Mrs. 'Ero Edwards only really found scope for her voice out of doors.
No sooner was she in the street than she seized the arm of the Chap
from the Top Floor and shouted him down, as she led him towards the
Cross'n Beetle.
Mrs. Dusty and young Queenie walked arm in arm behind them, and whenever they saw a soldier they squeaked loudly, and addressed him invariably as "Colonel Mawmajuke."
Jay and little Mrs. Love, both rather confused and unhappy people, walked hand in hand a little way behind.
"We needn't go as fur as the Cross'n Beetle, if we don't like," said Mrs.
Love. "They'll never notice if we 'ook it."
"I don't want to 'ook it," said Jay. "I want to keep very busy listening to noisy people. I don't want to hear myself think."
"You're mopey, eh?" asked Mrs. Love gently.
"I'm cold," said Jay. "I believe I've lost something. I believe I've lost a friend of mine."
"Friends is always gettin' lost," said Mrs. Love. "I told you so. Let's go an' 'ave a look at the pictures. They've got the 'Curse of a Crook' on up the street. Fairly mike yer 'air curl."
"I want noise," said Jay, "a much louder noise than that old piano. The pictures are so horribly quiet. Just an underfed man turning a handle, and an underfed woman hitting an underfed piano. At a play you can at least pretend that the actors are having a little fun too, but the pictures—there's only two sad people without smiles at the bottom of it all. I won't go to the pictures, I'll go and get drunk."
"Come on then," said Mrs. Love. "You won't find no lost friends there, but come on. I'll be yer pal for to-night. You've been a pal to me before now. We're temp'ary pals right enough, there' ain't no permanent kind. You won't find no shivers straying around in the ole Cross'n Beetle. Let's 'urry, an' get drunk, and keep 'and in 'and all the time. That's wot pals oughter do."