“Well, you don’t want us to get caught, do you?”
“No, I don’t know as I do. Ye look a couple o’ bonny wenches.”
“Let’s have two caps and aprons, then,” said Jane Foley smoothly. “We’ll pay the shilling fine.” She laughed lightly. “And a bit more. If the police get in here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they’ll break the place up.”
Audrey produced another half-sovereign.
“But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?” the woman demanded.
“Give them to you, of course.”
The woman regarded the hats and coats.
“I couldn’t get near them coats,” she said. “And if I put on one o’ them there hats my old man ’ud rise from the grave—that he would. Still, I don’t wish ye any harm.”
She shut and locked the door.
In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and streamered caps of immaculate purity emerged from the secret places of the Parade Restaurant and Bar, slipped round the end of the counter, and started with easy indifference to saunter away into the grounds after the manner of restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour off. The tabled expanse in front of the Parade erection was busy with people, some sitting at the tables and supporting the establishment, but many more merely taking advantage of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of the suffragette shindy.