"And you get so you can spot women almost as well as if they had naked faces," the second policeman volunteered. "You know, hands and all that."
"Especially all that," the first agreed with a chuckle. "Say, is it true that some girls don't mask over in England?"
"A number of them have picked up the fashion," I told him. "Only a few, though—the ones who always adopt the latest style, however extreme."
"They're usually masked in the British newscasts."
"I imagine it's arranged that way out of deference to American taste," I confessed. "Actually, not very many do mask."
The second policeman considered that. "Girls going down the street bare from the neck up." It was not clear whether he viewed the prospect with relish or moral distaste. Likely both.
"A few members keep trying to persuade Parliament to enact a law forbidding all masking," I continued, talking perhaps a bit too much.
The second policeman shook his head. "What an idea. You know, masks are a pretty good thing, brother. Couple of years more and I'm going to make my wife wear hers around the house."
The first policeman shrugged. "If women were to stop wearing masks, in six weeks you wouldn't know the difference. You get used to anything, if enough people do or don't do it."
I agreed, rather regretfully, and left them. I turned north on Broadway (old Tenth Avenue, I believe) and walked rapidly until I was beyond Inferno. Passing such an area of undecontaminated radioactivity always makes a person queasy. I thanked God there weren't any such in England, as yet.