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MANY INVENTIONS
Eva; so it was just the same's if I had ha' had a 'usband, ain't it? The book's in the drawer, Mister "Anna, an' it's al) right, an' I never guy up a copper o' the trust money—not a copper. You look under the chist o' drawers—all wot isn't spent this week is there. . . . An', Miss Eva, don't you wear that gray bonnick no more. I kep' you from the diptheery, an' —an' I didn't want to keep you so, but the curick said it 'ad to be done. Td a sooner ha' took up with
- im than any one, only Tom 'e come, an' then—you see, Miss Eva, Tom 'e never come a-nigh me for two years, nor I 'aven't seen 'im yet. S'elp me———, I 'aven't. Do you 'ear? But you two go along, and make a match of it. [ve wished otherways often, but 0' course it was not for the likes o' me. If Tom 'ad come back, which 'e never did, I'd ha' been like the rest—sixpence for beef-tea for the baby, an' a shilling for layin' out the baby. You've seen it in the books, Mister 'Anna. 'That's what it is; an' o' course, you couldn't never 'ave nothing to do with me. But a woman she wishes as she looks, an' never you 'ave no doubt about 'im, Miss Eva. I've seen it in 'is face time an' agin—time an' agin. . . . Make it a four pound ten funeral—with a pall.'
It was a seven pound fifteen shilling funeral, and all Gunnison Street turned out to doit honour. All 'but two; for Lascar Loo's mother saw that a Power had departed, and that her road lay clear to the custards. Therefore, when the carriages rattled off, the cat on the doorstep heard the wail of the dying prostitute who could not die—
'Oh, mother, mother, won't you even let me lick the spoon!'