8. The Cap on the Stairs…

8. The Cap on the Stairs

After breakfast, when they were working together in the drawing-room, Easton, desiring to do Owen a good turn, thought he would put him on his guard, and repeated to him in a whisper the substance of the conversation he had held with Crass concerning him.

“Of course, you needn’t mention that I told you, Frank,” he said, “but I thought I ought to let you know: you can take it from me, Crass ain’t no friend of yours.”

“I’ve know that for a long time, mate,” replied Owen. “Thanks for telling me, all the same.”

“The bloody rotter’s no friend of mine either, or anyone else’s, for that matter,” Easton continued, “but of course it doesn’t do to fall out with ’im because you never know what he’d go and say to ol’ ’Unter.”

“Yes, one has to remember that.”

“Of course we all know what’s the matter with ’im as far as YOU’RE concerned,” Easton went on. “He don’t like ’avin’ anyone on the firm wot knows more about the work than ’e does ’imself—thinks ’e might git worked out of ’is job.”

Owen laughed bitterly.

“He needn’t be afraid of ME on THAT account. I wouldn’t have his job if it were offered to me.”

“But ’e don’t think so,” replied Easton, “and that’s why ’e’s got ’is knife into you.”

“I believe that what he said about Hunter is true enough,” said Owen. “Every time he comes here he tries to goad me into doing or saying something that would give him an excuse to tell me to clear out. I might have done it before now if I had not guessed what he was after, and been on my guard.”

Meantime, Crass, in the kitchen, had resumed his seat by the fire with the purpose of finishing his pipe of tobacco. Presently he took out his pocket-book and began to write in it with a piece of black-lead pencil. When the pipe was smoked out he knocked the bowl against the grate to get rid of the ash, and placed the pipe in his waistcoat pocket. Then, having torn out the leaf on which he had been writing, he got up and went into the pantry, where Bert was still struggling with the old whitewash.

“Ain’t yer nearly finished? I don’t want yer to stop in ’ere all day, yer know.”

“I ain’t got much more to do now,” said the boy. “Just this bit under the bottom shelf and then I’m done.”

“Yes, and a bloody fine mess you’ve made, what I can see of it!” growled Crass. “Look at all this water on the floor!”

Bert looked guiltily at the floor and turned very red.

“I’ll clean it all up”, he stammered. “As soon as I’ve got this bit of wall done, I’ll wipe all the mess up with the swab.”

Crass now took a pot of paint and some brushes and, having put some more fuel on the fire, began in a leisurely way to paint some of the woodwork in the kitchen. Presently Bert came in.

“I’ve finished there,” he said.

“About time, too. You’ll ’ave to look a bit livelier than you do, you know, or me and you will fall out.”

Bert did not answer.

“Now I’ve got another job for yer. You’re fond of drorin, ain’t yer?” continued Crass in a jeering tone.

“Yes, a little,” replied the boy, shamefacedly.

“Well,” said Crass, giving him the leaf he had torn out of the pocket-book, “you can go up to the yard and git them things and put ’em on a truck and dror it up ’ere, and git back as soon as you can. Just look at the paper and see if you understand it before you go. I don’t want you to make no mistakes.”

Bert took the paper and with some difficulty read as follows:

1 pare steppes 8 foot 1/2 gallon Plastor off perish 1 pale off witewosh 12 lbs wite led 1/2 gallon Linsede Hoil Do. Do. turps

“I can make it out all right.”

“You’d better bring the big truck,” said Crass, “because I want you to take the venetian blinds with you on it when you take it back tonight. They’ve got to be painted at the shop.”

“All right.”

When the boy had departed Crass took a stroll through the house to see how the others were getting on. Then he returned to the kitchen and proceeded with his work.

Crass was about thirty-eight years of age, rather above middle height and rather stout. He had a considerable quantity of curly black hair and wore a short beard of the same colour. His head was rather large, but low, and flat on top. When among his cronies he was in the habit of referring to his obesity as the result of good nature and a contented mind. Behind his back other people attributed it to beer, some even going to far as to nickname him the “tank”.

There was no work of a noisy kind being done this morning. Both the carpenters and the bricklayers having been taken away, temporarily, to another “job”. At the same time there was not absolute silence: occasionally Crass could hear the voices of the other workmen as they spoke to each other, sometimes shouting from one room to another. Now and then Harlow’s voice rang through the house as he sang snatches of music-hall songs or a verse of a Moody and Sankey hymn, and occasionally some of the others joined in the chorus or interrupted the singer with squeals and catcalls. Once or twice Crass was on the point of telling them to make less row: there would be a fine to do if Nimrod came and heard them. Just as he had made up his mind to tell them to stop the noise, it ceased of itself and he heard loud whispers:

“Look out! Someone’s comin’.”

The house became very quiet.

Crass put out his pipe and opened the window and the back door to get rid of the smell of the tobacco smoke. Then he shifted the pair of steps noisily, and proceeded to work more quickly than before. Most likely it was old Misery.

He worked on for some time in silence, but no one came to the kitchen: whoever it was must have gone upstairs. Crass listened attentively. Who could it be? He would have liked to go to see whom it was, but at the same time, if it were Nimrod, Crass wished to be discovered at work. He therefore waited a little longer and presently he heard the sound of voices upstairs but was unable to recognize them. He was just about to go out into the passage to listen, when whoever it was began coming downstairs. Crass at once resumed his work. The footsteps came along the passage leading to the kitchen: slow, heavy, ponderous footsteps, but yet the sound was not such as would be made by a man heavily shod. It was not Misery, evidently.

As the footsteps entered the kitchen, Crass looked round and beheld a very tall, obese figure, with a large, fleshy, coarse-featured, clean-shaven face, and a great double chin, the complexion being of the colour and appearance of the fat of uncooked bacon. A very large fleshy nose and weak-looking pale blue eyes, the slightly inflamed lids being almost destitute of eye-lashes. He had large fat feet cased in soft calfskin boots, with drab-coloured spats. His overcoat, heavily trimmed with sealskin, reached just below the knees, and although the trousers were very wide they were filled by the fat legs within, the shape of the calves being distinctly perceptible. Even as the feet seemed about to burst the uppers of the boots, so the legs appeared to threaten the trousers with disruption. This man was so large that his figure completely filled up the doorway, and as he came in he stooped slightly to avoid damaging the glittering silk hat on his head. One gloved hand was thrust into the pocket of the overcoat and in the other he carried a small Gladstone bag.

When Crass beheld this being, he touched his cap respectfully.

“Good morning, sir!”

“Good morning. They told me upstairs that I should find the foreman here. Are you the foreman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see you’re getting on with the work here.”

“Ho yes sir, we’re beginning to make a bit hov a show now, sir,” replied Crass, speaking as if he had a hot potato in his mouth.

“Mr Rushton isn’t here yet, I suppose?”

“No, sir: ’e don’t horfun come hon the job hin the mornin, sir; ’e generally comes hafternoons, sir, but Mr ’Unter’s halmost sure to be ’ere presently, sir.”

“It’s Mr Rushton I want to see: I arranged to meet him here at ten o’clock; but”—looking at his watch—“I’m rather before my time.”

“He’ll be here presently, I suppose,” added Mr Sweater. “I’ll just take a look round till he comes.”

“Yes, sir,” responded Crass, walking behind him obsequiously as he went out of the room.

Hoping that the gentleman might give him a shilling, Crass followed him into the front hall and began explaining what progress had so far been made with the work, but as Mr Sweater answered only by monosyllables and grunts, Crass presently concluded that his conversation was not appreciated and returned to the kitchen.

Meantime, upstairs, Philpot had gone into Newman’s room and was discussing with him the possibility of extracting from Mr Sweater the price of a little light refreshment.

“I think,” he remarked, “that we oughter see-ise this ’ere tuneropperty to touch ’im for an allowance.”

“We won’t git nothin’ out of ’IM, mate,” returned Newman. “’E’s a red-’ot teetotaller.”

“That don’t matter. ’Ow’s ’e to know that we buys beer with it? We might ’ave tea, or ginger ale, or lime-juice and glycerine for all ’e knows!”

Mr Sweater now began ponderously re-ascending the stairs and presently came into the room where Philpot was. The latter greeted him with respectful cordiality:

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning. You’ve begun painting up here, then.”

“Yes, sir, we’ve made a start on it,” replied Philpot, affably.

“Is this door wet?” asked Sweater, glancing apprehensively at the sleeve of his coat.

“Yes, sir,” answered Philpot, and added, as he looked meaningly at the great man, “the paint is wet, sir, but the PAINTERS is dry.”

“Confound it!” exclaimed Sweater, ignoring, or not hearing the latter part of Philpot’s reply. “I’ve got some of the beastly stuff on my coat sleeve.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, sir,” cried Philpot, secretly delighted. “I’ll get that orf for yer in no time. You wait just ’arf a mo!”

He had a piece of clean rag in his tool bag, and there was a can of turps in the room. Moistening the rag slightly with turps he carefully removed the paint from Sweater’s sleeve.

“It’s all orf now, sir,” he remarked, as he rubbed the place with a dry part of the rag. “The smell of the turps will go away in about a hour’s time.”

“Thanks,” said Sweater.

Philpot looked at him wistfully, but Sweater evidently did not understand, and began looking about the room.

“I see they’ve put a new piece of skirting here,” he observed.

“Yes, sir,” said Newman, who came into the room just then to get the turps. “The old piece was all to bits with dry-rot.”

“I feel as if I ’ad a touch of the dry-rot meself, don’t you?” said Philpot to Newman, who smiled feebly and cast a sidelong glance at Sweater, who did not appear to notice the significance of the remark, but walked out of the room and began climbing up to the next floor, where Harlow and Sawkins were working.

“Well, there’s a bleeder for yer!” said Philpot with indignation. “After all the trouble I took to clean ’is coat! Not a bloody stiver! Well, it takes the cake, don’t it?”

“I told you ’ow it would be, didn’t I?” replied Newman.

“P’raps I didn’t make it plain enough,” said Philpot, thoughtfully. “We must try to get some of our own back somehow, you know.”

Going out on the landing he called softly upstairs.

“I say, Harlow.”

“Hallo,” said that individual, looking over the banisters.

“’Ow are yer getting on up there?”

“Oh, all right, you know.”

“Pretty dry job, ain’t it?” Philpot continued, raising his voice a little and winking at Harlow.

“Yes, it is, rather,” replied Harlow with a grin.

“I think this would be a very good time to take up the collection, don’t you?”

“Yes, it wouldn’t be a bad idear.”

“Well, I’ll put me cap on the stairs,” said Philpot, suiting the action to the word. “You never knows yer luck. Things is gettin’ a bit serious on this floor, you know; my mate’s fainted away once already!”

Philpot now went back to his room to await developments: but as Sweater made no sign, he returned to the landing and again hailed Harlow.

“I always reckon a man can work all the better after ’e’s ’ad a drink: you can seem to get over more of it, like.”

“Oh, that’s true enough,” responded Harlow. “I’ve often noticed it meself.”

Sweater came out of the front bedroom and passed into one of the back rooms without any notice of either of the men.

“I’m afraid it’s a frost, mate,” Harlow whispered, and Philpot, shaking his head sadly, returned to work; but in a little while he came out again and once more accosted Harlow.

“I knowed a case once,” he said in a melancholy tone, “where a chap died—of thirst—on a job just like this; and at the inquest the doctor said as ’arf a pint would ’a saved ’im!”

“It must ’ave been a norrible death,” remarked Harlow.

“’Orrible ain’t the work for it, mate,” replied Philpot, mournfully. “It was something chronic!”

After this final heartrending appeal to Sweater’s humanity they returned to work, satisfied that, whatever the result of their efforts, they had done their best. They had placed the matter fully and fairly before him: nothing more could be said: the issue now rested entirely with him.

But it was all in vain. Sweater either did not or would not understand, and when he came downstairs he took no notice whatever of the cap which Philpot had placed so conspicuously in the centre of the landing floor.

9. Who is to Pay?

Sweater reached the hall almost at the same moment that Rushton entered by the front door. They greeted each other in a friendly way and after a few remarks concerning the work that was being done, they went into the drawing-room where Owen and Easton were and Rushton said:

“What about this room? Have you made up your mind what you’re going to have done to it?”

“Yes,” replied Sweater; “but I’ll tell you about that afterwards. What I’m anxious about is the drains. Have you brought the plans?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it going to cost?”

“Just wait a minute,” said Rushton, with a slight gesture calling Sweater’s attention to the presence of the two workmen. Sweater understood.

“You might leave that for a few minutes, will you?” Rushton continued, addressing Owen and Easton. “Go and get on with something else for a little while.”

When they were alone, Rushton closed the door and remarked: “It’s always as well not to let these fellows know more than is necessary.”

Sweater agreed.

“Now this ’ere drain work is really two separate jobs,” said Rushton. “First, the drains of the house: that is, the part of the work that’s actually on your ground. When that’s done, there will ’ave to be a pipe carried right along under this private road to the main road to connect the drains of the house with the town main. You follow me?”

“Perfectly. What’s it going to cost for the lot?”

“For the drains of the house, £25.0.0. and for the connecting pipe £30.0.0. £55.0.0. for the lot.”

“Um! That the lower you can do it for, eh?”

“That’s the lowest. I’ve figured it out most carefully, the time and materials, and that’s practically all I’m charging you.”

The truth of the matter was that Rushton had had nothing whatever to do with estimating the cost of this work: he had not the necessary knowledge to do so. Hunter had drawn the plans, calculated the cost and prepared the estimate.

“I’ve been thinking over this business lately,” said Sweater, looking at Rushton with a cunning leer. “I don’t see why I should have to pay for the connecting pipe. The Corporation ought to pay for that. What do you say?”

Rushton laughed. “I don’t see why not,” he replied.

“I think we could arrange it all right, don’t you?” Sweater went on. “Anyhow, the work will have to be done, so you’d better let ’em get on with it. £55.0.0. covers both jobs, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, all right, you get on with it and we’ll see what can be done with the Corporation later on.”

“I don’t suppose we’ll find ’em very difficult to deal with,” said Rushton with a grin, and Sweater smiled agreement.

As they were passing through the hall they met Hunter, who had just arrived. He was rather surprised to see them, as he knew nothing of their appointment. He wished them “Good morning” in an awkward hesitating undertone as if he were doubtful how his greeting would be received. Sweater nodded slightly, but Rushton ignored him altogether and Nimrod passed on looking and feeling like a disreputable cur that had just been kicked.

As Sweater and Rushton walked together about the house, Hunter hovered about them at a respectable distance, hoping that presently some notice might be taken of him. His dismal countenance became even longer than usual when he observed that they were about to leave the house without appearing even to know that he was there. However, just as they were going out, Rushton paused on the threshold and called him:

“Mr Hunter!”

“Yes, sir.”

Nimrod ran to him like a dog taken notice of by his master: if he had possessed a tail, it is probable that he would have wagged it. Rushton gave him the plans with an intimation that the work was to be proceeded with.

For some time after they were gone, Hunter crawled silently about the house, in and out of the rooms, up and down the corridors and the staircases. After a while he went into the room where Newman was and stood quietly watching him for about ten minutes as he worked. The man was painting the skirting, and just then he came to a part that was split in several places, so he took his knife and began to fill the cracks with putty. He was so nervous under Hunter’s scrutiny that his hand trembled to such an extent that it took him about twice as long as it should have done, and Hunter told him so with brutal directness.

“Never mind about puttying up such little cracks as them!” he shouted. “Fill ’em up with the paint. We can’t afford to pay you for messing about like that!”

Newman made no reply.

Misery found no excuse for bullying anyone else, because they were all tearing into it for all they were worth. As he wandered up and down the house like an evil spirit, he was followed by the furtively unfriendly glances of the men, who cursed him in their hearts as he passed.

He sneaked into the drawing-room and after standing with a malignant expression, silently watching Owen and Easton, he came out again without having uttered a word.

Although he frequently acted in this manner, yet somehow today the circumstance worried Owen considerably. He wondered uneasily what it meant, and began to feel vaguely apprehensive. Hunter’s silence seemed more menacing than his speech.

10. The Long Hill

Bert arrived at the shop and with as little delay as possible loaded up the handcart with all the things he had been sent for and started on the return journey. He got on all right in the town, because the roads were level and smooth, being paved with wood blocks. If it had only been like that all the way it would have been easy enough, although he was a small boy for such a large truck, and such a heavy load. While the wood road lasted the principal trouble he experienced was the difficulty of seeing where he was going, the handcart being so high and himself so short. The pair of steps on the cart of course made it all the worse in that respect. However, by taking great care he managed to get through the town all right, although he narrowly escaped colliding with several vehicles, including two or three motor cars and an electric tram, besides nearly knocking over an old woman who was carrying a large bundle of washing. From time to time he saw other small boys of his acquaintance, some of them former schoolmates. Some of these passed by carrying heavy loads of groceries in baskets, and others with wooden trays full of joints of meat.

