“Maybe you’ll get enough to go up for the Grand National,” said the cheery little lady still drying her underwear before the fire. “I wonder now, if I was to meet the Prince of Wales, do you think he’d give me a pound if he wanted me?”

One of the elderly women⁠—an office cleaner as I afterwards learned⁠—answered the naive query.

“He couldn’t give you a pound, my dear, however much he wanted to. The Royal family never have no money of their own; they pay everything through their secretaries. You’d just have to send in the bill.”

“Not half,” said the cheery girl. “ I wouldn’t give him away to Queen Mary.”