None went away empty-handed, and they looked with unfriendly eyes on any new arrivals who might interfere with their rights.

They thought they deceived the old woman, and the tea and groceries had a finer flavour in consequence; but they would have been surprised to know that Mrs Yabsley had herself fixed her allowance from Jonah at two pounds a week and her rent.
"That's enough money fer me to play the fool with, an' if it don't do much good, it can't do much 'arm," she had remarked, with a mysterious smile, when he had offered her anything she needed to live in comfort.
The terrible Miss Perkins had altered all that.

She had discovered that Mrs Harris was paying for a new hat with the shilling a week she got for Johnny's medicine; that Mrs Thorpe smelt of drink half an hour after she had got two shillings towards the rent; that Mr Hawkins had given his wife a black eye for saying that he was strong enough to go to work again.

Mrs Yabsley had listened with a perplexing smile to her companion's cries of indignation.
"I could 'ave told yer all that meself," she said, "but wot's it matter?
Who am I to sit in judgment on 'em?
They know I've got more money than I want, but they're too proud to ask fer it openly.

People with better shirts on their backs are built the same way, if all I 'ear is true.