This was a perilous state of affairs. He rose and glanced round the room. After all, its very ugliness bore witness to the tyranny of capitalism—capitalism that robbed the hired labourer of all approaches to beauty; that set him to manufacture, by the thousand, lamps of such detestable design; that drove him, his day's work done, to sit on chairs so unbeautiful, in a room decorated solely by the advertisement for the watery wares of a capitalist creature called Bass. And even the one decorative part of the advertisement, the scarlet triangle, had been obliterated by smoke and dust! That was more the sort of thing.
With sudden resolution, he crossed the room, snatched the placard from its nail and stuffed it, crumpled and torn, between the bars of the grate. Then he felt better.
The footsteps he had heard before resounded again down the passage. Some one rattled the latch of the door, and Waite, followed by Ted Wilson, entered the room. Waite looked ill and worried. Since his dismissal from the Wold Farm, he had obtained no further work. His fourth child had appeared prematurely in an unwelcoming world, and his wife's tongue was more bitter than ever. Just now he was in no amiable frame of mind. He flung himself down on the settle and glowered at the smoking fire.
David, watching the smouldering fragments of the placard, wondered whether he could examine the new-comers without discourtesy.
Here were two choice specimens of the exploited proletariat. Waite, red-bearded, stocky, unclean, Wilson, lean and saturnine. Neither appeared to be in love with life. Both were shabby and disconsolate. There was excellent virgin soil in which to sow the seeds of progress. David was perfectly well aware of that. Now was the time to prophesy, but the prophet was dumb. David, fidgeting with the poker, mentally suggested and rejected a dozen introductory remarks. He found himself unable to think of anything more intelligent than the grease spots on Waite's coat. There were five grease spots—five and a half, if you counted the little one near his collar.
Nobody spoke.
Victoria Todd bounced into the room, planked down on the table two glasses of ale, and retired.
David began to make bets with himself, which of the two would speak first. If only some one would start to talk, he was sure he could go on. He had hoped that his unexpected appearance might arouse comment, not having yet learned the indifference to strangers of a Yorkshire labourer. He tried to reason with himself. These men were the very ones for whom he had left Oxford and Hampshire, and all the quite desirable advantages of capitalist luxury. It was absurd, now that he was here, to find no opening for conversation, simply because the red haired man had five and a half grease spots on his coat.
Wilson raised his glass, and deliberately blew off the froth. Light as a feather, a flake floated on to David's coat sleeve, and rested there.
"Now isn't that too bad?" inquired David of the world in general. "I haven't got any beer. I haven't any money to get any beer; yet here the beer comes to me, and sits on my coat sleeve, jeering at me."