"I must know everything," he replied, "everything."
"You must, must you? Well, that's for me to say, not you. I could tell you a lot of lies if I wanted to."
He made a threatening motion towards her, but was held back by his mates. "You'll only make things worse," they said.
"A precious sight worse," said Blooming Bess, with a reckless laugh. "Oh, let him get at me if he likes! Who cares? I don't. But I'll tell him what he wants, never fear. She's a respectable one, she is! When I went to the bad, passed me by as if I was so much dirt. Wouldn't look at me--wouldn't speak to me; holding her frock like this, for fear I should touch it. And now what is she, I'd like to know? Better than me--or worse?"
"Groan away; much good it'll do you. It won't bring her back; and if it did, who'd look at her? Not me. She's come down, with all her stuck-up pride. I'm as good as her, any day of the week!"
"Come, come, Bess," said a man in the crowd, "you're not a bad sort; let us have the truth, like a good girl."
"Oh, yes, I'm a real good un now you want to get something out of me! But never mind; here goes. It was in the middle of the night, and I didn't have a brass farthing in my pockets. They turned me out because I couldn't pay for my bed. It wasn't the first time, and won't be the last. So out I goes, and here I am in the middle of this very street, when a swell comes up to me, and says, says he, 'Do you want to earn half a bull?' I laughs, and holds out my hand, and he puts sixpence in it, and says, says he, 'The other two bob when you tell me what I want to know.'"
"Are you making this up out of your head, Bess?"
"Not me! not clever enough. Never was one of the clever ones, or I'd be a jolly sight better off. Then the swell asks me if I can tell him the names of the people that lives in the street, and plump upon that asks me if I can keep a secret. I thought he was kidding me, I give you my word, and I says, 'Make it worth my while.' With that he promises me five bob, and I walks with him, or he walks with me--it don't matter which, does it?--from one end of the street to the other, and I tell him everybody that lives in it. 'Who lives here?' says he, and 'Who lives here?' says he; and thinks I, this is a rum game; wonder what he's up to! But it ain't my business, is it? My business is to earn five bob, and earn it easy; and when I have told him all he wanted, he gives me four bob and a bender, and sends me off. What can you make of all that?"