felt certain from his knowledge of Hoover that the very last place
to come across one of his assistants would be a public house. He entered
the public bar, took a seat by the counter and ordered a glass of beer
and a packet of cigarettes. The place was rank with the fumes of cheap
tobacco and cigarettes and the smell of beer. Hard gas light shewed no
adornment, nothing but pitch pine panelling, spittoons, bottles on
shelves and an almanac. The barmaid, a long-necked girl with red hands,
and cheap rings and a rose in her belt, detached herself from earnest
conversation with a youth in a bowler inhabiting the saloon bar, pulled
a handle, dumped a glass of beer before Jones and gave him change
without word or glance, returning to her conversation with the bowlered
youth. She evidently had no eyes at all for people in the public bar.
There are grades, even in the tavern.

Close to where Jones had taken his seat was standing a person in broken
shoes, an old straw hat, a coat, with parcels evidently in the tail
pockets, and trousers frayed at the heels. He had a red unshaven face,
and was reading the _Evening Courier_.

Suddenly he banged the paper with the tips of the fingers of his right
hand and cast it on the counter.

"Govinment! Govinment! nice sort of govinment, payin' each other four
hundred a year for followin' Asquith and robbin' the landowners to get
the money--God lumme."

He paused to light a filthy clay pipe. He had his eyes on Jones, and
evidently considered him, for some occult reason, of the same way of
political thinking as himself, and he addressed him in that impersonal
way in which one addresses an audience.

"They've downed and outed the House o' Lords, an' now they're scraggin'
the Welsh Church, after that they'll go for the Landed Prepriotor and
finish _him_. And who's to blame? the Radicals--no, they ain't to
blame, no more than rats for their instincts; we're to blame, the
Conservatives is to blame, we haven't got a fightin' man to purtect us.
The Radicals has got all the tallant--you look at the fight Bonna Lor's
been makin' this week. Fight! A blind Tom cat with his head in an old
t'marter tin would make a better fight than Bonna Lor's put up. Look at
Churchill, that chap was one of us once, he was born to lead the
clarses, an' now look at him leadin' the marses, up to his neck in
Radical dirt and pretendin' he likes it. He doesn't, but he's a man with
an eye in his head and he knows what we a