As concerned as if Harriet was her own stomach, such a nice old woman.
And a lovely little boy with the bright, wide, gentle eyes of these
Australians. So alert and alive and with that lovableness that almost
hurts one. Absolute trust in the “niceness” of the world. A tall,
stalky, ginger man with the same bright eyes and a turned-up nose and
long stalky legs. An elderly man with bright, friendly, elderly eyes and
careless hair and careless clothing. He was Joe, and the other was Alf.
Real careless Australians, careless of their appearance, careless of
their speech, of their money, of everything--except of their
happy-go-lucky, democratic friendliness. Really nice, with bright,
quick, willing eyes. Then a young man, perhaps a commercial traveller,
with a suit-case. He was quite smartly dressed, and had fancy socks. He
was one of those with the big, heavy legs, heavy thighs and calves that
showed even in his trousers. And he was physically very self-conscious,
very self-conscious of Lovat and Harriet. The driver’s face was long and
deep red. He was absolutely laconic. And yet, absolutely willing, as if
life held no other possibility than that of being an absolutely willing
citizen. A fat man with a fat little girl waiting at one of the corners.
“Up she goes!” he said as he lifted her in.
A perpetual, unchanging willingness, and an absolute equality. The same
good-humoured, right-you-are approach from everybody to everybody.
“Right-you-are! Right-O!” Somers had been told so many hundreds of
times, Right-he-was, Right-O!, that he almost had dropped into the way
of it. It was like sleeping between blankets--so cosy. So cosy.
They were really awfully nice. There was a winsome charm about them.
They none of them seemed mean, or tight, or petty.
The young man with the fine suit and the great legs put down his money,
gently and shyly as a girl, beside the driver on the little
window-ledge. Then he got out and strode off, shy and quick, with his
suit-case.
“Hey!”
The young man turned at the driver’s summons, and came back.
“Did yer pay me?”
The question was put briskly, good-humouredly, with a touch even of
tenderness. The young man pointed to the money. The driver glanced round
and saw it.
“Oh! Right you are! Right-O!”
A faint little smile of almost tender understanding, and the young man
turned again. And the driver bustled to carry out some goods. The way he
stooped to pick up the heavy wooden box in his arms; so _willing_ to
stoop to burdens. So long, of course, as his Rights of Man were fully
recognised. You musn’t try any superior tricks with him.
Well, it was really awfully nice. It was touching. And it made life so
easy, so easy.
Of course these were not government servants. Government servants have
another sort of feeling. They feel their office, even in N.S.W.--even a
railway-clerk. Oh, yes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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