Unfortunately, the wood paving ceased at the very place where the ground began to rise. Bert now found himself at the beginning of a long stretch of macadamized road which rose slightly and persistently throughout its whole length. Bert had pushed a cart up this road many times before and consequently knew the best method of tackling it. Experience had taught him that a full frontal attack on this hill was liable to failure, so on this occasion he followed his usual plan of making diagonal movements, crossing the road repeatedly from right to left and left to right, after the fashion of a sailing ship tacking against the wind, and halting about every twenty yards to rest and take breath. The distance he was to go was regulated, not so much by his powers of endurance as by the various objects by the wayside—the lamp-posts, for instance. During each rest he used to look ahead and select a certain lamp-post or street corner as the next stopping-place, and when he started again he used to make the most strenuous and desperate efforts to reach it.

Generally the goal he selected was too distant, for he usually overestimated his strength, and whenever he was forced to give in he ran the truck against the kerb and stood there panting for breath and feeling profoundly disappointed at his failure.

On the present occasion, during one of these rests, it flashed upon him that he was being a very long time: he would have to buck up or he would get into a row: he was not even half-way up the road yet!

Selecting a distant lamp-post, he determined to reach it before resting again.

The cart had a single shaft with a cross-piece at the end, forming the handle: he gripped this fiercely with both hands and, placing his chest against it, with a mighty effort he pushed the cart before him.

It seemed to get heavier and heavier every foot of the way. His whole body, but especially the thighs and calves of his legs, pained terribly, but still he strained and struggled and said to himself that he would not give in until he reached the lamp-post.

Finding that the handle hurt his chest, he lowered it to his waist, but that being even more painful he raised it again to his chest, and struggled savagely on, panting for breath and with his heart beating wildly.

The cart became heavier and heavier. After a while it seemed to the boy as if there were someone at the front of it trying to push him back down the hill. This was such a funny idea that for a moment he felt inclined to laugh, but the inclination went almost as soon as it came and was replaced by the dread that he would not be able to hold out long enough to reach the lamp-post, after all. Clenching his teeth, he made a tremendous effort and staggered forward two or three more steps and then—the cart stopped. He struggled with it despairingly for a few seconds, but all the strength had suddenly gone out of him: his legs felt so weak that he nearly collapsed on to the ground, and the cart began to move backwards down the hill. He was just able to stick to it and guide it so that it ran into and rested against the kerb, and then he stood holding it in a half-dazed way, very pale, saturated with perspiration, and trembling. His legs in particular shook so much that he felt that unless he could sit down for a little, he would FALL down.

He lowered the handle very carefully so as not to spill the whitewash out of the pail which was hanging from a hook under the cart, then, sitting down on the kerbstone, he leaned wearily against the wheel.

A little way down the road was a church with a clock in the tower. It was five minutes to ten by this clock. Bert said to himself that when it was ten he would make another start.

Whilst he was resting he thought of many things. Just behind that church was a field with several ponds in it where he used to go with other boys to catch effets. If it were not for the cart he would go across now, to see whether there were any there still. He remembered that he had been very eager to leave school and go to work, but they used to be fine old times after all.

Then he thought of the day when his mother took him to Mr Rushton’s office to “bind” him. He remembered that day very vividly: it was almost a year ago. How nervous he had been! His hand had trembled so that he was scarcely able to hold the pen. And even when it was all over, they had both felt very miserable, somehow. His mother had been very nervous in the office also, and when they got home she cried a lot and called him her poor little fatherless boy, and said she hoped he would be good and try to learn. And then he cried as well, and promised her that he would do his best. He reflected with pride that he was keeping his promise about being a good boy and trying to learn: in fact, he knew a great deal about the trade already—he could paint back doors as well as anybody! and railings as well. Owen had taught him lots of things and had promised to do some patterns of graining for him so that he might practise copying them at home in the evenings. Owen was a fine chap. Bert resolved that he would tell him what Crass had been saying to Easton. Just fancy, the cheek of a rotter like Crass, trying to get Owen the sack! It would be more like it if Crass was to be sacked himself, so that Owen could be the foreman.

One minute to ten.

With a heavy heart Bert watched the clock. His legs were still aching very badly. He could not see the hands of the clock moving, but they were creeping on all the same. Now, the minute hand was over the edge of the number, and he began to deliberate whether he might not rest for another five minutes? But he had been such a long time already on his errand that he dismissed the thought. The minute hand was now upright and it was time to go on.

Just as he was about to get up a harsh voice behind him said:

“How much longer are you going to sit there?”

Bert started up guiltily, and found himself confronted by Mr Rushton, who was regarding him with an angry frown, whilst close by towered the colossal figure of the obese Sweater, the expression on his greasy countenance betokening the pain he experienced on beholding such an appalling example of juvenile depravity.

“What do you mean by sich conduct?” demanded Rushton, indignantly. “The idear of sitting there like that when most likely the men are waiting for them things?”

Crimson with shame and confusion, the boy made no reply.

“You’ve been there a long time,” continued Rushton, “I’ve been watchin’ you all the time I’ve been comin’ down the road.”

Bert tried to speak to explain why he had been resting, but his mouth and his tongue had become quite parched from terror and he was unable to articulate a single word.

“You know, that’s not the way to get on in life, my boy,” observed Sweater lifting his forefinger and shaking his fat head reproachfully.

“Get along with you at once!” Rushton said, roughly. “I’m surprised at yer! The idear! Sitting down in my time!”

This was quite true. Rushton was not merely angry, but astonished at the audacity of the boy. That anyone in his employment should dare to have the impertinence to sit down in his time was incredible.

The boy lifted the handle of the cart and once more began to push it up the hill. It seemed heavier now that ever, but he managed to get on somehow. He kept glancing back after Rushton and Sweater, who presently turned a corner and were lost to view: then he ran the cart to the kerb again to have a breathe. He couldn’t have kept up much further without a spell even if they had still been watching him, but he didn’t rest for more than about half a minute this time, because he was afraid they might be peeping round the corner at him.

After this he gave up the lamp-post system and halted for a minute or so at regular short intervals. In this way, he at length reached the top of the hill, and with a sigh of relief congratulated himself that the journey was practically over.

Just before he arrived at the gate of the house, he saw Hunter sneak out and mount his bicycle and ride away. Bert wheeled his cart up to the front door and began carrying in the things. Whilst thus engaged he noticed Philpot peeping cautiously over the banisters of the staircase, and called out to him:

“Give us a hand with this bucket of whitewash, will yer, Joe?”

“Certainly, me son, with the greatest of hagony,” replied Philpot as he hurried down the stairs.

As they were carrying it in Philpot winked at Bert and whispered:

“Did yer see Pontius Pilate anywheres outside?”

“’E went away on ’is bike just as I come in at the gate.”

“Did ’e? Thank Gord for that! I don’t wish ’im no ’arm,” said Philpot, fervently, “but I ’opes ’e gets runned over with a motor.”

In this wish Bert entirely concurred, and similar charitable sentiments were expressed by all the others as soon as they heard that Misery was gone.

Just before four o’clock that afternoon Bert began to load up the truck with the venetian blinds, which had been taken down some days previously.

“I wonder who’ll have the job of paintin’ ’em?” remarked Philpot to Newman.

“P’raps’s they’ll take a couple of us away from ere.”

“I shouldn’t think so. We’re short-’anded ’ere already. Most likely they’ll put on a couple of fresh ’ands. There’s a ’ell of a lot of work in all them blinds, you know: I reckon they’ll ’ave to ’ave three or four coats, the state they’re in.”

“Yes. No doubt that’s what will be done,” replied Newman, and added with a mirthless laugh:

“I don’t suppose they’ll have much difficulty in getting a couple of chaps.”

“No, you’re right, mate. There’s plenty of ’em walkin’ about as a week’s work would be a Gordsend to.”

“Come to think of it,” continued Newman after a pause, “I believe the firm used to give all their blind work to old Latham, the venetian blind maker. Prap’s they’ll give ’im this lot to do.”

“Very likely,” replied Philpot, “I should think ’e can do ’em cheaper even than us chaps, and that’s all the firm cares about.”

How far their conjectures were fulfilled will appear later.

Shortly after Bert was gone it became so dark that it was necessary to light the candles, and Philpot remarked that although he hated working under such conditions, yet he was always glad when lighting up time came, because then knocking off time was not very far behind.

About five minutes to five, just as they were all putting their things away for the night, Nimrod suddenly appeared in the house. He had come hoping to find some of them ready dressed to go home before the proper time. Having failed in this laudable enterprise, he stood silently by himself for some seconds in the drawing-room. This was a spacious and lofty apartment with a large semicircular bay window. Round the ceiling was a deep cornice. In the semi-darkness the room appeared to be of even greater proportions than it really was. After standing thinking in this room for a little while, Hunter turned and strode out to the kitchen, where the men were preparing to go home. Owen was taking off his blouse and apron as the other entered. Hunter addressed him with a malevolent snarl:

“You can call at the office tonight as you go home.”

Owen’s heart seemed to stop beating. All the petty annoyances he had endured from Hunter rushed into his memory, together with what Easton had told him that morning. He stood, still and speechless, holding his apron in his hand and staring at the manager.

“What for?” he ejaculated at length. “What’s the matter?”

“You’ll find out what you’re wanted for when you get there,” returned Hunter as he went out of the room and away from the house.

When he was gone a dead silence prevailed. The hands ceased their preparations for departure and looked at each other and at Owen in astonishment. To stand a man off like that—when the job was not half finished—and for no apparent reason: and of a Monday, too. It was unheard of. There was a general chorus of indignation. Harlow and Philpot especially were very wroth.

“If it comes to that,” Harlow shouted, “they’ve got no bloody right to do it! We’re entitled to an hour’s notice.”

“Of course we are!” cried Philpot, his goggle eyes rolling wildly with wrath. “And I should ’ave it too, if it was me. You take my tip, Frank: CHARGE UP TO SIX O’CLOCK on yer time sheet and get some of your own back.”

Everyone joined in the outburst of indignant protest. Everyone, that is, except Crass and Slyme. But then they were not exactly in the kitchen: they were out in the scullery putting their things away, and so it happened that they said nothing, although they exchanged significant looks.

Owen had by this time recovered his self-possession. He collected all his tools and put them with his apron and blouse into his tool-bag with the purpose of taking them with him that night, but on reflection he resolved not to do so. After all, it was not absolutely certain that he was going to be “stood off”: possibly they were going to send him on some other job.

They kept all together—some walking on the pavement and some in the road—until they got down town, and then separated. Crass, Sawkins, Bundy and Philpot adjourned to the “Cricketers” for a drink, Newman went on by himself, Slyme accompanied Easton who had arranged with him to come that night to see the bedroom, and Owen went in the direction of the office.

11. Hands and Brains

Rushton & Co.’s premises were situated in one of the principal streets of Mugsborough and consisted of a double-fronted shop with plate glass windows. The shop extended right through to the narrow back street which ran behind it. The front part of the shop was stocked with wall-hangings, mouldings, stands showing patterns of embossed wall and ceiling decorations, cases of brushes, tins of varnish and enamel, and similar things.

The office was at the rear and was separated from the rest of the shop by a partition, glazed with muranese obscured glass. This office had two doors, one in the partition, giving access to the front shop, and the other by the side of the window and opening on to the back street. The glass of the lower sash of the back window consisted of one large pane on which was painted “Rushton & Co.” in black letters on a white ground.

Owen stood outside this window for two or three seconds before knocking. There was a bright light in the office. Then he knocked at the door, which was at once opened from the inside by Hunter, and Owen went in.

Rushton was seated in an armchair at his desk, smoking a cigar and reading one of several letters that were lying before him. At the back was a large unframed photograph of the size known as half-plate of the interior of some building. At another desk, or rather table, at the other side of the office, a young woman was sitting writing in a large ledger. There was a typewriting machine on the table at her side.

Rushton glanced up carelessly as Owen came in, but took no further notice of him.

“Just wait a minute,” Hunter said to Owen, and then, after conversing in a low tone with Rushton for a few minutes, the foreman put on his hat and went out of the office through the partition door which led into the front shop.

Owen stood waiting for Rushton to speak. He wondered why Hunter had sneaked off and felt inclined to open the door and call him back. One thing he was determined about: he meant to have some explanation: he would not submit tamely to be dismissed without any just reason.

When he had finished reading the letter, Rushton looked up, and, leaning comfortably back in his chair, he blew a cloud of smoke from his cigar, and said in an affable, indulgent tone, such as one might use to a child:

“You’re a bit of a hartist, ain’t yer?”

Owen was so surprised at this reception that he was for the moment unable to reply.

“You know what I mean,” continued Rushton; “decorating work, something like them samples of yours what’s hanging up there.”

He noticed the embarrassment of Owen’s manner, and was gratified. He thought the man was confused at being spoken to by such a superior person as himself.

Mr Rushton was about thirty-five years of age, with light grey eyes, fair hair and moustache, and his complexion was a whitey drab. He was tall—about five feet ten inches—and rather clumsily built; not corpulent, but fat—in good condition. He appeared to be very well fed and well cared for generally. His clothes were well made, of good quality and fitted him perfectly. He was dressed in a grey Norfolk suit, dark brown boots and knitted woollen stockings reaching to the knee.

He was a man who took himself very seriously. There was an air of pomposity and arrogant importance about him which—considering who and what he was—would have been entertaining to any observer gifted with a sense of humour.

“Yes,” replied Owen at last. “I can do a little of that sort of work, although of course I don’t profess to be able to do it as well or as quickly as a man who does nothing else.”

“Oh, no, of course not, but I think you could manage this all right. It’s that drawing-room at the “Cave”. Mr Sweater’s been speaking to me about it. It seems that when he was over in Paris some time since he saw a room that took his fancy. The walls and ceiling was not papered, but painted: you know what I mean; sort of panelled out, and decorated with stencils and hand painting. This ’ere’s a photer of it: it’s done in a sort of JAPANESE fashion.”

He handed the photograph to Owen as he spoke. It represented a room, the walls and ceiling of which were decorated in a Moorish style.

“At first Mr Sweater thought of getting a firm from London to do it, but ’e gave up the idear on account of the expense; but if you can do it so that it doesn’t cost too much, I think I can persuade ’im to go in for it. But if it’s goin’ to cost a lot it won’t come off at all. ’E’ll just ’ave a frieze put up and ’ave the room papered in the ordinary way.”

This was not true: Rushton said it in case Owen might want to be paid extra wages while doing the work. The truth was that Sweater was going to have the room decorated in any case, and intended to get a London firm to do it. He had consented rather unwillingly to let Rushton & Co. submit him an estimate, because he thought they would not be able to do the work satisfactorily.

Owen examined the photograph closely.

“Could you do anything like that in that room?”

“Yes, I think so,” replied Owen.

“Well, you know, I don’t want you to start on the job and not be able to finish it. Can you do it or not?”

Rushton felt sure that Owen could do it, and was very desirous that he should undertake it, but he did not want him to know that. He wished to convey the impression that he was almost indifferent whether Owen did the work or not. In fact, he wished to seem to be conferring a favour upon him by procuring him such a nice job as this.

“I’ll tell you what I CAN do,” Owen replied. “I can make you a watercolour sketch—a design—and if you think it good enough, of course, I can reproduce it on the ceiling and the walls, and I can let you know, within a little, how long it will take.”

Rushton appeared to reflect. Owen stood examining the photograph and began to feel an intense desire to do the work.

Rushton shook his head dubiously.

“If I let you spend a lot of time over the sketches and then Mr Sweater does not approve of your design, where do I come in?”

“Well, suppose we put it like this: I’ll draw the design at home in the evenings—in my own time. If it’s accepted, I’ll charge you for the time I’ve spent upon it. If it’s not suitable, I won’t charge the time at all.”

Rushton brightened up considerably. “All right. You can do so,” he said with an affectation of good nature, “but you mustn’t pile it on too thick, in any case, you know, because, as I said before, ’e don’t want to spend too much money on it. In fact, if it’s going to cost a great deal ’e simply won’t ’ave it done at all.”

Rushton knew Owen well enough to be sure that no consideration of time or pains would prevent him from putting the very best that was in him into this work. He knew that if the man did the room at all there was no likelihood of his scamping it for the sake of getting it done quickly; and for that matter Rushton did not wish him to hurry over it. All that he wanted to do was to impress upon Owen from the very first that he must not charge too much time. Any profit that it was possible to make out of the work, Rushton meant to secure for himself. He was a smart man, this Rushton, he possessed the ideal character: the kind of character that is necessary for any man who wishes to succeed in business—to get on in life. In other words, his disposition was very similar to that of a pig—he was intensely selfish.

No one had any right to condemn him for this, because all who live under the present system practise selfishness, more or less. We must be selfish: the System demands it. We must be selfish or we shall be hungry and ragged and finally die in the gutter. The more selfish we are the better off we shall be. In the “Battle of Life” only the selfish and cunning are able to survive: all others are beaten down and trampled under foot. No one can justly be blamed for acting selfishly—it is a matter of self-preservation—we must either injure or be injured. It is the system that deserves to be blamed. What those who wish to perpetuate the system deserve is another question.

“When do you think you’ll have the drawings ready?” inquired Rushton. “Can you get them done tonight?”

“I’m afraid not,” replied Owen, feeling inclined to laugh at the absurdity of the question. “It will need a little thinking about.”

“When can you have them ready then? This is Monday. Wednesday morning?”

Owen hesitated.

“We don’t want to keep ’im waiting too long, you know, or ’e may give up the idear altogether.”

“Well, say Friday morning, then,” said Owen, resolving that he would stay up all night if necessary to get it done.

Rushton shook his head.

“Can’t you get it done before that? I’m afraid that if we keeps ’im waiting all that time we may lose the job altogether.”

“I can’t get them done any quicker in my spare time,” returned Owen, flushing. “If you like to let me stay home tomorrow and charge the time the same as if I had gone to work at the house, I could go to my ordinary work on Wednesday and let you have the drawings on Thursday morning.”

“Oh, all right,” said Rushton as he returned to the perusal of his letters.

That night, long after his wife and Frankie were asleep, Owen worked in the sitting-room, searching through old numbers of the Decorators’ Journal and through the illustrations in other books of designs for examples of Moorish work, and making rough sketches in pencil.

He did not attempt to finish anything yet: it was necessary to think first; but he roughed out the general plan, and when at last he did go to bed he could not sleep for a long time. He almost fancied he was in the drawing-room at the “Cave”. First of all it would be necessary to take down the ugly plaster centre flower with its crevices all filled up with old whitewash. The cornice was all right; it was fortunately a very simple one, with a deep cove and without many enrichments. Then, when the walls and the ceiling had been properly prepared, the ornamentation would be proceeded with. The walls, divided into panels and arches containing painted designs and lattice-work; the panels of the door decorated in a similar manner. The mouldings of the door and window frames picked out with colours and gold so as to be in character with the other work; the cove of the cornice, a dull yellow with a bold ornament in colour—gold was not advisable in the hollow because of the unequal distribution of the light, but some of the smaller mouldings of the cornice should be gold. On the ceiling there would be one large panel covered with an appropriate design in gold and colours and surrounded by a wide margin or border. To separate this margin from the centre panel there would be a narrow border, and another border—but wider—round the outer edge of the margin, where the ceiling met the cornice. Both these borders and the margin would be covered with ornamentation in colour and gold. Great care would be necessary when deciding what parts were to be gilded because—whilst large masses of gilding are apt to look garish and in bad taste—a lot of fine gold lines are ineffective, especially on a flat surface, where they do not always catch the light. Process by process he traced the work, and saw it advancing stage by stage until, finally, the large apartment was transformed and glorified. And then in the midst of the pleasure he experienced in the planning of the work there came the fear that perhaps they would not have it done at all.

The question, what personal advantage would he gain never once occurred to Owen. He simply wanted to do the work; and he was so fully occupied with thinking and planning how it was to be done that the question of profit was crowded out.

But although this question of what profit could be made out of the work never occurred to Owen, it would in due course by fully considered by Mr Rushton. In fact, it was the only thing about the work that Mr Rushton would think of at all: how much money could be made out of it. This is what is meant by the oft-quoted saying, “The men work with their hands—the master works with his brains.”

12. The Letting of the Room

It will be remembered that when the men separated, Owen going to the office to see Rushton, and the others on their several ways, Easton and Slyme went together.

During the day Easton had found an opportunity of speaking to him about the bedroom. Slyme was about to leave the place where he was at present lodging, and he told Easton that although he had almost decided on another place he would take a look at the room. At Easton’s suggestion they arranged that Slyme was to accompany him home that night. As the former remarked, Slyme could come to see the place, and if he didn’t like it as well as the other he was thinking of taking, there was no harm done.

Ruth had contrived to furnish the room. Some of the things she had obtained on credit from a second-hand furniture dealer. Exactly how she had managed, Easton did not know, but it was done.

“This is the house,” said Easton. As they passed through, the gate creaked loudly on its hinges and then closed of itself rather noisily.

Ruth had just been putting the child to sleep and she stood up as they came in, hastily fastening the bodice of her dress as she did so.

“I’ve brought a gentleman to see you,” said Easton.

Although she knew that he was looking out for someone for the room, Ruth had not expected him to bring anyone home in this sudden manner, and she could not help wishing that he had told her beforehand of his intention. It being Monday, she had been very busy all day and she was conscious that she was rather untidy in her appearance. Her long brown hair was twisted loosely into a coil behind her head. She blushed in an embarrassed way as the young man stared at her.

Easton introduced Slyme by name and they shook hands; and then at Ruth’s suggestion Easton took a light to show him the room, and while they were gone Ruth hurriedly tidied her hair and dress.

When they came down again Slyme said he thought the room would suit him very well. What were the terms?

Did he wish to take the room only—just to lodge? inquired Ruth, or would he prefer to board as well?

Slyme intimated that he desired the latter arrangement.

In that case she thought twelve shillings a week would be fair. She believed that was about the usual amount. Of course that would include washing, and if his clothes needed a little mending she would do it for him.

Slyme expressed himself satisfied with these terms, which were as Ruth had said—about the usual ones. He would take the room, but he was not leaving his present lodgings until Saturday. It was therefore agreed that he was to bring his box on Saturday evening.

When he had gone, Easton and Ruth stood looking at each other in silence. Ever since this plan of letting the room first occurred to them they had been very anxious to accomplish it; and yet, now that it was done, they felt dissatisfied and unhappy, as if they had suddenly experienced some irreparable misfortune. In that moment they remembered nothing of the darker side of their life together. The hard times and the privations were far off and seemed insignificant beside the fact that this stranger was for the future to share their home. To Ruth especially it seemed that the happiness of the past twelve months had suddenly come to an end. She shrank with involuntary aversion and apprehension from the picture that rose before her of the future in which this intruder appeared the most prominent figure, dominating everything and interfering with every detail of their home life. Of course they had known all this before, but somehow it had never seemed so objectionable as it did now, and as Easton thought of it he was filled with an unreasonable resentment against Slyme, as if the latter had forced himself upon them against their will.

“Damn him!” he thought. “I wish I’d never brought him here at all!”

Ruth did not appear to him to be very happy about it either.

“Well?” he said at last. “What do you think of him?”

“Oh, he’ll be all right, I suppose.”

“For my part, I wish he wasn’t coming,” Easton continued.

“That’s just what I was thinking,” replied Ruth dejectedly. “I don’t like him at all. I seemed to turn against him directly he came in the door.”

“I’ve a good mind to back out of it, somehow, tomorrow,” exclaimed Easton after another silence. “I could tell him we’ve unexpectedly got some friends coming to stay with us.”

“Yes,” said Ruth eagerly. “It would be easy enough to make some excuse or other.”

As this way of escape presented itself she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her mind, but almost in the same instant she remembered the reasons which had at first led them to think of letting the room, and she added, disconsolately:

“It’s foolish for us to go on like this, dear. We must let the room and it might just as well be him as anyone else. We must make the best of it, that’s all.”

Easton stood with his back to the fire, staring gloomily at her.

“Yes, I suppose that’s the right way to look at it,” he replied at length. “If we can’t stand it, we’ll give up the house and take a couple of rooms, or a small flat—if we can get one.”

Ruth agreed, although neither alternative was very inviting. The unwelcome alteration in their circumstances was after all not altogether without its compensations, because from the moment of arriving at this decision their love for each other seemed to be renewed and intensified. They remembered with acute regret that hitherto they had not always fully appreciated the happiness of that exclusive companionship of which there now remained to them but one week more. For once the present was esteemed at its proper value, being invested with some of the glamour which almost always envelops the past.

13. Penal Servitude and Death

On Tuesday—the day after his interview with Rushton—Owen remained at home working at the drawings. He did not get them finished, but they were so far advanced that he thought he would be able to complete them after tea on Wednesday evening. He did not go to work until after breakfast on Wednesday and his continued absence served to confirm the opinion of the other workmen that he had been discharged. This belief was further strengthened by the fact that a new hand had been sent to the house by Hunter, who came himself also at about a quarter past seven and very nearly caught Philpot in the act of smoking.

During breakfast, Philpot, addressing Crass and referring to Hunter, inquired anxiously:

“’Ow’s ’is temper this mornin’, Bob?”

“As mild as milk,” replied Crass. “You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in ’is mouth.”

“Seemed quite pleased with ’isself, didn’t ’e?” said Harlow.

“Yes,” remarked Newman. “’E said good morning to me!”

“So ’e did to me!” said Easton. “’E come inter the drorin’-room an’ ’e ses, ‘Oh, you’re in ’ere are yer, Easton,’ ’e ses—just like that, quite affable like. So I ses, ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Well,’ ’e ses, ‘get it slobbered over as quick as you can,’ ’e ses, ‘’cos we ain’t got much for this job: don’t spend a lot of time puttying up. Just smear it over an’ let it go!’”

“’E certinly seemed very pleased about something,” said Harlow. “I thought prap’s there was a undertaking job in: one o’ them generally puts ’im in a good humour.”

“I believe that nothing would please ’im so much as to see a epidemic break out,” remarked Philpot. “Small-pox, Hinfluenza, Cholery morbus, or anything like that.”

“Yes: don’t you remember ’ow good-tempered ’e was last summer when there was such a lot of Scarlet Fever about?” observed Harlow.

“Yes,” said Crass with a chuckle. “I recollect we ’ad six children’s funerals to do in one week. Ole Misery was as pleased as Punch, because of course as a rule there ain’t many boxin’-up jobs in the summer. It’s in winter as hundertakers reaps their ’arvest.”

“We ain’t ’ad very many this winter, though, so far,” said Harlow.

“Not so many as usual,” admitted Crass, “but still, we can’t grumble: we’ve ’ad one nearly every week since the beginning of October. That’s not so bad, you know.”

Crass took a lively interest in the undertaking department of Rushton & Co.’s business. He always had the job of polishing or varnishing the coffin and assisting to take it home and to “lift in” the corpse, besides acting as one of the bearers at the funeral. This work was more highly paid for than painting.

“But I don’t think there’s no funeral job in,” added Crass after a pause. “I think it’s because ’e’s glad to see the end of Owen, if yeh ask me.”

“Praps that ’as got something to do with it,” said Harlow. “But all the same I don’t call that a proper way to treat anyone—givin’ a man the push in that way just because ’e ’appened to ’ave a spite against ’im.”

“It’s wot I call a bl—dy shame!” cried Philpot. “Owen’s a chap wots always ready to do a good turn to anybody, and ’e knows ’is work, although ’e is a bit of a nuisance sometimes, I must admit, when ’e gets on about Socialism.”

“I suppose Misery didn’t say nothin’ about ’im this mornin’?” inquired Easton.

“No,” replied Crass, and added: “I only ’ope Owen don’t think as I never said anything against ’im. ’E looked at me very funny that night after Nimrod went away. Owen needn’t think nothing like that about ME, because I’m a chap like this—if I couldn’t do nobody no good, I wouldn’t never do ’em no ’arm!”

At this some of the others furtively exchanged significant glances, and Harlow began to smile, but no one said anything.

Philpot, noticing that the newcomer had not helped himself to any tea, called Bert’s attention to the fact and the boy filled Owen’s cup and passed it over to the new hand.

Their conjectures regarding the cause of Hunter’s good humour were all wrong. As the reader knows, Owen had not been discharged at all, and there was nobody dead. The real reason was that, having decided to take on another man, Hunter had experienced no difficulty in getting one at the same reduced rate as that which Newman was working for, there being such numbers of men out of employment. Hitherto the usual rate of pay in Mugsborough had been sevenpence an hour for skilled painters. The reader will remember that Newman consented to accept a job at sixpence halfpenny. So far none of the other workmen knew that Newman was working under price: he had told no one, not feeling sure whether he was the only one or not. The man whom Hunter had taken on that morning also decided in his mind that he would keep his own counsel concerning what pay he was to receive, until he found out what the others were getting.

Just before half past eight Owen arrived and was immediately assailed with questions as to what had transpired at the office. Crass listened with ill-concealed chagrin to Owen’s account, but most of the others were genuinely pleased.

“But what a way to speak to anybody!” observed Harlow, referring to Hunter’s manner on the previous Monday night.

“You know, I reckon if ole Misery ’ad four legs, ’e’d make a very good pig,” said Philpot, solemnly, “and you can’t expect nothin’ from a pig but a grunt.”

During the morning, as Easton and Owen were working together in the drawing-room, the former remarked:

“Did I tell you I had a room I wanted to let, Frank?”

“Yes, I think you did.”

“Well, I’ve let it to Slyme. I think he seems a very decent sort of chap, don’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose he is,” replied Owen, hesitatingly. “I know nothing against him.”

“Of course, we’d rather ’ave the ’ouse to ourselves if we could afford it, but work is so scarce lately. I’ve been figuring out exactly what my money has averaged for the last twelve months and how much a week do you think it comes to?”

“God only knows,” said Owen. “How much?”

“About eighteen bob.”

“So you see we had to do something,” continued Easton; “and I reckon we’re lucky to get a respectable sort of chap like Slyme, religious and teetotal and all that, you know. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I suppose you are,” said Owen, who, although he intensely disliked Slyme, knew nothing definite against him.

They worked in silence for some time, and then Owen said:

“At the present time there are thousands of people so badly off that, compared with them, WE are RICH. Their sufferings are so great that compared with them, we may be said to be living in luxury. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, that’s true enough, mate. We really ought to be very thankful: we ought to consider ourselves lucky to ’ave a inside job like this when there’s such a lot of chaps walkin’ about doin’ nothing.”

“Yes,” said Owen: “we’re lucky! Although we’re in a condition of abject, miserable poverty we must consider ourselves lucky that we’re not actually starving.”

Owen was painting the door; Easton was doing the skirting. This work caused no noise, so they were able to converse without difficulty.

“Do you think it’s right for us to tamely make up our minds to live for the rest of our lives under such conditions as that?”

“No; certainly not,” replied Easton; “but things are sure to get better presently. Trade hasn’t always been as bad as it is now. Why, you can remember as well as I can a few years ago there was so much work that we was putting in fourteen and sixteen hours a day. I used to be so done up by the end of the week that I used to stay in bed nearly all day on Sunday.”

“But don’t you think it’s worth while trying to find out whether it’s possible to so arrange things that we may be able to live like civilized human beings without being alternately worked to death or starved?”

“I don’t see how we’re goin’ to alter things,” answered Easton. “At the present time, from what I hear, work is scarce everywhere. WE can’t MAKE work, can we?”

“Do you think, then, that the affairs of the world are something like the wind or the weather—altogether beyond our control? And that if they’re bad we can do nothing but just sit down and wait for them to get better?”

“Well, I don’t see ’ow we can odds it. If the people wot’s got the money won’t spend it, the likes of me and you can’t make ’em, can we?”

Owen looked curiously at Easton.

“I suppose you’re about twenty-six now,” he said. “That means that you have about another thirty years to live. Of course, if you had proper food and clothes and hadn’t to work more than a reasonable number of hours every day, there is no natural reason why you should not live for another fifty or sixty years: but we’ll say thirty. Do you mean to say that you are able to contemplate with indifference the prospect of living for another thirty years under such conditions as those we endure at present?”

Easton made no reply.

“If you were to commit some serious breach of the law, and were sentenced next week to ten years’ penal servitude, you’d probably think your fate a very pitiable one: yet you appear to submit quite cheerfully to this other sentence, which is—that you shall die a premature death after you have done another thirty years’ hard labour.”

Easton continued painting the skirting.

“When there’s no work,” Owen went on, taking another dip of paint as he spoke and starting on one of the lower panels of the door, “when there’s no work, you will either starve or get into debt. When—as at present—there is a little work, you will live in a state of semi-starvation. When times are what you call ‘good’, you will work for twelve or fourteen hours a day and—if you’re VERY lucky—occasionally all night. The extra money you then earn will go to pay your debts so that you may be able to get credit again when there’s no work.”

Easton put some putty in a crack in the skirting.

“In consequence of living in this manner, you will die at least twenty years sooner than is natural, or, should you have an unusually strong constitution and live after you cease to be able to work, you will be put into a kind of jail and treated like a criminal for the remainder of your life.”

Having faced up the cracks, Easton resumed the painting of the skirting.

“If it were proposed to make a law that all working men and women were to be put to death—smothered, or hung, or poisoned, or put into a lethal chamber—as soon as they reached the age of fifty years, there is not the slightest doubt that you would join in the uproar of protest that would ensue. Yet you submit tamely to have your life shortened by slow starvation, overwork, lack of proper boots and clothing, and through having often to turn out and go to work when you are so ill that you ought to be in bed receiving medical care.”

