the sack?"

"The whole of it, Lois--and now I'm selling it cheap."

The girl laughed aloud, but there were tears in her eyes while she did
so. What a day for them both. She was angry almost with him for telling
her.

"Why, if father ain't a-gettin' on the prophet line--he said you would,
Alb. So help me rummy, I was that angry with him I couldn't hear myself
speak. And now it's all come true. Why, Alb, dear--and I wanted to tell
you--"

She could not finish the sentence for a sob that almost choked her. The
regular customers of the room had turned to stare at the sound of such
unwonted hilarity. Dinner was far too serious a business for most of
them that laughter should serve it.

"What was your father saying, Lois?"

"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking
about you the fatter I should be."

"How did he know what was going to happen?"

"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white
rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day
over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I
do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."

"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"

"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey
cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people,
Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till
the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the
ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the
bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew
you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't
afford to associate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so
mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was
just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is
taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on
such a day as this--blimme."

Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely
vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her
nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood
that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and
daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss
it.

"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he