Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). rn The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915.
Trousers(From A Motley)
Galsworthy, John
John Galsworthy
(English novelist and dramatist, 18671933)S
No—he said—it was no use to complain; did no good! Things had been like this for years, and so, he had no doubt, they always would be. There had never been much in trousers; not this common sort that anybody’d wear, as you might say. Though he’d never seen anybody wearing such things; and where they went to he didn’t know—out of England, he should think. Yes, he had been a carman; ran over by a dray. Oh! yes, they had given him something—four bob a week; but the old man had died and the four bob had died too. Still, there he was, sixty years old—not so very bad for his age.…
They were talking, he had heard said, about doing something for trousers. But what could you do for things like these, at half a crown a pair? People must have ’em, so you’d got to make ’em. There you were, and there you would be! She went and heard them talk. They talked very well, she said. It was intellectual for her to go. He couldn’t go himself owing to his leg. He’d like to hear them talk. Oh, yes! and he was silent, staring sideways at the fire as though in the thin crackle of the flames attacking the fresh piece of wood, he were hearing the echo of that talk from which he was cut off. “Lor’ bless you!” he said suddenly. “They’ll do nothing! Can’t!” And, stretching out his dirty hand he took from his wife’s lap a pair of trousers, and held it up. “Look at ’em! Why you can see right throu’ ’em, linings and all. Who’s goin’ to pay more than ’alf a crown for that? Where they go to I can’t think. Who wears ’em? Some institution I should say. They talk, but dear me, they’ll never do anything so long as there’s thousands like us, glad to work for what we can get. Best not to think about it, I says.”
And laying the trousers back on his wife’s lap he resumed his sidelong stare into the fire.