"That your child?"
I answered her, and then she asked:
"Do you like children?"
I answered her again, and asked her if she did not like them also.
"Can't say I'm particularly gone on them," she said, whereupon I replied that that was probably because she had not yet had much experience.
"Oh, haven't I? Perhaps I haven't," she said, and then with a hard little laugh, she added "Mother's had nine though."
I asked if she was a shop assistant, and with a toss of her head she told me she was a typist.
"Better screw and your evenings off," she said, and then she returned to the subject of children.
One of her chums in the office who used to go out with her every night to the music-halls got into trouble a year or two ago. As a consequence she had to marry. And what was the result? Never had her nose out of the wash-tub now!
The story was crude enough, yet it touched me closely.