I had walked so slowly and stopped so often that it was two o'clock in
the afternoon when I passed through Aldgate.
I was then faint for want of food, so I looked out for a tea-shop or
restaurant.
I passed several such places before I found the modest house I wanted.
Then I stepped into it rather nervously and took the seat nearest the
door.
It was an oblong room with red plush seats along the walls behind a line
of marble-topped tables. The customers were all men, chiefly clerks and
warehousemen, I thought, and the attendants were girls in black frocks
and white aprons.
There seemed to be a constant fire of free-and-easy flirtation going on
between them. At one table a man in a cloth cap was saying to the girl
who had served him:
"What's the damage, dearie?"
"One roast, one veg, two breads--'levenpence, and no liberties, mister."
"Sunday off, Em'ly?" said a youth in a red tie at another table, and
being told it was, he said:
"Then what do you say to 'oppin' up to 'Endon and 'aving a day in a
boat?"
I had to wait some time before anybody came to attend to me, but at
length a girl from the other end of the room, who had taken no part in
these amatory exchanges, stepped up and asked what I wanted.
I ordered a glass of cold milk and a scone for myself and a pint of hot
milk to replenish baby's bottle.
The girl served me immediately, and after rinsing and refilling the
feeding-bottle she stood near while the baby used it.
She had quiet eyes and that indefinable expression of yearning
tenderness which we sometimes see in the eyes of a dear old maid who has
missed her motherhood.
The shop had been clearing rapidly; and as soon as the men were gone,
and while the other girls were sitting in corners to read penny
novelettes, my waitress leaned over and asked me if I did not wish to go
into the private room to attend to baby.
A moment afterwards I followed her into a small apartment at the end of
the shop, and there a curious thing occurred.
She closed the door behind us and asked me in an eager whisper to allow
her to see to baby.