"'No,' says Bill, 'we ain't mates.'
"'But you've worked together?' says the lawyer. 'Oh, yes!' says Bill.
"'And travelled together?'
"'Oh, yes!'
"'And camped together?'
"'Oh, yes!'
"'Then if you're not mates what is mates?' says the lawyer in a bit of a tear.
"'Well, mister,' says Bill, 'mates is them wot's got one pus. If I go to a shed with Jack an' we're mates an' I earn forty quid and Jack gets sick an' only earns ten or five or mebbe nothin' at all we puts the whole lot in one pus, or if it's t'other way about an' Jack earns the forty it don't matter. There's one pus no matter how much each of us earns an' it b'longs just the same to both of us alike. If Jack's got the pus and I want half-a-crown, I says to Jack, says I, "Jack, gimme the pus." An' if Jack wants ten quid or twenty or the whole lot he just says to me, "Bill," says he "gimme the pus." I don't ask wot he's goin' to take and I don't care. He can take it all if he wants it, 'cos it stands to reason, don't it, mister?' says Bill to the lawyer, 'that a man wouldn't be so dirt mean as to play a low-down trick on his own mate. So you see, mister, him an' me warn't mates 'cos we had two pusses an' mates is them wot's got one pus.'"
Geisner laughed with Ned over the bush definition of "mates."
"Bill was about right," he said, "and Socialism would make men mates to the extent of all sharing up with one another. Each man might have a purse but he'd put no more into it than his mate who was sick and weak."