Try and go on, Annie.' Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea.

The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves.

It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot.

Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence.

One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish.