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