But I carry it backwards and forwards, in and out, to and fro, day after day; and the only time it is ever opened at either end of the journey is when, in addition to the articles previously mentioned, it contains bottles. But I do not carry it for the sake of bottles; far from it. I am one of those men who do not mind going about with a comparatively naked bottle. I carry it simply because it is the tool of my trade, and because, if you don't carry a tool of some kind on the Underground, at any moment you may be taken for an idle rich, if not actually a parasite, who never sweated in his life.
And that, I am persuaded, is why everybody else carries theirs.
But this is a very serious conclusion. It will be a terrible thing if everyone is going to carry the tools of his trade about with him to show that he has a trade; the barrister his briefs, the doctor his stethoscope or his shiny black bag; the butcher his chopper; the dentist—but no, we cannot have that. There must be other ways. We might wear badges, as we did in the War, only they would be office badges and trade badges, instead of regimental badges or discharged badges. Then we should have again the dear old war-game of trying to read what was on them without being rude. That is what one really misses in public places in these days of Peace—that and the uniforms.
It was easy to make conversation in a restaurant in the old days, when people kept on coming in in curious uniforms, and the ladies wondered what they were and the men pretended they knew all about them. But all that is dead now, and I think these sweat-badges would supply a serious want.
But what will the author wear? And who will believe that he ever breaks into beads of perspiration at his labour?
A. P. H.
Footnote [1:] February 24th, col. 1638.
Butler (in service of the Earl of Kyloes), "Is that you, my lord?"