Then she asked him had he seen anyone that day, and he described some of the people he had seen. As he described she told histories, so that presently for René Mitcham Mews seemed a place bursting with human energy, passions, disasters, jokes, follies, and frailties--just the sort of place he had been seeking. There was Old Lunt, who sold ballads and wrote letters for the people who had never learned to write; there was Maggie, who went out as a midwife to keep the families of her two daughters; Bellfield the furniture-remover, who had a strange young man come to see him sometimes, who was like no one else in the world; Mr. Martin, who used to keep the livery at the end of the mews and had now gone in for taxicabs; Fat Bessie, who went out charring and had an idiot son to whom her whole life was devoted; Billy and Click, who were wrong 'uns, dirty wrong 'uns, but too clever to be caught, though they would be one day. "A bright lot," said Ann. "And then, of course, there's me--and you. They'll laugh at you at first. They laugh at everything and everybody new. But you mustn't mind that. They'll borrow money from you, but don't you never lend them more than sixpence, if it's Maggie or Bessie; twopence if it's any of the men." "And who," asked René, "is the girl with the baby?" "Oh, that's Rita. Baby? She's got four, and another coming. She's all right. Bit washed out with it. Makes her stupid and sly. But she's all right, and Joe's a good sort. One o' them as is always in and out of work. I dunno why. I think he's the sort as can't work with a beast above him. 'Lectrician. If you want a feller to talk, he's the one." "I think your talk's about as good as I could have, Ann." Her face lighted up. "Is it? I _am_ glad. Ooh! It is nice to have you call me that. D'you know, I couldn't stop thinking of you all day long. And it didn't stop me working neither. I did best day I've done for a long time." "And all day long I looked out of the window." III MR. MARTIN The innocencie that is in me is a kinde of simple-plaine innocencie without vigor or art. THE next morning brought a letter from Professor Smallman: