The car stopped again, and two girls mounted--two work girls of the
better sort--not, that is to say, the sort which wears an ulster and a
large hat with a flaming feather in it: working-girl dressed quietly and
neatly. They ought to have been cheerful and even gay, for they were
both young, both good-looking, both nicely dressed, and it was Sunday
afternoon, warm and sunny. Yet they were not cheerful at all. One of
them was in a rage royal, and the other, her friend, was in a rage
sympathetic--quite a real rage. They were talking loudly on the kerb
while they waited for the tram: they carried on their conversation as
they climbed the stair: they continued it while they chose a seat, and
before they sat down, without the least regard to those who sat near
them, whether they overheard or wished not to hear--or anything. They
were wholly occupied with themselves and their rage and their narrative.
They neither saw nor heeded anyone else--which is the way that the angry
woman has.
'So I told her--I up and told her, I did. "Yes," I sez, "you and your
fifteen hours a day and overtime," I sez--"and your fines--so as to rob
the poor girls of their money, and your stinkin' little room, as isn't
fit for two, let alone a dozen--and your flarin' gas," I sez, "to choke
us and poison us--and your dinners--yah! your dinners," I sez--"fit for
pigs; and your beast of a husband comin' round with his looks and his
leers"--"You let my husband alone," she sez--"His looks and his leers,"
I sez. "Some day the girls'll take him out and drownd him head first, in
the gutter," I sez. "And a good job too!"'
'You didn't say all that, Liz?' asked the other, admiringly. 'My! What's
she say to that? "Her beast of a husband"? And "his looks and his
leers"? Did you really, Liz, and her that jealous?'
'I did. Oh! I let her have it. For once she did have it. Then I took my
money and I went off.--Never mind what she called me; that don't matter.
She got the truth for once.'
'What do you make of this, disciple?' asked the Master.
'It seems a quarrel between the girl and her employer.'
'These are the makers of Property. They are not the soldiers who defend
it. They are those who create it. The girls are employed by the sweater,
who stands on the lowest rung of the ladder of Property, and steals the
things as fast as they are made.'
'One of them has been turned out. What will she do? Will she find
another place?'
'I don't know. What becomes of the young? It is a difficult question. No
one knows. Some say this and some say that. We know what becomes of the
old when they are turned out. They die. But as for the young, I know
not. You are young, and you are a woman. Go among the young women who
have been turned out and find for yourself--for the world--what does
become of them.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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