e wore her best shoes, small and neat, with high French
heels.

Jonah looked at the girl with satisfaction, but she stirred no
sentiment, for all women were alike to him. His view of them was
purely animal. The procession of Chook's loves crossed his mind, and he
smiled. At regular intervals Chook "went balmy" over some girl or
other, and, while the fit lasted, worshipped her as a savage worships
an idol. And Jonah was stupefied by this passionate preference for one
woman. He had never felt that way for Ada.

He returned to his own affairs. Marriage meant a wife, a family, and
steady work, for Ada would leave the factory if he married her. The
thought filled him with weariness. The vagabond in him recoiled from
the set labours and common burdens of his kind. Ever since he could
remember he had been more at home in the streets than in the four walls
of a room. The Push, the corner, the noise and movement of the
streets--that was life for him. And he decided the matter for ever;
there was nothing in it.

But, as the months slipped by, and Jonah remained impregnable to her
masked batteries, Mrs Yabsley attacked him openly. Jonah stood his
ground, and pointed out, with cynical candour, his unfitness to keep a
wife. But Mrs Yabsley seized the opportunity to sketch out a career
for him, with voluminous instances, for she had foreseen and arranged
all that.

"An' 'oo's ter blame fer that?" she cried, "a feller that oughter be
gittin' 'is three pounds a week. W'y, look at Dave Brown. Don't I
remember the time 'e used ter 'awk a basket o' fish on Fridays, an'
doss in park? An' now 'e goes round in a white shirt, an' draws 'is
rents. An' mark me, it was gittin' married did that fer 'im. W'en a
man's married, 'e's got somethin' better to do than smokin' cigarettes
an' playin' a mouth-orgin."

"Yes," said Jonah, grinning. "Git up an' light the fire, an' graft 'is
bloomin' 'ead off."

Mrs Yabsley feigned deafness.

"Anyhow, 'e didn't git 'is 'ouses 'awkin' fish," pursued Jonah; "'e got
'em while 'e kep' a pub."

Then, with feverish vivacity, Mrs Yabsley mapped out half a dozen
careers for him, chiefly in connection with a shop, for to her, who
lived by the sweat of her brow, shopkeepers were aristocrats, living in
splendid ease.

"It's no go, missis," said Jonah. "Marriage is all right fer them as
don't know better, but anyhow, it ain't wot it's cracked up ter be."

He avoided the house for some weeks