You've All Got Your Letters On One End Of You, And You Know Just
Where You Belong, And If You
Happen to be knocked into 'pi' and mixed
all up in a pile it is easy enough to pick you
Out and put you all in
your proper cases; but it's different with us. According to the
Constitution we're like a lot of carpet-tacks, one just the same as
another, though in fact we're not alike, and it would not be easy if we
got mixed up, say in a hayfield, to get ourselves all sorted out again
according to the breadth of our heads and the sharpness of our points,
so we don't like to do too much mixing, don't you see?" To which Mr.
Poplington said he didn't see, and then I explained to him that what
Jone meant was that though in our country we was all equally free, it
didn't do for us to be as freely equal as the people are sometimes over
here, to which Mr. Poplington said, "Really!" but he didn't seem to be
standing in the glaring sunlight of convincement. But the shade is
often pleasant to be in, and he wound up by saying, as he bid us
good-night, that he thought it would be a great deal better for us, if
we had classes at all, to have them marked out plain, and stamped so
that there could be no mistake; to which I said that if we did that the
most of the mistakes would come in the sorting, which, according to my
reading of books and newspapers, had happened to most countries that
keep up aristocracies.
I don't know that he heard all that I said, for he was going up-stairs
with his candle at the time, but when Jone and me got up-stairs in our
own room I said to him, and he always hears everything I say, that in
some ways the girls that we have for servants at home have some
advantages over those we find here; to which Jone said, "Yes," and
seemed to be sleepy.
Letter Number Nine
CHEDCOMBE
There was still another day of hay-making, but we couldn't wait for
that, because our cycles had come from London and we was all anxious to
be off, and you would have laughed, madam, if you could have seen us
start. Mr. Poplington went off well enough, but Jone's bicycle seemed a
little gay and hard to manage, and he frisked about a good deal at
starting; but Jone had bought a bicycle long ago, when the things first
came out, and on days when the roads was good he used to go to the
post-office on it, and he said that if a man had ever ridden on top of
a wheel about six feet high he ought to be able to balance himself on
the pair of small wheels which they use nowadays. So, after getting his
long legs into working order, he went very well, though with a snaky
movement at first, and then I started.
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