However, he liked Casey, and was distressed to find him taking to ideas:
“Don’t you go worrying your head about what is and is not, Casey. Heads wasn’t made for that. Heads was made to have eyes in, and mouths, the same as ’orses. All you got to do, all any man’s got to do, is to earn his keep and pay his shot, same as a ’orse. When he’s done that, ’e’s got to behave nice to them as is in stable with him. And every now and then he gets his little canter and may be turned out to grass.”
“I’m no Nebuchadnezzar,” retorted Casey, “and I want to be on my own.”
“No man can be on his own if he ain’t got no capital.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Ah!” said Martin mysteriously, to baffle Casey’s obstinacy. “Ah! that wants getting, that does. If it was ’orses now——”
Casey saw that it was hopeless. Nothing would budge the fat man from his yard. Cars! They were a necessary evil, not to be encouraged beyond the limit of necessity.
Ann wanted to know more about René, but Casey could tell her nothing. He repeated his eulogy of young Fourmy’s skill as a driver, and added:
“We’ve got has-been gentlemen on the ranks, scores of them. But they’re not like him. It’s a treat to hear him talk, it is. They wanted him, a lot of them did, to pitch into the union, but he doesn’t seem to think much of trade-unions. He says they can’t do anything yet, in the way of fighting I mean, because they want to make us all middle-classes, and that ain’t good enough. If I could get him to go along with me!”