MRS. BARTHWICK. It goes all through the lower classes. You can not
tell when they are speaking the truth. To-day when I was shopping
after leaving the Holyroods, one of these unemployed came up and
spoke to me. I suppose I only had twenty yards or so to walk to the
carnage, but he seemed to spring up in the street.

BARTHWICK. Ah! You must be very careful whom you speak to in these
days.

MRS. BARTHWICK. I did n't answer him, of course. But I could see
at once that he wasn't telling the truth.

BARTHWICK. [Cracking a nut.] There's one very good rule--look at
their eyes.

JACK. Crackers, please, Dad.

BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] If their eyes are
straight-forward I sometimes give them sixpence. It 's against my
principles, but it's most difficult to refuse. If you see that
they're desperate, and dull, and shifty-looking, as so many of them
are, it's certain to mean drink, or crime, or something
unsatisfactory.

MRS. BARTHWICK. This man had dreadful eyes. He looked as if he
could commit a murder. "I 've 'ad nothing to eat to-day," he said.
Just like that.

BARTHWICK. What was William about? He ought to have been waiting.