Easton made no reply: he knew that all this was true, but he was not without a large share of the false pride which prompts us to hide our poverty and to pretend that we are much better off than we really are. He was at that moment wearing the pair of second-hand boots that Ruth had bought for him, but he had told Harlow—who had passed some remark about them—that he had had them for years, wearing them only for best. He felt very resentful as he listened to the other’s talk, and Owen perceived it, but nevertheless he continued:

“Unless the present system is altered, that is all we have to look forward to; and yet you’re one of the upholders of the present system—you help to perpetuate it!”

“’Ow do I help to perpetuate it?” demanded Easton.

“By not trying to find out how to end it—by not helping those who are trying to bring a better state of things into existence. Even if you are indifferent to your own fate—as you seem to be—you have no right to be indifferent to that of the child for whose existence in this world you are responsible. Every man who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery, and is therefore the enemy of his own children. There is no such thing as being neutral: we must either help or hinder.”

As Owen opened the door to paint its edge, Bert came along the passage.

“Look out!” he cried, “Misery’s comin’ up the road. ’E’ll be ’ere in a minit.”

It was not often that Easton was glad to hear of the approach of Nimrod, but on this occasion he heard Bert’s message with a sigh of relief.

“I say,” added the boy in a whisper to Owen, “if it comes orf—I mean if you gets the job to do this room—will you ask to ’ave me along of you?”

“Yes, all right, sonny,” replied Owen, and Bert went off to warn the others.

Unaware that he had been observed, Nimrod sneaked stealthily into the house and began softly crawling about from room to room, peeping around corners and squinting through the cracks of doors, and looking through keyholes. He was almost pleased to see that everybody was very hard at work, but on going into Newman’s room Misery was not satisfied with the progress made since his last visit. The fact was that Newman had been forgetting himself again this morning. He had been taking a little pains with the work, doing it something like properly, instead of scamping and rushing it in the usual way. The result was that he had not done enough.

“You know, Newman, this kind of thing won’t do!” Nimrod howled. “You must get over a bit more than this or you won’t suit me! If you can’t move yourself a bit quicker I shall ’ave to get someone else. You’ve been in this room since seven o’clock this morning and it’s dam near time you was out of it!”

Newman muttered something about being nearly finished now, and Hunter ascended to the next landing—the attics, where the cheap man—Sawkins, the labourer—was at work. Harlow had been taken away from the attics to go on with some of the better work, so Sawkins was now working alone. He had been slogging into it like a Trojan and had done quite a lot. He had painted not only the sashes of the window, but also a large part of the glass, and when doing the skirting he had included part of the floor, sometimes an inch, sometimes half an inch.

The paint was of a dark drab colour and the surface of the newly painted doors bore a strong resemblance to corduroy cloth, and from the bottom corners of nearly every panel there was trickling down a large tear, as if the doors were weeping for the degenerate condition of the decorative arts. But these tears caused no throb of pity in the bosom of Misery: neither did the corduroy-like surface of the work grate upon his feelings. He perceived them not. He saw only that there was a Lot of Work done and his soul was filled with rapture as he reflected that the man who had accomplished all this was paid only fivepence an hour. At the same time it would never do to let Sawkins know that he was satisfied with the progress made, so he said:

“I don’t want you to stand too much over this up ’ere, you know, Sawkins. Just mop it over anyhow, and get away from it as quick as you can.”

“All right, sir,” replied Sawkins, wiping the sweat from his brow as Misery began crawling downstairs again.

“Where’s Harlow got to, then?” he demanded of Philpot. “’E wasn’t ’ere just now, when I came up.”

“’E’s gorn downstairs, sir, out the back,” replied Joe, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and winking at Hunter. “’E’ll be back in ’arf a mo.” And indeed at that moment Harlow was just coming upstairs again.

“’Ere, we can’t allow this kind of thing in workin’ hours, you know.” Hunter bellowed. “There’s plenty of time for that in the dinner hour!”

Nimrod now went down to the drawing-room, which Easton and Owen had been painting. He stood here deep in thought for some time, mentally comparing the quantity of work done by the two men in this room with that done by Sawkins in the attics. Misery was not a painter himself: he was a carpenter, and he thought but little of the difference in the quality of the work: to him it was all about the same: just plain painting.

“I believe it would pay us a great deal better,” he thought to himself, “if we could get hold of a few more lightweights like Sawkins.” And with his mind filled with this reflection he shortly afterwards sneaked stealthily from the house.

14. Three Children. The Wages of Intelligence

Owen spent the greater part of the dinner hour by himself in the drawing-room making pencil sketches in his pocket-book and taking measurements. In the evening after leaving off, instead of going straight home as usual he went round to the Free Library to see if he could find anything concerning Moorish decorative work in any of the books there. Although it was only a small and ill-equipped institution he was rewarded by the discovery of illustrations of several examples of which he made sketches. After about an hour spent this way, as he was proceeding homewards he observed two children—a boy and a girl—whose appearance seemed familiar. They were standing at the window of a sweetstuff shop examining the wares exposed therein. As Owen came up the children turned round and they recognized each other simultaneously. They were Charley and Elsie Linden. Owen spoke to them as he drew near and the boy appealed to him for his opinion concerning a dispute they had been having.

“I say, mister. Which do you think is the best: a fardensworth of everlasting stickjaw torfee, or a prize packet?”

“I’d rather have a prize packet,” replied Owen, unhesitatingly.

“There! I told you so!” cried Elsie, triumphantly.

“Well, I don’t care. I’d sooner ’ave the torfee,” said Charley, doggedly.

“Why, can’t you agree which of the two to buy?”

“Oh no, it’s not that,” replied Elsie. “We was only just SUPPOSING what we’d buy if we ’ad a fardin; but we’re not really goin’ to buy nothing, because we ain’t got no money.”

“Oh, I see,” said Owen. “But I think I have some money,” and putting his hand into his pocket he produced two halfpennies and gave one to each of the children, who immediately went in to buy the toffee and the prize packet, and when they came out he walked along with them, as they were going in the same direction as he was: indeed, they would have to pass by his house.

“Has your grandfather got anything to do yet?” he inquired as they went along.

“No. ’E’s still walkin’ about, mister,” replied Charley.

When they reached Owen’s door he invited them to come up to see the kitten, which they had been inquiring about on the way. Frankie was delighted with these two visitors, and whilst they were eating some home-made cakes that Nora gave them, he entertained them by displaying the contents of his toy box, and the antics of the kitten, which was the best toy of all, for it invented new games all the time: acrobatic performances on the rails of chairs; curtain climbing; running slides up and down the oilcloth; hiding and peeping round corners and under the sofa. The kitten cut so many comical capers, and in a little while the children began to create such an uproar, that Nora had to interfere lest the people in the flat underneath should be annoyed.

However, Elsie and Charley were not able to stay very long, because their mother would be anxious about them, but they promised to come again some other day to play with Frankie.

“I’m going to ’ave a prize next Sunday at our Sunday School,” said Elsie as they were leaving.

“What are you going to get it for?” asked Nora.

“’Cause I learned my text properly. I had to learn the whole of the first chapter of Matthew by heart and I never made one single mistake! So teacher said she’d give me a nice book next Sunday.”

“I ’ad one too, the other week, about six months ago, didn’t I, Elsie?” said Charley.

“Yes,” replied Elsie and added: “Do they give prizes at your Sunday School, Frankie?”

“I don’t go to Sunday School.”

“Ain’t you never been?” said Charley in a tone of surprise.

“No,” replied Frankie. “Dad says I have quite enough of school all the week.”

“You ought to come to ours, man!” urged Charley. “It’s not like being in school at all! And we ’as a treat in the summer, and prizes and sometimes a magic lantern ’tainment. It ain’t ’arf all right, I can tell you.”

Frankie looked inquiringly at his mother.

“Might I go, Mum?”

“Yes, if you like, dear.”

“But I don’t know the way.”

“Oh, it’s not far from ’ere,” cried Charley. “We ’as to pass by your ’ouse when we’re goin’, so I’ll call for you on Sunday if you like.”

“It’s only just round in Duke Street; you know, the ‘Shining Light Chapel’,” said Elsie. “It commences at three o’clock.”

“All right,” said Nora. “I’ll have Frankie ready at a quarter to three. But now you must run home as fast as you can. Did you like those cakes?”

“Yes, thank you very much,” answered Elsie.

“Not ’arf!” said Charley.

“Does your mother make cakes for you sometimes?”

“She used to, but she’s too busy now, making blouses and one thing and another,” Elsie answered.

“I suppose she hasn’t much time for cooking,” said Nora, “so I’ve wrapped up some more of those cakes in this parcel for you to take home for tomorrow. I think you can manage to carry it all right, can’t you, Charley?”

“I think I’d better carry it myself,” said Elsie. “Charley’s SO careless, he’s sure to lose some of them.”

“I ain’t no more careless than you are,” cried Charley, indignantly. “What about the time you dropped the quarter of butter you was sent for in the mud?”

“That wasn’t carelessness: that was an accident, and it wasn’t butter at all: it was margarine, so there!”

Eventually it was arranged that they were to carry the parcel in turns, Elsie to have first innings. Frankie went downstairs to the front door with them to see them off, and as they went down the street he shouted after them:

“Mind you remember, next Sunday!”

“All right,” Charley shouted back. “We shan’t forget.”

On Thursday Owen stayed at home until after breakfast to finish the designs which he had promised to have ready that morning.

When he took them to the office at nine o’clock, the hour at which he had arranged to meet Rushton, the latter had not yet arrived, and he did not put in an appearance until half an hour later. Like the majority of people who do brain work, he needed a great deal more rest than those who do only mere physical labour.

“Oh, you’ve brought them sketches, I suppose,” he remarked in a surly tone as he came in. “You know, there was no need for you to wait: you could ’ave left ’em ’ere and gone on to your job.”

He sat down at his desk and looked carelessly at the drawing that Owen handed to him. It was on a sheet of paper about twenty-four by eighteen inches. The design was drawn with pencil and one half of it was coloured.

“That’s for the ceiling,” said Owen. “I hadn’t time to colour all of it.”

With an affectation of indifference, Rushton laid the drawing down and took the other which Owen handed to him.

“This is for the large wall. The same design would be adapted for the other walls; and this one shows the door and the panels under the window.”

Rushton expressed no opinion about the merits of the drawings. He examined them carelessly one after the other, and then, laying them down, he inquired:

“How long would it take you to do this work—if we get the job?”

“About three weeks: say 150 hours. That is—the decorative work only. Of course, the walls and ceiling would have to be painted first: they will need three coats of white.”

Rushton scribbled a note on a piece of paper.

“Well,” he said, after a pause, “you can leave these ’ere and I’ll see Mr Sweater about it and tell ’im what it will cost, and if he decides to have it done I’ll let you know.”

He put the drawings aside with the air of a man who has other matters to attend to, and began to open one of the several letters that were on his desk. He meant this as an intimation that the audience was at an end and that he desired the “hand” to retire from the presence. Owen understood this, but he did not retire, because it was necessary to mention one or two things which Rushton would have to allow for when preparing the estimate.

“Of course I should want some help,” he said. “I should need a man occasionally, and the boy most of the time. Then there’s the gold leaf—say, fifteen books.”

“Don’t you think it would be possible to use gold paint?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Is there anything else?” inquired Rushton as he finished writing down these items.

“I think that’s all, except a few sheets of cartridge paper for stencils and working drawings. The quantity of paint necessary for the decorative work will be very small.”

As soon as Owen was gone, Rushton took up the designs and examined them attentively.

“These are all right,” he muttered. “Good enough for anywhere. If he can paint anything like as well as this on the walls and ceiling of the room, it will stand all the looking at that anyone in this town is likely to give it.”

“Let’s see,” he continued. “He said three weeks, but he’s so anxious to do the job that he’s most likely under-estimated the time; I’d better allow four weeks: that means about 200 hours: 200 hours at eight-pence: how much is that? And say he has a painter to help him half the time. 100 hours at sixpence-ha’penny.”

He consulted a ready reckoner that was on the desk.

“Time, £9.7.6. Materials: fifteen books of gold, say a pound. Then there’s the cartridge paper and the colours—say another pound, at the outside. Boy’s time? Well, he gets no wages as yet, so we needn’t mention that at all. Then there’s the preparing of the room. Three coats of white paint. I wish Hunter was here to give me an idea what it will cost.”

As if in answer to his wish, Nimrod entered the office at that moment, and in reply to Rushton’s query said that to give the walls and ceiling three coats of paint would cost about three pounds five for time and material. Between them the two brain workers figured that fifteen pounds would cover the entire cost of the work—painting and decorating.

“Well, I reckon we can charge Sweater forty-five pounds for it,” said Rushton. “It isn’t like an ordinary job, you know. If he gets a London firm to do it, it’ll cost him double that, if not more.”

Having arrived at this decision, Rushton rung up Sweater’s Emporium on the telephone, and, finding that Mr Sweater was there, he rolled up the designs and set out for that gentleman’s office.

The men work with their hands, and the masters work with their brains. What a dreadful calamity it would be for the world and for mankind if all these brain workers were to go on strike.

15. The Undeserving Persons and the Upper and Nether Millstones

Hunter had taken on three more painters that morning. Bundy and two labourers had commenced the work of putting in the new drains; the carpenters were back again doing some extra work, and there was also a plumber working on the house; so there was quite a little crowd in the kitchen at dinner-time. Crass had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to produce the newspaper cutting which it will be remembered he showed to Easton on Monday morning, but he had waited in vain, for there had been scarcely any “political” talk at meal-times all the week, and it was now Thursday. As far as Owen was concerned, his thoughts were so occupied with the designs for the drawing-room that he had no time for anything else, and most of the others were only too willing to avoid a subject which frequently led to unpleasantness. As a rule Crass himself had no liking for such discussion, but he was so confident of being able to “flatten out” Owen with the cutting from the Obscurer that he had several times tried to lead the conversation into the desired channel, but so far without success.

During dinner—as they called it—various subjects were discussed. Harlow mentioned that he had found traces of bugs in one of the bedrooms upstairs and this called forth a number of anecdotes of those vermin and of houses infested by them. Philpot remembered working in a house over at Windley; the people who lived in it were very dirty and had very little furniture; no bedsteads, the beds consisting of dilapidated mattresses and rags on the floor. He declared that these ragged mattresses used to wander about the rooms by themselves. The house was so full of fleas that if one placed a sheet of newspaper on the floor one could hear and see them jumping on it. In fact, directly one went into that house one was covered from head to foot with fleas! During the few days he worked at that place, he lost several pounds in weight, and of evenings as he walked homewards the children and people in the streets, observing his ravaged countenance, thought he was suffering from some disease and used to get out of his way when they saw him coming.

There were several other of these narratives, four or five men talking at the top of their voices at the same time, each one telling a different story. At first each story-teller addressed himself to the company generally, but after a while, finding it impossible to make himself heard, he would select some particular individual who seemed disposed to listen and tell him the story. It sometimes happened that in the middle of the tale the man to whom it was being told would remember a somewhat similar adventure of his own, which he would immediately proceed to relate without waiting for the other to finish, and each of them was generally so interested in the gruesome details of his own story that he was unconscious of the fact that the other was telling one at all. In a contest of this kind the victory usually went to the man with the loudest voice, but sometimes a man who had a weak voice, scored by repeating the same tale several times until someone heard it.

Barrington, who seldom spoke and was an ideal listener, was appropriated by several men in succession, who each told him a different yarn. There was one man sitting on an up-ended pail in the far corner of the room and it was evident from the movements of his lips that he also was relating a story, although nobody knew what it was about or heard a single word of it, for no one took the slightest notice of him...

When the uproar had subsided Harlow remembered the case of a family whose house got into such a condition that the landlord had given them notice and the father had committed suicide because the painters had come to turn ’em out of house and home. There were a man, his wife and daughter—a girl about seventeen—living in the house, and all three of ’em used to drink like hell. As for the woman, she COULD shift it and no mistake! Several times a day she used to send the girl with a jug to the pub at the corner. When the old man was out, one could have anything one liked to ask for from either of ’em for half a pint of beer, but for his part, said Harlow, he could never fancy it. They were both too ugly.

The finale of this tale was received with a burst of incredulous laughter by those who heard it.

“Do you ’ear what Harlow says, Bob?” Easton shouted to Crass.

“No. What was it?”

“’E ses ’e once ’ad a chance to ’ave something but ’e wouldn’t take it on because it was too ugly!”

“If it ’ad bin me, I should ’ave shut me bl—y eyes,” cried Sawkins. “I wouldn’t pass it for a trifle like that.”

“No,” said Crass amid laughter, “and you can bet your life ’e didn’t lose it neither, although ’e tries to make ’imself out to be so innocent.”

“I always though old Harlow was a bl—y liar,” remarked Bundy, “but now we knows ’e is.”

