girls to go with her, slipped off
from the hike, and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man.
They
kept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods, and then,
when
they got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.'
'What did they do that for?' said Winston, somewhat taken
aback.
Parsons went on triumphantly:
'My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent -- might have
been
dropped by parachute, for instance. But here's the point, old boy. What
do
you think put her on to him in the first place? She spotted he was
wearing
a funny kind of shoes -- said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes
like
that before. So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for
a
nipper of seven, eh?'
'What happened to the man?' said Winston.
'Ah, that I couldn't say, of course. But I wouldn't be
altogether
surprised if--' Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, and clicked
his
tongue for the explosion.
'Good,' said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from his strip
of
paper.
'Of course we can't afford to take chances,' agreed Winston
dutifully.
'What I mean to say, there is a war on,' said Parsons.
As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated from
the
telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not the proclamation
of
a military victory this time, but merely an announcement from the
Ministry
of Plenty.
'Comrades!' cried an eager youthful voice. 'Attention, comrades!
We
have glorious news for you. We have won the battle for production!
Returns
now completed of the output of all cl***** of consumption goods show
that
the standard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the
past
year. All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible
spontaneous
demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices
and
paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to
Big
Brother for the new, happy life which
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