That』s all, really.
I』ve tried to tell you something about the world before the war, the world I got a sniff of when I saw King Zog』s name on the poster, and the ces are that I』ve told you nothiher you remember before the war and don』t o be told about it, or you don』t remember, and it』s no use telling you. So far I』ve only spoken about the things that happeo me before I was sixteen. Up to that time things had gone pretty well with the family. It was a bit before my sixteenth birthday that I began to get glimpses of eople call 『real life』, meaning unpleasantness.
About three days after I』d seen the big carp at Binfield House, Father came in to tea looking very worried and even mrey and mealy than usual. He ate his way solemnly through his tea and didn』t talk much. In those days he had a rather preoccupied way of eating, and his moustache used to work up and down with a sidelong movement, because he hadn』t many back teeth left. I was just getting up from table when he called me back.
『Wait a minute, Gee, my boy. I got suthing to say to you. Sit dow a minute. Mother, you heard what I got to say last night.』
Mother, behind the huge brow, folded her hands in her lap and looked solemn. Father went on, speaking very seriously but rather spoiling the effect by trying to deal with a crumb that lodged somewhere in what was left of his back teeth:
『Gee, my boy, I got suthing to say to you. I been thinking it over, and it』s about time you left school. 『Fraid you』ll have to get to work now and start earning a bit t home to your mother. I wrote to Mr Wicksey last night and told him as I should have to take you away.』
Of course this was quite acc to pret—his writing to Mr Wicksey before telling me, I mean. Parents in those days, as a matter of course, always arranged everything over their children』s heads.
Father went on to make some rather mumbling and worried explanations. He』d 『had bad times lately』, things had 『been a bit difficult』, and the upshot was that Joe and I would have to start earning our living. At that time I didher knreatly care whether the business was really in a bad way or not. I hadn』t even enough ercial instinct to see the reason why things were 『difficult』. The fact was that Father had been hit by petition. Sarazins』, the big retail seedsmen who had branches all over the home ties, had stuck a tentacle into Lower Binfield. Six months earlier they』d taken the lease of a shop in the market-plad dolled it up until what with bright green paint, gilt lettering, gardening tools painted red and green, and huge advertisements for sweet peas, it hit you in the eye at a hundred yards』 distance. Sarazins』, besides selling flower seeds, described themselves as 『universal poultry and livestock providers』, and apart from wheat and oats and so forth they went in for patent poultry mixtures, bird-seed done up in fancy packets, dog-biscuits of all shapes and colours, medies, embrocations, and ditioning powders, and branched off into such things as rat- traps, dog-s, incubators, sanitary eggs, bird-ing, bulbs, weed-killer, iicide, and even, in some branches, into what they called a 『livestock department』, meaning rabbits and day-old chicks. Father, with his dusty old shop and his refusal to stoew lines, couldn』t pete with that kind of thing and didn』t want to. The tradesmen with their van-horses, and such of the farmers as dealt with the retail seedsmen, fought shy of Sarazins』, but in six months they