Although everyone pretended to disbelieve him, Harlow stuck to his version of the story.

“It’s not their face you want, you know,” added Bundy as he helped himself to some more tea.

“I know it wasn’t my old woman’s face that I was after last night,” observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and his wife after they had retired for the night.

This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had had a few weeks previously: “I dreamt I was walkin’ along the top of a ’igh cliff or some sich place, and all of a sudden the ground give way under me feet and I began to slip down and down and to save meself from going over I made a grab at a tuft of grass as was growin’ just within reach of me ’and. And then I thought that some feller was ’ittin me on the ’ead with a bl—y great stick, and tryin’ to make me let go of the tuft of grass. And then I woke up to find my old woman shouting out and punchin’ me with ’er fists. She said I was pullin’ ’er ’air!”

While the room was in an uproar with the merriment induced by these stories, Crass rose from his seat and crossed over to where his overcoat was hanging on a nail in the wall, and took from the pocket a piece of card about eight inches by about four inches. One side of it was covered with printing, and as he returned to his seat Crass called upon the others to listen while he read it aloud. He said it was one of the best things he had ever seen: it had been given to him by a bloke in the Cricketers the other night.

Crass was not a very good reader, but he was able to read this all right because he had read it so often that he almost knew it by heart. It was entitled “The Art of Flatulence”, and it consisted of a number of rules and definitions. Shouts of laughter greeted the reading of each paragraph, and when he had ended, the piece of dirty card was handed round for the benefit of those who wished to read it for themselves. Several of the men, however, when it was offered to them, refused to take it, and with evident disgust suggested that it should be put into the fire. This view did not commend itself to Crass, who, after the others had finished with it, put it back in the pocket of his coat.

Meanwhile, Bundy stood up to help himself to some more tea. The cup he was drinking from had a large piece broken out of one side and did not hold much, so he usually had to have three or four helpings.

“Anyone else want any” he asked.

Several cups and jars were passed to him. These vessels had been standing on the floor, and the floor was very dirty and covered with dust, so before dipping them into the pail, Bundy—who had been working at the drains all morning—wiped the bottoms of the jars upon his trousers, on the same place where he was in the habit of wiping his hands when he happened to get some dirt on them. He filled the jars so full that as he held them by the rims and passed them to their owners part of the contents slopped over and trickled through his fingers. By the time he had finished the floor was covered with little pools of tea.

“They say that Gord made everything for some useful purpose,” remarked Harlow, reverting to the original subject, “but I should like to know what the hell’s the use of sich things as bugs and fleas and the like.”

“To teach people to keep theirselves clean, of course,” said Slyme.

“That’s a funny subject, ain’t it?” continued Harlow, ignoring Slyme’s answer. “They say as all diseases is caused by little insects. If Gord ’adn’t made no cancer germs or consumption microbes there wouldn’t be no cancer or consumption.”

“That’s one of the proofs that there ISN’T an individual God,” said Owen. “If we were to believe that the universe and everything that lives was deliberately designed and created by God, then we must also believe that He made his disease germs you are speaking of for the purpose of torturing His other creatures.”

“You can’t tell me a bloody yarn like that,” interposed Crass, roughly. “There’s a Ruler over us, mate, and so you’re likely to find out.”

“If Gord didn’t create the world, ’ow did it come ’ere?” demanded Slyme.

“I know no more about that than you do,” replied Owen. “That is—I know nothing. The only difference between us is that you THINK you know. You think you know that God made the universe; how long it took Him to do it; why He made it; how long it’s been in existence and how it will finally pass away. You also imagine you know that we shall live after we’re dead; where we shall go, and the kind of existence we shall have. In fact, in the excess of your ‘humility’, you think you know all about it. But really you know no more of these things than any other human being does; that is, you know NOTHING.”

“That’s only YOUR opinion,” said Slyme.

“If we care to take the trouble to learn,” Owen went on, “we can know a little of how the universe has grown and changed; but of the beginning we know nothing.”

“That’s just my opinion, matey,” observed Philpot. “It’s just a bloody mystery, and that’s all about it.”

“I don’t pretend to ’ave no ’ead knowledge,” said Slyme, “but ’ead knowledge won’t save a man’s soul: it’s ’EART knowledge as does that. I knows in my ’eart as my sins is all hunder the Blood, and it’s knowin’ that, wot’s given ’appiness and the peace which passes all understanding to me ever since I’ve been a Christian.”

“Glory, glory, hallelujah!” shouted Bundy, and nearly everyone laughed.

“‘Christian’ is right,” sneered Owen. “You’ve got some title to call yourself a Christian, haven’t you? As for the happiness that passes all understanding, it certainly passes MY understanding how you can be happy when you believe that millions of people are being tortured in Hell; and it also passes my understanding why you are not ashamed of yourself for being happy under such circumstances.”

“Ah, well, you’ll find it all out when you come to die, mate,” replied Slyme in a threatening tone. “You’ll think and talk different then!”

“That’s just wot gets over me,” observed Harlow. “It don’t seem right that after living in misery and poverty all our bloody lives, workin’ and slavin’ all the hours that Gord A’mighty sends, that we’re to be bloody well set fire and burned in ’ell for all eternity! It don’t seem feasible to me, you know.”

“It’s my belief,” said Philpot, profoundly, “that when you’re dead, you’re done for. That’s the end of you.”

“That’s what I say,” remarked Easton. “As for all this religious business, it’s just a money-making dodge. It’s the parson’s trade, just the same as painting is ours, only there’s no work attached to it and the pay’s a bloody sight better than ours is.”

“It’s their livin’, and a bloody good livin’ too, if you ask me,” said Bundy.

“Yes,” said Harlow; “they lives on the fat o’ the land, and wears the best of everything, and they does nothing for it but talk a lot of twaddle two or three times a week. The rest of the time they spend cadgin’ money orf silly old women who thinks it’s a sorter fire insurance.”

“It’s an old sayin’ and a true one,” chimed in the man on the upturned pail. “Parsons and publicans is the worst enemies the workin’ man ever ’ad. There may be SOME good “uns, but they’re few and far between.”

“If I could only get a job like the Harchbishop of Canterbury,” said Philpot, solemnly, “I’d leave this firm.”

“So would I,” said Harlow, “if I was the Harchbishop of Canterbury, I’d take my pot and brushes down the office and shy ’em through the bloody winder and tell ole Misery to go to ’ell.”

“Religion is a thing that don’t trouble ME much,” remarked Newman; “and as for what happens to you after death, it’s a thing I believe in leavin’ till you comes to it—there’s no sense in meetin’ trouble ’arfway. All the things they tells us may be true or they may not, but it takes me all my time to look after THIS world. I don’t believe I’ve been to church more than arf a dozen times since I’ve been married—that’s over fifteen years ago now—and then it’s been when the kids ’ave been christened. The old woman goes sometimes and of course the young ’uns goes; you’ve got to tell ’em something or other, and they might as well learn what they teaches at the Sunday School as anything else.”

A general murmur of approval greeted this. It seemed to be the almost unanimous opinion, that, whether it were true or not, “religion” was a nice thing to teach children.

“I’ve not been even once since I was married,” said Harlow, “and I sometimes wish to Christ I ’adn’t gorn then.”

“I don’t see as it matters a dam wot a man believes,” said Philpot, “as long as you don’t do no ’arm to nobody. If you see a poor b—r wot’s down on ’is luck, give ’im a ’elpin’ ’and. Even if you ain’t got no money you can say a kind word. If a man does ’is work and looks arter “is ’ome and ’is young ’uns, and does a good turn to a fellow creature when ’e can, I reckon ’e stands as much chance of getting into ’eaven—if there is sich a place—as some of these ’ere Bible-busters, whether ’e ever goes to church or chapel or not.”

These sentiments were echoed by everyone with the solitary exception of Slyme, who said that Philpot would find out his mistake after he was dead, when he would have to stand before the Great White Throne for judgement!

“And at the Last Day, when yer sees the moon turned inter Blood, you’ll be cryin’ hout for the mountings and the rocks to fall on yer and ’ide yer from the wrath of the Lamb!”

The others laughed derisively.

“I’m a Bush Baptist meself,” remarked the man on the upturned pail. This individual, Dick Wantley by name, was of what is usually termed a “rugged” cast of countenance. He reminded one strongly of an ancient gargoyle, or a dragon.

Most of the hands had by now lit their pipes, but there were a few who preferred chewing their tobacco. As they smoked or chewed they expectorated upon the floor or into the fire. Wantley was one of those who preferred chewing and he had been spitting upon the floor to such an extent that he was by this time partly surrounded by a kind of semicircular moat of dark brown spittle.

“I’m a Bush Baptist!” he shouted across the moat, “and you all knows wot that is.”

This confession of faith caused a fresh outburst of hilarity, because of course everyone knew what a Bush Baptist was.

“If ’evven’s goin’ to be full of sich b—r’s as Hunter,” observed Eaton, “I think I’d rather go to the other place.”

“If ever ole Misery DOES get into ’eaven,” said Philpot, “’e won’t stop there very long. I reckon ’e’ll be chucked out of it before ’e’s been there a week, because ’e’s sure to start pinchin’ the jewels out of the other saints’ crowns.”

“Well, if they won’t ’ave ’im in ’eaven, I’m sure I don’t know wot’s to become of ’im,” said Harlow with pretended concern, “because I don’t believe ’e’d be allowed into ’ell, now.”

“Why not?” demanded Bundy. “I should think it’s just the bloody place for sich b—r’s as ’im.”

“So it used to be at one time o’ day, but they’ve changed all that now. They’ve ’ad a revolution down there: deposed the Devil, elected a parson as President, and started puttin’ the fire out.”

“From what I hears of it,” continued Harlow when the laughter had ceased, “’ell is a bloody fine place to live in just now. There’s underground railways and ’lectric trams, and at the corner of nearly every street there’s a sort of pub where you can buy ice-cream, lemon squash, four ale, and American cold drinks; and you’re allowed to sit in a refrigerator for two hours for a tanner.”

Although they laughed and made fun of these things the reader must not think that they really doubted the truth of the Christian religion, because—although they had all been brought up by “Christian” parents and had been “educated” in “Christian” schools—none of them knew enough about Christianity to either really believe it or disbelieve it. The imposters who obtain a comfortable living by pretending to be the ministers and disciples of the Workman of Nazareth are too cunning to encourage their dupes to acquire anything approaching an intelligent understanding of the subject. They do not want people to know or understand anything: they want them to have Faith—to believe without knowledge, understanding, or evidence. For years Harlow and his mates—when children—had been “taught” “Christianity” in day school, Sunday School and in church or chapel, and now they knew practically nothing about it! But they were “Christians” all the same. They believed that the Bible was the word of God, but they didn’t know where it came from, how long it had been in existence, who wrote it, who translated it or how many different versions there were. Most of them were almost totally unacquainted with the contents of the book itself. But all the same, they believed it—after a fashion.

“But puttin’ all jokes aside,” said Philpot, “I can’t believe there’s sich a place as ’ell. There may be some kind of punishment, but I don’t believe it’s a real fire.”

“Nor nobody else, what’s got any sense,” replied Harlow, contemptuously.

“I believe as THIS world is ’ell,” said Crass, looking around with a philosophic expression. This opinion was echoed by most of the others, although Slyme remained silent and Owen laughed.

“Wot the bloody ’ell are YOU laughin’ at?” Crass demanded in an indignant tone.

“I was laughing because you said you think this world is hell.”

“Well, I don’t see nothing to laugh at in that,” said Crass.

“So it IS a ’ell,” said Easton. “There can’t be anywheres much worse than this.”

“’Ear, ’ear,” said the man behind the moat.

“What I was laughing at is this,” said Owen. “The present system of managing the affairs of the world is so bad and has produced such dreadful results that you are of the opinion that the earth is a hell: and yet you are a Conservative! You wish to preserve the present system—the system which has made the world into a hell!”

“I thought we shouldn’t get through the dinner hour without politics if Owen was ’ere,” growled Bundy. “Bloody sickenin’ I call it.”

“Don’t be ’ard on ’im,” said Philpot. “’E’s been very quiet for the last few days.”

“We’ll ’ave to go through it today, though,” remarked Harlow despairingly. “I can see it comin’.”

“I’M not goin’ through it,” said Bundy, “I’m orf!” And he accordingly drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket and, having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as he went out. The others laughed.

Crass, remembering the cutting from the Obscurer that he had in his pocket, was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was taking. He turned roughly on Owen:

“The other day, when we was talkin’ about the cause of poverty, you contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself couldn’t tell us what’s the cause of poverty, could you?”

“I think I could.”

“Oh, of course, you think you know,” sneered Crass, “and of course you think your opinion’s right and everybody else’s is wrong.”

“Yes,” replied Owen.

Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of Owen’s, but the latter rejoined:

“Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who differs from me is wrong. If I didn’t think their opinions were wrong I wouldn’t differ from them. If I didn’t think my own opinions right I wouldn’t hold them.”

“But there’s no need to keep on arguin’ about it day after day,” said Crass. “You’ve got your opinion and I’ve got mine. Let everyone enjoy his own opinion, I say.”

A murmur of approbation from the crowd greeted these sentiments; but Owen rejoined:

“But we can’t both be right; if your opinions are right and mine are not, how am I to find out the truth if we never talk about them?”

“Well, wot do you reckon is the cause of poverty, then?” demanded Easton.

“The present system—competition—capitalism.”

“It’s all very well to talk like that,” snarled Crass, to whom this statement conveyed no meaning whatever. “But ’ow do you make it out?”

“Well, I put it like that for the sake of shortness,” replied Owen. “Suppose some people were living in a house—”

“More supposin’!” sneered Crass.

“And suppose they were always ill, and suppose that the house was badly built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture, the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived there you would say—the house. All the tinkering in the world would not make that house fit to live in; the only thing to do with it would be to pull it down and build another. Well, we’re all living in a house called the Money System; and as a result most of us are suffering from a disease called poverty. There’s so much the matter with the present system that it’s no good tinkering at it. Everything about it is wrong and there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s only one thing to be done with it and that is to smash it up and have a different system altogether. We must get out of it.”

“It seems to me that that’s just what you’re trying to do,” remanded Harlow, sarcastically. “You seem to be tryin’ to get out of answering the question what Easton asked you.”

“Yes!” cried Crass, fiercely. “Why don’t you answer the bloody question? Wot’s the cause of poverty?”

“What the ’ell’s the matter with the present system?” demanded Sawkins.

“’Ow’s it goin’ to be altered?” said Newman.

“Wot the bloody ’ell sort of a system do YOU think we ought to ’ave?” shouted the man behind the moat.

“It can’t never be altered,” said Philpot. “Human nature’s human nature and you can’t get away from it.”

“Never mind about human nature,” shouted Crass. “Stick to the point. Wot’s the cause of poverty?”

“Oh, b—r the cause of poverty!” said one of the new hands. “I’ve ’ad enough of this bloody row.” And he stood up and prepared to go out of the room.

This individual had two patches on the seat of his trousers and the bottoms of the legs of that garment were frayed and ragged. He had been out of work for about six weeks previous to having been taken on by Rushton & Co. During most of that time he and his family had been existing in a condition of semi-starvation on the earnings of his wife as a charwoman and on the scraps of food she brought home from the houses where she worked. But all the same, the question of what is the cause of poverty had no interest for him.

“There are many causes,” answered Owen, “but they are all part of and inseparable from the system. In order to do away with poverty we must destroy the causes: to do away with the causes we must destroy the whole system.”

“What are the causes, then?”

“Well, money, for one thing.”

This extraordinary assertion was greeted with a roar of merriment, in the midst of which Philpot was heard to say that to listen to Owen was as good as going to a circus. Money was the cause of poverty!

“I always thought it was the want of it!” said the man with the patches on the seat of his trousers as he passed out of the door.

“Other things,” continued Owen, “are private ownership of land, private ownership of railways, tramways, gasworks, waterworks, private ownership of factories, and the other means of producing the necessaries and comforts of life. Competition in business—”

“But ’ow do you make it out?” demanded Crass, impatiently.

Owen hesitated. To his mind the thing appeared very clear and simple. The causes of poverty were so glaringly evident that he marvelled that any rational being should fail to perceive them; but at the same time he found it very difficult to define them himself. He could not think of words that would convey his thoughts clearly to these others who seemed so hostile and unwilling to understand, and who appeared to have made up their minds to oppose and reject whatever he said. They did not know what were the causes of poverty and apparently they did not WANT to know.

“Well, I’ll try to show you one of the causes,” he said nervously at last.

He picked up a piece of charred wood that had fallen from the fire and knelt down and began to draw upon the floor. Most of the others regarded him, with looks in which an indulgent, contemptuous kind of interest mingled with an air of superiority and patronage. There was no doubt, they thought, that Owen was a clever sort of chap: his work proved that: but he was certainly a little bit mad.

