t’s all, really.

        I’ve tried to tell you somet t a sniff of    I’ve told you not o be told about it, or you don’t remember, and it’s no use telling you. So far I’ve only spoken about t o me before I een. Up to t time tty     before my sixteent I began to get glimpses of ness.

        About ter I’d seen t Binfield o tea looking very e ea and didn’t talk mug, and aco , because    many back teet. I    getting up from table when he called me back.

        ‘ait a minute, Gee, my boy. I got suto say to you. Sit do a minute. Mot I got to say last night.’

        Moteapot, folded    on, speaking very seriously but rat by trying to deal    lodged some of eeth:

        ‘Gee, my boy, I got suto say to you. I been t over, and it’s about time you left sco get to art earning a bit t o your mote to Mr icksey last nigold o take you away.’

        Of course te acc to pret—ing to Mr icksey before telling me, I mean. Parents in tter of course, alheir children’s heads.

        Fat on to make some rations. imes lately’, t difficult’, and t    Joe and I art earning our living. At t time I didly care    to see t’. t    Fat by petition. Sarazins’, tail seedsmeacle into Loaken t-plad dolled it up until    green paint, gilt lettering, gardening tools painted red and green, and isements for s peas, it    you in t a ance. Sarazins’, besides selling flory and livestock providers’, and apart from s and so fort in for patent poultry mixtures, bird-seed done up in fancy packets, dog-biscuits of all sions, and ditioning poraps, dog-cors, sanitary eggs, bird-ing, bulbs, icide, and even, in some branco ock department’, meaning rabbits and day-old cy old so stoe pete    kind of t    to. tradesmen    ail seedsmen, foug in six montty gentry of ts and t a big loss of trade for Fat, inkle. I didn’t grasp any of t time. I titude to all. I’d aken any i in ted me to run an errand ive a ing sacks of grain up to t or do    it seems natural for a boy tard ill t time fiso me a good deal more real t he grown-up world.

        Fato old Grimmett, ted a smart lad and o take me into tely. Mean rid of to e ill    a regular job. Joe    scime bad imes talked of ‘getting o’ ts department at ts of making o an aueer. Botely    seventeen, e a    repeat tiplication table. At present o be ‘learning trade’ at a big bicycle sskirts of alton. tinkering ed Joe,    e incapable of eadily and spent all ime loafing about in greasy overalls, smoking oodbines, getting into figarted t already), getting ‘talked of’ er anotig Fatful. I    see ,    of grey acles and aderstand en pounds ty pounds t year, and no uand it. ed t trade,    eeto get t, t times rade seemed very slack,    t     as if t o eat. Per ors, y smelly t in. Stle    s to be more so. Once    to decide omorroton. Except omorrorouble and Fat    as far as so it. None of us     ure? I don’t t kically under-sell        imes rade ing t probably tly’.

        It ell you t I    o my fatime of trouble, suddenly proved myself a man, and developed qualities uff you used to read in t novels of ty years ago. Or alternatively I’d like to be able to record t I bitterly resented o leave sc, recoiled from to uff you read in t oday. Bote bunkum. trut I ed at to t o pay me real . I’d no obje to leaving scerms early. It generally    our sco’ go to Reading Uy, or study to be an engineer, o into business’ in London, or run ao sea—and t tiiger you’d meet ables. ites of Fatelli I so leave sc t I so go to antly started demanding a ‘gro’,    t    time, a ‘cuta    I’ve never fully fats in tried to prevent tand-up fig tall collars irl put her hair up.

        So tion veered aroubles and degeed into a long, nagging kind ument, ting angry aing over and over—dropping an aitc to do    ‘ave it. Make up your mind to t—you ’t ‘ave it.’ So I didn’t a    to    time in a ready-made black suit and a broad collar in ress I felt over t. Joe .    o leave t time t    , made a nuisance of o Fatever.

        I t’s st anding, er version of Uncle Ezekiel, and like Uncle Ezekiel a good Liberal. But ed in toer enemy of trade unions and once sacked an assistant for possessing a pograp erally, in tist    tab—. Old Grimmett o ty. ite alk about liberty of sd tempore prayers you could sometimes ting loose ab, tle like a legendary Nonist grocer in tory— you’ve , I expect:

        ‘James!’

        ‘Yessir?’

        ‘he sugar?’

        ‘Yessir!’

        ‘ered treacle?’

        ‘Yessir!’

        ‘to prayers.’

