W. Pett Ridge

“ Mitchell. "A brute like you doesn't deserve to 'ave a good daughter."
"Calls me names now," continued Mord Em'ly's father to the customers. "Tike a note of it, some of you. We'll make a blawsted lor case out of this!"
"Yes, an you'll be in the dock!" cried Mrs. Mitchell. "Wouldn't be the first time, I lay, neither, not by a long chalk!"
"What if I 'ave, mother? Don't we all get our misfortunes in life, aye I ain't the only one. Take care you don't find yourself there, that's all. Take care I don't set the police—"
"You low person!" cried Mrs. Mitchell ”

“ The black-faced men, marching round, repeated the chorus with a triumphant roar, and women in the crowd, sniffing and rubbing their eyes, told their husbands to contribute a penny to the offered tambourine. ”

“ You dare to utter a single word—"
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, father?"
"No," he replied defiantly. "Are you?"
"I'll give him some money," said Mord Em'ly, distressedly, "and then p'raps he'll go!"
"If you give him money," declared Mrs. Mitchell, "he'll be always comin' 'ere."
"Spoke like the voice of truth," agreed the deplorable man. "If you never tol' the truth before, you've tol it now, old lady. She's going to be my li'l bread-winner; when I'm stony, I come t' her for 'alf-dollar." He beamed foolishly at the interested customers, and then at Mrs. Mitchell, and slapped the counter. ”

“ Several of the customers at Mitchell's Dining Rooms, too, would miss her. The young secretary of the Home, who married: if she ever heard of it she would be sorry—perhaps she would cry.
"They ain't a big crowd," said Mord Em'ly, with something of bitterness, "when you come to reckon 'em up." ”