“It’s not all going to be beer and skittles, you know, Liz,” he said. “Although I have chucked the working-man, I am going in for precious hard work all the same.”
“Why, whatever for, when you haven’t your living to get?” she asked in surprise.
Like the apocryphal British workman, Lizzie hated work, and hated those that liked it. She saw no point in unnecessary labour.
“No,” said Goddard, his face lighting up with the impulse of reply. “Not my own living to get, thank God, but I have to help others to get theirs. I may not be able to do much. But when a lot of men work together, every little effort of each tells. And I mean, too, to come to the front, Liz, for the nearer the front a man is, the bigger the things he can do. And the front means a big position in Parliament, and that’s what I’m going to try and get before I die. If I don’t, it won’t be for want of fighting. But it will be a long time coming, and will take me all I know. That’s why I didn’t take over the shop in Birmingham.”
“Oh, that’s why?” said Lizzie, trying to look sympathetic.
“Of course. You see it wasn’t because I suddenly became too big for my boots—but I wanted all my time to myself for this other work. I have made a fair start. I know something about the inner workings of things already, and I can get men to listen to me when I speak. So I am going to work like a nigger, Liz.”
She sat silent and plucked at her dress. It was very wonderful and clever of Daniel to talk about becoming a Member of Parliament, but she could not in the least see why it was necessary for him to work like a nigger. In her heart she regretted the hosier’s shop, but she was afraid to tell him so. She looked up at him and smiled, with the outside of her features as it were, after the manner of dutiful yet uninterested woman. Goddard, encouraged, continued to unfold his schemes. He was in intense earnest, and spoke to her, as he had never spoken before, of the burning questions of the day—the unequal struggle between labour and capital, the iniquity of the living wage, the stupendous problem of the unemployed, the great reforms on whose behalf he felt summoned forth to fight. And as the passion grew upon him, his voice vibrated and his eyes glowed, and his words waxed eloquent. He broke the bonds of his usual speech with her, partly through a need of expansion, partly through a half-conscious desire to awaken a little of the girl’s sympathy.
When he had done, and a little pause had followed, she looked up from the puckering of her dress.
“That’s all lovely, Dan,” she said; “but what am I to do?”
The question brought his thoughts down from the empyræan like a gash in a balloon.