"I know you can't," was the uncompromising response, "and I don't mean you shall."

"But where'm I goin' to sleep?" he demanded, anxiety in his voice.

"That's for you to settle."

"'Ere, Lizzie, come down an' let me in," he cried, falling to cajolery.

For answer Mrs. Bindle banged-to the window. He waited expectantly for the door to be opened.[Pg 30]

[Pg 30]

At the end of five minutes he realised that Mrs. Bindle had probably gone back to bed.

"Well, I can't stay 'ere all the bloomin' night, me with various veins in my legs," he muttered, conscious that from several windows interested heads were thrust.

Fully convinced that Mrs. Bindle was not on her way down to admit him, he once more fell back upon the knocker, awakening the echoes of Fenton Street.

At the sound of the window-sash being raised, he stepped back and looked up eagerly.

"'Ere, wot the ——!"

Something seemed to flash through the night, and he received the contents of the ewer full in the face.

"That'll teach you to come waking me up at this time of night," came the voice of Mrs. Bindle, who, a moment later, retreated into the room. Bindle, rightly conjecturing that she had gone for more water, retired out of reach.

"You soaked me through to the skin," he cried, when she re-appeared.

"And serve you right, too, you and your strikes."

"But ain't you goin' to let me in?"

"When the strike's off the lock-out'll cease," was the oracular retort.

"But I didn't want to strike," protested Bindle.

"Then you should have been a man and said so, instead of letting that little rat make you do everything he wants, him sitting down to a good dinner every day, all paid for out of strikes."[Pg 31]

[Pg 31]

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