erin' after a lydy's wyes, and with no one to learn 'em to
'er----"

"But, good heavens, I can't do that."

"No, Mr. Rash, but I could, if you was to leave 'er 'ere for a bit. I
could learn 'er to be a lydy in the course of a few weeks, and 'er so
quick to pick up. Then if you was to settle a little hincome on 'er
she wouldn't----"

Allerton took the bull by the horns. "She wouldn't be so likely to go
to the bad. That's what you mean, isn't it?"

Moving behind Allerton, who continued to stand on the hearthrug,
Steptoe began poking the embers, making them safe for the night.

"Did Mr. Rash ever notice that goin' to the bad, as 'e calls it, ain't
the syme for them as 'ave nothink as it looks to them as 'ave
everythink? When you're 'ungry for food you heats the first thing you
can lie your 'ands on; and when you're 'ungry for life you do the
first thing as'll promise you the good you're lookin' for. What people
like you and me is hapt to call goin' to the bad ain't mostly no more
than a 'ankerin' for good which nothink don't seem to feed."

Allerton smiled. "That sounds to me as if it might be dangerous
doctrine."

"What excuses the poor'll often seem dyngerous doctrine to the rich,
Mr. Rash. Our kind is awful afryde of their kind gettin' a little bit
of what they're longin' for, and especially 'ere in America. When
we've took from them most of the means of 'aving a little pleasure
lawful, we call it dyngerous if they tyke it unlawful like, and we go
to work and pass laws agynst them. Protectin' them agynst theirselves
we sye it is, and we go at it with a gun."

"But we're talking of----"

"Of the young lydy, sir. Quite so. It's on 'er account as I'm syin'
what I'm syin'. You arsk me if I think she'll go to the bad in cyse
we turn 'er out, and I sye that----"

Allerton started. "There's no question of our turning her out. She's
sick of it."

"Then that'd be my point, wouldn't it, sir? If she goes because she's
sick of it, why, then, natural like, she'll look somewhere else for
what--for what she didn't find with us. You may call it goin' to the
bad, but it'll be no more than tryin' to find in a wrong wye what life
'as denied 'er in a right one."

Allerton, who had never in his life been asked to bear moral
responsibility, was uneasy at this philosophy, changing the subject
abruptly.

"Where did she get the clothes?"

"Me and 'er, Mr. Rash, went to Margot's this mornin' and bought a
bunch of 'em."

"Th