sisters in her sober moments that keeps her forgiven in that classic
thoroughfare. She can certainly speak "like a lady" when she likes,
and like an intelligent, even a clever, woman--not like a "woman of
the world," but as a woman who knew and knows the world, and is in
hell. But now her language is the language of a rough shearer in a
"rough shed" on a blazing hot day.

After a while my mate calls out to her:

"Oh! for God's sake give it a rest!"

Whereupon Mrs Johnson straightway opens on him and his ancestry, and
his mental, moral, and physical condition--especially the latter. She
accuses him of every crime known to Christian countries and some
Asiatic and ancient ones. She wants to know how long he has been out
of jail for kicking his wife to pieces that time when she was up as a
witness against him, and whether he is in for the same thing again?
(She has never set eyes on him, by the way, nor he on her.)

He calls back that she is not a respectable woman, and he knows all
about her.

Thereupon she shrieks at him and bangs and kicks at her door, and
demands his name and address. It would appear that she is a
respectable woman, and hundreds can prove it, and she is going to make
him prove it in open court.

He calls back that his name is Percy Reginald Grainger, and his town
residence is "The Mansions," Macleay Street, next to Mr Isaacs, the
magistrate, and he also gives her the address of his solicitor.