ROMANCE OF TWO GIRLS.

Northern Advocate, 23 May 1912, Page 3

ROMANCE OF TWO GIRLS.

. * — ONE POSES AS A MAN; THS OTHER AS THE WIFE. LONDON, April 5. People will do much for friendship's sake, but not often does it happen that a girl, for love of another girl, will I>ut on man's clothes and live and •wprk as a man, playing "husband" to yh&r friend's "wife." V Yet this is the bold escapade in which a Chiswick girl has just been detected in. Since last August Adelaide Dallamore, a 23-year-old servanlgirl, has been working in West London as a plumber's mate in workclothes, and during a large part of that period her girl chum has been sharing her lodgings as "Mrs Dallamore." Ihey are such devoted "pals" that rather than yield to a threat to separate them they adopted tins startling device. s THE GIRL'S STORY. Last evening the two girls told a 'Morning Leader" representative the weird story of their "married" life. Adelaide had just been stent home to Iter parents at Shepherds-bush by the police on a promise that she would raaume female attire, and for the first t'me for eight months she was walking out with her "wife" in skirts instead of trousers. "I haven't got used to skirts yet," she grumbled. '■/, "The awkward things!" She is a good-ldoking girJ, sturdy, and rather short of statue. Dressed 1 in workman's clothes, with her smooth, boyish face rather low-pitched voice,, she wculd easily pass as a young man. "We have, always been very fond of one another," she said, explaining the reason of the escapade. "We've ltelt more like loviers to each other than friends, haven't we, dear?" The readily assented; it was plain even to a stranger that the affection between the two girls was much more than common. "Bat her people wanted to part us," j?rent Qn Adelaide, "and we were* driven to think,of this idea in order that no young man should come between us. "last August I bought a suit 'of men's clothes, and started off oh a tramp looking for work. I had seven f" shillings in my trousers pocket when f I; left Shepherds-bush one dark morning, and-I made for Lincolnshire. But I had very little luck, and at Bishop's Stortford (after, tramping about 36 miles) finding bdld jobbs scarcer and scarcer, I turned back. AS PLUMBKtI'S MATE. "I was'back again in Chiswick about a week after leaving home, and saw a .notice in; a plumber's window, saying that a plumber's mate was wanted* So I went in and applied for. it They asked me if I had ever done any plumbing, and I said.'Yes' (though,, of course, I hadn't) > and they gave me the job. It wasn't difficult. A plumber's mate has only to wait on the plumber at his job, handing him his tools and juso doing what he's told, and I got on all right. My first job was on the roof of a new house —no, I didn't feel dizzy at all. "It got 3d an hour, with a rise to 3 after a bit. But the plumber I worked for cared more for fishing t.'ian plumbini* Bill was always going off work to do fishing, and though I often went with him and enjoyed it Awfully, I didn't get 3%d an hour for that. So I looked for a new job, and found one at another Chiswick firm of plumbers. '-'."■'•.■" NEVIDR SUSPECTED. "I was very happy there. There were 20 'pairs'—4o of us altogether— and nobody ever suspected that I was o woman. They just looked on me as an unusually well-behaved young man because when work was over I didn't use to hang about drinking and. smoking, but v-ent straight heme, like & good young married man should.

iFor by this time my friend and I had set up house together in Chiswick as Mr and Mrs Dallamore. She earned &s a week in service, I averaged about 12s and a pound a week was Quite enough tc keep us. "It was a real happy time!" exclaimed Adelaide, "When my ten hours' work was done, I would change my working clothes for a better suit, and my soft collar for a hard 'stickit p' one, and we would go out for walks together arm in arm. I think men have a much better time than women. I know 1 was much healthier working ten lours a day as a plumber's mate than I ever was in service!" "So you were, dear!" said the "wife." "And you looked so nice in men's clothes: Better than in skirts! Do you remember what an awful job we had tying your first necktie?" The girl plumber burst out laughing at the 'recollection. "We were an hour and a half," she said, "before we got the thing tied anything like proierly!" THE FATHER'S INTERFERENCE. It appears that although the girl's employers and workmates never suspected the sex of this exemplary "young man," the police were informed of it by relatives of the couple, but declined to interfere. It was only a week 'ago, when a personal visit to the home of the pair in Annandale road by an irate father and brother ended in a "scrap," which had a sequel in Acton Police Court, that the facts came out, and the strange menage had to be broken up. "Why couldn't they have left us {lone? We were so happy together, weren't we, darling?" said the "husband," sniffing suspiciously. "Yes, love!" exclaimjed the "wife," wiping her eyes. "But they shall rever, never part us!" Whereupon the scene between these very; odd lovers became so extremely tender that the "Morning Leader" representative discreetly withdrew.