Her excuse for coming, at least the excuse she made to herself, was that of chaperoning her daughter, a near-sighted, shapeless girl, with no chest and a muddy complexion, who never had and never would require such an attention.

The others were just neuter, except Mr. Thimbell, whose acute nervousness and length of limb rendered him a nuisance.

Mrs. Bindle was conscious that she was looking her best in a dark blue alpaca dress, with a cream-coloured lace yoke, which modesty had prompted her to have lined with the material of the dress. To her, the display of any portion of her person above the instep, or below the feminine equivalent of the "Adam's apple," was a tribute to the Mammon of Unrighteousness, and her dressmaker was instructed accordingly.

She moved about the room, trying to make everyone feel at home, and succeeding only in emphasising the fact that they were all out.

Everybody was anxious to get down to the serious business of the evening; still the social amenities had to be observed. There must be a preliminary period devoted to conversation.

After a quarter-of-an-hour's endeavour to exchange the ideas which none of them possessed, Mrs. Bindle moved over to Mr. Hearty and whispered something, at the same time glancing across at the harmonium. There was an immediate look of interest and expectancy on faces which, a moment before, had been blank and apathetic.

Mr. Goslett, a little man with high cheekbones and a criminal taste in neckwear, cleared his throat; Mr. Hearty surreptitiously slipped into his mouth an acid drop, which he had just taken from his waistcoat pocket; Mr. Dykes, a long, thin man, who in his youth had been known to his contemporaries as "Razor," drew his handkerchief with a flourish, and tested Mrs. Bindle's walls as if he were a priest before Jericho.

Some difficulty arose as to who should play Mr. Hearty's beloved instrument. Mrs. Stitchley made it clear that she expected her daughter, Mabel, to be asked. Mrs. Bindle, however, decided that Mrs. Snarch, a colourless woman who sang contralto (her own contralto) and sniffed when she was not singing contralto, should preside; her influence with her fellow-members of the choir was likely to be greater. Thus in the first ten minutes Mrs. Bindle scored two implacable enemies and one dubious friend.

Mrs. Snarch took her seat at the harmonium, fidgetted about with her skirts and blinked near-sightedly at the book of carols, which seemed disinclined to remain open. The others grouped themselves about her.

There was a medley of strange sounds, as each member of the party took the necessary steps to ensure purity of vocal tone. Added to this, Mr. Dykes pulled his collar away from his throat and stretched his neck upwards, as if to clear a passage for the sound he intended to send forth. Mr. Goslett pushed his sandy moustache up from his full lips with the back of his right forefinger, whilst Miss Stitchley moistened and remoistened her thin, colourless lips.

Then they joined together in song.

After a preliminary carol, in which no one seemed to take any particular interest, they got off well together with "Good King Wenceslas," a prime favourite at the Alton Road Chapel.

This evening it proved an enormous success.

Miss Stitchley's shrillness clashed with Mrs. Bindle's sharpness more than in the preceding carol. Mr. Hearty shut his eyes more tightly and was woollier, Mr. Dykes got more breath behind his boom, and Mrs. Dykes made more mistakes in her "harmony." Mr. Goslett raised his head higher, looking more than ever like a chicken drinking, whilst Miss Death's thin, upper notes seemed to pierce even Mr. Dykes's boom, just as they put Miss Lamb, always uncertain as to pitch, even further off her stroke.

Still, everyone enjoyed it immensely. Even Mrs. Stitchley, who confessed that she was "no 'and at singin'," croaked a few husky notes, as she sat acutely upright, due to a six-and-elevenpenny pair of stays she had bought that afternoon, nodding her head and beating time.

Mrs. Stitchley never lost an opportunity of making clear her position in regard to music.

"I'm musical, my dear," she would say. "It's in the fambly; but I don't sing, I 'as spasms, you know." She volunteered this information much as a man might seek to excuse his inability to play the French horn by explaining that he is addicted to bass viol.

"Now that's what I call a carol," said Mrs. Stitchley, endeavouring to prevent the upper portion of her stay-busk from burying itself in her flesh. Then, with sudden inspiration, she cried, "Encore! Encore!" and made a motion to clap her hands; but the stay-busk took the opportunity of getting in a vicious dig. With a little yelp of pain, Mrs. Stitchley's hands flew to her rescue.

Everybody was too pleased with "Good King Wenceslas" to trouble about Mrs. Stitchley's stay-busk. The word "encore," however, had given them an idea. Mr. Hearty looked interrogatingly at Mrs. Bindle.

