Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/156

144 English. He told me that he understood that Australians were very unconventional in Australia; that was the only idea he seemed to have (if it was an idea). Whenever my friend put a picture on the easel the lady would clap her hands and exclaim—

"How jolly!" or "Isn't that jolly!" or "Oh, Edward! Isn't that jolly!" Sometimes they'd both say it together. My friend put up a picture called "Sad Autumn."

"Oh, isn't that jolly!"

He put up a picture labelled "The Death of Day." "How jolly!"

He put up a picture of "A Village Churchyard in the Gloaming." "Oh, isn't that jolly!" If he'd had a picture of a disembowelled corpse, they'd have said it was jolly.

But neither the artist nor his wife could see it. And I couldn't help wondering, "And are these of the people we fight for?"

There is a factory or two on the outskirts of the village—not staring and unsightly as in Australia, but back behind trees and hedges—and the work-people live in little rows and squares of cottages at the end of the village and "over the Common." The working people seem to me to be honest and healthy-minded, even humorous, and more intelligent than the well-to-do class. But I came across one who seemed to have less humour in him than the draper mentioned above. He is the village coachbuilder, a tall, thin man, with very hollow cheeks and thin red