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An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw
page 119 of 344 (34%)
"Is your house quite destroyed?" said Miss Wilson. "Where will you spend
the night?"

"Don't you think of me, mum. Master Smilash here will kindly put me up
'til morning."

"His health!" said Smilash, touching the mug with his lips.

"The roof and south wall is browed right away," continued the man,
after pausing for a moment to puzzle over Smilash's meaning. "I doubt if
there's a stone of it standing by this."

"But Sir John will build it for you again. You are one of his herds, are
you not?"

"I am, Miss. But not he; he'll be glad it's down. He don't like people
livin' on the land. I have told him time and again that the place was
ready to fall; but he said I couldn't expect him to lay out money on a
house that he got no rent for. You see, Miss, I didn't pay any rent. I
took low wages; and the bit of a hut was a sort of set-off again' what I
was paid short of the other men. I couldn't afford to have it repaired,
though I did what I could to patch and prop it. And now most like I
shall be blamed for letting it be blew down, and shall have to live in
half a room in the town and pay two or three shillin's a week, besides
walkin' three miles to and from my work every day. A gentleman like Sir
John don't hardly know what the value of a penny is to us laborin' folk,
nor how cruel hard his estate rules and the like comes on us."

"Sir John's health!" said Smilash, touching the mug as before. The man
drank a mouthful humbly, and Smilash continued, "Here's to the glorious
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