“‘Usbinds an’ wives can be pals,” said Mrs. Dusty.  “Me an’ Dusty useter ‘ave a drop an’ a jaw together every night for three months after we married.  Never ’ad a thought apart, we didn’t.”

“If I ars’t Dusty,” said the Top Floor Chap, “I don’t know but what ’e wouldn’t tell a different tile.”

“’Ere, ‘bus-conductor, you can talk, an’ you’re a suffragette,” said Mrs. Dusty.  “Ain’t bein’ a pal just as much a woman’s job as a man’s?”

“What is bein’ a pal?” asked Mrs. Love bitterly. “‘Avin’ some one ’oo drinks wiv you until she’s sick, and then blacks your eye for you.  There ain’t no pals, men or women.”

“I think they’re rare,” said Jay.  “Isn’t being a pal just refusing to admit a limit?  Some people draw the line at a murderer, and some at a suffragette, and some at a vegetarian, and some at a lady who wears the same dress Sundays and week-days, but a real pal draws no line.  Women and dogs as well as men can be faithful beyond limit, I think, but it’s very rare in anybody.”

“’Bus-conductors don’t know nothink,” said the Chap from the Top Floor in a loud belligerent voice, illuminated by an amiable smile.  “I orfen look at ‘bus-conductors, an’ think, ’Pore devils, they don’t know ’arf of life, not even a quarter.  They only meets the harisocracy wot ’as pennies to frow about, they never passes the time of day with a plain walkin’ feller like me wot ses ‘is mind an’ never puts on no frills.  ‘Bus-conducting oughter be done by belted earls an’ suchlike, it ain’t a real man’s job.  Pore devils,’ I ses, lookin’ at ’em bouncin’ along, doin’ the pretty to all the nobs, wivout so much as puttin’ their toe in the mud.  ‘Pore devils.’”

“’Ere Elbert, ’old your jaw,” said the tactful Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards, nervous lest Jay should resent this insult to her calling.  “Let’s all go roun’ to the Cross’n Beetle, an’ see whether that won’t stop ’is noise.”

“After all, it’s Dusty’s birfdiy,” said Mrs. Dusty with alacrity.

The day was evidently growing in importance every minute.

“You come along too,” said little Mrs. Love, suddenly putting her hand in Jay’s.

“No treatin’ nowadiys,” said the Top Floor Chap amiably.  “But I don’t mind ‘andin’ around the price of a drink before we start.”

He only extended half-hearted generosity to Jay, because she was, after all, a ’bus-conductor, and to that extent a nob.  She shook her head and laughed, when he held out to her the Law-circumventing coin.

Mrs.  ’Ero Edwards only really found scope for her voice out of doors.  No sooner was she in the street than she seized the arm of the Chap from the Top Floor and shouted him down, as she led him towards the Cross’n Beetle.

Mrs. Dusty and young Queenie walked arm in arm behind them, and whenever they saw a soldier they squeaked loudly, and addressed him invariably as “Colonel Mawmajuke.”

Jay and little Mrs. Love, both rather confused and unhappy people, walked hand in hand a little way behind.