The last time I had a long gossip with her was about two years ago when
she came to me instead of to Ernest. She said she had seen a cab drive
up just as she was going to enter the staircase, and had seen Mr
Pontifex's pa put his Beelzebub old head out of the window, so she had
come on to me, for she hadn't greased her sides for no curtsey, not for
the likes of him. She professed to be very much down on her luck. Her
lodgers did use her so dreadful, going away without paying and leaving
not so much as a stick behind, but to-day she was as pleased as a penny
carrot. She had had such a lovely dinner--a cushion of ham and green
peas. She had had a good cry over it, but then she was so silly, she
was.
"And there's that Bell," she continued, though I could not detect any
appearance of connection, "it's enough to give anyone the hump to see him
now that he's taken to chapel-going, and his mother's prepared to meet
Jesus and all that to me, and now she ain't a-going to die, and drinks
half a bottle of champagne a day, and then Grigg, him as preaches, you
know, asked Bell if I really was too gay, not but what when I was young
I'd snap my fingers at any 'fly by night' in Holborn, and if I was togged
out and had my teeth I'd do it now.
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