So I was engaged as mistress to Minnie Saxe, and I am glad to say that I gave satisfaction. On the first morning, just before she went, she asked candidly if there was anything I “wanted done different,” and the few suggestions which I made were never forgotten. “And there’s just one thing,” she said at the door. “If my fawther comes round ’ere subbin’--I mean wanting a shillin’ or two o’ my money what’s comin’--’e ain’t to ’ave nutthink. If ’e says I sent ’im, jest tell ’im ’e’s a liar.” “Do you have trouble with your father?” “Should do, if I took my eye off of ’im. ’E’s afride of me.” I could understand that. I tried to say something delicate and sympathetic about the wide spread evils of intemperance, Minnie Saxe looked puzzled. “Watcher mean, miss? Drink? Why, ’e’s a life-long teetotal. No, it’s sweets as ’e can’t keep awye from--sugar an’ choclit, an’ pyestry, and ice-creams from the Italyuns. ’E’s no better nor a child--mikin’ ’isself a laughin’-stock an’ wyestin’ ’is money. And if I ’ont give ’im none for such truck ’e’s as cunnin’ as a cart-load of monkeys about gettin’ it. That’s why I dropped you that word o’ warnin’.” The word of warning was wanted. Her father called a few days later to say that Minnie had asked him to look in on his way back from work to ask the kindness of sixpence in advance as they had friends to supper. He was a fat little man with a round innocent face, and really looked much younger than his daughter. I lectured him severely and he made no defence. “I did think that sixpence was a cert,” he said sadly. “But there--she don’t leave one no chawnst.” I consoled him with a large slice of cake. But unfortunately Minnie found him in the street in the act of devouring it. “And,” she told me, “of course I knowed that kike by sight. And a pretty dressin’-down I give ’im fur ’is cadgin’ wyes.” He worked for a book-binder when he could get a job, and was also intermittently a house-painter and a night-watchman.