the rules," one of the women
informed us; and we took the tip and were grateful.

As the afternoon wore along, we realised that living wages could not be
made--by men. Women could pick as much as men, and children could do
almost as well as women; so it was impossible for a man to compete with a
woman and half-a-dozen children. For it is the woman and the half-dozen
children who count as a unit, and by their combined capacity determine
the unit's pay.

"I say, matey, I'm beastly hungry," said I to Bert. We had not had any
dinner.

"Blimey, but I could eat the 'ops," he replied.

Whereupon we both lamented our negligence in not rearing up a numerous
progeny to help us in this day of need. And in such fashion we whiled
away the time and talked for the edification of our neighbours. We quite
won the sympathy of the pole-puller, a young country yokel, who now and
again emptied a few picked blossoms into our bin, it being part of his
business to gather up the stray clusters torn off in the process of
pulling.

With him we discussed how much we could "sub," and were informed that
while we were being paid a shilling for seven bushels, we could only
"sub," or have advanced to us, a shilling for every twelve bushels. Which
is to say that the pay for five out of every twelve bushels was
withheld--a method of the grower to hold the hopper to his work whether
the crop runs good or bad, and especially if it runs bad.

After all, it was pleasant sitting there in the bright sunshine, the
golden pollen showering from our hands, the pungent aromatic odour of the
hops biting our nostrils, and the while remembering dimly the sounding
cities whence these people came. Poor street people! Poor gutter folk!
Even they grow earth-hungry, and yearn vaguely for the soil from which
they have been driven, and for the free life in the open, and the wind
and rain and sun all undefiled by city smirches. As the sea calls to the
sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep down in their aborted and
decaying carcasses, they are stirred strangely by the peasant memories of
their forbears who lived before cities were. And in incomprehensible
ways they are made glad by the earth smells and sights and sounds which
their blood has not forgotten though unremembered by them.

"No more 'ops, matey," Bert complained.

It was five o'clock, and the pole-pullers had knocked off, so that
everything could be cleaned up, there being no work on Sunday