I am sorry for the man who took his typewriter on the Underground and was
made to buy a bicycle-ticket for it. But I have no doubt he deserved it. I
am sure that he did it in spiritual pride. He was trying to make himself
equal to the manual labourer who carries large bags of tools on the Tube
and sighs heavily as he lays them on your foot. I am sure that he was tired
of being scornfully regarded by manual labourers, and was determined to
make it quite clear that he too had done, or was about to do, a day's
labour, and manual labour at that. It was a sinful motive and it deserved
to be punished; but it was natural. Nowadays we all feel like that. We
caught it from the War, when the great thing was to show that you were
doing more work than anybody else.
I take from a recent copy of _Hansard_[1] the following brisk and delicate
piece of dialogue:--
"Mr. MACQUISTEN: You Labour men have forgotten what sweat is.
Mr. W. THORNE: I have never seen many lawyers sweat, anyhow.
Mr. SPEAKER: This discussion is becoming intemperate.
AN HON. MEMBER: The Hon. Member for Springburn never sweated in his life.