"Well, the City hasn't reckoned with Ruby Flint before. If they try and knock me down, I'll just come back fighting even harder."

She hesitates at the question, taking a long drag on her cigarette to weigh up whether she should tell him or not. She supposes it would be easier than avoiding the subject, especially if a friendship or more developed out of this.

She sighs. "You said you wanted to know all about me. Well, I should tell you straight up that my parents are socialists. I don't subscribe to their ideas one bit, and I've never had much contact with them, but that didn't stop Joe McCarthy from pulling me up in front of the House Committee. They didn't get anything, of course - there wasn't anything there for them to get - but it still meant that I got a fair bit of publicity that I neither wanted or needed."