"I wish you wouldn't hit on it so hard," I complained; "the springs are
half-broken already. What's the trouble?"
"Have you ever heard," he inquired, "of the black-coated salariat?"
"The egg of the greater green-backed woodpecker--"
"It isn't a bird," he said; "it's a class of people that works with its
brains. And the hand of Labour, according to my evening paper, is being
held out to it."
"But suppose one wears a pepper-and-salt suit," I said, "and writes
'Society Gossip.' What about that?"
"That's just my point. All these accepted lines of distinction are
absolutely wrong. It isn't what people work at that divides them, it's the
way they travel to their work. Sir THOMAS MALORY knew that. When _Lancelot_
was going to rescue _Guinevere_ he had his white horse badly punctured by a
bushment of archers and had to finish the journey in a woodcutter's cart.
And that was a great disgrace to him and made the _Queen's_ ladies laugh.
It would be just the same with the typists of a rich employer if his
motor-car broke down and he had to arrive in a bus. How do you get to town
in the morning yourself?"
"I am a Tuber," I said sadly. "Every bright morning I say I will go by bus,
but when I reach the Tube station the draught sucks me in through the door,
the man grabs me by the collar, throws me into the sink, lifts up the plug
and down we go into the drain-pipe together.
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