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Gissing, George, 1857-1903

"The Nether World"

She looked about her wonderingly, seemed unable to realise
her position, was painfully conscious of her new clothes, ever and
again started as if in fear.
'Well, what did I say that night?' was Sidney's greeting. 'Didn't I
tell you it would be all right soon?'
Jane made no answer in words, but locked at him timidly; and then a
smile came upon her face, an expression of joy that could not trust
itself, that seemed to her too boldly at variance with all she had
yet known of life.


CHAPTER VIII
PENNYLOAF CANDY


In the social classification of the nether world--a subject which
so eminently adapts itself to the sportive and gracefully
picturesque mode of treatment--it will be convenient to
distinguish broadly, and with reference to males alone, the two
great sections of those who do, and those who do not, wear collars.
Each of these orders would, it is obvious, offer much scope to an
analyst delighting in subtle gradation. Taking the collarless, bow
shrewdly might one discriminate between the many kinds of neckcloth
which our climate renders necessary as a substitute for the nobler
article of attire! The navvy, the scaffolder, the costermonger, the
cab-tout--innumerable would be the varieties of texture, of fold,
of knot, observed in the ranks of unskilled labour.


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