Jackrum sighed. ‘There’s a song,’ he said. ‘It starts ‘Twas on a Monday morning, all in the month
of May—’
‘Then it is about sex,’ said Polly flatly. ‘It’s a folk song, it starts with ‘twas, it takes place in May,
QED it’s about sex. Is a milkmaid involved? I bet there is.’
‘There could be,’ Jackrum conceded.
‘Going for to market? For to sell her wares?’ said Polly.
‘Very likely.’
‘O-kay. That gives us the cheese. And she meets, let’s see, a soldier, a sailor, a jolly ploughboy or
just possibly a man clothed all in leather, I expect? No, since it’s about us, it’ll be a soldier, right?
And since it’s one of the Ins-and-Outs . . . oh dear, I feel a humorous double-entendre coming
on. Just one question: what item of her clothing fell down or came untied?’
‘Her garter,’ said Jackrum. ‘You’ve heard it before, Perks.’
‘No, but I just know how folk songs go. We had folk singers in the lower bar for six months back
hom— where I worked. In the end we had to get a man in with a ferret. But you remember
stuff . . . oh, no . . .’