But she wouldn’t have it that they should go home, they’d have tea at Woolworth’s in the Royal Mile. And in they went in the Saturday crush, full of soldiers and bairns and queans, folk from the country, red and respectable, an eident wife with a big shopping bag buying up sixpenny tins of plums and her goodman standing beside her ashamed, feared he’d be seen by a crony in Woolies, and she’d be telling him, Look, Willy, such cheap! Mighty, I’ll need a pound of that; and buy and buy till he’d near be ruined. And hungry Broo folk buying up biscuits, and queans with their jingling bags and paint, poor things, trying on the tin bits of rings, and mechanic loons at the wireless counter, and the Lord alone knew who wasn’t in Woolies, a roaring trade and a stink to match, Ma fought her way through the crush like a trawler taking the tide from Footforthie and Chris followed behind and felt sorry for a man who’d left his feet where Ma’s came down, he cried Hey, you? and Ma said Ay? Anything to say? and he said Ay, I have. Who do you think you are—Mussolini? And Ma cried over her shoulder Faith, I could wear his breeks and not feel ashamed. You never had a thing under yours, you runt.

So up at last, sitting down in the tea-room, Ma ordering eggs and scones and pancakes and butter and honey in little jars, Chris gasped But whatever’s all the feast for? Ma said Och, she was sick of cooking herself, and the sight of those feeds that they had in America fairly stirred up a body’s stomach. Losh, wasn’t it fine to think of the lodgers sossing on their own?—though your Εwan and our Ellen, the sleek wee cat, are out again together the day. Would you think the two of them are getting off?

Chris said not them, they had just gone Socialist as young folk would, some plan they had to link up the Labour folk with the Reds. Ma nearly choked on a mouthful of egg, God be here, whatever did they want to do that for? Chris said for good—or so the two thought, and Ma said they’d think mighty different soon, the Reds were just awful, look what they did in Russia to that poor Tsar creature back in the War—shot him down in a cellar full of coal, and buried the childe without as much as God bless you. Chris said she didn’t know anything about it though it sounded as though it maybe messed up the coals, as far as she knew neither Ellen nor Εwan had yet shot anybody, even in a cellar. Ma said No, but she wouldn’t trust Ewan, a fine loon, but that daft-like glower in his eyes—Och, this Communism stuff’s not canny, I tell you, it’s just a religion though the Reds say it’s not and make out that they don’t believe in God. They’re dafter about Him than the Salvationists are, and once it gets under a body’s skin he’ll claw at the itch till he’s tirred himself.