"But what are you doing in town?" I said. "I thought you were in
Yorkshire with your aunt."
Over his round, light eyes, fixed on something in the street, the lids
fell quickly twice, as the film falls over the eyes of a parrot.
"I'm after a job," he answered. "Must be on the spot just now."
And it seemed to me that I had heard those words from him before.
"Ah, yes," I said, "and do you think you'll get it?"
But even as I spoke I felt sorry, remembering how many jobs he had been
after in his time, and how soon they ended when he had got them.
He answered:
"Oh, yes! They ought to give it me," then added rather suddenly: "You
never know, though. People are so funny!"
And crossing his thin legs, he went on to tell me, with quaint
impersonality, a number of instances of how people had been funny in
connection with jobs he had not been given.
"You see," he ended, "the country's in such a state--capital going out of
it every day. Enterprise being killed all over the place. There's
practically nothing to be had!"
"Ah!" I said, "you think it's worse, then, than it used to be?"
He smiled; in that smile there was a shade of patronage.
"We're going down-hill as fast as ever we can. National character's
losing all its backbone. No wonder, with all this molly-coddling going
on!"
"Oh!" I murmured, "molly-coddling? Isn't that excessive?"
"Well! Look at the way everything's being done for them! The working
classes are losing their self-respect as fast as ever they can.
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