Moggie, the general, knocked at Mr. Gammon’s
door, and was answered by a sleepy “Hallo?”
“Mrs. Bubb wants to know if you know what time
it is, sir? ’Cos it’s half-past eight
an’ more.”
“All right!” sounded cheerfully from within.
“Any letters for me?”
“Yes, sir; a ’eap.”
“Bring ’em up, and put ’em under
the door. And tell Mrs. Bubb I’ll have
breakfast in bed; you can put it down outside and shout.
And I say, Moggie, ask somebody to run across and
get me a ‘Police News’ and ‘Clippings’
and ’The Kennel’—understand?
Two eggs, Moggie, and three rashers, toasted crisp—understand?”
As the girl turned to descend a voice called to her
from another room on the same floor, a voice very
distinctly feminine, rather shrill, and a trifle imperative.
“Moggie, I want my hot water-sharp!”
“It ain’t nine yet, miss,” answered
Moggie in a tone of remonstrance.
“I know that—none of your cheek!
If you come up here hollering at people’s doors,
how can anyone sleep? Bring the hot water at once,
and mind it is hot.”
“You’ll have to wait till it gits
’ot, miss.”
“Shall I? If it wasn’t too
much trouble I’d come out and smack your face
for you, you dirty little wretch!”
The servant—she was about sixteen, and
no dirtier than became her position—scampered
down the stairs, burst into the cellar kitchen, and
in a high, tearful wail complained to her mistress
of the indignity she had suffered. There was
no living in the house with that Miss Sparkes, who
treated everybody like dirt under her feet. Smack
her face, would she? What next? And all because
she said the water would have to be ’otted.
And Mr. Gammon wanted his breakfast in bed, and—and—why,
there now, it had all been drove out of her mind by
that Miss Sparkes.
Mrs. Bubb, the landlady, was frying some sausages
for her first-floor lodgers; as usual at this hour
she wore (presumably over some invisible clothing)
a large shawl and a petticoat, her thin hair, black
streaked with grey, knotted and pinned into a ball
on the top of her head. Here and there about
the kitchen ran four children, who were snatching
a sort of picnic breakfast whilst they made ready
for school. They looked healthy enough, and gabbled,
laughed, sang, without heed to the elder folk.
Their mother, healthy too, and with no ill-natured
face-a slow, dull, sluggishly-mirthful woman of a
common London type-heard Moggie out, and shook up the
sausages before replying.
“Never you mind Miss Sparkes; I’ll give
her a talkin’ to when she comes down. What
was it as Mr. Gammon wanted? Breakfast in bed?
And what else? I never see such a girl for forgetting!”
“Well, didn’t I tell you as my ’ead
had never closed the top!” urged Moggie in plaintive
key. “How can I ’elp myself?”
