‘Don’t say what?’ demanded he, much startled, in his present exalted condition, by her vigorous tone.

“Come up and see me some time.’ Honest, I spelled it that way long before I’d seen the film. I like it better that way. Must be different again, you see.’

‘Like the bath salts?’

‘That’s the idea. Well, we’re nearly there. Look, that’s Grandma’s, at the end of the row … and there she is, lookin’ out of the window, and young Stan and Auntie Cissie, and Uncle Ben. I expect they’re waitin’ tea for me. I must fly. Don’t you come no further. You pop off, there’s a good little boy. Thanks for the beautiful flowers.’

She held out her hand for the bath salts.

‘But please … I must see you again. Please. Won’t you give me your address and let me write to you? You can’t just go off like this and leave me—’

‘Oh, can’t I?’ said Mae with an e, sparkling.

‘No, you can’t. I shan’t let you. I will see you again. I must. Do, please, give me your address.’

‘I don’t see the good of it, but you can have my ’phone number at work if you like. Heythrop 4775. It’s Rozanne’s the hairdresser’s in Milton Street, near Warren Street Station.’

‘Heythrop 4775.’ He was writing it down. ‘And may I ring you up?’

‘I wouldn’t if I was you. Miss Pilkington (that’s Rozanne) she’s very down on us girls having private calls.’

‘But why do you give it me, if I mustn’t ring you up?’

‘Well, you asked for it. Anything to keep the baby quiet, I say. You can ring up one lunch time, between two and three. She’s out then. I don’t say I’ll be there, but I might be. Anyway, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Goodbye.’

Her look was always, he was to learn, far kinder than her words; she must have been the original person for whom the phrase about barks and bites was invented. Now, as she hurried away, she left him with the loveliest warm, friendly smile as though he and she were old friends.

Against her wishes he lingered there until he saw young Stan, Auntie Cissie and Uncle Ben come pouring out of the little house and engulf her, while at the window the head of Grandma bobbed approvingly up and down.

They all went inside; and the door was shut.

He turned slowly away. He had no idea where he was. This was a street of small, neat cottages which were of a better type and class than most of those lying round the Docks; it was called China Walk but he did not know how it lay in relation to Tartar Lane, because he had not noticed where they were going while he walked with Toby.

He stopped a young man and asked him the way there, turned back on his steps, and soon found Tartar Lane.

As once before when he had carried his father’s will, his fingers kept finding his inner pocket to make sure that a piece of paper was safe. As soon as he had collected the specimen of silica, he proposed to find a telephone box and look up Rozanne and see if there really was such a woman in Milton Street; for Toby, he felt sure, was quite capable of giving him a false address and number, and telling Stan, Auntie Cissie, Uncle Ben and Grandma, as an exquisite joke, all about him and his By Jove and what an ass she had made of him. She looked such a kind girl! but so sure of herself and gay, like one of those crisp, nutty sweets which are hard to bite when once the eighth of an inch of soft chocolate which coats them is dissolved.