’To her you were asking about,—­the Essex Street Beauty?  I should think she just was.  She’s a drinker, is poor Meg, and drinking in Primrose Court means starvation.  Meg and the Beauty were often short enough of grub, but, drunk or sober, Meg would never touch a mouthful till the Beauty had had her fill.  I noticed it many a time—­not a mouthful.  When Meg was obliged to send her into the streets to sell things she was always afraid that the Beauty might come to harm through the toffs and the chaps.  The toffs were the worst looking after her—­as they mostly are—­so I was always watching her in the day-time, and at night Meg was always watching her, and that was what made me know your face, as soon as ever I clapt eyes on it.’

‘Why, what do you mean?’

’Well, one rainy night when I was standing by the theatre door, I heard a toff ask a policeman about the Essex Street Beauty, and I thought I knew what that meant very well.  So I ran off to find Meg.  I had seen her watching the Beauty all the time.  But lo and behold!  Meg was gone and the Beauty too.  So I run across here, and found Meg and the Beauty getting their supper as quiet as possible.  Meg had heard the toff talking to the policeman—­though I didn’t know she was standing so near—­and whisked her off and away as quick as lightning.’

‘That was I,’ I said.  ‘God!  God!  If I had only known!’

’There’s the same look now on your face as there was then, and I should know it among ten thousand.’

‘Polly Onion,’ I said, ’there is my address, and if ever you want a friend, and if you are in trouble, you will know where to find assistance,’ and I gave her another sovereign.

‘You’re a good sort,’ said she, ‘and no mistake.’

‘Good-bye,’ I said, shaking her hand.  ‘See well after Mrs. Gudgeon.’

‘All right,’ said she, and a smile broke over her face.  ’I think I ought to tell you now,’ she continued, ’that Meg’s no more ill of dropsy than I am; she could walk twenty miles off the reel; there ain’t a bullock in England half as strong as Meg; she’s shamming.’

‘Shamming, but why?’

’Well, she ain’t drunk; ever since the Beauty died she’s never touched a drop o’ gin.  But she’s turned quite cranky.  She’s got it into her head that the relations of the Beauty are going to send her to prison for kidnapping; and she thinks that every one that comes near her is a policeman in plain clothes.  She’s just lying in bed to keep herself out of the way till she starts.’

‘Where’s she going, then?’

’She talks about going to see after her son Bob in the country; her husband is a Welshman.  He’s over the water.’

‘Did you say she had given up drinking?’ I asked.

’Yes; she seemed to dote on the Beauty, and when the Beauty died she said, “My darter went wrong through me drinkin’, and my son Bob went wrong through me drinkin’; and I feel somehow that it was through my drinkin’ that I lost the Beauty; and never will you find me touch another drop o’ gin, Poll.  Beer I ain’t fond on, and it ’ud take a rare swill o’ beer to get up as far as Meg Gudgeon’s head."’