t’s all, really.

    I’ve tried to tell you somet t a sniff of  I’ve told you not need to 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 mucing, and aco , because  many back teet. I  getting up from table when he called me back.

    ‘ait a minute, George, 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:

    ‘George, 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 to bring o your mote to Mr icksey last nigold o take you away.’

    Of course te according to precedent—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 didn’t eitly care  to see t’. t  Fat by competition. Sarazins’, tail seedsmen entacle into Loaken t-place and 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 conditioning poraps, dog-cors, sanitary eggs, bird-nesting, bulbs, icide, and even, in some branco ock department’, meaning rabbits and day-old cy old so stock ne compete  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 never taken any interest in ted me to run an errand or give a ing sacks of grain up to t or do  it seems natural for a boy to regard 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 come ill  a regular job. Joe  scime back and imes talked of ‘getting o’ ts department at ts of making o an auctioneer. 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 anoticking Fatful. I can see ,  of grey acles and ac understand en pounds ty pounds t year, and no understand 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 or trying to decide omorroton. Except omorrorouble and Fat  as far as so it. None of us   ure? I don’t t kno tematically 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 novels today. Bote bunkum. trut I ed at to t o pay me real . I’d no objection to leaving scerms early. It generally  our sco’ go to Reading University, or study to be an engineer, or ‘go into business’ in London, or run ao sea—and t tice, niger you’d meet ables. ites of Fatelling me t 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 or a girl put her hair up.

    So tion veered aroubles and degenerated into a long, nagging kind of argument, ting angry and repeating over and over—dropping an aitc to do  ‘ave it. Make up your mind to t—you can’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 Cin tab—. Old Grimmett o ty. ite alk about liberty of conscience and tempore prayers you could sometimes ting loose ab, tle like a legendary Nonconformist 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 sanded t 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, clean a er into s — remember . I  sucailed memories of grocering 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 bacon-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 back in 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 Cockney accent. Old Grimmett ty  mas ’s a good time to look back on. 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 commoner 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 ric since. 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 Cockney accent. (In try accents . Except for ter talked Cockney.) I did a correspondence course tleburns’ Commercial Academy, learnt bookkeeping and business Englisful bla of Salesmansic and 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 adventure stories, 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 joined t 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 moustac in 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 scandal in to Joe ed because  a girl in treet 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 decent respectable life in a little country 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 muchan Sally Chivers’s baby.

    trouble over Joe aged Fat deal. to lose Joe o cut a loss, but it   time forle grey man, y spectacles, really dates from t time. By sloing more and more involved in money erested in otalked less about politics and t trade. Moto tle, too. In my c and overflo of great opulent creature like ttles smaller and more anxious and older tc in more for neck of mutton, 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 can still see  double and almost s srous sack, o tacled face looking up from underneat. 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 can 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 o mortgage  I didn’t  at time, or I’d ood  meant. As it  t furt Fat doing rade  longer to  before I o ‘set up’. Like Fat, and I  inclined to be angry  managing tter. I  capable of seeing, and neit  o be seventy ainly end in time I’ve passed Sarazins’ s-place and 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 salesmanstention. 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 for girls and occasionally managed to connect up  and ‘’ a feernoons, I’d never really ’s a queer business, t c sixteen. At some recognized part of toroll up and docroll up and doending not to notice tly some kind of contact is establisead of trailing along in fours, all four utterly speecure of t ime,  ly failure to make any kind of conversation. 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 sent me to buy some. You knomosp’s somet, a cool smell of clot  ter, cutting off a lengt  against ter—I can’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 under tretc, nearly 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 come again. I don’t mean t 1913  being in a  being frig need to 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 and getting 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 come 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  direction, 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  back and 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), knelt 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-tobacco in tments, t dust underfoot, and tjars er the cockchafers.

    C! ’s t one oug to be sentimental about ‘before timental about it. So are you if you remember it. It’s quite true t if you look back on 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 arvation. Yet o  to t. Old Crimp, tcant, a skilled y years, got cataract and o go into treet  ce efforts managed to 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 mornings, treets stank like t o you never  a day  remembering  to end. And yet  t 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 everyone  to c any 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 four legs like an elep, t 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 tinue. t feel tood on sing under t.

    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 decent 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 forget t dates) trange stifled feeling, a kind of ing  before a torm breaks, as t and listening. It   o spare ities of tinned stuff 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.