nner.

'Cool, very cool,' said Butty, approvingly, 'fine girl, fine girl.' He
passed his tongue over his lips, which had suddenly gone dry.

When Victoria returned to her seat Lottie had not moved; Bella sat deep
in her own despair, but, behind the counter, Cora and Gladys were fixing
two stern pairs of eyes upon the favourite.

CHAPTER XV

'YES, sir, yes sir; I've got your order,' cried Victoria to a middle
aged man, whose face reddened with every minute of waiting. 'Steak, sir?
Yes, sir, that'll be eight minutes. And sautees, yes sir. Gladys, send
Dicky up to four. What was yours, sir? Wing twopence extra. No bread?
Oh, sorry, sir, thought you said Worcester.'

Victoria dashed away to the counter. This was the busy hour. In her
brain a hurtle of food stuffs and condiments automatically sorted itself
out.

'Now then, hurry up with that chop,' she snapped, thrusting her head
almost through the kitchen window.

''Oo are you,' growled the cook over her shoulder. 'Empress of Germany?
I don't think.'

'Oh, shut it, Maria, hand it over; now then Cora, where you pushing to?'
Victoria edged Cora back from the window, seized the chop and rushed
back to her tables.

The bustle increased; it was close on one o'clock, an hour when the
slaves drop their oars, and for a while leave the thwarts of many
groans. The Rosebud had nearly filled up. Almost every table was
occupied by young men, most of them reading a paper propped up against a
cruet, some a Temple Classic, its pages kept open by the weight of the
plate edge. A steady hum of talk came from those who did not read, and,
mingled with the clatter of knives and forks, produced that atmosphere
of mongrel sound that floats into the ears like a restless wave.

Victoria stepped briskly between the tables, collecting orders, deftly
making out bill after bill, smoothing tempers ruffled here and there by
a wrongful attribution of food.

'Yes sir, cutlets. No veg? Cauli? Yes sir.'

She almost ran up and down as half-past one struck and the young men
asked for coffees, small coffees, small blacks, china teas. From time to
time she could breathe and linger for some seconds by a youth who
audaciously played with the pencil and foil suspended from her waist. Or
she exchanged a pleasantry.

'Now then, Nevy, none of your larks.' Victoria turned round sharply and
caught a hand engaged in forcing a piece of sugar into her belt.

Nevy, otherwise Neville Brown, laughed a