By this time Owen had drawn a circle about two feet in diameter. Inside he had drawn two squares, one much larger than the other. These two squares he filled in solid black with the charcoal.

“Wot’s it all about?” asked Crass with a sneer.

“Why, can’t you see?” said Philpot with a wink. “’E’s goin’ to do some conjurin’! In a minit ’e’ll make something pass out o’ one o’ them squares into the other and no one won’t see ’ow it’s done.”

When he had finished drawing, Owen remained for a few minutes awkwardly silent, oppressed by the anticipation of ridicule and a sense of his inability to put his thoughts into plain language. He began to wish that he had not undertaken this task. At last, with an effort, he began to speak in a halting, nervous way:

“This circle—or rather the space inside the circle—is supposed to represent England.”

“Well, I never knowed it was round before,” jeered Crass. “I’ve heard as the WORLD is round—”

“I never said it was the shape—I said it was supposed to REPRESENT England.”

“Oh, I see. I thought we’d very soon begin supposin’.”

“The two black squares,” continued Owen, “represent the people who live in the country. The small square represents a few thousand people. The large square stands for the remainder—about forty millions—that is, the majority.”

“We ain’t sich bloody fools as to think that the largest number is the minority,” interrupted Crass.

“The greater number of the people represented by the large black square work for their living: and in return for their labour they receive money: some more, some less than others.”

“You don’t think they’d be sich bloody fools as to work for nothing, do you?” said Newman.

“I suppose you think they ought all to get the same wages!” cried Harlow. “Do you think it’s right that a scavenger should get as much as a painter?”

“I’m not speaking about that at all,” replied Owen. “I’m trying to show you what I think is one of the causes of poverty.”

“Shut up, can’t you, Harlow,” remonstrated Philpot, who began to feel interested. “We can’t all talk at once.”

“I know we can’t,” replied Harlow in an aggrieved tone: “but ’e takes sich a ’ell of a time to say wot ’e’s got to say. Nobody else can’t get a word in edgeways.”

“In order that these people may live,” continued Owen, pointing to the large black square, “it is first necessary that they shall have a PLACE to live in—”

“Well! I should never a thought it!” exclaimed the man on the pail, pretending to be much impressed. The others laughed, and two or three of them went out of the room, contemptuously remarking to each other in an audible undertone as they went:

“Bloody rot!”

“Wonder wot the bloody ’ell ’e thinks ’e is? A sort of schoolmaster?”

Owen’s nervousness increased as he continued:

“Now, they can’t live in the air or in the sea. These people are land animals, therefore they must live on the land.”

“Wot do yer mean by animals?” demanded Slyme.

“A human bean ain’t a animal!” said Crass indignantly.

“Yes, we are!” cried Harlow. “Go into any chemist’s shop you like and ask the bloke, and ’e’ll tell you—”

“Oh, blow that!” interrupted Philpot. “Let’s ’ear wot Owen’s sayin’.”

“They must live on the land: and that’s the beginning of the trouble; because—under the present system—the majority of the people have really no right to be in the country at all! Under the present system the country belongs to a few—those who are here represented by this small black square. If it would pay them to do so, and if they felt so disposed, these few people have a perfect right—under the present system—to order everyone else to clear out!

“But they don’t do that, they allow the majority to remain in the land on one condition—that is, they must pay rent to the few for the privilege of being permitted to live in the land of their birth. The amount of rent demanded by those who own this country is so large that, in order to pay it, the greater number of the majority have often to deprive themselves and their children, not only of the comforts, but even the necessaries of life. In the case of the working classes the rent absorbs at the lowest possible estimate, about one-third of their total earnings, for it must be remembered that the rent is an expense that goes on all the time, whether they are employed or not. If they get into arrears when out of work, they have to pay double when they get employment again.

“The majority work hard and live in poverty in order that the minority may live in luxury without working at all, and as the majority are mostly fools, they not only agree to pass their lives in incessant slavery and want, in order to pay this rent to those who own the country, but they say it is quite right that they should have to do so, and are very grateful to the little minority for allowing them to remain in the country at all.”

Owen paused, and immediately there arose a great clamour from his listeners.

“So it IS right, ain’t it?” shouted Crass. “If you ’ad a ’ouse and let it to someone, you’d want your rent, wouldn’t yer?”

“I suppose,” said Slyme with resentment, for he had some shares in a local building society, “after a man’s been careful, and scraping and saving and going without things he ought to ’ave ’ad all ’is life, and managed to buy a few ’ouses to support ’im in ’is old age—they ought all to be took away from ’im? Some people,” he added, “ain’t got common honesty.”

Nearly everyone had something to say in reprobation of the views suggested by Owen. Harlow, in a brief but powerful speech, bristling with numerous sanguinary references to the bottomless pit, protested against any interference with the sacred rights of property. Easton listened with a puzzled expression, and Philpot’s goggle eyes rolled horribly as he glared silently at the circle and the two squares.

“By far the greatest part of the land,” said Owen when the row had ceased, “is held by people who have absolutely no moral right to it. Possession of much of it was obtained by means of murder and theft perpetrated by the ancestors of the present holders. In other cases, when some king or prince wanted to get rid of a mistress of whom he had grown weary, he presented a tract of our country to some “nobleman” on condition that he would marry the female. Vast estates were also bestowed upon the remote ancestors of the present holders in return for real or alleged services. Listen to this,” he continued as he took a small newspaper cutting from his pocket-book.

Crass looked at the piece of paper dolefully. It reminded him of the one he had in his own pocket, which he was beginning to fear that he would not have an opportunity of producing today after all.

“Ballcartridge Rent Day.

“The hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Ballcartridge occurred yesterday and in accordance with custom the Duke of Ballcartridge handed to the authorities the little flag which he annually presents to the State in virtue of his tenure of the vast tract of this country which was presented to one of his ancestors—the first Duke—in addition to his salary, for his services at the battle of Ballcartridge.

“The flag—which is the only rent the Duke has to pay for the great estate which brings him in several hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum—is a small tricoloured one with a staff surmounted by an eagle.

“The Duke of Blankmind also presents the State with a little coloured silk flag every year in return for being allowed to retain possession of that part of England which was presented—in addition to his salary—to one of His Grace’s very remote ancestors, for his services at the battle of Commissariat—in the Netherlands.

“The Duke of Southward is another instance,” continued Owen. “He ‘owns’ miles of the country we speak of as ‘ours’. Much of his part consists of confiscated monastery lands which were stolen from the owners by King Henry VIII and presented to the ancestors of the present Duke.

“Whether it was right or wrong that these parts of our country should ever have been given to those people—the question whether those ancestor persons were really deserving cases or not—is a thing we need not trouble ourselves about now. But the present holders are certainly not deserving people. They do not even take the trouble to pretend they are. They have done nothing and they do nothing to justify their possession of these ‘estates’ as they call them. And in my opinion no man who is in his right mind can really think it’s just that these people should be allowed to prey upon their fellow men as they are doing now. Or that it is right that their children should be allowed to continue to prey upon our children for ever! The thousands of people on those estates work and live in poverty in order that these three men and their families may enjoy leisure and luxury. Just think of the absurdity of it!” continued Owen, pointing to the drawings. “All those people allowing themselves to be overworked and bullied and starved and robbed by this little crowd here!”

Observing signs of a renewal of the storm of protests, Owen hurriedly concluded:

“Whether it’s right or wrong, you can’t deny that the fact that this small minority possesses nearly all the land of the country is one of the principal causes of the poverty of the majority.”

“Well, that seems true enough,” said Easton, slowly. “The rent’s the biggest item a workin’ man’s got to pay. When you’re out of work and you can’t afford other things, you goes without ’em, but the rent ’as to be paid whether you’re workin’ or not.”

“Yes, that’s true enough,” said Harlow impatiently; “but you gets value for yer money: you can’t expect to get a ’ouse for nothing.”

“Suppose we admits as it’s wrong, just for the sake of argyment,” said Crass in a jeering tone. “Wot then? Wot about it? ’Ow’s it agoin’ to be altered.”

“Yes!” cried Harlow triumphantly. “That’s the bloody question! ’Ow’s it goin’ to be altered? It can’t be done!”

There was a general murmur of satisfaction. Nearly everyone seemed very pleased to think that the existing state of things could not possibly be altered.

“Whether it can be altered or not, whether it’s right or wrong, landlordism is one of the causes of poverty,” Owen repeated. “Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it’s not caused by machinery; it’s not caused by ‘over-production’; it’s not caused by drink or laziness; and it’s not caused by ‘over-population’. It’s caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air—or of the money to buy it—even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: ‘It’s Their Land,’ ‘It’s Their Water,’ ‘It’s Their Coal,’ ‘It’s Their Iron,’ so you would say ‘It’s Their Air,’ ‘These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?’ And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on ‘Christian Duty’ in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to ‘justice’ in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.”

“I suppose you think the landlords ought to let people live in their ’ouses for nothing?” said Crass, breaking the silence that followed.

“Certainly,” remarked Harlow, pretending to be suddenly converted to Owen’s views, “I reckon the landlord ought to pay the rent to the tenant!”

“Of course, Landlordism is not the only cause,” said Owen, ignoring these remarks. “The wonderful system fosters a great many others. Employers of labour, for instance, are as great a cause of poverty as landlords are.”

This extraordinary statement was received with astonished silence.

“Do you mean to say that if I’m out of work and a master gives me a job, that ’e’s doin’ me a injury?” said Crass at length.

“No, of course not,” replied Owen.

“Well, what the bloody ’ell DO yer mean, then?”

“I mean this: supposing that the owner of a house wishes to have it repainted. What does he usually do?”

“As a rule, ’e goes to three or four master painters and asks ’em to give ’im a price for the job.”

“Yes; and those master painters are so eager to get the work that they cut the price down to what they think is the lowest possible point,” answered Owen, “and the lowest usually gets the job. The successful tenderer has usually cut the price so fine that to make it pay he has to scamp the work, pay low wages, and drive and sweat the men whom he employs. He wants them to do two days’ work for one day’s pay. The result is that a job which—if it were done properly—would employ say twenty men for two months, is rushed and scamped in half that time with half that number of men.

“This means that—in one such case as this—ten men are deprived of one month’s employment; and ten other men are deprived of two months’ employment; and all because the employers have been cutting each other’s throats to get the work.”

“And we can’t ’elp ourselves, you nor me either,” said Harlow. “Supposing one of us on this job was to make up ’is mind not to tear into it like we do, but just keep on steady and do a fair day’s work: wot would ’appen?”

No one answered; but the same thought was in everyone’s mind. Such a one would be quickly marked by Hunter; and even if the latter failed to notice it would not be long before Crass reported his conduct.

“We can’t ’elp ourselves,” said Easton, gloomily. “If one man won’t do it there’s twenty others ready to take ’is place.”

“We could help ourselves to a certain extent if we would stand by each other. If, for instance, we all belonged to the Society,” said Owen.

“I don’t believe in the Society,” observed Crass. “I can’t see as it’s right that a inferior man should ’ave the same wages as me.”

“They’re a drunken lot of beer-swillers,” remarked Slyme. “That’s why they always ’as their meetings in public ’ouses.”

Harlow made no comment on this question. He had at one time belonged to the Union and he was rather ashamed of having fallen away from it.

“Wot good ’as the Society ever done ’ere?” said Easton. “None that I ever ’eard of.”

“It might be able to do some good if most of us belonged to it; but after all, that’s another matter. Whether we could help ourselves or not, the fact remains that we don’t. But you must admit that this competition of the employers is one of the causes of unemployment and poverty, because it’s not only in our line—exactly the same thing happens in every other trade and industry. Competing employers are the upper and nether millstones which grind the workers between them.”

“I suppose you think there oughtn’t to be no employers at all?” sneered Crass. “Or p’raps you think the masters ought to do all the bloody work theirselves, and give us the money?”

“I don’t see ’ow its goin’ to be altered,” remarked Harlow. “There MUST be masters, and SOMEONE ’as to take charge of the work and do the thinkin’.”

“Whether it can be altered or not,” said Owen, “Landlordism and Competing Employers are two of the causes of poverty. But of course they’re only a small part of the system which produces luxury, refinement and culture for a few, and condemns the majority to a lifelong struggle with adversity, and many thousands to degradation, hunger and rags. This is the system you all uphold and defend, although you don’t mind admitting that it has made the world into a hell.”

Crass slowly drew the Obscurer cutting from his waistcoat pocket, but after a moment’s thought he replaced it, deciding to defer its production till a more suitable occasion.

“But you ’aven’t told us yet ’ow you makes out that money causes poverty,” cried Harlow, winking at the others. “That’s what I’M anxious to ’ear about!”

“So am I,” remarked the man behind the moat. “I was just wondering whether I ’adn’t better tell ole Misery that I don’t want no wages this week.”

“I think I’ll tell ’im on Saterday to keep MY money and get ’imself a few drinks with it,” said Philpot. “It might cheer ’im up a bit and make ’im a little more sociable and friendly like.”

“Money IS the principal cause of poverty,” said Owen.

“’Ow do yer make it out?” cried Sawkins.

But their curiosity had to remain unsatisfied for the time being because Crass announced that it was “just on it”.

16. True Freedom

About three o’clock that afternoon, Rushton suddenly appeared and began walking silently about the house, and listening outside the doors of rooms where the hands were working. He did not succeed in catching anyone idling or smoking or talking. The nearest approach to what the men called “a capture” that he made was, as he stood outside the door of one of the upper rooms in which Philpot and Harlow were working, he heard them singing one of Sankey’s hymns—“Work! for the night is coming”. He listened to two verses and several repetitions of the chorus. Being a “Christian”, he could scarcely object to this, especially as by peeping through the partly open door he could see that they were suiting the action to the word. When he went into the room they glanced around to see who it was, and stopped singing. Rushton did not speak, but stood in the middle of the floor, silently watching them as they worked, for about a quarter of an hour. Then, without having uttered a syllable, he turned and went out.

They heard him softly descend the stairs, and Harlow, turning to Philpot said in a hoarse whisper:

“What do you think of the b—r, standing there watchin’ us like that, as if we was a couple of bloody convicts? If it wasn’t that I’ve got someone else beside myself to think of, I would ’ave sloshed the bloody sod in the mouth with this pound brush!”

“Yes; it does make yer feel like that, mate,” replied Philpot, “but of course we mustn’t give way to it.”

“Several times,” continued Harlow, who was livid with anger, “I was on the point of turnin’ round and sayin’ to ’im, ‘What the bloody ’ell do you mean by standin’ there and watchin’ me, you bloody, psalm-singin’ swine?’ It took me all my time to keep it in, I can tell you.”

Meanwhile, Rushton was still going about the house, occasionally standing and watching the other men in the same manner as he had watched Philpot and Harlow.

None of the men looked round from their work or spoke either to Rushton or to each other. The only sounds heard were the noises made by the saws and hammers of the carpenters who were fixing the frieze rails and dado rails or repairing parts of the woodwork in some of the rooms.

Crass placed himself in Rushton’s way several times with the hope of being spoken to, but beyond curtly acknowledging the “foreman’s” servile “Good hafternoon, sir,” the master took no notice of him.

After about an hour spent in this manner Rushton went away, but as no one saw him go, it was not until some considerable time after his departure that they knew that he was gone.

Owen was secretly very disappointed. “I thought he had come to tell me about the drawing-room,” he said to himself, “but I suppose it’s not decided yet.”

Just as the “hands” were beginning to breathe freely again, Misery arrived, carrying some rolled-up papers in his hand. He also flitted silently from one room to another, peering round corners and listening at doors in the hope of seeing or hearing something which would give him an excuse for making an example of someone. Disappointed in this, he presently crawled upstairs to the room where Owen was working and, handing to him the roll of papers he had been carrying, said:

“Mr Sweater has decided to ’ave this work done, so you can start on it as soon as you like.”

It is impossible to describe, without appearing to exaggerate, the emotions experienced by Owen as he heard this announcement. For one thing it meant that the work at this house would last longer than it would otherwise have done; and it also meant that he would be paid for the extra time he had spent on the drawings, besides having his wages increased—for he was always paid an extra penny an hour when engaged on special work, such as graining or sign-writing or work of the present kind. But these considerations did not occur to him at the moment at all, for to him it meant much more. Since his first conversation on the subject with Rushton he had though of little else than this work.

In a sense he had been DOING it ever since. He had thought and planned and altered the details of the work repeatedly. The colours for the different parts had been selected and rejected and re-selected over and over again. A keen desire to do the work had grown within him, but he had scarcely allowed himself to hope that it would be done at all. His face flushed slightly as he took the drawings from Hunter.

“You can make a start on it tomorrow morning,” continued that gentleman. “I’ll tell Crass to send someone else up ’ere to finish this room.”

“I shan’t be able to commence tomorrow, because the ceiling and walls will have to be painted first.”

