Alfred proceeded to explain. Although his brains worked slowly, and despite the lack of an adequate vocabulary, he could be trusted to repeat faithfully anything that had made a deep impression. He pointed out to Mrs. Yellam, in language she could understand, that the weak in mind and body were ever at the mercy of the strong. The quality, before the war, had been strong. They had exercised their strength, speaking generally, at the expense of the weak, fortifying their own impregnable position. The masses, with rare exceptions, had submitted to imposed conditions. They struggled on in the gloom, groping here and there for illumination. Ill-educated, ill-fed, ill-clothed, they became gradually conscious that things might be better and could hardly be worse. It made precious little difference to them, poor Bezonians, under which king they lived or died. The real advantages of living under King George were patent to others, not to these unhappy prisoners in bondage to their taskmasters. Alfred informed his mother, in conclusion, that within the memory of living man children of tenderest years had been driven to work in deep coal-mines, half-starved and half-naked, and kept at work, under the lash, in rabbit-holes of passages, because such work by warping their poor backs enabled them to get coal out of places where the straight-backed could not go. Conditions had changed for the better since those days, but not much, not nearly enough. Mrs. Yellam was visibly impressed. Alfred went on in his own quiet way: "I've talked with such fellers in the trenches, Mother. You be sure of this: they ain't going back to slavery." "Slavery, Alfred, in England!" "There are slaves in Ocknell, to-day, Mother. Some pore devils had to be 'fetched.' They didn't know enough to get out of their hog-wallows. 'Tis rank slavery for a man to bring up wife and six little 'uns on fifteen bob a week." "Anyways," replied Mrs. Yellam, tartly, "I don't hold wi' fur coats on the backs o' hussies whose mothers can't afford decent underlinen. And that minds me o' the advertisements in my paper. I fair blush to look at 'un. Pictures o' garments that I hangs up to dry out o' sight in my back yard." Alfred laughed loudly. "It always seemed to me as if you women hid the things you were ashamed of. The pretty frillies flutter in the wind, where all can see 'em, and envy 'em. Nether-Applewhite knew when Rose Mucklow took to nighties trimmed with real Val." Mrs. Yellam sighed, admitting frankly that she couldn't keep in step with the times. Alfred, conscious, possibly, that some of his mother's shafts were aimed at him, said tentatively: "Are you miffed because I gave Fancy a fur muff and stole?" "I don't know as I bain't. A wise man, my son, puts money in bank, not on back." "I see you putting your savings into stockings. Blame the war, Mother, not me. I aimed to make Fancy happy, and to see her smile, whilst I'm here to see it. We're both hay-making in these March winds."