"You expect to live in that way?" he said.

"Ain't nothin' else fer me to do. Wisht I was better lookin'. But I've
got a lot of 'air," clawing her mop, "an' it's red. One day,"
chuckling, "a gent ses to me--he ses: 'Oh! yer'll do. Yer an ugly
little devil--but ye ARE a devil.'"

She was leading him through a narrow, filthy back street, and she
stopped, grinning up in his face.

"I say, mister," she wheedled, "let's stop at the cawfee-stand. It's up
this way."

When he acceded and followed her, she quickly turned a corner. They were
in another lane thick with fog, which flared with the flame of torches
stuck in costers' barrows which stood here and there--barrows with
fried fish upon them, barrows with second-hand-looking vegetables and
others piled with more than second-hand-looking garments. Trade was not
driving, but near one or two of them dirty, ill-used looking women, a
man or so, and a few children stood. At a corner which led into a black
hole of a court, a coffee-stand was stationed, in charge of a burly
ruffian in corduroys.

"Come along," said the girl. "There it is. It ain't strong, but it's
'ot."

She sidled up to the stand, drawing Dart with her, as if glad of his
protection.

"'Ello, Barney," she said. "'Ere's a gent warnts a mug o' yer best.