The introductions concluded--they were sufficient--Macbeth, as though suddenly recollecting an interrupted train of thought, broke out: "Say, mister, did yer see them two go by on bicycles just now?" "Yes." "Well, I see 'em, quarter of a mile oop the road, crouching oonder t'hedge"--he spoke Yorkshire[4]--"wet to skin, and she nowt on but a cotton blouse. So I sez to her, 'My dear, ye'll get yer death o' cold,' 'Yes,' she says, 'and me with a weak chest.' Pore young thing, I'm fair sorry for her. I towd t'young man to tek his co-at off and put it ra-ownd her. 'That'll do no good,' he sez; 'she's wet through a'ready.' 'Well,' I sez, 'she's not been wet through all her life, has she? Why didn't you put it on her while she were dry? Sense? You've got no more sense nor a blind rabbit.' But it was no good. My! What rain! Nivver see nothing like it. They'll be fair drownded. I think I'll go and fetch 'em in. Holy potatoes!" (Will anyone explain this expression? It was evoked by a crash of thunder which burst immediately above the box and seemed to hurl us into space.) [Footnote 4: The reader who would get the full flavour of Macbeth's conversation should translate it, if he can, into a broad Yorkshire dialect. This I have indicated here and there by the spelling of a word, which is as far as, or perhaps farther than, my own competence extends.] "No good fetching 'em in now," I replied, taking a point of view which I afterwards saw to have been that of the Priest and the Levite. "They'd suffer more damage getting here than staying where they are. Besides, where would you put 'em?" "That's trew," said Macbeth. "This ain't no place for ladies, anyhow." (It wasn't!) "But just think of that pore young thing--nowt on, I tell yer, but a cotton blouse. Hello! there's a cart coming. I'll tell t'man to tek 'em oop." Out jumped Macbeth into the pelting rain, and presently I heard him shouting to the man in charge: "Hey, mister! There's a young man and woman crouching under t'hedge oop t'ro-ad. She nowt on but a cotton blouse! It isn't sa-afe, yer know, in this thoonder and lightnin'. Tek her oop, and put a sack or two on her." I gathered the result of the interview was satisfactory to Macbeth, for presently he came back, steaming, into the box. For some minutes he continued to mutter with the thunder, about "poor young things," "cotton blouses," and "weak chests."