don were to go on soiling her nice white
steps.

Pa, for that matter, found nothing in the bunch, not one in twenty that
was any good; or else they made exhorbitant demands--two shillings a day
those guttersnipes expected--as though shillings were to be had for the
asking! But why look so far? There were girls, sometimes, at the back
entrances of the theaters: stage-struck kids who devoured Lily with their
eyes and looked at Pa as though to say, "Take me, take me!" That's what he
wanted, damn it, girls who had the business in their blood and who
wouldn't go whining over a professional slap or two, which he dared say
he'd have to distribute to make up for lost time.

[Illustration: "TAKE ME, TAKE ME!"]

The first girl whom he engaged he had already seen gazing ecstatically at
Lily, as they left the theater, far away down the Mile End Road, and he
saw her again, one morning, in front of his house in the very heart of
London! He could not believe his eyes. She must have followed his scent,
slept on the threshold like a lost dog. Her Pa? Gone away. Her Ma? Dead.
Her name? Maud. Her age? Didn't know. Born somewhere in the immensity of
Whitechapel, towheaded, round-faced. Nothing to eat for two days. She'd
do! He would go to the police-court, get the license later; meantime, he
netted her and that was one!

As regards the others, he had to make a selection. He chose them by
preference in families which were overstocked with brats, so that one more
or less, in the heap, made no difference. He got one this way; that made
two! Next, a "local girl," seized with ambition, came and offered herself.
Three! He found two others: a little Beak Street shop-girl and a
Shoreditch Jewess. That made five. It did not take him long to judge the
girls. He gave them a few days' trial before signing a contract; and what
an anxiety for them, Mr. Clifton's final decision! If one trembled too
much, was caught holding Pa's shoulder for no reason, for fear of falling,
or blubbered because of a scratch on the skin, her fate was settled.

"Pack up, my lady," Pa would say quite calmly.

There was no getting out of it: off she had to go, before dinner, and home
she went, through the gloomy streets, after a brief glimpse of paradise.

He had to replace some of them: they were slack; or else, independent at
times, they looked at him for the least push, as if they would fly at his
throat. He asked himself whether he wouldn't be compelled to get some o