The scene is laid in the huddled cottages of a fisher village of a South Coast watering-place. The observer penetrates behind the appearance--to the normal visitor--of a rather squalid fishing suburb, with swarms of untidy children, and the fishermen, deferential, seeking patronage of the brisk or bored holiday-maker. He has lived amongst them and loved them. He has convinced them that he has no desire to do them good. He comes to their life having “swallowed all the formulas” with a perhaps exaggerated contempt for the “intellectuals” and the upholders of the middle class moral code. He is enchanted by the life he finds there, despite all its discomforts. In the existence of the poor, in an experience fixed on the hard rind of life, tasting to the full its salt and bitter flavours, he finds a sincerity and an adventure denied to the more secure classes above. Always faced by elemental facts, and demanding a continuous courage for the maintenance of an unending struggle, these men and women exhibit clean-cut, simple qualities which vindicate their existence before any absolute standard of values. The poor are inclined to suspect and dislike the classes just above them, the tradesmen. Nowhere is the moral standard more divergent than between the frugal, laborious, and rather timid assiduities of the lower middle class on the one hand, and on the other the reckless, generous, improvident life of the working peoples. To the “gentleman,” the attitude of the sea-folk is different. He is despised for his ignorance. He is sometimes regarded as fair game for deceit or extortion, outside the moral standard of the home community, just as the coloured peoples are regarded as outside the recognised codes of civilisation to-day. Yet there is little envy of his riches and enjoyments, and even a certain admiration, so long as he conforms to certain accepted laws of kindliness. “‘An ’orrible lie!’ between two poor people is fair play from a poor man to a wealthier, just as, for instance, the wealthy man considers himself at liberty to make speeches full of hypocritical untruth when he is seeking the suffrage of the free and independent electors, or is trying to teach the poor man how to make himself more profitable to his employer.” The “gentlemen” are permitted idleness, luxuriousness, and the freest self-indulgence without criticism; but anything from them in the nature of meanness is resented. Haggling, for example, over the hire of a boat, is an unpardonable offence. The fishermen, on their occasional holidays, spend their savings lavishly and without question; why should not the “gentlemen” do the same? “When Tony goes away himself, he pays what is asked; regrets it afterwards, if at all; and comes home when his money is done. ‘If a gen’leman,’ he says, ‘can’t afford to pay the rate, what du ’ee come on the beach to hire a boat for--an’ try to beat a fellow down? I reckon ’tis only a _sort o’ gen’leman_ as does that!’”