“Yes: I know. You and Easton can do that. One coat tomorrow, another on Friday and the third on Saturday—that is, unless you can make it do with two coats. Even if it has to be the three, you will be able to go on with your decoratin’ on Monday.”

“I won’t be able to start on Monday, because I shall have to make some working drawings first.”

“Workin’ drorins!” ejaculated Misery with a puzzled expression. “Wot workin’ drorins? You’ve got them, ain’t yer?” pointing to the roll of papers.

“Yes: but as the same ornaments are repeated several times, I shall have to make a number of full-sized drawings, with perforated outlines, to transfer the design to the walls,” said Owen, and he proceeded to laboriously explain the processes.

Nimrod looked at him suspiciously. “Is all that really necessary?” he asked. “Couldn’t you just copy it on the wall, free-hand?”

“No; that wouldn’t do. It would take much longer that way.”

This consideration appealed to Misery.

“Ah, well,” he sighed. “I s’pose you’ll ’ave to do it the way you said; but for goodness sake don’t spend too much time over it, because we’ve took it very cheap. We only took it on so as you could ’ave a job, not that we expect to make any profit out of it.”

“And I shall have to cut some stencils, so I shall need several sheets of cartridge paper.”

Upon hearing of this additional expense, Misery’s long visage appeared to become several inches longer; but after a moment’s thought he brightened up.

“I’ll tell you what!” he exclaimed with a cunning leer, “there’s lots of odd rolls of wallpaper down at the shop. Couldn’t you manage with some of that?”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do,” replied Owen doubtfully, “but I’ll have a look at it and if possible I’ll use it.”

“Yes, do!” said Misery, pleased at the thought of saving something. “Call at the shop on your way home tonight, and we’ll see what we can find. ’Ow long do you think it’ll take you to make the drorins and the stencils?”

“Well, today’s Thursday. If you let someone else help Easton to get the room ready, I think I can get them done in time to bring them with me on Monday morning.”

“Wot do yer mean, ‘bring them with you’?” demanded Nimrod.

“I shall have to do them at home, you know.”

“Do ’em at ’ome! Why can’t you do ’em ’ere?”

“Well, there’s no table, for one thing.”

“Oh, but we can soon fit you out with a table. You can ’ave a pair of paperhanger’s tressels and boards for that matter.”

“I have a lot of sketches and things at home that I couldn’t very well bring here,” said Owen.

Misery argued about it for a long time, insisting that the drawings should be made either on the “job” or at the paint-shop down at the yard. How, he asked, was he to know at what hour Owen commenced or left off working, if the latter did them at home?

“I shan’t charge any more time than I really work,” replied Owen. “I can’t possibly do them here or at the paint-shop. I know I should only make a mess of them under such conditions.”

“Well, I s’pose you’ll ’ave to ’ave your own way,” said Misery, dolefully. “I’ll let Harlow help Easton paint the room out, so as you can get your stencils and things ready. But for Gord’s sake get ’em done as quick as you can. If you could manage to get done by Friday and come down and help Easton on Saturday, it would be so much the better. And when you do get a start on the decoratin’, I shouldn’t take too much care over it, you know, if I was you, because we ’ad to take the job for next to nothing or Mr Sweater would never ’ave ’ad it done at all!”

Nimrod now began to crawl about the house, snarling and grumbling at everyone.

“Now then, you chaps. Rouse yourselves!” he bellowed, “you seem to think this is a ’orspital. If some of you don’t make a better show than this, I’ll ’ave to ’ave a Alteration! There’s plenty of chaps walkin’ about doin’ nothin’ who’ll be only too glad of a job!”

He went into the scullery, where Crass was mixing some colour.

“Look ’ere, Crass!” he said. “I’m not at all satisfied with the way you’re gettin’ on with the work. You must push the chaps a bit more than you’re doin’. There’s not enough being done, by a long way. We shall lose money over this job before we’re finished!”

Crass—whose fat face had turned a ghastly green with fright—mumbled something about getting on with it as fast as he could.

“Well, you’ll ’ave to make ’em move a bit quicker than this!” Misery howled, “or there’ll ’ave to be a ALTERATION!”

By an “alteration” Crass understood that he might get the sack, or that someone else might be put in charge of the job, and that would of course reduce him to the ranks and do away with his chance of being kept on longer than the others. He determined to try to ingratiate himself with Hunter and appease his wrath by sacrificing someone else. He glanced cautiously into the kitchen and up the passage and then, lowering his voice, he said:

“They all shapes pretty well, except Newman. I would ’ave told you about ’im before, but I thought I’d give ’im a fair chance. I’ve spoke to ’im several times myself about not doin’ enough, but it don’t seem to make no difference.”

“I’ve ’ad me eye on ’im meself for some time,” replied Nimrod in the same tone. “Anybody would think the work was goin’ to be sent to a Exhibition, the way ’e messes about with it, rubbing it with glasspaper and stopping up every little crack! I can’t understand where ’e gets all the glasspaper FROM.”

“’E brings it ’isself!” said Crass hoarsely. “I know for a fact that ’e bought two ’a’penny sheets of it, last week out of ’is own money!”

“Oh, ’e did, did ’e?” snarled Misery. “I’ll give ’im glasspaper! I’ll ’ave a Alteration!”

He went into the hall, where he remained alone for a considerable time, brooding. At last, with the manner of one who has resolved on a certain course of action, he turned and entered the room where Philpot and Harlow were working.

“You both get sevenpence an hour, don’t you?” he said.

They both replied to the affirmative.

“I’ve never worked under price yet,” added Harlow.

“Nor me neither,” observed Philpot.

“Well, of course you can please yourselves,” Hunter continued, “but after this week we’ve decided not to pay more than six and a half. Things is cut so fine nowadays that we can’t afford to go on payin’ sevenpence any longer. You can work up till tomorrow night on the old terms, but if you’re not willin’ to accept six and a half you needn’t come on Saturday morning. Please yourselves. Take it or leave it.”

Harlow and Philpot were both too much astonished to say anything in reply to this cheerful announcement, and Hunter, with the final remark, “You can think it over,” left them and went to deliver the same ultimatum to all the other full-price men, who took it in the same way as Philpot and Harlow had done. Crass and Owen were the only two whose wages were not reduced.

It will be remembered that Newman was one of those who were already working for the reduced rate. Misery found him alone in one of the upper rooms, to which he was giving the final coat. He was at his old tricks. The woodwork of the cupboard he was doing was in a rather damaged condition, and he was facing up the dents with white-lead putty before painting it. He knew quite well that Hunter objected to any but very large holes or cracks being stopped, and yet somehow or other he could not scamp the work to the extent that he was ordered to; and so, almost by stealth, he was in the habit of doing it—not properly but as well as he dared. He even went to the length of occasionally buying a few sheets of glasspaper with his own money, as Crass had told Hunter. When the latter came into the room he stood with a sneer on his face, watching Newman for about five minutes before he spoke. The workman became very nervous and awkward under this scrutiny.

“You can make out yer time-sheet and come to the office for yer money at five o’clock,” said Nimrod at last. “We shan’t require your valuable services no more after tonight.”

Newman went white.

“Why, what’s wrong?” said he. “What have I done?”

“Oh, it’s not wot you’ve DONE,” replied Misery. “It’s wot you’ve not done. That’s wot’s wrong! You’ve not done enough, that’s all!” And without further parley he turned and went out.

Newman stood in the darkening room feeling as if his heart had turned to lead. There rose before his mind the picture of his home and family. He could see them as they were at this very moment, the wife probably just beginning to prepare the evening meal, and the children setting the cups and saucers and other things on the kitchen table—a noisy work, enlivened with many a frolic and childish dispute. Even the two-year-old baby insisted on helping, although she always put everything in the wrong place and made all sorts of funny mistakes. They had all been so happy lately because they knew that he had work that would last till nearly Christmas—if not longer. And now this had happened—to plunge them back into the abyss of wretchedness from which they had so recently escaped. They still owed several weeks’ rent, and were already so much in debt to the baker and the grocer that it was hopeless to expect any further credit.

“My God!” said Newman, realizing the almost utter hopelessness of the chance of obtaining another “job” and unconsciously speaking aloud. “My God! How can I tell them? What WILL become of us?”

Having accomplished the objects of his visit, Hunter shortly afterwards departed, possibly congratulating himself that he had not been hiding his light under a bushel, but that he had set it upon a candlestick and given light unto all that were within that house.

As soon as they knew that he was gone, the men began to gather into little groups, but in a little while they nearly all found themselves in the kitchen, discussing the reduction. Sawkins and the other “lightweights” remained at their work. Some of them got only fourpence halfpenny—Sawkins was paid fivepence—so none of these were affected by the change. The other two fresh hands—the journeymen—joined the crowd in the kitchen, being anxious to conceal the fact that they had agreed to accept the reduced rate before being “taken on”. Owen also was there, having heard the news from Philpot.

There was a lot of furious talk. At first several of them spoke of “chucking up”, at once; but others were more prudent, for they knew that if they did leave there were dozens of others who would be eager to take their places.

“After all, you know,” said Slyme, who had—stowed away somewhere at the back of his head—an idea of presently starting business on his own account: he was only waiting until he had saved enough money, “after all, there’s something in what ’Unter says. It’s very ’ard to get a fair price for work nowadays. Things IS cut very fine.”

“Yes! We know all about that!” shouted Harlow. “And who the bloody ’ell is it cuts ’em? Why, sich b—rs as ’Unter and Rushton! If this firm ’adn’t cut this job so fine, some other firm would ’ave ’ad it for more money. Rushton’s cuttin’ it fine didn’t MAKE this job, did it? It would ’ave been done just the same if they ’adn’t tendered for it at all! The only difference is that we should ’ave been workin’ for some other master.”

“I don’t believe the bloody job’s cut fine at all!” said Philpot.

“Rushton is a pal of Sweater’s and they’re both members of the Town Council.”

“That may be,” replied Slyme; “but all the same I believe Sweater got several other prices besides Rushton’s—friend or no friend; and you can’t blame ’im: it’s only business. But pr’aps Rushton got the preference—Sweater may ’ave told ’im the others’ prices.”

“Yes, and a bloody fine lot of prices they was, too, if the truth was known!” said Bundy. “There was six other firms after this job to my knowledge—Pushem and Sloggem, Bluffum and Doemdown, Dodger and Scampit, Snatcham and Graball, Smeeriton and Leavit, Makehaste and Sloggitt, and Gord only knows ’ow many more.”

At this moment Newman came into the room. He looked so white and upset that the others involuntarily paused in their conversation.

“Well, what do YOU think of it?” asked Harlow.

“Think of what?” said Newman.

“Why, didn’t ’Unter tell you?” cried several voices, whose owners looked suspiciously at him. They thought—if Hunter had not spoken to Newman, it must be because he was already working under price. There had been a rumour going about the last few days to that effect.

“Didn’t Misery tell you? They’re not goin’ to pay more than six and a half after this week.”

“That’s not what ’e said to me. ’E just told me to knock off. Said I didn’t do enough for ’em.”

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Crass, pretending to be overcome with surprise.

Newman’s account of what had transpired was listened to in gloomy silence. Those who—a few minutes previously—had been talking loudly of chucking up the job became filled with apprehension that they might be served in the same manner as he had been. Crass was one of the loudest in his expression of astonishment and indignation, but he rather overdid it and only succeeded in confirming the secret suspicion of the others that he had had something to do with Hunter’s action.

The result of the discussion was that they decided to submit to Misery’s terms for the time being, until they could see a chance of getting work elsewhere.

As Owen had to go to the office to see the wallpaper spoken of by Hunter, he accompanied Newman when the latter went to get his wages. Nimrod was waiting for them, and had the money ready in an envelope, which he handed to Newman, who took it without speaking and went away.

Misery had been rummaging amongst the old wallpapers, and had got out a great heap of odd rolls, which he now submitted to Owen, but after examining them the latter said that they were unsuitable for the purpose, so after some argument Misery was compelled to sign an order for some proper cartridge paper, which Owen obtained at a stationer’s on his way home.

The next morning, when Misery went to the “Cave”, he was in a fearful rage, and he kicked up a terrible row with Crass. He said that Mr Rushton had been complaining of the lack of discipline on the job, and he told Crass to tell all the hands that for the future singing in working hours was strictly forbidden, and anyone caught breaking this rule would be instantly dismissed.

Several times during the following days Nimrod called at Owen’s flat to see how the work was progressing and to impress upon him the necessity of not taking too much trouble over it.

17. The Rev. John Starr

“What time is it now, Mum?” asked Frankie as soon as he had finished dinner on the following Sunday.

“Two o’clock.”

“Hooray! Only one more hour and Charley will be here! Oh, I wish it was three o’clock now, don’t you, Mother?”

“No, dear, I don’t. You’re not dressed yet, you know.”

Frankie made a grimace.

“You’re surely not going to make me wear my velvets, are you, Mum? Can’t I go just as I am, in my old clothes?”

The “velvets” was a brown suit of that material that Nora had made out of the least worn parts of an old costume of her own.

“Of course not: if you went as you are now, you’d have everyone staring at you.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to put up with it,” said Frankie, resignedly.

“And I think you’d better begin to dress me now, don’t you?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of time yet; you’d only make yourself untidy and then I should have the trouble all over again. Play with your toys a little while, and when I’ve done the washing up I’ll get you ready.”

Frankie obeyed, and for about ten minutes his mother heard him in the next room rummaging in the box where he stored his collection of “things”. At the end of that time, however, he returned to the kitchen. “Is it time to dress me yet, Mum?”

“No, dear, not yet. You needn’t be afraid; you’ll be ready in plenty of time.”

“But I can’t help being afraid; you might forget.”

“Oh, I shan’t forget. There’s lots of time.”

“Well, you know, I should be much easier in my mind if you would dress me now, because perhaps our clock’s wrong, or p’r’aps when you begin dressing me you’ll find some buttons off or something, and then there’ll be a lot of time wasted sewing them on; or p’r’aps you won’t be able to find my clean stockings or something and then while you’re looking for it Charley might come, and if he sees I’m not ready he mightn’t wait for me.”

“Oh, dear!” said Nora, pretending to be alarmed at this appalling list of possibilities. “I suppose it will be safer to dress you at once. It’s very evident you won’t let me have much peace until it is done, but mind when you’re dressed you’ll have to sit down quietly and wait till he comes, because I don’t want the trouble of dressing you twice.”

“Oh, I don’t mind sitting still,” returned Frankie, loftily. “That’s very easy.

“I don’t mind having to take care of my clothes,” said Frankie as his mother—having washed and dressed him, was putting the finishing touches to his hair, brushing and combing and curling the long yellow locks into ringlets round her fingers, “the only thing I don’t like is having my hair done. You know all these curls are quite unnecessary. I’m sure it would save you a lot of trouble if you wouldn’t mind cutting them off.”

Nora did not answer: somehow or other she was unwilling to comply with this often-repeated entreaty. It seemed to her that when this hair was cut off the child would have become a different individual—more separate and independent.

“If you don’t want to cut it off for your own sake, you might do it for my sake, because I think it’s the reason some of the big boys don’t want to play with me, and some of them shout after me and say I’m a girl, and sometimes they sneak up behind me and pull it. Only yesterday I had to have a fight with a boy for doing it: and even Charley Linden laughs at me, and he’s my best friend—except you and Dad of course.

“Why don’t you cut it off, Mum?”

“I am going to cut it as I promised you, after your next birthday.”

“Then I shall be jolly glad when it comes. Won’t you? Why, what’s the matter, Mum? What are you crying for?” Frankie was so concerned that he began to cry also, wondering if he had done or said something wrong. He kissed her repeatedly, stroking her face with his hand. “What’s the matter, Mother?”

“I was thinking that when you’re over seven and you’ve had your hair cut short you won’t be a baby any more.”

“Why, I’m not a baby now, am I? Here, look at this!”

He strode over to the wall and, dragging out two chairs, he placed them in the middle of the room, back to back, about fifteen inches apart, and before his mother realized what he was doing he had climbed up and stood with one leg on the back of each chair.

“I should like to see a baby who could do this,” he cried, with his face wet with tears. “You needn’t lift me down. I can get down by myself. Babies can’t do tricks like these or even wipe up the spoons and forks or sweep the passage. But you needn’t cut it off if you don’t want to. I’ll bear it as long as you like. Only don’t cry any more, because it makes me miserable. If I cry when I fall down or when you pull my hair when you’re combing it you always tell me to bear it like a man and not be a baby, and now you’re crying yourself just because I’m not a baby. You ought to be jolly glad that I’m nearly grown up into a man, because you know I’ve promised to build you a house with the money I earn, and then you needn’t do no more work. We’ll have a servant the same as the people downstairs, and Dad can stop at home and sit by the fire and read the paper or play with me and Maud and have pillow fights and tell stories and—”

“It’s all right, dearie,” said Nora, kissing him. “I’m not crying now, and you mustn’t either, or your eyes will be all red and you won’t be able to go with Charley at all.”

