"Wouldn't get a crib if he
didn't.--It's no good your arguing. It's not a particularly
honest nor a particularly useful trade; it's not very high up ;
there's no freedom and no leisure--seven to eight-thirty every
day in the week; don't leave much edge to live on, does it?--real
workmen laugh at us and educated chaps like bank clerks and
solicitors' clerks look down on us. You look respectable outside,
and inside you are packed in dormitories like convicts, fed on
bread and butter and bullied like slaves. You're just superior
enough to feel that you're not superior. Without capital there's
no prospects; one draper in a hundred don't even earn enough to
marry on; and if he DOES marry, his G.V. can just use him to
black boots if he likes, and he daren't put his back up. That's
drapery! And you tell me to be contented. Would YOU be contented
if you was a shop girl?"
She did not answer. She looked at him with distress in her brown
eyes, and he remained gloomily in possession of the field.
Presently he spoke. "I've been thinking," he said, and stopped.
She turned her face, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand.
There was a light in her eyes that made the expression of them
tender. Mr. Hoopdriver had not looked in her face while he had
talked. He had regarded the grass, and pointed his remarks with
redknuckled hands held open and palms upwards. Now they hung
limply over his knees.
"Well?" she said.
"I was thinking it this morning," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
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