"Think what a stamina they must have." He grew
confidential. "I've seen one woman," he said, "pull out from
underneath 'er a street doorkey, a tin box of lozengers, a
pencil-case, a whopping big purse, a packet of hair-pins, and a
smelling-bottle. Why, you or me would be wretched, sitting on a
plain door-knob, and them women goes about like that all day. I
suppose they gets used to it. Drop 'em on an eider-down pillow, and
they'd scream. The time it takes me to get tuppence out of them,
why, it's 'eart-breaking. First they tries one side, then they
tries the other. Then they gets up and shakes theirselves till the
bus jerks them back again, and there they are, a more 'opeless 'eap
than ever. If I 'ad my way I'd make every bus carry a female
searcher as could over'aul 'em one at a time, and take the money
from 'em. Talk about the poor pickpocket. What I say is, that a
man as finds his way into a woman's pocket--well, he deserves what
he gets."
But it was the thought of more serious matters that lured me into
reflections concerning the over-carefulness of women. It is a
theory of mine--wrong possibly; indeed I have so been informed--that
we pick our way through life with too much care.
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