"Charley Bye's got it in for you," he said. "He says you tripped him oop in the hall and then complained of him to Bill."
"Lovering," said Kirke, "you should see the new geerl. Two came on the 'bus just now. Man, she's a screaming beauty if ever one screamed. You never saw the like. I've just come down from taking her to Mrs. Jessop. Lovering, she'll mak' that cairly hair of yours stand on end when you see her."
Lovering took his face from his glass. "Tha' art always oop in the air about some lass," he said skeptically.
"Ay, but never one like this."
"A fine looker, eh? What is she like?"
"I can't describe her, except that she's tall and nobly built, and she's got a red-hot look in the eyes that mak's your blood tingle."
Lovering gave his slow grin. "Tha' art gone on her already, then."
Kirke stiffened. "Ye know I look higher than that, Lovering, but I can admire the lass."
"Listen to what Fergussen's saying," interrupted Lovering. "What a fellow he is to talk!"
Fergussen, the fishmonger, was standing with his back to the wall, a smile broadening his blunt-featured face. He had been born in Halifax, of Scotch parents, had gone to England as a child, had shipped aboard a West Indian trader at fifteen, had worked on a sheep farm in Australia, a coffee plantation in Ceylon, had fought in the Boer War, was, as he said, one of the strands that held the Empire together.
He took another sip from his glass, smacked his lips, and said: "To continoo our conversation, what gets me is 'ow some people can be so stoopid. They don't know nothing. When I sees 'em, I says to myself—'Fergussen,
