So you asked if she’d like the scenic railway, and she said It’s okay by me, on you got, she screamed and grabbed you and the hair got out from under her hat, you were awful proud of her but wished to hell she wouldn’t scream as though her throat were chokeful up of old razor blades, and clutch at her skirt, and skirl Oh, stop! Christ, hadn’t she legs like other folk and need she aye be ashamed of them? So you gave her a bit grab about the legs and she screamed some more and hung on to you: but when the ride finished she was real offended and said she wasn’t that kind of girl, Don’t try and come it fresh on me.

You said you were sorry, so you were, and were just trying to make it up with her when she saw her friend and cried Cooee, Ena! and the quean came over, all powder and poshness, and who should it be but Miss Ena Lyon that you’d known at the lodgings in Windmill Place. She said she was just having a stroll about, and no, she hadn’t a boy with her. And your quean giggled, and Miss Lyon giggled and you felt a fool, queans were like that; and as you followed them into the tea-tent you wished a coarse minute they’d stop their damned showing-off and be decent to a chap that was treating them—wished a daft minute you’d a quean who didn’t care about Talkies and genteelness or was scared at her legs being touched or her feelings offended—one that would cuddle you because she liked it, liked you, thought her legs and all of herself for you, and was douce and sweet and vulgar and kind—like a keelie out of the Cowgate…. Christ, it must be the sun had got at you!

Your quean and Miss Lyon were at it hell for leather talking about their holidays and where they had bade, and how much they paid for digs in Duncairn. And Miss Lyon said she thought she’d move hers, the landlady had once been a minister’s widow but now she had married an Awful Common person, a joskin just, that lorded it about the place and wasn’t a bit respectful at all. Worse than that, though, the landlady’s son was a Red…. You said that you’d known that, that’s why you’d left, Raggie Robertson was dead against the Reds…. And your quean said Don’t be silly. Go on, Ena.

And Miss Lyon said that another of the lodgers was a schoolteacher, Red as well, and she was sure there were Awful Things between them. She’d heard—and she giggled and whispered to your quean and you felt yourself turn red round the ears, what were the daft bitches gigg-giggling about? And your quean made on she was awful shocked and said she wouldn’t stay there a minute, the place was no better than a WICKED HOUSE, just.

Miss Lyon said that she’d got no proof, of course, and your quean mustn’t say anything, and your quean said she wouldn’t but that Ena could easily get proof and show up the two Reds and then leave the place. And then you all talked together about the Communists, coarse beasts, aye stirring up the working class—that was the worst of the working class that they could be led astray by agitators, they’d no sense and needed to be strongly ruled.