        God knoory art t up tters. Not t old Grimmett sa t doesn’t pay. But rade of Lory round, and ants in ter (ed as cas six montants left to ‘set up’ in Reading and I moved into t o tie a parcel, pack a bag of currants, grind coffee,    an edge on a knife, s eggs    breaking ticle as a good one,    a er into s — remember . I    sucailed memories of gr as I    I remember a good deal. to trick of snapping a bit of string in my fingers. If you put me in front of a ba-slicer I could    better typeer. I could spin you some pretty fair tecies about grades of Cea and    of eggs and thousand.

        ell, for more t    young cter-coloured    s but carefully greased and slicked ba o call a ‘smarm’), ling about beer in a ying up bags of coffee like ligomer along ainly, ma’am! AND t order, ma’am!’ in a voice    a trace of a ey at. Old Grimmett ty    mas ’s a good time to look ba. Don’t t I ions. I kne going to remain a grocer’s assistant for ever, I rade’. Some time, someo ‘set up’ on my o    up in trade’, time    on. t oner on try motor-buses began to run. An aeroplane—a flimsy, rickety-looking tting in too yell at it. People began to say rat tting too big for s and ‘it’ (meaning ime’. My    gradually up, until finally, just before ty-eigen ser,    een s left me feeling rice. I greaco sprout, I ton boots and collars tty dark grey suit,    and black dogskin gloves on t gent, so t Motain ’ on t clots of ambition and sao a Big Business Man like Lever or illiam eley. Beteen and eigs to ‘improve my mind’ and train myself for a business career. I cured myself of dropping aitc rid of most of my ey at. (In try ats . Except for ter talked ey.) I did a correspondence course tleburns’ ercial Academy, learnt bookkeeping and business Englisful bla of Salesmansid even my ing. een I’ve sat up late at nigongue    of my moutising copperplate by ttle oil-lamp on table. At times I read enormously, generally crime and adveories, and sometimes paper-covered books    t’. (translations of Maupassant and Paul de Kock.) But urned    a ticket for ty Library, and began to stodge t    about t time t I joi one evening a er for erary discussion’. Under pressure from ts of Sesame and Lilies and even    Browning.

        And time    slumping suddenly into tter, but it e ter Joe ran aer I    to    Grimmett’s.

        Joe, at eigo an ugly ruffian. y c of tremendous sable mousta tap- room of to s, sco t o knock to t enougo let t taking    of s, yell over    to    t knoo do ing t e one nig of till and taken all t , luckily not muc eig    eerage passage to America. ed to go to America, and I tain. It made a bit of a sdal in to Joe ed because    a girl i as to ainly been    so    a dozen ot ed te, used it to excuse tealing t pounds and running a capable of grasping t Joe    because    stand a det respectable life in a little try toed a life of loafing, fig utterly to t boto e. Luckily tions. As for t t Joe olen t pounds, Moto keep it a secret till t was a mu Sally Chivers’s baby.

        trouble over Joe aged Fat deal. to lose Joe o cut a loss, but it     time frey man, y spectacles, really dates from t time. By sloing more and more involved in moed in otalked less about politid t trade. Moto tle, too. In my d overflo of great opulent creature like ttles smaller and more anxious and older t more for neutton, o use margarine, a to ter Joe o    from t for a year or t s. I sometimes lent    oo selfiso do it regularly. I    still see    double and almost s srous sack, o tacled face looking up from under. In 1911 ured o spend e anotal. A small so c it isn’t sudden and obvious like te of a ly finds ’s just a gradual crade, tle ups and doo t s and goes to Sarazins’. Somebody else buys a dozen ill keep going. You’re still ‘your oer’, altle more tle sal sime. You    go on like t for years, for a lifetime if you’re lucky. Uncle Ezekiel died in 1911, leaving 120 pounds o Fat    till 1913 t e    I didn’t    at time, or I’d ood    meant. As it    t furt Fat doing rade    loo    before I o ‘set up’. Like Fat, and I    ined to be angry    managing tter. I    capable of seeing, a    o be seventy ainly end in time I’ve passed Sarazins’ s-plad merely t    to Faty old se lettering, and ts of bird-seed. It didn’t occur to me t Sarazins’ apeo repeat to uff I’d been reading in my correspondence-course textbooks, about salesmaion. ed an old-establisrade, and supplied sound goods, and tly. It’s a fact t very feill your o cy, and, t Fat, and Motoo.

        1911, 1912, 1913. I tell you it ime to be alive. It e in 1912, t I first met Elsie aters. till t of to looking firls and occasionally mao ect up    and ‘’ a feernoons, I’d never really ’s a queer business, t c sixteen. At snized part of toroll up and docroll up and doending not to notice tly some kind of tact is establisead of trailing along in fours, all four utterly speecure of t ime,    ly failure to make any kind of versation. But Elsie aters seemed different. trut I was growing up.

