leave Rawdon's. I simply wanted to abuse
my employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touch
with all the cogent reasons there were for sticking to my place,
and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spirited--not
to say a defiant--policy with my employer.

"I can't stand Rawdon's much longer," I said to Parload by way of
a flourish.

"There's hard times coming," said Parload.

"Next winter."

"Sooner. The Americans have been overproducing, and they mean to
dump. The iron trade is going to have convulsions."

"I don't care. Pot-banks are steady."

"With a corner in borax? No. I've heard--"

"What have you heard?"

"Office secrets. But it's no secret there's trouble coming to
potters. There's been borrowing and speculation. The masters don't
stick to one business as they used to do. I can tell that much.
Half the valley may be 'playing' before two months are out." Parload
delivered himself of this unusually long speech in his most pithy
and weighty manner.

"Playing" was our local euphemism for a time when there was no work
and no money for a man, a time of stagnation and dreary hungry
loafing day after day. Such interludes seemed in those days a
necessary consequence of industrial organization.

"You'd better stick to Rawdon's," said Parload.

"Ugh," said I, affecting a noble disgust.

"There'll be trouble," said Parload.

"Who cares?" said I. "Let there be trouble--the more the better.
This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with
their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to
worse. Why should I cower in Rawdon's office, like a frightened dog,
while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary.
When he comes we ought to turn out and salute him. Anyway, I'M
going to do so now."

"That's all very well," began Parload.

"I'm tired of it," I said. "I want to come to grips with all these
Rawdons. I think perhaps if I was hungry and savage I could talk
to hungry men--"

"There's your mother," said Parload, in his slow judicial way.

That WAS a difficulty.

I got over it by a rhetorical turn. "Why should one sacrifice
the future of the world--why should one even sacrifice one's own
future--because one's mother is totally destitute of imagination?"

Section 5

It was late when I parted from Parload and came back to my own
home.

Our house stood in a highly respectable little square near
the Clayton parish churc