(Untitled)

[cant_kim]

Even good pickpockets are sometimes not quite as deft as they'd like. Kim went for a swell mort's purse today, and the woman, feeling the tug, yelled that there was a pickpocket in the crowd. Kim had had the presence of mind to fall back and yell that there he goes -- but in the resulting surge of the crowd, a would-be nabbing cull saw fit to elbow

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[mmquitecontrary]

Not too far off, there's a twelve-year-old girl who's taking in the vocabulary lesson with a great deal of interest.

[cant_kim]

"--bloody gull 's what you are, lookin' to lighten -- bang up, that was -- and that -- fancies hisself with bawbels the--"

She breaks off when she notices Mary, and snaps, "What?"

[mmquitecontrary]

"That is none of it very polite, is it," Mary says - not judgmental, but very curious, and with something of an air of memorization.

[cant_kim]

"Ain't meant to be," Kim retorts.

[mmquitecontrary]

Mary scowls, a little.

"Well, I hardly thought it was."

[cant_kim]

"Why'd you ask, then?"

[mmquitecontrary]

"I didn't," Mary says, full of prim self-righteousness. "I was only standing. You are the one who asked me."

[cant_kim]

"'That's none of it very polite, is it?'" she mimicks, piping and very posh.

[mmquitecontrary]

And now Mary is glaring. (And her voice is more clipped and posh-sounding than ever.)

"If you're going to demand that people say something to you when they are only minding their own business, I do not know what you expect to hear," she snaps.

[cant_kim]

Kim glares right back. "You was mindin' my business close enough for two, else how could you of heard what I said?"

[mmquitecontrary]

"Perhaps," Mary suggests, "you are simply a good deal louder than you think you are."

[cant_kim]

"Perhaps you're a good deal nosier than's good for you."

[mmquitecontrary]

Mary draws herself up to her full height. (Currently a little over five feet, but liable to change any day now!)

"I have ears. It is not my fault if they happen to hear things other people might not like!"

[cant_kim]

Kim's scowl deepens. The chit looks like she's the same height as she is. Better fed, too.

Kim will just stay here on the hearth rather than reveal how tall she is.

"You wasn't hearing, you was listening. Don't think I don't know the difference."

[mmquitecontrary]

Mary is possibly on shady moral ground here, and responds by growing louder.

"If people are talking loudly to themselves, I should think it is their own fault if people are listening to them," she snaps back, and adds, loftily, "That is why some people think."

[cant_kim]

She sits up straighter, leaning forward.

"Least I got enough sense to think on my own, 'stead of havin' to know everyone else's like a flat."