For a month she had avoided the woman with the hairy lip, and then the death of her mother had removed the only moral barrier that stood between her and hereditary impulse.
Since then she had gone to pieces.

Mrs Herring had prescribed her favourite remedy for grief, a drop of cordial, and Jonah for once found himself helpless, for Mrs Herring taught Ada more tricks than a monkey.
Privately she considered Ada a dull fool, but she desired her company, for she belonged to the order of sociable drunkards, for whom drink has no flavour without company, and who can no more drink alone than men can smoke in the dark.

Ada was an ideal companion, rarely breaking the thread of her ceaseless babble, and never forgetting to pay for her share.

It was little enough she could squeeze out of Aaron, and often she drank for the afternoon at Ada's expense.
She looked anxiously at Ada, and then at the clock.

For she drank with the precision of a patient taking medicine, calculating to a drop the amount she could carry, and allowing for the slight increase of giddiness when she stepped into the fresh air of the streets.