Almost reluctantly he pursued: "Got 'er photograph 'ere." But he did not
get up at once, and we turned to the fountain-pens. "Any nib," he said,
"crossed ever so, _I_ could mend it. Kep' the books too; we was always
stocktaking."
Now I think of it, fountain-pen shops always _are_ stocktaking. They do
it all down the Strand, with big red labels across the front.
He rose suddenly and crossed to his locker to look for her photograph,
returning after a few minutes with a bundle of little cardboards. The
first I turned over was that of a pretty fair-haired girl. "Is that
her?" I asked. "She's pretty!" "That's 'er young sister," he answered. I
turned over the rest, and he pointed out his family one by one--last of
all his girl.
There are some men who are not taken in by a bit of fair hair.
One knows what these cheap photographs are, how they distort and
blacken. The girl who looked at me from this one appeared to be a
monster.
She had an enormous face, enormous spectacles, bands of galvanized iron
drawn across her forehead for hair....
"Ther's just them two, 'er an 'er sister. 'Er sister ain't got a feller
yet."