“Now, our first job is to call at Radlet Road school,” he said, as they walked briskly up the High Road. “I called in there yesterday and planted our circulars. You see, unless we know where the kids live, we can’t get any orders. It isn’t like selling vacuum cleaners, for instance. With vacuum cleaners ifs a straight door-to-door canvass. But in our line we have to know which homes have children and which haven’t.” He paused while he fished a cigarette from a crumpled carton and offered it to Brant.
“I don’t smoke,” Brant said shortly. They were the first words he had uttered since leaving the train.
“Oh, all right,” George looked at him blankly, and lit up. They moved on, and George said, “Well, we’ve got to get the names and addresses of all the kids at the various Council schools. It isn’t easy, because the teachers don’t want to help us. You’d think they’d be glad for the kids to have the hooks, wouldn’t you? But not they.” George breathed heavily through his thick nose. “Of course, some of ’em do help, otherwise we’d get nowhere. But the majority are a lazy, suspicious lot. We have to persuade the teacher to pass our forms round the class and get the kids to put their names and addresses on them; then we collect the forms next day and make our calls. It sounds simple, doesn’t it, but you wait… you’ll see what I mean before long.”
All the time he was talking, Brant strode along at his side, his face expressionless and his eyes blank. For all George knew, he hadn’t heard a word George had said.
This indifferent attitude annoyed George. All right, he thought, lapsing into a sulky silence, you think it’s child’s play, but just you wait. You’ll find it’s not all beer and skittles. You wait until you try to get an order. Be as superior as you like, but with a dial like yours you don’t stand a hope. Do you think anyone will want to look at you when you try to talk to them? They’ll slam the door in your ugly mug, you see if they don’t, and it’ll serve you right. Take you down a peg or two, my lad. That’s what you want. Be superior if that’s how you feel, but you’re riding for a fall. You can’t say I haven’t tried to be friendly, but I’m damned if I’m going to put myself out if you don’t meet me half way.
He was glad when they reached the school. Now he could show Brant how successfully he had cultivated the headmaster the day before. They crossed the deserted playground and approached the red-brick school building. In spite of his outward show of confidence, George could never enter a school premises without a feeling of guilt. The LCC had forbidden canvassers to call on Secondary and Council schools, and George always had it at the back of his mind that he would run into a visiting school inspector one of these days and he ordered ignominiously from the school.
He paused at the main entrance, and with an uneasy smile pointed out the notice pinned to the door.
“See that?” he said, anxious that Brant should share his own secret uneasiness. “‘Canvassers and salesmen are not permitted on the school premises’ I told you it wasn’t easy, didn’t I? It’s only when the headmaster’s friendly that we can get anywhere.”
Brant didn’t say anything. He glanced at George with sneering contempt in his eyes.
George pushed open the door and entered the long passage, which smelt of disinfectant, floor polish and stale perspiration. They walked down the passage, past a number of classrooms. They could see through the glass partitions into the small rooms, each containing a number of children at desks. The children spotted them, and heads turned in their direction with the precision of a field of corn moving in a wind.