They were singing together "Two Little Girls in Blue".

Hearing the door opened, they all turned round, to see Mr.Pappleworth and Paul looking down on them from the far end of the room.

They stopped singing.
"Can't you make a bit less row ?" said Mr.Pappleworth.

"Folk'll think we keep cats." A hunchback woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face towards Mr.Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice: "They're all tom-cats then." In vain Mr.Pappleworth tried to be impressive for Paul's benefit.
He descended the steps into the finishing-off room, and went to the hunchback Fanny.

She had such a short body on her high stool that her head, with its great bands of bright brown hair, seemed over large, as did her pale, heavy face.