't. But I'll tell him what he wants, never fear. She's a respectable one, she is! When I went to the bad, passed me by as if I was so much dirt. Wouldn't look at me--wouldn't speak to me; holding her frock like this, for fear I should touch it. And now what is she, I'd like to know? Better than me--or worse?" Mr. Parkinson groaned. "Groan away; much good it'll do you. It won't bring her back; and if it did, who'd look at her? Not me. She's come down, with all her stuck-up pride. I'm as good as her, any day of the week!" "Come, come, Bess," said a man in the crowd, "you're not a bad sort; let us have the truth, like a good girl." "Oh, yes, I'm a real good un now you want to get something out of me! But never mind; here goes. It was in the middle of the night, and I didn't have a brass farthing in my pockets. They turned me out because I couldn't pay for my bed. It wasn't the first time, and won't be the last. So out I goes, and here I am in the middle of this very street, when a swell comes up to me, and says, says he, 'Do you want to earn half a bull?' I laughs, and holds out my hand, and he puts sixpence in it, and says, says he, 'The other two bob when you tell me what I want to know.'" "Are you making this up out of your head, Bess?" "Not me! not clever enough. Never was one of the clever ones, or I'd be a jolly sight better off. Then the swell asks me if I can tell him the names of the people that lives in the street, and plump upon that asks me if I can keep a secret. I thought he was kidding me, I give you my word, and I says, 'Make it worth my while.' With that he promises me five bob, and I walks with him, or he walks with me--it don't matter which, does it?--from one end of the street to the other, and I tell him everybody that lives in it. 'Who lives here?' says he, and 'Who lives here?' says he; and thinks I, this is a rum game; wonder what he's up to! But it ain't my business, is it? My business is to earn five bob, and earn it easy; and when I have told him all he wanted, he gives me four bob and a bender, and sends me off. What can you make of all that?" "Not much," said the man who had taken her in hand. Mr. Parkinson could not trust himself to speak, and Mark Inglefield did not dare. "What time was it when this occurred?" "By my gold watch," replied the girl, "with a fine sarcasm, it was half-past the middle of the night. Perhaps a minute or two more. I like to be particular." "And that is all you know? You can't tell us anything more?" "Oh, I didn't say that, did I? All? Not a bit of it. Why, the cream's to come. It's only skim-milk you've got as yet." "Let's hear the end of it, Bess," said the man, coaxingly.