On the London Road 



to the end of his life. For his leery cunning is so 

 intensely stupid that, in fact, he is as " green " as 

 grass; his leer and his foul mouth keep him in the 

 gutter to his very last day. How much more success- 

 ful plain, simple straightforwardness would be ! The 

 pony went on a little, but they drew rein and waited 

 for the girl again; and again he "cheeked" her. 

 Still, she looked away, but she did not make any 

 attempt to escape by the side-path, nor show resent- 

 ment. No ; her face began to glow, and once or twice 

 she answered him, but still she would not quite join 

 company. If only it had not been Sunday if it had 

 been a lonely road, and not so near the village, if she 

 had not had the two tell-tale children with her she 

 would have been very good friends with the dirty, 

 chalky, ill-favoured, and ill-savoured wretch. At the 

 parting of the roads each went different ways, but she 

 could not help looking back. 



He was a thorough specimen of the leery London 

 mongrel. That hideous leer is so repulsive one 

 cannot endure it but it is so common; you see it on 

 the faces of four-fifths of the ceaseless stream that 

 runs out from the ends of the earth of London into 

 the green sea of the country. It disfigures the faces 

 of the carters who go with the waggons and other 

 vehicles not nomads, but men in steady employ; it 

 defaces absolutely defaces the workmen who go 

 forth with vans, with timber, with carpenters' work, 

 and the policeman standing at the corners, in London 

 itself particularly. The London leer hangs on their 

 faces. The Mosaic account of the Creation is dis- 

 credited in these days, the last revelation took place 

 at Beckenham ; the Beckenham revelation is superior 

 to Mount Sinai, yet the consideration of that leer 

 might suggest the idea of a fall of man even to an 

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