at her and talking among themselves. One of the youths was about twenty, narrow-chested, black-haired, ruddy-cheeked, good-looking in a nosy cockney way, and dressed in the wreck of a raffishly smart blue suit and a check cap. The other was about twenty-six, squat, nimble and powerful, with a snub nose, a clear pink skin and huge lips as coarse as sausages, exposing strong yellow teeth. He was frankly ragged, and he had a mat of orange-coloured hair cropped short and growing low on his head, which gave him a startling resemblance to an orang-outang. The girl was a silly-looking, plump creature, dressed in clothes very like Dorothy’s own. Dorothy could hear some of what they were saying:
“That tart looks ill,” said the girl.
The orange-headed one, who was singing “Sonny Boy” in a good baritone voice, stopped singing to answer. “She ain’t ill,” he said. “She’s on the beach all right, though. Same as us.”
“She’d do jest nicely for Nobby, wouldn’t she?” said the dark-haired one.
“Oh, you!” exclaimed the girl with a shocked-amorous air, pretending to smack the dark one over the head.
The youths had lowered their bundles and leaned them against the lamp-post. All three of them now came rather hesitantly towards Dorothy, the orange-headed one, whose name seemed to be Nobby, leading the way as their ambassador. He moved with a gambolling, apelike gait, and his grin was so frank and wide that it was impossible not to smile back at him. He addressed Dorothy in a friendly way.
“Hullo, kid!”
“Hullo!”
“You on the beach, kid?”
“On the beach?”
“Well, on the bum?”
“On the bum?”
“Christ! she’s batty,” murmured the girl, twitching at the black-haired one’s arm as though to pull him away.
“Well, what I mean to say, kid—have you got any money?”
“I don’t know.”
At this all three looked at one another in stupefaction. For a moment they probably thought that Dorothy really was batty. But simultaneously Dorothy, who had earlier discovered a small pocket in the side of her dress, put her hand into it and felt the outline of a large coin.
“I believe I’ve got a penny,” she said.
“A penny!” said the dark youth disgustedly “——lot of good that is to us!”
Dorothy drew it out. It was a half-crown. An astonishing change came over the faces of the three others. Nobby’s mouth split open with delight, he gambolled several steps to and fro like some great jubilant ape, and then, halting, took Dorothy confidentially by the arm.
“That’s the mulligatawny!” he said. “We’ve struck it lucky—and so’ve you, kid, believe me. You’re going to bless the day you set eyes on us lot. We’re going to make your fortune for you, we are. Now, see here, kid—are you on to go into cahoots with us three?”
“What?” said Dorothy.
“What I mean to say—how about you chumming in with Flo and Charlie and me? Partners, see? Comrades all, shoulder to shoulder. United we stand, divided we fall. We put up the brains, you put up the money. How about it, kid? Are you on, or are you off?”
“Shut up, Nobby!” interrupted the girl. “She don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. Talk to her proper, can’t you?”
“That’ll do, Flo,” said Nobby equably. “You keep it shut and leave the talking to me. I got a way with the tarts, I have. Now, you listen to me, kid—what might your name happen to be, kid?”
Dorothy was within an ace of saying “I don’t know,” but she was sufficiently on the alert to stop herself in time. Choosing a feminine name from the half-dozen that sprang immediately into her mind, she answered, “Ellen.”
“Ellen. That’s the mulligatawny. No surnames when you’re on the bum. Well now, Ellen dear, you listen to me. Us three are going down hopping, see——”
“Hopping?”
” ’Opping!” put in the dark youth impatiently, as though disgusted by Dorothy’s ignorance. His voice and manner were rather sullen, and his accent much baser than Nobby’s. “Pickin’ ’ops—dahn in Kent! C’n understand that, can’t yer?”
“Oh, hops! For beer?”
“That’s the mulligatawny! Coming on fine, she is. Well, kid, ’z I was saying, here’s us three going down hopping, and got a job promised us and all—Blessington’s farm, Lower Molesworth. Only we’re just a bit in the mulligatawny, see? Because we ain’t got a brown between us, and we got to do it on the toby—thirty-five miles it is—and got to tap for our tommy and skipper at nights as well. And that’s a bit of a mulligatawny, with ladies in the party. But now s’pose f’rinstance you was to come along with us, see? We c’d take the twopenny tram far as Bromley, and that’s fifteen miles done, and we won’t need skipper more’n one night on the way. And you can chum in at our bin—four to a bin’s the best picking—and if Blessington’s paying twopence a bushel you’ll turn your ten bob a week easy. What do you say to it, kid? Your two and a tanner won’t do you much good here in Smoke. But you go into partnership with us, and you’ll get your kip for a month and something over—and we’ll get a lift to Bromley and a bit of scran as well.”
About a quarter of this speech was intelligible to Dorothy. She asked rather at random:
“What is scran?”
“Scran? Tommy—food. I can see you ain’t been long on the beach, kid.”
“Oh. . . . Well, you want me to come down hop-picking with you, is that it?”
“That’s it, Ellen my dear. Are you on, or are you off?”
“All right,” said Dorothy promptly. “I’ll come.”
She made this decision without any misgiving whatever. It is true that if she had had time to think over her position, she would probably have acted differently; in all probability she would have gone to a police station and asked for assistance. That would have been the sensible course to take. But Nobby and the others had appeared just at the critical moment, and, helpless as she was, it seemed quite natural to throw in her lot with the first human being who presented himself. Moreover, for some reason which she did not understand, it reassured her to hear that they were making for Kent. Kent, it seemed to her, was the very place to which she wanted to go. The others showed no further curiosity, and asked no uncomfortable questions. Nobby simply said, “O.K. That’s the mulligatawny!” and then gently took Dorothy’s half-crown out of her hand and slid it into his pocket—in case she should lose it, he explained. The dark youth—apparently his name was Charlie—said in his surly, disagreeable way:
“Come on, less get movin’! It’s ’ar-parse two already. We don’t want to miss that there —— tram. Where d’they start from, Nobby?”
“The Elephant,” said Nobby; “and we got to catch it before four o’clock, because they don’t give no free rides after four.”
“Come on, then, don’t less waste no more time. Nice job we’ll ’ave of it if we got to ’ike it down to Bromley and look for a place to skipper in the —— dark. C’m on, Flo.”
“Quick march!” said Nobby, swinging his bundle on to his shoulder.
They set out, without more words said, Dorothy, still bewildered but feeling much better than she had felt half an hour ago, walked beside Flo and Charlie, who talked to one another and took no further notice of her. From the very first they seemed to hold themselves a little aloof from Dorothy—willing enough to share her half-crown, but with no friendly feelings towards her. Nobby marched in front, stepping out briskly in spite of his burden, and singing, with spirited imitations of military music, the well-known military