“Did you have a good house?” the girl asked him.  “Saw you from the distance, waving your arms about.  Hadn’t time to stop.”

“Not many,” admitted Mr. Simson.  “A Christmassy lot.  You know.  Sort of crowd that interrupts you and tries to be funny.  Dead to their own interests.  It’s slow work.”

“Why do you do it?” asked Miss Ensor.

“Damned if I know,” answered Mr. Simson, with a burst of candour.  “Can’t help it, I suppose.  Lost me job again.”

“The old story?” suggested Miss Ensor.

“The old story,” sighed Mr. Simson.  “One of the customers happened to be passing last Wednesday when I was speaking on the Embankment.  Heard my opinion of the middle classes?”

“Well, you can’t expect ’em to like it, can you?” submitted Miss Ensor.

“No,” admitted Mr. Simson with generosity.  “It’s only natural.  It’s a fight to the finish between me and the Bourgeois.  I cover them with ridicule and contempt and they hit back at me in the only way they know.”

“Take care they don’t get the best of you,” Miss Ensor advised him.

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” he answered.  “I’ll get another place all right:  give me time.  The only thing I’m worried about is my young woman.”

“Doesn’t agree with you?” inquired Miss Ensor.

“Oh, it isn’t that,” he answered.  “But she’s frightened.  You know.  Says life with me is going to be a bit too uncertain for her.  Perhaps she’s right.”

“Oh, why don’t you chuck it,” advised Miss Ensor, “give the Bourgeois a rest.”

Mr. Simson shook his head.  “Somebody’s got to tackle them,” he said.  “Tell them the truth about themselves, to their faces.”

“Yes, but it needn’t be you,” suggested Miss Ensor.

Mary was leaning over the table.  Miss Ensor’s four-penny veal and ham pie was ready.  Mary arranged it in front of her.  “Eat it while it’s hot, dearie,” she counselled.  “It won’t be so indigestible.”

Miss Ensor turned to her.  “Oh, you talk to him,” she urged.  “Here, he’s lost his job again, and is losing his girl:  all because of his silly politics.  Tell him he’s got to have sense and stop it.”

Mary seemed troubled.  Evidently, as Miss Ensor had stated, advice was not her line.  “Perhaps he’s got to do it, dearie,” she suggested.

“What do you mean by got to do it?” exclaimed Miss Ensor.  “Who’s making him do it, except himself?”

Mary flushed.  She seemed to want to get back to her cooking.  “It’s something inside us, dearie,” she thought:  “that nobody hears but ourselves.”

“That tells him to talk all that twaddle?” demanded Miss Ensor.  “Have you heard him?”

“No, dearie,” Mary admitted.  “But I expect it’s got its purpose.  Or he wouldn’t have to do it.”

Miss Ensor gave a gesture of despair and applied herself to her pie.  The hirsute face of Mr. Simson had lost the foolish aggressiveness that had irritated Joan.  He seemed to be pondering matters.