Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/603

194 over I was too much amused, and also flabbergasted, to walk out of the house without a word, so I had to finish my morning call with great gravity; a morning call also for which I can't see my way for charging. How May did laugh at me when I came home!"

"I must tell you, my dear," he says in another letter a little later, "that I am getting famous, or at least notorious, in Hammersmith town. The other day opposite the Nazareth a covered greengrocer's cart hailed me as 'Socialist!' and then as 'Morris!' I don't think this was meant to be complimentary. Also a week ago as I was going down Rivercourt Road, lo a small boy, chubby, about seven years old, sitting swinging on one of the iron gates, very uncomfortably I should think, as they have sort of cabbage ornaments, sings out to me: 'Have a ride, Morris!' At these two places I was known: but last Sunday it befel me to go to Victoria Park (beyond Bethnal Green) to a meeting. Now I have mounted a cape or cloak, grey in colour, so that people doubt whether I be a brigand or a parson: this seemed too picturesque for some 'Arrys who were passing by, and sung out after me, 'Shakespeare, yah!'"

All through that hot summer of the Queen's Jubilee he stayed in London, busily trying to keep the Socialist League together, and working hard at Merton against the continued depression of trade, but not too anxious to enjoy life in a way that he could hardly have done the year before. A few extracts from letters written during these summer months may be added here.

"I am trying to get the League to make peace with each other and hold together for another year. It is a tough job; something like the worst kind of pig-driving I should think, and sometimes I lose my