ittle shudder.

'No.'

'What do you mean?'

'I've changed.' She paused. 'I think I shall have changed more by the
time I come out.'

'Come out?'

'Come out of prison.'

'You're not going to prison.'

'Yes, I am.'

'I won't take you.'

'Yes, you will. Think I'm going to let you get yourself in trouble like
that, to get me out of a fix? Not much.'

'You hop it, like a good girl.'

'Not me.'

He stood looking at her like a puzzled bear.

'They can't eat me.'

'They'll cut off all of your hair.'

'D'you like my hair?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it'll grow again.'

'Don't stand talking. Hop it.'

'I won't. Where's the station?'

'Next street.'

'Well, come along, then.'

* * * * *

The blue glass lamp of the police-station came into sight, and for an
instant she stopped. Then she was walking on again, her chin tilted.
But her voice shook a little as she spoke.

'Nearly there. Next stop, Battersea. All change! I say, mister--I don't
know your name.'

'Plimmer's my name, miss. Edward Plimmer.'

'I wonder if--I mean it'll be pretty lonely where I'm going--I wonder
if--What I mean is, it would be rather a lark, when I come out, if I
was to find a pal waiting for me to say "Hallo".'

Constable Plimmer braced his ample feet against the stones, and turned
purple.

'Miss,' he said, 'I'll be there, if I have to sit up all night. The
first thing you'll see when they open the doors is a great, ugly,
red-faced copper with big feet and a broken nose. And if you'll say
"Hallo" to him when he says "Hallo" to you, he'll be as pleased as
Punch and as proud as a duke. And, miss'--he clenched his hands till
the nails hurt the leathern flesh--'and, miss, there's just one thing
more I'd like to say. You'll be having a good deal of time to yourself
for awhile; you'll be able to do a good bit of thinking without anyone
to disturb you; and what I'd like you to give your mind to, if you
don't object, is just to think whether you can't forget that
narrow-chested, God-forsaken blighter who treated you so mean, and get
half-way fond of someone who knows jolly well you're the only girl
there is.'

She looked past him at the lamp which hung, blue and forbidding, over
the station door.

'How long'll I get?' she said. 'What will they give me? Thirty days?'

He nodded.

'It won't take me as long as that,' she said. 'I say, what do people
call you?--people who are fond of you, I mean?--Eddi