Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/152

 thousand miles, and for a year); here in England they cannot trust, not the workman, but the respectable middle class, better class, well-to-do class, independent class, or whatever you like to call them. And why? Because of the curse of England—the ghastly struggle to "keep up appearances"—because, if the tradesman is not sharp, Mrs. So-and-so will very likely spend the money that So-and-so owes him on a stylish, useless piece of furniture, which she must have or burst, because Mrs. Somebodyelse has just bought one like it.

The houses and villas round here are very much like what you'd see at Mosman, North Sydney, or any other well-to-do Australian suburb. I can see little difference between the street I'm living in and the street I lived in in North Sydney. But outside we have fields and hedges in the place of bare fences, brown paddocks, and dreary, monotonous, endless scrubs, as round about Come-by-Chance. This is a pretty place, and a healthy place, and a bright place all summer, and the well-to-do people ought to be happy; but I believe that they are the most miserable people on the face of God's earth. It's all on account of the struggle to keep up the appearance of being twice as well off as they are.

We'll suppose that the "better class people" are tradesmen's families, mechanics, and others, who have risen in the world. We'll lump those known as "well-to-do" and "independent" people together—we'd call 'em all the middle classes in Australia, but "middle class" is only a vulgar term used by ignorant colonial democracy and bloated aristocrats. I don't know