        I don’t    to tell tory of myself and Elsie aters, even if tory to tell. It’s merely t s of ture, part of ‘before t    t’s . te dusty road stretc betnut trees, t-stocks, t’s oers is part of it.

        I don’t knoy no as tall as I am, ed and coiled round e, curiously gentle face. S al in black, especially t Lilyhan I was.

        I’m grateful to Elsie, because s person    a    mean     ticed    into Lily as it    of butter muslin and old Grimmett seo buy some. You knomosp’s somet, a ell of clot    ter, cutting off a lengt    against ter—I ’t describe it, somet, curiously feminine. As soon as you saake    you ed le, very submissive, t old    eit even stupid, only rat and, at times, dreadfully refined. But in ther refined myself.

        e oget a year. Of course in a toogetive sense. Officially ’,    quite t branco Upper Binfield and ran along uretearly a mile, t e straignut trees, and on t tpat o go tnuts    nig    t your face like silk. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons    over Co ter-meadoillness, ter, t’ll never e again. I don’t mean t 1913    being in a    being frig o be told about, or     ever o learn.

        It    till late summer t ogetoo so begin, and too ignorant to realize t ternoon    into ted e    sing for me to begin. Somet kno it into my o go into t seventy aing very crusty, urning us out, but ernoon. e slipped tpato t    ill tter solitude, t trees all round you, t-ting among ttle grass , and    up and    again. I ed ed to take tened. And curiously enoug in my mind at time. It suddenly struck me t for years I’d meant to e back    seemed a pity not to go doo t t I’d kick myself after I couldn’t t been back before. tored a t me, I o catcime. Practically tually started    dire, and t ten yards I turned back. It meant crasten brus. Dark-grey suit, boton boots, and a collar t almost cut my ears off. t ed Elsie very badly. I    bad stood over . S stir uff t you could do e if I ed to. Suddenly I stopped being frig on to t bounced, I remember), k doook    yet. It    time, but it     make suc as you mig. So t . t of my mind again, and in fact for years after them.

        1913. 1914. t tnuts in blossom. Sunday afternoons along to toget tnut trees, an o    year. ed in t! And tside, t-stocks and pipe-tobac tments, t dust underfoot, and tjars er the cockchafers.

        C! ’s t one oug to be seal about ‘before timental about it. So are you if you remember it. It’s quite true t if you look ba any special period of time you tend to remember t bits. t’s true even of t it’s also true t people t    now.

        ? It    t ture as someto be terrified of. It isn’t t life er tually it ful een s cripples    able’ poverty le atson, a small draper at treet, ‘failed’ after years of struggling, s ely of ric trouble’, but tor let it out t it arvatio o    to t. Old Crimp, tt, a skilled y years, got catarad o go into treet    ce efforts mao send -money. You saimes. Small businesses sliding doradesmen turning gradually into broken-dos, people dying by inc every Saturday, girls ruined for life by an illegitimate baby. ter ms, treets stank like t o you never    a day    remembering    to end. A people y, even ly, it inuity. All of t to die, and I suppose a feo go bankrupt, but    kno tever migo t believe it made very muc ill prevalent in t’s true t nearly everyoo y rate in try—Elsie and I still    to cter of course, even er deat t I’ve never met anyone , at most, people believe in t kind of tmas. But it’s precisely in a settled period, a period o stand on its fs like a sucure life don’t matter. It’s easy enougo die if t are going to survive. You’ve ting tired, it’s time to go underground—t’s o see it. Individually t ti feel tood on sing u.

        Fat kno. It    times rade seemed to d. t ually    bankrupt, because     turned into pneumonia) at to t ,    go    y of small s belief not merely on to bankrupt deat even into tor-vans staring    realize t    of date as too—Moto kno t up to, t God-fearing ser and a det God-fearing simes    and trade    ing’, but you carried on muc c God-fearing    of cosy little undereea, bad legs, and    say t eite to t simes a little dispirited. But at least to kno everyt so muc to a sort of gly flux, and t kno. t it ernity. You couldn’t blame t    felt like.

        t tremendous vague excitement and endless leading articles in tually brougo read aloud to Moters everywhere:

        GERMAN ULtIMAtUM. FRANCE MOBILIZING

        For several days (four days,    it? I fet t dates) traifled feeling, a kind of ing    before a torm breaks, as t and listening. It     o spare ities of tiuff and flour and oatmeal. It oo feveriso ed and ed. In t doo tation and fougrain. And ternoon a boy came rusreet o to s across treet. Everyone er from uck it on t opposite:

        ENGLAND DECLARES AR ON GERMANY

        e rus on to t, all tants, and c old Grimmett, tty    of till o a little of     would be a bad business.

        ter I er I was in France.
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