work. I knew my story and my new name—Susan Smith. There was only one more thing that needed to be done, and as I sat taking my last meal in that kitchen—which was bread and dried meat, the meat rather too dried, and clinging to my gums—Gentleman did it. He brought from his bag a piece of paper and a pen and some ink, and wrote me out a character.
He wrote it off in a moment. Of course, he was used to faking papers. He held it up for the ink to dry, then read it out. It began:
''To whom it might concern. Lady Alice Dunraven, of Whelk Street, May fair, recommends Miss Susan Smith''—and it went on like that, I forget the rest of it, but it sounded all right to me. He placed it flat again and signed it in a lady''s curling hand. Then he held it to Mrs Sucksby.
''What do you think, Mrs S?'' he said, smiling. ''Will that get Sue her situation?''
But Mrs Sucksby said she couldn''t hope to judge it.
''You know best, dear boy,'' she said, looking away.
Of course, if we ever took help at Lant Street, it wasn''t character we looked for so much as lack of it. There was a little dwarfish girl that used to come sometimes, to boil the babies'' napkins and to wash the floors; but she was a thief. We couldn''t have had honest girls come. They would have seen enough in three minutes of the business of the house to do for us all. We couldn''t have had that.