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She blew a long cloud of smoke. “It’s not very easy. You see, if you get a boy that wants to take you out he has to book you out for the session, and that costs twenty-five bob on top on what he spends outside. It’s only the old ones that can do that, and I don’t like going out with them. They get so silly. But I do love a show, better than anything. I expect you don’t care for them much?”

I had had a long drive that day, and a good dinner. I was leaving Leeds on the next day, and it was unlikely that I should ever see this girl again. Sometimes it’s a luxury to speak the truth. “I like a theatre,” I said. “I like to go and have a really good dinner somewhere, and go on to a theatre, and then go and dance for an hour or so before bed. But you want to have somebody to go with; it’s not much fun doing that alone.”

She nodded. “Haven’t you got any girl friends to go with?”

I knocked the ash off my cigarette. “No,” I said. “They don’t seem to come my way much.” I looked at her and grinned. “That’s why I have to come and pay sixpence.”