lour you could tell that they had been
quarrelling as usual, because she had insisted on coming with Chook to
carry one of the chaff-bags. And now, as she came into the light of
the arcades, she looked like a half-drowned sparrow. The rain dripped
from her hat, and the shabby thin skirt clung to her legs like a wet
dishcloth. Chook looked at her with rage in his heart. These trips to
the market always rolled his pride in the mud, the pride of the male
who is willing to work his fingers to the bone to provide his mate with
fine plumage.

The cares of the shop had told on Pinkey's looks, for the last two
years spent with Chook's mother had been like a long honeymoon, and
Pinkey had led the life of a lady, with nothing to do but scrub and
wash and help Chook's mother keep her house like a new pin. So she
had grown plump and pert like a well-fed sparrow, but the care and
worry of the new shop had sharpened the angles of her body. Not that
Pinkey cared. She had the instinct for property, the passionate desire
to call something her own, an instinct that lay dormant and undeveloped
while she lived among other people's belongings. Moreover, she had
discovered a born talent for shopkeeping. With her natural desire to
please, she enchanted the customers, welcoming them with a special
smile, and never forgetting to remember that it was Mrs Brown's third
child that had the measles, and that Mrs Smith's case puzzled the
doctors. They only wanted a horse and cart, so that she could mind the
shop while Chook went hawking about the streets, and their fortunes
were made. But this morning the rain and Chook's temper had damped her
spirits, and she looked round with dismay on the cold, silent arcades,
recalling with a passionate longing the same spaces transformed by
night into the noisy, picturesque bazaar through which she had been
accustomed to saunter as an idler walks the block on a Saturday morning.

Pinkey waited, shivering in a corner, while Chook did the buying. He
walked along the stalls, eyeing the sellers and their goods with the
air of a freebooter, for, as he always had more impudence than cash, he
was a redoubtable customer. There was always a touch of comedy in
Chook's buying, and the Chinamen knew and dreaded him, instantly on the
defensive, guarding their precious cabbages against his predatory
fingers, while Chook parted with his shillings as cheerfully as a
lioness parts with her cubs. A pile of superb