W. Pett Ridge

“ I don’t want my head blown off, and I’ve had quite enough worry in the City to-day without having half a ton of coal-dust in my eye. I’m not a polar bear, sir.”
The long youth asked “Why not?” but the florid gentleman fortunately did not hear the question.
“There is a class of people in this world,” he said, flicking the ash from his cigar to his bulgy capacious waistcoat, “who must always be interfering with everything. If they see a window up they want it down; if they see a door shut they want it open; if they see the gas low they want it up. Always restless, always pottering about. ”

“ The stout, florid gentleman sat back and frowned at the long youth. The long youth shifted uneasily but said nothing. Being pressed however for an opinion he submitted respectfully that it was a bit rough on the girls.
“I knew you’d say that, declared the florid gentleman triumphantly; “I could have sworn those were the very words that you were going to use. I could see them coming. It’s just what I should have expected from a young man with absolutely no experience of the world.” ”

“ Great heavens, man! why can’t people keep still? It’s the great curse of this present so-called generation of ours that everyone must be continually on the go. Why in the world don’t people keep quiet and mind their own business, eh? ”

“ The long youth nodded.
“After all,” went on the stout gentleman softened by success, “after all I suppose it’s what one might venture to call the spirit of the age. I look at girls nowadays, and what do I find? What do I find, sir, eh?”
The long youth, slightly interested, looked up.
“I find a desire to reverse their sex and to upset the arrangements of—er—Providence in every shape and form. In fact,” he smiled, “I—I made rather a good sort of joke—you might call it a pun perhaps—the other evening after dinner. ”

“ It’s no use people telling me to fight against it because I simply can’t, and there’s an end of the matter. And that’s why sometimes—you may have noticed it, ’Erbert—sometimes when we’re out at any place wherever everything’s lively and bright and jolly and so forth, suddenly, all at once——”
She looked impressively round the crowded compartment with the manner of one approaching a dramatic situation. ”

“ I’m as fond of a joke as here and there a one, but this what I’m saying now is sense. There’s a time for jokes and a time for sense, and when anybody’s talking sense isn’t the time for working in silly jokes.” She screwed the programme and her puce gloves tightly in her hands and looked very hard away from Herbert at a white-haired old lady in the corner. ”

“ Herbert, agreeing, said it would get pretty blooming menotinous if we were.
“I’ve often had other girls envy me my good spirits though,” she said, with a more self-appreciative air—“of’en and of’en. Some girls are too quiet, you know, jest the same as some are too noisy. I like the ’appy mejium meself; then you please all parties. I’ve seen girls who sit in a corner and if a young fellow says anything to them in the way of chaff they haven’t a single word to answer back for themselves. ”

“ They haven’t reely. Might as well be made of wood for all they say for themselves. But I don’t know as I don’t prefer that class of young girls to the class that has got too much to say, mind you. Them I can't stand at any price. Jaw, jaw, jaw from morning, noon to night, and never give anyone else a chance to get a word in edgeways. A great deal depends of course on the way a girl’s been brought up, because if she’s never been told she can’t expect to know how to behave, but——”
The train slackened. Herbert released his hold of the rack and took from his pocket the fag end of a cigar. ”