Phryne's Friends - Cecil Yates and Albert Johnson (Cec and Bert)

Cec and Bert are a pair of taxi drivers that  Phryne first meets in Cocaine Blue's when she hails a cab to take her to the Windsor Hotel.

Cec is described as tall, lanky and blonde with brown eyes and as being young and ferociously taciturn. Bert is described as short dark and older. The pair are Communist red-raggers and wharfies that first met when they were fighting in Gallipoli in World War I. When they came back to Australia that got jobs working at the docks together.

Cec has a soft spot for stray animals (much to the dismay of his landlady Mrs Browning) and fallen women and falls for Alice Greenham after picking her up and taking her into hospital in Cocaine Blues by the end of the novel Cec asks Alice to marry him but Alice tells him to ask again in six months when she is back on her feet.

When they first meet Phryne the pair attempt to overcharge her for her fare but they soon discover Phryne is pretty sharp. Phryne employs them later in Cocaine Blues to help break the cocaine ring with the promise that she will give them $50 for a new taxi as their old one is falling to pieces and she continues to employ them to do her 'rough work' thereafter.