"'Yes it is,' he snaps back; 'it means that if I don't take precious good
care I'll drift into being a blooming milkman, spending my life yelling
"Milk ahoi!" and spooning smutty-faced servant-gals across area
railings.'

"'Oh!' I says, 'and what may you prefer to spoon--duchesses?'

"'Yes,' he answers sulky-like; 'duchesses are right enough--some of 'em.'

"'So are servant-gals,' I says, 'some of 'em. Your hat's feeling a bit
small for you this morning, ain't it?'

"'Hat's all right,' says he; 'it's the world as I'm complaining
of--beastly place; there's nothing to do in it.'

"'Oh!' I says; 'some of us find there's a bit too much.' I'd been up
since five that morning myself; and his own work, which was scouring milk-
cans for twelve hours a day, didn't strike me as suggesting a life of
leisured ease.

"'I don't mean that,' he says. 'I mean things worth doing.'

"'Well, what do you want to do,' I says, 'that this world ain't big
enough for?'

"'It ain't the size of it,' he says; 'it's the dulness of it. Things
used to be different in the old days.'

"'How do you know?' I says.