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Keir’s mistrust of Paragon Place was quickly justified, but when he came to analyse Paragon Place and its organic life, he found himself confronted with a curious anomaly. There were in Kingham many other terraces of working-class cottages which, while appearing to resemble Paragon Place, did not produce its particular atmosphere. Nor could the differences be just a question of coincidence. A silly brute like Block was not a coincidence; he was a universal, a type, just as much a type as Keir himself, or Mr. Samson, or Mr. Lugard, who loved beauty. Each little house and each little street might assume an appearance of likeness, but in each house there were fundamental contrasts.

Keir would say to himself that the standardization of modern life tricked one into assuming that the heads under the hats were as like as the hats. But were they? Obviously not. Society had graded itself. The reformers would have it that inequalities had arisen because the masterful and the selfish had made footstools of their less aggressive brethren. But was it so, or was it always so? To declare that Paragon Place was solely the product of the capitalist system was rather like accusing biology of being responsible for the unlikeness of the ape and the ass.

The more Keir thought about the problem, the more convinced he was that life was a study in differences instead of an assumption of sameness.

“From each according to his powers, to each according to his needs.”

“Remove the exploiter, and society will perfect itself.”

“Educate—educate.”

Keir did not believe in these sanguine solutions. It seemed to him that when the crowd man accused society of exploiting him, he was inventing a cock-shy. The crowd was exploited by its own limitations. It was being taught to deny these limitations and to howl down anyone who suggested that social values differed, the social values of the expert and the fool.

Later, patiently and poignantly, in another community he was to watch life grading itself, man becoming the artist, man remaining a creature just capable of hammering in nails; but in Paragon Place he could contrast Sybil with the frowsy virago who lived next door. Nor did he see himself as the loving comrade of a silly brute like Block. Even Darvels had its significance, a beautiful personality, a little aloof and secret. He suspected that—relatively to Darvels—society would always possess a Paragon Place. It was waste of time to argue about it; the thing was to get busy as an individual and escape.

Keir left the garden to Sybil, for she had much more time to deal with it than he had, nor did she appear to excite those little sadists next door. Their mother came out to gossip with Sybil. She was interested in Sybil as a neighbour from whom it might be possible to borrow things, for Mrs. Block was Paragon Place’s most blatant borrower, and she had exhausted its possibilities. Her neighbours were shy of Mrs. Block’s sudden shortages.

“You ought to get your man to do that digging.”

For Sybil was busy with a spade, and enjoying it, and since Keir was working overtime, why shouldn’t she dig?

“It’s not the job for a slip of a girl like you.”

To have Mrs. Block hanging over that disreputable fence and exuding sophisticated sympathy was worrying to Sybil.

“Mr. Smith is so busy.”

Mr. Smith indeed! Mrs. Block referred to her husband as Bill, save on those special occasions when she was upon her dignity with the rent-collector or the milkman.

“Well, if I was yer ’usband, I wouldn’t like to see yer slavin’ like that.”

Sybil turned on Mrs. Block a sudden, innocent smile.

“But I like it.”

Peculiar people, these Smiths! No doubt the fellow was mean, one of those nasty little chaps who were always sweating on a job and who kept a P.O. savings book. But Mrs. Block proceeded to exploit Sybil and borrowed on various occasions loaves of bread, oddments of butter, and half-pints of milk, nor was any restitution made. Mrs. Block blamed her memory.

“Oh, my poor ’ead! Yes, you shall ’ave that loaf back tomorrow,” but Mrs. Block’s tomorrow never came.

Mrs. Moore, who was a clean, decent, quiet little body, warned Sybil against the lady of No. 4.

“Don’t you lend that woman anything, my dear; she’s a sponge.”

Even the impulsive and generous Sybil became recalcitrant when Mrs. Block borrowed her frying-pan and forgot to return it. Sybil had to go to the door of No. 4 and claim the article. Mrs. Block produced the frying-pan and once more blamed her head.

“I’ve been so worried. Mr. B.’s bin stood off.”

But when Sybil took the frying-pan back with her, she found it in such a state of filthiness that she had to spend half an hour cleaning it with soda and hot water. Keir came in and surprised her at the sink, nor had all the grease been dealt with.

“What’s the trouble, kid?”

“Oh—I lent it to the woman next door. I had to fetch it, and it was filthy.”

Keir had had his suspicions.

“Been cadging from you, have they?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to lend her anything again.”

Keir wondered if Sybil was afraid of Mrs. Block. Yes, it was more than possible. Sybil’s timidity could be exploited.

“You can put it down to me, kid. Tell her I found out and made a row.”

Sybil might be sensitive, but she had more moral courage than Keir suspected. She was not going to have Mrs. Block telling all Paragon Place that Keir was both mean and masterful.

So, in the main, and perhaps inevitably so, the Smiths were not popular in Paragon Place. Keir was working overtime all through the winter, for Samson & Hoad had secured several good contracts, including the fitting up of a large new shop. Keir would come in for his tea at half past five and then go back to work, and there were evenings when he worked till ten. The majority of Keir’s neighbours disapproved of such strenuous industry.

Mr. Block said of Keir: “The —— young —— will kill ’imself, and a good job too.”

Phelps, the communist, had bitter things to say of Keir. He was a blackleg, a greedy swine who guzzled on other fellows’ jobs, a —— —— to old Samson. It was chaps like Keir who kept the capitalist system on its legs.

Keir and Sybil, two young things newly mated and still very full of each other and their affairs, kept very much to themselves. No. 3 was blockaded by Nos. 2 and 4 and not feeling neighbourly to either household, particularly on Saturday nights. Mrs. Block, denied further borrowings and treated by Sybil with a timid hauteur, was on her dignity, referring to Keir and Sybil as “Lord and Lady Smiff.”