"It is difficult to say yet whether he would have to graduate in Commerce before being eligible, but probably it would be necessary, as the best bricklayers, I'm told, always carry a mortar-board, and there is a sort of caucus in these plummy professions nowadays that is anxious to keep outsiders from joining their ranks. But the country needs bricklayers, and will go on needing them for years. Let John Willie step forward when he is old enough."
To the mother who asked if I considered that her youngest boy would be well advised to adopt the Housebreaking profession I wrote:—
"To which part of this profession do you refer? If to the Burgling branch I would ask, 'Has he the iron nerve, the indomitable will, above all has he the brain power for this exacting craft? Can he stand the exposure to the night air, the exposure before an Assize jury, and the rigours of the Portland stone quarries?' If so, let him take a course of illustrated lectures at the cinema.
"If you refer to the other branch, the mere pulling down of houses, I say, 'No! A thousand times, no!' He should be taught that there is a crying need for a constructive, not a destructive policy. Let him adopt one; buy him drawing-paper and a tee-square at once, and teach him that the noblest work of creation is (unless it be a bricklayer or builder) an architect. Though the War is over we must still keep the home fires burning. This implies chimneys, and chimneys imply houses, and few there be that can plan houses that will both please the eye and pass the local authorities."
Lady Jubb wrote from Toffley Hall, Blankshire, to say that her elder son (seventeen) had no ideas for the future beyond becoming Master of the Barchester when he grew up, but that she was anxious that he should try for some more lucrative post, official preferred.
I replied thus:—
"So your son looks no higher than a Mastership of Foxhounds. Well, well, I suppose that so long as there are such things as hounds he, as well as another, may take on the job of Master.
"But I thoroughly approve of your desire that he should try for something higher in life, especially for some official post; and what official post is or can be superior to that of a Borough Surveyor? Can you not persuade him that this great office is what one chooses to make it, and that, as an autocrat, the M.F.H. is hardly to be compared to the B.S., for, whereas the former can at the most scorch the few people foolish enough to remain within ear-shot, the latter can with a breath damn a whole row of houses and blast the careers of an army of builders with a word."
And so the propaganda proceeds.
If my efforts result in even one house being erected I shall, I think, have earned my O.B.E., though I would rather have the house.