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POLICEMAN. Stand up.

CINDERELLA. I鈥檓 standing up.

POLICEMAN. Now, no sauce. Now then, what are you staring at?

CINDERELLA. That鈥檚 a poor way to polish a belt. If I was a officer I would think shame of having my belt in that condition.

POLICEMAN. It鈥檚 easy to speak; it鈥檚 a miserable polish I admit, but mind you, I鈥檓 pretty done when my job鈥檚 over; and I have the polishing to do myself.

CINDERELLA. You have no woman person?

POLICEMAN. Not me.

CINDERELLA. If I had that belt for half an hour!

POLICEMAN. What would you use?

CINDERELLA. Spit.

POLICEMAN. Spit? That鈥檚 like what my mother would have said. That was in Badgery, where I was born. When I was a boy at Badgery鈥�

CINDERELLA. What鈥檚 wrong?

POLICEMAN. How did you manage that about Badgery?

CINDERELLA. What?

POLICEMAN. Take care, prisoner. Name?

CINDERELLA. Cinderella.

POLICEMAN. Take care, Thing. Occupation, if any?

CINDERELLA. Tempary help.

POLICEMAN. Last place?

CINDERELLA. 3 Robert Street.

POLICEMAN. Scotch? Ah, they鈥檒l never admit that. Reason for leaving?

CINDERELLA. I had to go when the war broke out.

POLICEMAN. Why dismissed?

CINDERELLA. They said I was a luxury.

POLICEMAN. Now be cautious. How do you spend your evenings after you leave this building? Have you another and secret occupation? Has it to do with boxes? What do you keep in those boxes? Where is it that these goings-on is going on? If you won鈥檛 tell me, I鈥檓 willing to tell you. It鈥檚 at A. C. Celeste鈥檚.... In Bond Street, W. Are you living in guilty splendour? How do you come to know German words? How many German words do you think I know? Just one, espionage. What鈥檚 the German for 鈥榮ix months hard鈥�? What鈥檚 this nonsense about your feet?

CINDERELLA. It鈥檚 not nonsense.

POLICEMAN. I see nothing particular about your feet.

CINDERELLA. Then I鈥檓 sorry for you.

POLICEMAN. What is it?

CINDERELLA. Their exquisite smallness and perfect shape.

POLICEMAN. For my part I鈥檓 partial to big women with their noses in the air.

CINDERELLA. So is everybody. I鈥檝e tried. But it鈥檚 none so easy, with never no butcher鈥檚 meat in the house. You鈥檒l see where the su-perb shoulders and the haughty manners come from if you look in shop windows and see the whole of a cow turned inside out and 鈥楧elicious鈥� printed on it.

POLICEMAN. There鈥檚 something in that.

CINDERELLA. But it doesn鈥檛 matter how fine the rest of you is if you doesn鈥檛 have small feet.

POLICEMAN. I never gave feet a thought.

CINDERELLA. The swells think of nothing else. Wait till you are at the Ball. Many a haughty beauty with superb uppers will come sailing in鈥攁s sure of the prize as if 鈥楧elicious鈥� was pinned on her鈥攁nd then forward steps the Lord Mayor, and he points to the bottom of her skirt, and he says 鈥楲ift!鈥� and she has to lift, and there鈥檚 a dead silence, and nothing to be heard except the Prince crying 鈥楾hrow her out!鈥�

Citation: J.M. Barrie, A Kiss for Cinderella, Public domain.

Full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/69817/pg69817-images.html