"Do you think – " he began.

"Shall we have it again?" she queried, and there was a chorus of pleased acquiescence. Everybody was determined to put a little bit more into the encore than into the original rendering. There was only one dissentient voice, that of Mr. Dykes, who was eager for "The First Noël," which gave him such a chance for individual effort. When out with the Chapel Christmas singers, Mr. Dykes had been known to awaken as many as six streets with a single verse of that popular carol.

Mrs. Bindle almost smiled. Her party was proving a success.

Mrs. Stitchley, still holding the top of her stay-busk in her left hand, nodded approval, her beady little eyes fixed upon the singers. She was awaiting an opportunity to bring from her pocket a half-quartern bottle containing what, if she had been caught drinking it, she would have described as clove-water, taken medicinally.

To give colour to her assertion, she always chewed a clove after each reference to the bottle.

At The Golden Horse, Mrs. Stitchley's clove-water was known as Old Tom Special.

For an hour Mrs. Bindle's guests sang, encoring themselves with enthusiasm. Mr. Dykes got in his famous "Noël," he pronounced it "No-ho-hell," and everyone else seemed satisfied, if a little sore of throat.

It was half-past eight when Mrs. Bindle decided that the time had come for refreshments.

Throughout the evening her ears had been keenly alert for sounds from the kitchen; but beyond a suppressed hum of voices, she could detect nothing; still she was ill-at-ease. If Mrs. Hearty, for instance, knew that Bindle was in the house, she would certainly go over to the enemy.

In the matter of catering for her guests Mrs. Bindle had nothing to learn. She was a good cook and delighted in providing well for those she entertained. Her sausage-rolls, straightforward affairs in which the sausage had something more than a walking-on part, were famous among her friends. Her blanc-mange, jam puffs, rock-cakes, and sandwiches had already established her reputation with those who had been privileged to taste them. She basked in the sunshine of the praise lavished on what she provided. Without it she would have felt that her party was a failure.

This evening there was no lack of approval, cordially expressed. Mrs. Stitchley, who purposely had partaken of a light luncheon and no tea, was particularly loud in her encomiums, preluding each sausage-roll she took, from the sixth onwards, with some fresh adjective.

Mrs. Bindle was almost happy.

She was in the act of pouring out a glass of lemonade for Miss Lamb, when suddenly she paused. An unaccustomed sound from the kitchen had arrested her hand. Others heard it too, and the hum of conversation died away into silence, broken only by Mr. Hearty's mastication of a sausage-roll.

Through the dividing wall came the sound of a concertina. Mrs. Bindle put down the jug and turned towards the door. As she did so a thin, nasal voice broke into song:

 
For 'e was oiled in every joint,
A bobby came up who was standin' point.
He blew 'is whistle to summon more,
Bill got 'ome on the point of 'is jaw.
Then 'e screamed, an' kicked, an' bit their knees,
As each grabbed a leg or an arm by degrees.
An' that's 'ow Bill Morgan was taken 'ome
On the night of 'is first wife's funeral.
 

The verse was followed by a full-throated chorus, accompanied by a pounding as if someone were hurling bricks about.

After that came silence; but for the hum of conversation, above which rose Bindle's voice forbidding further singing until "them next door 'ave 'ad a go."

The guests looked at one another in amazement. The set expression of Mrs. Bindle's face hardened, and the lines of her mouth became grim. Her first instinct had been to rush to the kitchen; but she decided to wait. She did not want a scene whilst her guests were there.

Gradually the carol-singers returned to their plates and glasses, and Mr. Hearty's mastication was once more heard in their midst. Mr. Hearty always ate with relish.

Unobserved by Mrs. Bindle, Mrs. Hearty stole out of the parlour on her way to investigate; a minute later Mrs. Stitchley followed. The solitude of the passage gave her an admirable opportunity of finishing the "clove-water" she had brought with her.

When everyone had assured Mrs. Bindle, in answer to her pressing invitation to refresh themselves still further, that they "really couldn't, not if she were to pay them," she turned once more to Mr. Hearty for the necessary encouragement to start another carol.

Their first effort, however, clearly showed that Mrs. Bindle's refreshments had taken the edge off their singing. Miss Stitchley had lost much of her shrillness, Mrs. Bindle was less sharp and Mr. Hearty more woolly. Mr. Dykes's boom was but a wraith of its former self, proving the truth of Mrs. Dykes's laughing remark that if he ate so many of Mrs. Bindle's sausage-rolls he wouldn't be able to sing at all. Only Miss Death was up to form, her shrill soprano still cleaving the atmosphere like a javelin.

