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XXXVI.
As they were sitting by the roadside among the pine trees half-way up a
stretch of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood, however, Mr. Hoopdriver
reopened the question of his worldly position.
"Ju think," he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette from his
mouth, "that a draper's shopman IS a decent citizen?"
"
"
"
"
Why not?"
When he puts people off with what they don't quite want, for instance?"
Need he do that?"
Salesmanship," said Hoopdriver. "Wouldn't get a crib if he
didn't.--It's no good your arguing. It's not a particularly honest nor a
particularly useful trade; it's not very high up; there's no freedom
and no leisure--seven to eight-thirty every day in the week; don't leave
much edge to live on, does it?--real workmen laugh at us and educated
chaps like bank clerks and solicitors' clerks look down on us. You
look respectable outside, and inside you are packed in dormitories like
convicts, fed on bread and butter and bullied like slaves. You're
just superior enough to feel that you're not superior. Without capital
there's no prospects; one draper in a hundred don't even earn enough to
marry on; and if he DOES marry, his G.V. can just use him to black boots
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