Explore "A Commentary" by John Galsworthy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The old man whose call in life was to warn the public against the dangers of the steam-roller held a small red flag in his remaining hand, for he had lost one arm. His brown face, through whose leathery skin white bristles showed, had a certain dignity; so had his square upstanding figure. And his light grey eyes, with tiny pupils, gazed with a queer intentness, as if he saw beyond you. His clothes were old, respectable, and stained with grease; his smile shrewd and rather sweet, and his voice -- of one who loved to talk, but whose profession kept him silent -- was deliberate and sonorous, with a whistling lisp in it, because he had not many teeth.
"What's your opinion? " he said one summer morning. "I'll tell you _my_ experience: a lot o' them that's workin' on road jobs like this are fellers that the Vestries takes on, makin' o' work for them -- the lowest o' the low. You can't do nothing with them; here to-day and gone to-morrow. Lost dogs I call 'em. Most of them goes on the drink the moment they gets a chance, and the language that they'll use -- oh dear! But you can't blame them's far as I can see -- they're born tired. They ain't up to what's wanted of 'em nowadays. You might just as well put their 'eads under this steam-roller and 'ave done with it."