They were talking, he had heard said, about doing something for trousers. But what could you do for things like these, at half a crown a pair? People must have 'em, so you'd got to make 'em. There you were, and there you would be! _She_ went and heard them talk. They talked very well, she said. It was intellectual for her to go. He couldn't go himself owing to his leg. He'd like to hear them talk. Oh, yes! and he was silent, staring sideways at the fire as though in the thin crackle of the flames attacking the fresh piece of wood, he were hearing the echo of that talk from which he was cut off. "Lor' bless you!" he said suddenly. "They'll do nothing! Can't!" And, stretching out his dirty hand he took from his wife's lap a pair of trousers, and held it up. "Look at 'em! Why you can see right throu' 'em, linings and all. Who's goin' to pay more than 'alf a crown for that? Where they go to I can't think. Who wears 'em? Some institution I should say. They talk, but dear me, they'll never do anything so long as there's thousands like us, glad to work for what we can get. Best not to think about it, I says." And laying the trousers back on his wife's lap he resumed his sidelong stare into the fire. The Song of the Shirt BY THOMAS HOOD (Popular English poet and humorist; 1799-1845) With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread,-- Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt!" "Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work--work--work Till the stars shine through the roof! It's O! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! "Work--work--work Till the brain begins to swim! Work--work--work Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam,-- Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! "O Men, with sisters dear! O Men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch--stitch--stitch In poverty, hunger, and dirt,-- Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a Shirt! "But why do I talk of Death-- That phantom of grisly bone? I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own-- It seems so like my own Because of the fasts I keep; O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap! "Work--work--work! My labor never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread--and rags. That shattered roof--and this naked floor-- A table--a broken chair-- And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For something falling there!