Cretin Dear oh ! Dear ! Pickles Cretin tittered and he-hawed and passers-by thought he was sawing the legs of my bar table . Twaddle The Lowlander must have been thick - after all - look at yourself - you are not altogether stupid . Pickles I believe Twaddle actually thought he was passing me a compliment . Snipes IMPREGNATED - now that is a nice word indeed , coming from someone at present engaged in translating ‘ Little Red Riding Hood ’ into big words . Cretin He has finished that book , for your information , smart-ass and is half-way through ‘ Goldilocks and the Four Bears .’ Snipes FOUR bears ? Cretin Paddington Bear - you forgot about Paddington Bear , whoever wrote that story must have missed out Paddington Bear but the Duke added him in . Pickles Cecil Cretin thought he was doing his mate a good turn but the way Twaddle screwed his face up , made me think he wanted the conversation changed . He was in luck : Perkin Snipes did just that . He picked on Cretin . Snipes Good friends again ? Good friends again Duke ? Good friends , you and me ? Pickles Snipes took the piss out of the ginger-headed man . I think Cretin would have preferred to forget . You could tell that because his daft looking little face turned purple - in places - that is . Twaddle I warned you , Cecil ! Pickles The man with the fat ass turned on his companion . Twaddle I did warn you that , that little eavesdropper , Pickles does not miss a thing . And once he ’ s got it - the world and his wife have it within the hour . Pickles ‘ At least he can get something right ,' I thought . ‘ And now I will double my efforts to fraught you ambitions , fat man .'
AT THE VILLAGE GREEN WITH THE PUMP
Pickles The size of the crowd at the second ‘ rally ’ had trebled from the previous event . There were people there from places as distant as Ratferry and Grange-under-Rubble . The Tinker Street Non-subscribing Salvation Army Band was dressed up for the occasion . They wore paddy-hats , proper uniform tops and casual from the waist down . The Ulsterman , whose memory goes back to 1690 , was wearing a big pair of Wellington boots and a tight-fitting bowler hat . Lizzie Juggins , the lady with no obvious independent means , had applied make-up by sucking a red gob stopper and licking her lips . Basil Freeloader ’ s charm must have worked , for , Davy Brudder was standing beside the old cart . He was wearing a bright red shirt with ancient insignia on the collar but the six men who stood to attention , beside him , were decked-out in the grey shirts with crow ’ s feet markings . Some compromise had obviously been reached . Word got around