Tickets, Please! | Page 2

very good feeling between the girls and the drivers. Are they not companions in peril, shipmates aboard this careering vessel of a tramcar, for ever rocking on the waves of a hilly land?
Then, also, in the easy hours the inspectors are most in evidence. For some reason, everybody employed in this tram-service is young: there are no grey heads. It would not do. Therefore the inspectors are of the right age, and one, the chief, is also good-looking. See him stand on a wet, gloomy morning in his long oilskin, his peaked cap well down over his eyes, waiting to board a car. His face is ruddy, his small brown moustache is weathered, he has a faint, impudent smile. Fairly tall and agile, even in his waterproof, he springs aboard a car and greets Annie.
'Halloa, Annie! Keeping the wet out?'
'Trying to.'
There are only two people in the car. Inspecting is soon over. Then for a long and impudent chat on the footboard-a good, easy, twelve-mile chat.
The inspector's name is John Joseph Raynor: always called John Joseph. His face sets in fury when he is addressed, from a distance, with this abbreviation. There is considerable scandal about John Joseph in half-a-dozen villages. He flirts with the girl-conductors in the morning, and walks out with them in the dark night when they leave their tramcar at the depot. Of course, the girls quit the service frequently. Then he flirts and walks out with a newcomer: always providing she is sufficiently attractive, and that she will consent to walk. It is remarkable, however, that most of the girls are quite comely, they are all young, and this roving life aboard the car gives them a sailor's dash and recklessness. What matter how they behave when the ship is in port? Tomorrow they will be aboard again.
Annie, however, was something of a tartar, and her sharp tongue had kept John Joseph at arm's length for many months. Perhaps, therefore, she liked him all the more; for he always came up smiling, with impudence. She watched him vanquish one girl, then another. She could tell by the movement of his mouth and eyes, when he flirted with her in the morning, that he had been walking out with this lass, or the other the night before. She could sum him up pretty well.
In their subtle antagonism, they knew each other like old friends; they were as shrewd with one another almost as man and wife. But Annie had always kept him fully at arm's length. Besides, she had a boy of her own.
The Statutes fair, however, came in November, at Middleton. It happened that Annie had the Monday night off. It was a drizzling, ugly night, yet she dressed herself up and went to the fairground. She was alone, but she expected soon to find a pal of some sort.
The roundabouts were veering round and grinding out their music, the side-shows were making as much commotion as possible. In the coconut shies there were no coconuts, but artificial substitutes, which the lads declared were fastened into the irons. There was a sad decline in brilliance and luxury. None the less, the ground was muddy as ever, there was the same crush, the press of faces lighted up by the flares and the electric lights, the same smell of naphtha and fried potatoes and electricity.
Who should be the first to greet Miss Annie, on the show-ground, but John Joseph! He had a black overcoat buttoned up to his chin, and a tweed cap pulled down over his brows, his face between was ruddy and smiling and hardy as ever. She knew so well the way his mouth moved.
She was very glad to have a 'boy'. To be at the Statutes without a fellow was no fun. Instantly, like the gallant he was, he took her on the dragons, grim-toothed, round-about switchbacks. It was not nearly so exciting as a tramcar, actually. But then, to be seated in a shaking green dragon, uplifted above the sea of bubble faces, careering in a rickety fashion in the lower heavens, whilst John Joseph leaned over her, his cigarette in his mouth, was, after all, the right style. She was a plump, quick, alive little creature. So she was quite excited and happy.
John Joseph made her stay on for the next round. And therefore she could hardly for shame to repulse him when he put his arm round her and drew her a little nearer to him, in a very warm and cuddly manner. Besides, he was fairly discreet, he kept his movement as hidden as possible. She looked down, and saw that his red, clean hand was out of sight of the crowd. And they knew each other so well. So they warmed up to the fair.
After the dragons