Tickets, Please! | Page 2

something, while her driver chats in the main road. There is 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