average clerk in any country is like a gelded horse. He's been robbed
of his power by education ... of a sort. He's a reasonable, rational,
considerate beast that can be broken to any harness."

"What do you want us to do? Go on a strike and heave bricks into your
plate-glass window?... What would you do in our place?"

"I wouldn't be there, to begin with. I've heaved bricks in my day." He
leaned forward, exhibiting his smashed thumb and forefinger. "I killed
the man who did that to me. I was born in a Norwegian fishing village
and after a while I followed the sea. That's a good school for action.
And what education you get is thrashed into you. The little that
sticks doesn't do much more than toughen you. And if you don't want
any more it does well enough. Later on, if you have a thirst for
knowledge, you drink the brand you pick yourself and it doesn't go to
your head. Now with you ... you didn't have any choice. You drank up
what they handed out and, at the age when you could have made a
selection, your taste was formed ... by _others_... I don't mind
people kicking at the man who works with his hands if they know what
they're talking about. But most of them don't. They get the thing
second hand. They're chock full of loyalty to superiors and systems
and governments, just from habit... I've worked with my hands, and
I've fought for a half loaf of bread with a dirk knife, and I know all
the dirty, rotten things of life by direct contact. So when I disagree
with the demands of the men who build my vessels I know why I'm
disagreeing. And I usually do disagree ... because if they've got guts
enough in them they'll fight. And I like a good fight. That's why
potting clerks is such a tame business. It's almost as sickening as a
rabbit drive."