"Just to counteract the very English breakfast," she laughed. "I don't think I ever ate so much in my life since I came here." "My uncle's sound about breakfast. Those were true sausages." "I suppose so. I don't think I'm very good at sausages. I'm afraid I hanker after rolls and fruit and things." "Then you're all wrong. You've no case at all." "And who gave you permission to lay down the law about taste?" "My own common-sense. How can two people talk unless someone starts by dogmatising? Supposing I started off, 'Sausages may possibly, if they are good ones and of sound pork richly fried, seem nice to some people, the world being as it is,' ... we wouldn't get far, would we?" "And who said I wanted conversation?" "I ventured to deduce it from the fact that you looked round when you thought I wasn't looking." "I never did." "Didn't you? Then I made a bad shot. I'm sorry!" Martin wasn't very happy about this rather heavy beginning. The conversation was floundering hopelessly. Freda, seeing this, took him firmly in hand. "Well," she said, closing the sinister work of decadence, "as you've come, you'd better stay and enjoy the sunshine and take an interest in me." "Will you take one in me?" "Oh yes! Fair play. Don't let's talk stilted rubbish any more: it's such an effort. Now then, I'll begin. What about Oxford and Mods?" So he told her the weary tale. She was sympathetic in a rather challenging, offensive way, which he enjoyed. "And now you?" he said. "Oh, I'm just an office girl. I ought to read _The Mirror_ and _The London Mail_, but I don't. You know Margaret was doing some work for the Women's Trade Union Movement: that's how she ran into me. I do the typing in the office where she works. We had a rush of work owing to the strikes in Lancashire and my silly health collapsed. She brought me down here. The Berrisfords have been awfully good to me." "Do you like being in the office?" asked Martin. "It might be worse, because the letters I have to type are sometimes about something mildly interesting. Just fancy having to do business letters all day. But the society is so short of funds that they work me hard and don't overpay me." "I always knew that sweating began with the charity-mongers. But I thought your people might be a bit better." "I suppose I oughtn't to grumble. Shouldn't I pay a small sacrifice to the great cause of Efficiency?" "I hate Collectivism. I mean the Efficiency type." "So young, my lord, and a Syndicalist?" "In parts. Anyhow, they might treat you better." Martin spoke with conviction.