As the last chords of the carol died away, the concertina in the kitchen took up the running, followed a minute later by the same voice as before, singing nasally about the adventures of a particularly rollicking set of boon-companions who knew neither care nor curfew.

At the first sound, Mrs. Bindle moved swiftly to the door, where she paused uncertainly. She was in a quandary. Her conception of good manners did not admit of a hostess leaving her guests; still something had to be done.

At the conclusion of the verse the voice ceased; but the concertina wailed on. Mrs. Bindle drew breath. Her guests gazed at one another in a dazed sort of way. Then with a crash came the chorus, rendered with enthusiasm:

 
We'll all roll 'ome, we'll all roll 'ome,
For 'ome's the only place for weary men like us,
We'll all roll 'ome, we'll all roll 'ome,
For we 'aven't got the money to pay for a bus.
For it's only 'alf-past two,
An' it won't be three just yet.
So we'll all roll 'ome, we'll all roll 'ome,
An' lay down in the passage to be out of the wet.
 

The applause that followed was annihilating. Accompanying it again was the curious banging sound which Mrs. Bindle had noticed before. She was sure she recognised amid the cries of approval, the sound of a woman's voice. That decided her. She had already noted the absence of Mrs. Hearty and Mrs. Stitchley.

Without so much as an apology to her guests, who stood still gazing blankly at one another, Mrs. Bindle slipped out into the passage, closing the door behind her, much to the disappointment of the others.

A moment later she threw open the kitchen door, conscious that one of the most dramatic moments of her life was at hand.

Through a grey film of tobacco smoke she saw half-a-dozen men, one seated on the floor, another on the fender, and two on the table. All were smoking.

About the room were dotted bottles and various drinking vessels, mostly cups, whilst on the mantelpiece were Bindle's white cuffs, discarded on account of their inconvenient habit of slipping off at every movement of his hands.

Mrs. Hearty was seated in front of the dresser, holding a glass of beer in one hand and beating her breast with the other, whilst opposite to her sat Mrs. Stitchley, one hand still clutching the top of her stay-busk, an idiotic smirk upon her moist face.

As Mrs. Bindle gazed upon the scene, she was conscious of a feeling of disappointment; no one seemed to regard her presence as any deviation from the normal. Mrs. Stitchley looked up and nodded. Bindle deliberately avoided her eye.

Mrs. Bindle's attention became focussed upon the man seated on her fender. In his hands he grasped a concertina, before him were stretched a pair of thin legs in tight blue trousers. Above a violent blue necktie there rose a pasty face, terminating in a quiff of amazing dimensions, which glistened greasily in the gaslight. His heavy-lidded eyes were half-closed, whilst in his mouth he held a cigarette, the end of which was most unwholesomely chewed. His whole demeanour was that of a man who had not yet realised that the curtain had risen upon a new act in the drama.

As Mrs. Bindle appeared at the kitchen door, the concertina once more began to speak. A moment later the musician threw back his head and gave tongue, like a hound baying at the moon:

 
For I love my mother, love 'er with all my 'eart,
I can see 'er now on the doorstep, the day we 'ad to part.
A man that's got a tanner, can always get a wife,
But a mother is just a treasure that comes once in a life.
 

"Now then, ladies and gents, chorus if you please," he cried.

They did please, and soon Mrs. Bindle's kitchen echoed with a full-throated rendering of:

 
We all love mother, love her all the time,
For there ain't no other who seems to us the same.
From babyhood to manhood, she watches o'er our lives,
For it's mother, mother, mother, bless the dear old name.
 

It was a doleful refrain, charged with cockney melancholy; yet there could be no doubt about the enthusiasm of the singers. Mrs. Hearty spilled beer over her blue satin bosom, as a result of the energy with which she beat time; Mrs. Stitchley's hand, the one not grasping her stay-busk, was also beating time, different time from Mrs. Hearty's, whilst two light-coloured knees rose and fell with the regularity of piston-rods, solving for Mrs. Bindle the mystery of the sounds like the tossing about of bricks she had heard in the parlour.

Ginger was joining in the chorus!

As the singer started the second verse, Mrs. Bindle was conscious that someone was behind her. She turned to find Miss Stitchley standing at her shoulder. A moment later she realised that the little passage was overflowing with carol-singers.