I had grown up in the Borough, surrounded by every kind of desperate dodger and thief; but I had had Mrs Sucksby for a mother, and had never been hit. The blow knocked me almost out of my head. I put my hands to my face, and lay down in a crouch; but she got the gown off me anyway—I suppose she was used to getting gowns off lunatics, and had a trick for it; and next she got hold of my corset and took that. Then she took my garters, and then my shoes and stockings, and finally my hair-pins.
Then she stood, darker-faced than ever, and sweating.
''There!'' she said, looking me over in my petticoat and shimmy. ''There''s all your ribbons and laces gone. If you chokes yourself now, it''ll be no business of ours. You hear me? Mrs Ain''t-Mrs-Rivers? You sit in the pads for a night, and stew. See how you care for that. Convulsions? I think I know a temper from a fit. Kick all you like in here. Put out your joints, chew your tongue off. Keep you quiet. We prefers them quiet, makes our job nicer.''◎◎
She said all that, and she made a bundle of my clothes and swung them over her shoulder; and then she left me. The men went with her. They had seen her hit me, and done nothing. They had watched her take my stockings and stays. I heard them pull off their paper cuffs. One began to whistle again. Nurse Spiller closed the door and locked it, and the whistling grew very much fainter.