“It would never do,” said an old workman, who remembered the eight-hour day that used to prevail at the end of the Nineteenth Century.  “You see were we to have beer at will, the brewers’ draymen might complain.  It was once attempted, but the Licensed Victuallers made such a disturbance that the idea was abandoned.”

“There is something in what you say,” observed a second workman; “but, for the life of me, I don’t see why the Nation shouldn’t provide bread.”

“No, there you are out!” cried a third.  “I am a baker, and anything that interferes with my industry won’t do.”

And so they talked, discussing this and that, until all the subjects of the leaders in the daily papers had been exhausted.  It was then that one of the workmen suggested a walk and a pipe on the Embankment.

So they lounged down the main thoroughfare of London, with its pleasant cafes and well-appointed restaurants, and came to the conclusion (for the fiftieth time) that it was far better than anything of the same kind in Paris, or any other of the capitals of Europe.  They had all been abroad during their State-assisted vacation, and consequently had the chief towns of the world, so to speak, at their finger-tips.  As they sauntered along, they came to a group of half-starved, perambulating performers, who were giving an entertainment to a crowd of bystanders.  It was not a good programme.  First a young woman in rags, played on an old piano, with decent precision, some extremely difficult variations of CHOPIN’s Funeral March.  She was followed by a man who painted a portrait of a leading statesman indifferently well.  Then another man jumped into the river, and made his way in the cold water with the ease of a fifth-rate professional swimmer.  Then a second young woman recited something or other in German, with an atrocious English accent.  And the whole concluded with a lecture upon chemistry (given by a seedy-looking old man), which was illustrated with some ambitious, but feeble experiments.

On the balance the performance was a bore, and the public were rather pleased than otherwise, when a police constable ordered the troupe “to move on.”  The poor people gathered together their impedimenta and prepared to obey the officer’s behest.  It was then that the performers came face to face with the artisans.  There was a cry of recognition.

“Why, would you believe it!” exclaimed one of the workmen, “if it isn’t SALLY JONES, and TOMMY BROWN, and NORAH JENKINS, and HARRY SMITH!”

The well-fed and the starving cordially greeted one another.  Then there were mutual explanations, and the old man who had lectured upon chemistry had his say:—­

“You want to know why we are all starving, and why we are so much worse off than you, although we were educated at the same Board School?  I will tell you.  It was because you very wisely made up your minds to follow the occupations of your fathers.  You became builders, bakers, coal-heavers and paviors.