in Dublin have it today?  Martha, she.  Something in the air.  That’s the moon.  But then why don’t all women menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean?  Depends on the time they were born I suppose.  Or all start scratch then get out of step.  Sometimes Molly and Milly together.  Anyhow I got the best of that.  Damned glad I didn’t do it in the bath this morning over her silly I will punish you letter.  Made up for that tramdriver this morning.  That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing.  And his wife engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe.  Thankful for small mercies.  Cheap too.  Yours for the asking.  Because they want it themselves.  Their natural craving.  Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices.  Reserve better.  Don’t want it they throw it at you.  Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves.  A dream of wellfilled hose.  Where was that?  Ah, yes.  Mutoscope pictures in Capel street:  for men only.  Peeping Tom.  Willy’s hat and what the girls did with it.  Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake?  Lingerie does it.  Felt for the curves inside her deshabille.  Excites them also when they’re.  I’m all clean come and dirty me.  And they like dressing one another for the sacrifice.  Milly delighted with Molly’s new blouse.  At first.  Put them all on to take them all off.  Molly.  Why I bought her the violet garters.  Us too:  the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turnedup trousers.  He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met.  His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet.  Say a woman loses a charm with every pin she takes out.  Pinned together.  O, Mairy lost the pin of her.  Dressed up to the nines for somebody.  Fashion part of their charm.  Just changes when you’re on the track of the secret.  Except the east:  Mary, Martha:  now as then.  No reasonable offer refused.  She wasn’t in a hurry either.  Always off to a fellow when they are.  They never forget an appointment.  Out on spec probably.  They believe in chance because like themselves.  And the others inclined to give her an odd dig.  Girl friends at school, arms round each other’s necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden.  Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what they can’t get.  Barbed wire.  Be sure now and write to me.  And I’ll write to you.  Now won’t you?  Molly and Josie Powell.  Till Mr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon.  Tableau!  O, look who it is for the love of God!  How are you at all?  What have you been doing with yourself?  Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you.  Picking holes in each other’s appearance.  You’re looking splendid.  Sister souls.  Showing their teeth at one another.  How many have you left?  Wouldn’t lend each other a pinch of salt.

Ah!