Volume Ii Part 4 (1/2)

Suddenly she was awoke by the policeman's grasp.

'Well, old 'oman,' said he, 'you've been having a nice time of it here.'

'And why not?' said she, waking up to a sense of her condition. 'Why not? What's the harm of sleeping out here? I arn't kicking up a row-I arn't creating a disturbance-I arn't screaming ”Perlice!” am I? I arn't in no ways disrespectful or aggravatin'-why can't you let me be?'

''Cause it is agin the perlice regulations,' was the reply.

'The perlice regulations, what are they?'

'Why, that you must not stop here, and it is as much as my place is worth to let you.'

'Oh, p'liceman, don't be hard on a poor old woman that's enjoying the hevening hair!'

'No, I can't,' said he. 'I am going over the bridge. When I come back, don't let me find you here. You've had a nice little nap. You must be as fresh as a daisy now.'

'Perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not,' said the poor woman, as she renewed her aimless walk.

In a few minutes she was in the Strand, just as the theatres were emptied of admiring crowds. Of course the poor woman knew all about such matters. Many a time in the pride of youth had she spent an evening in the pit. Many a time, at a later period, she had sold lucifer matches at the pit doors, and many were the coppers she had earned thereby.

She liked to see the bright lamps, and the swells, and the women, as well as anyone else. The sight, she said, did her old eyes good. That night the crowd had been unusually large. The last theatrical star, as she learned from the bills, Miss Kate Howard, had been performing, and all the world and his wife had come there to see.

'Lor' bless me!' said Sal to herself, 'I'll go to the stage-door at the back. I've seen a good many of these women in my time. I'd like to see what this one is like. I suppose she is like all the rest of 'em, as fine as paint and fine feathers can make 'em, but not of much account, neither. Many of 'em ain't much better than me, after all.'

She turned up a side-street, hurried down another, and soon was at the stage-door.

A brougham was drawn up before it; on the box a page was seated. As she looked, her first impulse was to scream out his name. It was her Sloville boy, looking clean and respectable.

'Wait a bit, Sally,' she said to herself. 'This is a serious business.

It ought to be made to pay. Oh, my fine young gentleman belongs to the popular actress. Ah, if I can come the broken-hearted mother dodge it ought to bring me a fiver.'

Presently there was a rustle under the stage-door, and a pressure of the crowd without. The actress appeared wrapped up and well attended. As she leaped into the brougham she told the driver to make the best of his way home.

'Gad! I know that voice,' said a gentleman in the crowd. 'It is that girl Rose; good heavens! where's her home? Oh, there you are, Harry,'

said he, speaking to the manager as he stood at the door watching the brougham as it drove away. 'You've done it to-night, you have! Where on earth does that woman live?'

'Well, Sir Watkin, I can tell you, but it is no good. She lives with her mother.'

'And is married?' he eagerly exclaimed.

'Yes, to be sure. No, not married, but just about to be so.'

'Then, I am after her!' he exclaimed. 'Faint heart never won fair lady.'

'It is a wild goose-chase, Sir Watkin;' but Sir Watkin was off in a hansom, nevertheless, not before, however, our Sal had made an effort to secure him, which effort he impatiently evaded, bidding her 'go to the d----' and not bother him.

'You nearly had him then, old girl,' said a ragged bystander, in a voice perfectly familiar to her ear. It was the tramp's chum from Mint Street.

'You here?' said she, in a tone which did not express delight. 'I thought yer was as tight as my old man.'

'Not exactly; as soon as I missed you I thought I'd see that you did not come to harm.'