Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/269

 ditties learnt at the music-hall. Away they sped, over the roofs of south London, about them the universal glare of sunlight, the carriage dense with tobacco smoke. Ho for the bottle of muddy ale, passed round in genial fellowship from mouth to mouth! Pennyloaf would not drink of it; she had a dread of all such bottles. In her heart she rejoiced that Bob knew no craving for strong liquor. Towards the end of the journey the young man with the concertina passed round his hat.

Clem Peckover had come by the same train; she was one of a large party which had followed close behind Bob and Pennyloaf to the railway station. Now they followed along the long corridors into the “Paliss,” with many a loud expression of mockeiy, with hee-hawing laughter, with coarse jokes. Depend upon it, Clem was gorgeously arrayed; amid her satellites she swept on “like a stately ship of Tarsus, bound for the isles of Javan or Gadire;” her face was aflame, her eyes flashed in enjoyment of the