The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham
and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?"
There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice.
"You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. It _is_ a bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life."
"This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively.
"I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year."
"What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously.
"Bricklayer, Miss."
"You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well, _her_ name's Nora."
"What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else."
"If not better," said Nora dryly.
"In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt. _He_ started as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now."
"Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't have an Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"
"Well, it was their own fault," stormed Gertie. "They wouldn't work or anything. They just soaked."
"It _was_ their own fault, right enough. This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England. They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he'd only got to be sent out here and he'd make a fortune."
"I guess things ain't as bad as that now," spoke up Taylor. "They send us a different class. It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he's better than any of them."
"Ah, well!" said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I guess nowadays everyone's glad to see the Englishman make good. When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help."
"How _did_ you nearly smash up?" asked Hornby interestedly.
"Oh, I had a run of bad luck. One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailed out. It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that."
"That's what happened to me," said Taylor. "I was hailed out and I hadn't got any capital, so I just had to hire out." He turned suddenly to Nora. "If it hadn't been for that hail storm you wouldn't have had the pleasure of makin' my acquaintance."
"How hollow and empty life would have been without that!" she said ironically.
"I wonder you didn't just quit and start out Calgary way," put in Gertie.
"Well," said Taylor slowly, "it was this way: I'd put in two years on my homestead and done a lot of clearing. It seemed kind of silly to lose my rights after all that. Then, too, when you've been hailed out once, the chances are it won't happen again, for some years that is, and by that time I ought to have a bit put by."
"What sort of house have you got?" asked Nora.
"Well, it ain't what you might call a palace, but it's large enough for two."
"Thinking of marrying, Frank?" asked Marsh.
"Well, I guess it's kind of lonesome on a farm without a woman. But it's not so easy to find a wife when you're just starting on your own. Canadian girls think twice before taking a farmer."
"They know something, I guess," said Gertie grimly.
"You took me, Gertie," laughed her husband.
"Not because I wanted to, you can be sure of that. I don't know how you got round me."
"I wonder."
"I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn't know what you'd do without me."
"I guess it was love, and you couldn't help yourself." Gertie stopped her work long enough to make a little grimacing protest.
"I'm thinking of going to one of them employment agencies when I get to Winnipeg," said Taylor, moving his chair so that he could watch Nora's face, "and looking the girls over."
"Like sheep," said Nora scornfully.
"I don't know anything about sheep. I've never had to do with sheep."
"And may I ask, do you think that you know anything about women?"
"I guess I can tell if they're strong and willing. And so long as they ain't cock-eyed, I don't mind taking the rest on trust."
"And what inducement is there for a girl to have you?"
"That's why he wants to catch 'em young, when they're just landed and don't know much," laughed Trotter uproariously.
"I've got my quarter-section," went on the imperturbable Frank, quite undisturbed by the laughter caused by Trotter's sally, "a good hundred and sixty acres with seventy of it cleared. And I've got a shack that I built myself. That's something, ain't it?"
"You've got a home to offer and enough to eat and drink. A girl can get that anywhere. Why, I'm told they're simply begging for service."
"Y-e-e-s. But you see some girls like getting married. There's something in the word that appeals to them."
"You seem to think that a girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!" said Nora with rising temper.
"She might do worse."
"I must say I think you flatter yourself."
"Oh, I don't know. I know my job, and there ain't too many as can say that. I've got brains."
"What makes you think so?"
"Well, I can see you're no fool."
Gertie chuckled with amusement. "He certainly put one over on you then, Nora."
"Because you've got no use for me, there's no saying but what others may have."
"I forgot that there's no accounting for tastes."
"I can try, can't I?"
Wishing to escape any further conversation with the object of her detestation, and seeing her opportunity now that the dishes were washed, Nora started to empty the dishpan in the sink in the pantry. But Gertie, who divined her motive and wished the sport to continue, forestalled her.
"I'll do it," she said. "You finish wiping the dishes."
"It's very wise of you to go to an agency," said Nora in answer to his last question. "A girl's more likely to marry you when she's only seen you once than when she's seen you often."
"It seems to make you quite mad, the thought of me marrying!" with a wink at the others.
"You wouldn't talk about it like that unless you looked down upon women. Oh, how I pity the poor wretched creature who becomes your wife!"
"Oh,