tter, hiding the bright
windows, and leaving only a narrow doorway, through which light streamed
and made rainbow colours on the pavement outside. The noise of the
street was a racketting roar, hardly lower now than it had been all the
evening. Sally crouched at the window of the first floor flat, looking
down at the black roadway, and watching the stragglers from the Supply
Stores.

In the flat above there was the sound of one who sang, vamping an
accompaniment upon the piano and emphasising the simple time of his
carol by a dully stamped foot upon the floor. His foot--making in soft
slippers a dead "dump-dump-dump"--shook the ceiling of the Mintos'
flat. They could hear his dry voice huskily roaring, "There you are,
there you are, there you ain't--ain't--ain't." They had heard it a
thousand times, always with the familiar stamp. It was very gay. Old
Perce, as he was called, was a carver in a City restaurant. It was he
who received orders from the knowing; and in return for apparent
tit-bits he received acknowledgments in coin--twopence or threepence a
time. Therefore, when he reached home each evening, nicely cheery and
about a quarter drunk, his first act after having tea was to withdraw
from his pockets a paper bag or two--such as those supplied by banks for
the carriage of silver--which he would empty of greasy coppers. He piled
these coppers in mounds of twelve, and counted them over several times.
He then smoked his pipe, went into his front room, and played, "There
you are, there you are, there you ain't--ain't--ain't." Sally did not
remember ever having heard him sing anything else. He was singing it:
now with customary gusto. Sally thought he must be a very rich man. Old
Perce's wife, who let her practise on their piano, hinted as much. His
wages were low, she said, but in a week his tips often came to three or
four pounds. Three or four pounds! Whew! Sally's father only made
thirty-five shillings in a week, everything included. Mrs. Perce told
Sally many other things, which Sally shrewdly treasured in memory. It
was well to know these things, Sally thought: any day they might be ...
useful. For a girl not yet seventeen, Sally had a strangely abundant
sense of possible utilities. All old Perce's relatives were licensed
victuallers, she had learned; and one day he too would take a "little
'ouse" and stand behind his own bar, instead of behind the counter of a
city restaurant. Those would be days! "'Ave a trap a