ON THE LONDON BOAD. 257 



glance nt 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. 



