"The Scotsman's quite right," piped a pretty voice; and I felt fair frightened. The whole place was in an uproar. Ma rifle—an awkward thing is a rifle—had knocked over a chair, and a young Brass Hat (Staff officer) who was sitting at a table with the girl with the pretty voice, came over. I had to let the other chap go, so as to salute.
"This won't do, you know," says Brass Hat, very severe; but the pretty lassie frowned at him, and he looked a bit awkward. "Confound you, you fool!" says he, very fierce, to the man in evening dress. "The young lady wants this man to lunch with us!"
V—"AND I WENT TO THE CINEMA"
I can't quite remember what happened after that. I should have liked to have fed with that lassie, for her eyes sparkled like stars, and as the Brass Hat was afraid of her it showed she was worth knowing. Still, she wasn't my lassie, but his, and he mightn't have liked it, so I started to retire. The Brass Hat gave me half a crown and said something about being quite as keen on killing the waiter as I was; and then I found myself out in Piccadilly again. It was some time before I found a little pub where I got a good dinner, with beer, for eighteenpence. I will say that for Londoners, mon, they do throw money aboot. Within an hour or so I'd had a railway fare paid and been stood a good dinner. But they take so much more out of you than what they give you, that's my grievance.
Well, having had a good dinner, I strolled along for a bit, and then I thought I'd have a motor-bus ride. As I was standing on the pavements a 'bus stopped alongside me. Mon, I blushed and turned away ma head.
There, on the wee platform at the end, stood a lassie in a blue kilt shorter than mine and high-top boots. Ma little sister wears longer skirts! She was a brown, curly-haired lassie, quite twenty years old, with a funny-shaped hat on her head and a cheeky smile on her lips.
"Want the Bank, Sandy?" says she.
"Lassie," says I, "war's a terrible thing! Go hame to your mither and ask her to lengthen your kilt!"
"Kilt, indeed!" says the hussy, unabashed. "You're out of date, old boy!" And she jerked the bell and the 'bus went off. She waved to me from the stairs, but, of course, I took no notice. By now I was tired of London, mon; I wanted a little peace. Coming to a cinema, I paid saxpence at a little ticket-office and went through a hall that was all mahogany and plush, with a sort of field-marshal in full dress sweeping the marble floor. A lassie with a torch pulled a curtain on one side, and I saw a man falling into a river with a motor-car chasing him. Then the lights went up, and I saw I'd paid saxpence just to stand. I said I'd been swindled, but the people round only cried "Hush!" and then the lights went out again and some letters came up on the screen—"The Big Advance on the Somme."
Mon, when you've been dodging shells and bullets for sixteen months, and ruins and broken trees are the only sort of scenery you've seen, you don't want to have "Big Advances" thrown at you on the pictures. I think I began a speech, and I'm sure it would have been a fine one, but things happen so sudden in London. I saw a shell coming over—on the film, ye ken—and I ducked from force of habit and jostled one or two people. In the excitement I upset a pretty lassie who picked up ma helmet—it was in the dark, ye see—and then I was put out. I wanted to go, or else they'd never have done it. After that—— Oh, is that your train, mon?