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Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes by Arnold Bennett
page 105 of 254 (41%)

'You have had it, madam.'

'Oh,' said Lily, 'I have had it, have I? Now, none of your nonsense,
young man! Do you know who I am? I'm Mrs. Albert Shawn.'

'Mr. Randall,' the cashier called out coldly, and a grave and gigantic
shopwalker appeared who knew not the name of Albert Shawn, and who
firmly told Mrs. Shawn that if she wished to make a complaint she must
make it at the Central Inquiry Office, ground-floor, Department 1A.

Lily had been brazenly robbed at Hugo's by an employé of Hugo! She was
elbowed away by other women apparently anxious to be robbed. She wanted
to cry, but suddenly remembering her identity, and her pass to the
presence of Hugo, she threw up her head and marched off through the
crowds.

She had not proceeded twenty yards before she was stopped by a group of
persons round a policeman--a policeman obviously called in from Sloane
Street. A stout woman of lady-like appearance had been arrested on a
charge of attempted pocket-picking. An accusatory shopwalker charged
her, and she replied warmly that she was Lady Brice (_née_
Kentucky-Webster), the American wife of the well-known philanthropist,
and that her carriage was waiting outside. The policeman and the
shopwalker smiled. It was so easy to be the wife of a well-known
philanthropist, and in these days all the best pickpockets had their
carriages waiting outside.

'I know this lady by sight,' said Lily. 'She visited the common-rooms
last year to see the arrangements, with Mr. Hugo, and he called her Lady
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