[Original]
TWO VOICES
Yes,” said the man with the big voice, “I've seen it coming for years. Years.”
“Have you?” said the man with the timid voice. He had taken his seat on the top of the bus beside the big voice and had spoken of the tube strike that had suddenly paralysed the traffic of London.
“Yes, years,” said big voice, crowding as much modesty into the admission as possible. “I'm a long-sighted man. I see things a long way off. Suppose I'm a bit psychic. That's what I'm told. A bit psychic.”
“Ah,” said timid voice, doubtful, I thought, as to the meaning of the word, but firm in admiring acceptance of whatever it meant.
“Yes, I saw it coming for years. Lloyd George—that's the man that up to it before the war with his talk about the dukes and property and things. I said then, 'You see if this don't make trouble.' Why, his speeches got out to Russia and started them there. And now's it's come back. I always said it would. I said we should pay for it.”