“There’s no fear of their sending me to gaol, dear, is there? It was a bobby who sent me here, he said they’d give me a bed. I haven’t been in bed for two nights, business has been too bad. I couldn’t raise the price even for a shakedown. But⁠—but⁠—I can’t risk being sent to choky; you don’t think they’ll run me in, dear, do you?”

I told her there was no fear of that, and being called into the next room to give particulars, she left me with an appealing glance. But she came up to scratch with all the bravery of her type. Through the half-open door I heard the interview. She gave her name, insisted that she was a dressmaker and had been born in Nottingham.

“My parents?” she said. “Oh, my father was a sergeant-major, and my mother was the daughter of a Baptist minister. Anything else you’d like to know?”

The official closed the interrogation and handed her the paper of admission and she went off, with a wave of her hand. Appearances like hers are fugitive, for, at the risk of repetition, I want to make this plain: the little prostitute avoids the institution like the plague.