ON THE LONDON ROAD. 257 



glance at him, not an angry glance a look as much 

 as to say, "You're a man, anyway, and you've the 

 good taste to admire me, and the courage to speak to 

 me ; you're dirty, but you're a man. If you were well- 

 dressed, or if it wasn't Sunday, or if it was dark, 

 or nobody about, I wouldn't mind; I'd let you 

 * cheek ' me, though I have got satin on." The fellow 

 " cheeked" her again, told her she had a pretty face, 

 " cheeked " her right and left. She looked away, but 

 half smiled ; she had to keep up her dignity, she did 

 not feel it. She would have liked to have joined 

 company with him. His leer grew leerier the low, 

 cunning leer, so peculiar to the London mongrel, that 

 seems to say, " I am so intensely knowing ; I am so 

 very much all there ; " and yet the leerer always 

 remains in a dirty dress, always smokes the coarsest 

 tobacco in the nastiest of pipes, and rides on a barrow 

 to the end of his life. For his leery cunning is so 

 intensely stupid that, in fact, he is as " green " as 

 grass : his leer and his foul mouth keep him in the 

 gutter to his very last day. How much more success- 

 ful plain, simple straightforwardness would be ! The 

 pony went on a little, but they drew rein and waited 

 for the girl again; and again he "cheeked" her. 

 Still, she looked away, but she did not make any 

 attempt to escape by the side-path, nor show resent- 

 ment. No ; her face began to glow, and once or twice 

 she answered him, but still she would not quite join 

 company. If only it had not been Sunday if it had 

 been a lonely road, and not so near the village, if she 

 had not had the two tell-tale children with her she 

 would have been very good friends with the dirty, 



