I can only say that they talked politics as well as the average middle-class man, and a great deal better than some of the middle-class men I have heard.

What surprised me was the hold they had on the world, its geography and peoples, and on recent and contemporaneous history.

As I say, they were not fools, these two men.
They were merely old, and their children had undutifully failed to grow up and give them a place by the fire.
One last incident, as I bade them good-bye on the corner, happy with a couple of shillings in their pockets and the certain prospect of a bed for the night.

Lighting a cigarette, I was about to throw away the burning match when the Carter reached for it.

I proffered him the box, but he said, "Never mind, won't waste it, sir." And while he lighted the cigarette I had given him, the Carpenter hurried with the filling of his pipe in order to have a go at the same match.
"It's wrong to waste," said he.
"Yes," I said, but I was thinking of the wash-board ribs over which I had run my hand..