Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/223

 XXXVI

they were sitting by the roadside among the pine-trees half-way up a stretch of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood, however, Mr. Hoopdriver reopened the question of his worldly position.

"Ju think," he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette from his mouth, "that a draper's shopman is a decent citizen?"

"Why not?"

"When he puts people off with what they don't quite want, for instance?"

"Need he do that?"

"Salesmanship," said Hoopdriver. "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