Finding it (much to Jarman's surprise) impossible to renew the thread of my work, I would abandon my attempts at literature, and instead listen to his talk, which was always interesting. His conversation was, it is true, generally about himself, but it was none the less attractive on that account. His love affairs, which appeared to be numerous, formed his chief topic. There was no reserve about Jarman: his life contained no secret chambers. What he “told her straight,” what she “up and said to him” in reply was for all the world that cared to hear. So far his search after the ideal had met with but ill success. “Girls,” he would say, “they're all alike, till you know 'em. So long as they're trying to palm themselves off on yer, they'll persuade you there isn't such another article in all the market. When they've got yer order--ah, then yer find out what they're really made of. And you take it from me, 'Omer Junior, most of 'em are put together cheap. Bah! it sickens me sometimes to read the way you paper-stainers talk about 'em --angels, goddesses, fairies! They've just been getting at yer. You're giving 'em just the price they're asking without examining the article. Girls ain't a special make, like what you seem to think 'em. We're all turned out of the same old slop shop.” “Not that I say, mind yer,” he would continue, “that there are none of the right sort. They're to be 'ad--real good 'uns. All I say is, taking 'em at their own valuation ain't the way to do business with 'em.” What he was on the look out for--to quote his own description--was a really first class article, not something from which the paint would come off almost before you got it home. “They're to be found,” he would cheerfully affirm, “but you've got to look for 'em. They're not the sort that advertises.”