When she had finished dressing him, Frankie sat for some time in silence, apparently lost in thought. At last he said:

“Why don’t you get a baby, Mother? You could nurse it, and I could have it to play with instead of going out in the street.”

“We can’t afford to keep a baby, dear. You know, even as it is, sometimes we have to go without things we want because we haven’t the money to buy them. Babies need many things that cost lots of money.”

“When I build our house when I’m a man, I’ll take jolly good care not to have a gas-stove in it. That’s what runs away with all the money; we’re always putting pennies in the slot. And that reminds me: Charley said I’ll have to take a ha’penny to put in the mishnery box. Oh, dear, I’m tired of sitting still. I wish he’d come. What time is it now, Mother?”

Before she could answer both Frankie’s anxiety and the painful ordeal of sitting still were terminated by the loud peal at the bell announcing Charley’s arrival, and Frankie, without troubling to observe the usual formality of looking out of the window to see if it was a runaway ring, had clattered half-way downstairs before he heard his mother calling him to come back for the halfpenny; then he clattered up again and then down again at such a rate and with so much noise as to rouse the indignation of all the respectable people in the house.

When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs he remembered that he had omitted to say goodbye, and as it was too far to go up again he rang the bell and then went into the middle of the road and looked up at the window that Nora opened.

“Goodbye, Mother,” he shouted. “Tell Dad I forgot to say it before I came down.”

The School was not conducted in the chapel itself, but in a large lecture hall under it. At one end was a small platform raised about six inches from the floor; on this was a chair and a small table. A number of groups of chairs and benches were arranged at intervals round the sides and in the centre of the room, each group of seats accommodating a separate class. On the walls—which were painted a pale green—were a number of coloured pictures: Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites dancing round the Golden Calf, and so on. As the reader is aware, Frankie had never been to a Sunday School of any kind before, and he stood for a moment looking in at the door and half afraid to enter. The lessons had already commenced, but the scholars had not yet settled down to work.

The scene was one of some disorder: some of the children talking, laughing or playing, and the teachers alternately threatening and coaxing them. The girls’ and the very young children’s classes were presided over by ladies: the boys’ teachers were men.

The reader already has some slight knowledge of a few of these people. There was Mr Didlum, Mr Sweater, Mr Rushton and Mr Hunter and Mrs Starvem (Ruth Easton’s former mistress). On this occasion, in addition to the teachers and other officials of the Sunday School, there were also present a considerable number of prettily dressed ladies and a few gentlemen, who had come in the hope of meeting the Rev. John Starr, the young clergyman who was going to be their minister for the next few weeks during the absence of their regular shepherd, Mr Belcher, who was going away for a holiday for the benefit of his health. Mr Belcher was not suffering from any particular malady, but was merely “run down”, and rumour had it that this condition had been brought about by the rigorous asceticism of his life and his intense devotion to the arduous labours of his holy calling.

Mr Starr had conducted the service in the Shining Light Chapel that morning, and a great sensation had been produced by the young minister’s earnest and eloquent address, which was of a very different style from that of their regular minister. Although perhaps they had not quite grasped the real significance of all that he had said, most of them had been favourably impressed by the young clergyman’s appearance and manner in the morning: but that might have arisen from prepossession and force of habit, for they were accustomed, as a matter of course, to think well of any minister. There were, however, one or two members of the congregation who were not without some misgivings and doubts as to the soundness of his doctrines. Mr Starr had promised that he would look in some time during the afternoon to say a few words to the Sunday School children, and consequently on this particular afternoon all the grown-ups were looking forward so eagerly to hearing him again that not much was done in the way of lessons. Every time a late arrival entered all eyes were directed towards the door in the hope and expectation that it was he.

When Frankie, standing at the door, saw all the people looking at him he drew back timidly.

“Come on, man,” said Charley. “You needn’t be afraid; it’s not like a weekday school; they can’t do nothing to us, not even if we don’t behave ourselves. There’s our class over in that corner and that’s our teacher, Mr Hunter. You can sit next to me. Come on!”

Thus encouraged, Frankie followed Charley over to the class, and both sat down. The teacher was so kind and spoke so gently to the children that in a few minutes Frankie felt quite at home.

When Hunter noticed how well cared for and well dressed he was he thought the child must belong to well-to-do, respectable parents.

Frankie did not pay much attention to the lesson, for he was too much interested in the pictures on the walls and in looking at the other children. He also noticed a very fat man who was not teaching at all, but drifted aimlessly about the room from one class to another. After a time he came and stood by the class where Frankie was, and, after nodding to Hunter, remained near, listening and smiling patronizingly at the children. He was arrayed in a long garment of costly black cloth, a sort of frock coat, and by the rotundity of his figure he seemed to be one of those accustomed to sit in the chief places at feasts. This was the Rev. Mr Belcher, minister of the Shining Light Chapel. His short, thick neck was surrounded by a studless collar, and apparently buttonless, being fastened in some mysterious way known only to himself, and he showed no shirt front.

The long garment beforementioned was unbuttoned and through the opening there protruded a vast expanse of waistcoat and trousers, distended almost to bursting by the huge globe of flesh they contained. A gold watch-chain with a locket extended partly across the visible portion of the envelope of the globe. He had very large feet which were carefully encased in soft calfskin boots. If he had removed the long garment, this individual would have resembled a balloon: the feet representing the car and the small head that surmounted the globe, the safety valve; as it was it did actually serve the purpose of a safety valve, the owner being, in consequence of gross overfeeding and lack of natural exercise, afflicted with chronic flatulence, which manifested itself in frequent belchings forth through the mouth of the foul gases generated in the stomach by the decomposition of the foods with which it was generally loaded. But as the Rev. Mr Belcher had never been seen with his coat off, no one ever noticed the resemblance. It was not necessary for him to take his coat off: his part in life was not to help to produce, but to help to devour the produce of the labour of others.

After exchanging a few words and grins with Hunter, he moved on to another class, and presently Frankie with a feeling of awe noticed that the confused murmuring sound that had hitherto pervaded the place was hushed. The time allotted for lessons had expired, and the teachers were quietly distributing hymn-books to the children. Meanwhile the balloon had drifted up to the end of the hall and had ascended the platform, where it remained stationary by the side of the table, occasionally emitting puffs of gas through the safety valve. On the table were several books, and also a pile of folded cards. These latter were about six inches by three inches; there was some printing on the outside: one of them was lying open on the table, showing the inside, which was ruled and had money columns.

Presently Mr Belcher reached out a flabby white hand and, taking up one of the folded cards, he looked around upon the under-fed, ill-clad children with a large, sweet, benevolent, fatherly smile, and then in a drawling voice occasionally broken by explosions of flatulence, he said:

“My dear children. This afternoon as I was standing near Brother Hunter’s class I heard him telling them of the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, and of all the wonderful things that were done for them; and I thought how sad it was that they were so ungrateful.

“Now those ungrateful Israelites had received many things, but we have even more cause to be grateful than they had, for we have received even more abundantly than they did.” (Here the good man’s voice was stilled by a succession of explosions.) “And I am sure,” he resumed, “that none of you would like to be even as those Israelites, ungrateful for all the good things you have received. Oh, how thankful you should be for having been made happy English children. Now, I am sure that you are grateful and that you will all be very glad of an opportunity of showing your gratitude by doing something in return.

“Doubtless some of you have noticed the unseemly condition of the interior of our Chapel. The flooring is broken in countless places, the walls are sadly in need of cleansing and distempering, and they also need cementing externally to keep out the draught. The seats and benches and the chairs are also in a most unseemly condition and need varnishing.

“Now, therefore, after much earnest meditation and prayer, it has been decided to open a Subscription List, and although times are very hard just now, we believe we shall succeed in getting enough to have the work done; so I want each one of you to take one of these cards and go round to all your friends to see how much you can collect. It doesn’t matter how trifling the amounts are, because the smallest donations will be thankfully received.

“Now, I hope you will all do your very best. Ask everyone you know; do not refrain from asking people because you think that they are too poor to give a donation, but remind them that if they cannot give their thousands they can give the widow’s mite. Ask Everyone! First of all ask those whom you feel certain will give: then ask all those whom you think may possibly give: and, finally, ask all those whom you feel certain will not give: and you will be surprised to find that many of these last will donate abundantly.

“If your friends are very poor and unable to give a large donation at one time, a good plan would be to arrange to call upon them every Saturday afternoon with your card to collect their donations. And while you are asking others, do not forget to give what you can yourselves. Just a little self-denial, and those pennies and half-pennies which you so often spend on sweets and other unnecessary things might be given—as a donation—to the good cause.”

Here the holy man paused again, and there was a rumbling, gurgling noise in the interior of the balloon, followed by several escapes of gas through the safety valve. The paroxysm over, the apostle of self-denial continued:

“All those who wish to collect donations will stay behind for a few minutes after school, when Brother Hunter—who has kindly consented to act as secretary to the fund—will issue the cards.

“I would like here to say a few words of thanks to Brother Hunter for the great interest he has displayed in this matter, and for all the trouble he is taking to help us to gather in the donations.”

This tribute was well deserved; Hunter in fact had originated the whole scheme in the hope of securing the job for Rushton & Co., and two-and-a-half per cent of the profits for himself.

Mr Belcher now replaced the collecting card on the table and, taking up one of the hymn-books, gave out the words and afterwards conducted the singing, flourishing one fat, flabby white hand in the air and holding the book in the other.

As the last strains of the music died away, he closed his eyes and a sweet smile widened his mouth as he stretched forth his right hand, open, palm down, with the fingers close together, and said:

“Let us pray.”

With much shuffling of feet everyone knelt down. Hunter’s lanky form was distributed over a very large area; his body lay along one of the benches, his legs and feet sprawled over the floor, and his huge hands clasped the sides of the seat. His eyes were tightly closed and an expression of the most intense misery pervaded his long face.

Mrs Starvem, being so fat that she knew if she once knelt down she would never be able to get up again, compromised by sitting on the extreme edge of her chair, resting her elbows on the back of the seat in front of her, and burying her face in her hands. It was a very large face, but her hands were capacious enough to receive it.

In a seat at the back of the hall knelt a pale-faced, weary-looking little woman about thirty-six years of age, very shabbily dressed, who had come in during the singing. This was Mrs White, the caretaker, Bert White’s mother. When her husband died, the committee of the Chapel, out of charity, gave her this work, for which they paid her six shillings a week. Of course, they could not offer her full employment; the idea was that she could get other work as well, charing and things of that kind, and do the Chapel work in between. There wasn’t much to do: just the heating furnace to light when necessary; the Chapel, committee rooms, classrooms and Sunday School to sweep and scrub out occasionally; the hymn-books to collect, etc. Whenever they had a tea meeting—which was on an average about twice a week—there were the trestle tables to fix up, the chairs to arrange, the table to set out, and then, supervised by Miss Didlum or some other lady, the tea to make. There was rather a lot to do on the days following these functions: the washing up, the tables and chairs to put away, the floor to sweep, and so on; but the extra work was supposed to be compensated by the cakes and broken victuals generally left over from the feast, which were much appreciated as a welcome change from the bread and dripping or margarine that constituted Mrs White’s and Bert’s usual fare.

There were several advantages attached to the position: the caretaker became acquainted with the leading members and their wives, some of who, out of charity, occasionally gave her a day’s work as charwoman, the wages being on about the same generous scale as those she earned at the Chapel, sometimes supplemented by a parcel of broken victuals or some castoff clothing.

An evil-minded, worldly or unconverted person might possibly sum up the matter thus: these people required this work done: they employed this woman to do it, taking advantage of her poverty to impose upon her conditions of price and labour that they would not have liked to endure themselves. Although she worked very hard, early and late, the money they paid her as wages was insufficient to enable her to provide herself with the bare necessaries of life. Then her employers, being good, kind, generous, Christian people, came to the rescue and bestowed charity, in the form of cast-off clothing and broken victuals.

Should any such evil-minded, worldly or unconverted persons happen to read these lines, it is a sufficient answer to their impious and malicious criticisms to say that no such thoughts ever entered the simple mind of Mrs White herself: on the contrary, this very afternoon as she knelt in the Chapel, wearing an old mantle that some years previously had adorned the obese person of the saintly Mrs Starvem, her heart was filled with gratitude towards her generous benefactors.

During the prayer the door was softly opened: a gentleman in clerical dress entered on tiptoe and knelt down next to Mr Didlum. He came in very softly, but all the same most of those present heard him and lifted their heads or peeped through their fingers to see who it was, and when they recognized him a sound like a sigh swept through the hall.

At the end of the prayer, amid groans and cries of “Amen”, the balloon slowly descended from the platform, and collapsed into one of the seats, and everyone rose up from the floor. When all were seated and the shuffling, coughing and blowing of noses had ceased Mr Didlum stood up and said:

“Before we sing the closin’ ’ymn, the gentleman hon my left, the Rev. Mr John Starr, will say a few words.”

An expectant murmur rippled through the hall. The ladies lifted their eyebrows and nodded, smiled and whispered to each other; the gentlemen assumed various attitudes and expressions; the children were very quiet. Everyone was in a state of suppressed excitement as John Starr rose from his seat and, stepping up on to the platform, stood by the side of the table, facing them.

He was about twenty-six years of age, tall and slenderly built. His clean-cut, intellectual face, with its lofty forehead, and his air of refinement and culture were in striking contrast to the coarse appearance of the other adults in the room: the vulgar, ignorant, uncultivated crowd of profit-mongers and hucksters in front of him. But it was not merely his air of good breeding and the general comeliness of his exterior that attracted and held one. There was an indefinable something about him—an atmosphere of gentleness and love that seemed to radiate from his whole being, almost compelling confidence and affection from all those with whom he came in contact. As he stood there facing the others with an inexpressibly winning smile upon his comely face, it seemed impossible that there could be any fellowship between him and them.

There was nothing in his appearance to give anyone even an inkling of the truth, which was: that he was there for the purpose of bolstering up the characters of the despicable crew of sweaters and slave-drivers who paid his wages.

He did not give a very long address this afternoon—only just a Few Words; but they were very precious, original and illuminating. He told them of certain Thoughts that had occurred to his mind on his way there that afternoon; and as they listened, Sweater, Rushton, Didlum, Hunter, and the other disciples exchanged significant looks and gestures. Was it not magnificent! Such power! Such reasoning! In fact, as they afterwards modestly admitted to each other, it was so profound that even they experienced great difficulty in fathoming the speaker’s meaning.

As for the ladies, they were motionless and dumb with admiration. They sat with flushed faces, shining eyes and palpitating hearts, looking hungrily at the dear man as he proceeded:

“Unfortunately, our time this afternoon does not permit us to dwell at length upon these Thoughts. Perhaps at some future date we may have the blessed privilege of so doing; but this afternoon I have been asked to say a Few Words on another subject. The failing health of your dear minister has for some time past engaged the anxious attention of the congregation.”

Sympathetic glances were directed towards the interesting invalid; the ladies murmured, “Poor dear!” and other expressions of anxious concern.

“Although naturally robust,” continued Starr, ’long, continued Overwork, the loving solicitude for Others that often prevented him taking even necessary repose, and a too rigorous devotion to the practice of Self-denial have at last brought about the inevitable Breakdown, and rendered a period of Rest absolutely imperative.”

The orator paused to take breath, and the silence that ensued was disturbed only by faint rumblings in the interior of the ascetic victim of overwork.

“With this laudable object,” proceeded Starr, “a Subscription List was quietly opened about a month ago, and those dear children who had cards and assisted in the good work of collecting donations will be pleased to hear that altogether a goodly sum was gathered, but as it was not quite enough, the committee voted a further amount out of the General Fund, and at a special meeting held last Friday evening, your dear Shepherd was presented with an illuminated address, and a purse of gold sufficient to defray the expenses of a month’s holiday in the South of France.

“Although, of course, he regrets being separated from you even for such a brief period he feels that in going he is choosing the lesser of two evils. It is better to go to the South of France for a month than to continue Working in spite of the warnings of exhausted nature and perhaps be taken away from you altogether—to Heaven.”

“God forbid!” fervently ejaculated several disciples, and a ghastly pallor overspread the features of the object of their prayers.

“Even as it is there is a certain amount of danger. Let us hope and pray for the best, but if the worst should happen and he is called upon to Ascend, there will be some satisfaction in knowing that you have done what you could to avert the dreadful calamity.”

Here, probably as a precaution against the possibility of an involuntary ascent, a large quantity of gas was permitted to escape through the safety valve of the balloon.

“He sets out on his pilgrimage tomorrow,” concluded Starr, “and I am sure he will be followed by the good wishes and prayers of all the members of his flock.”

The reverend gentleman resumed his seat, and almost immediately it became evident from the oscillations of the balloon that Mr Belcher was desirous of rising to say a Few Words in acknowledgement, but he was restrained by the entreaties of those near him, who besought him not to exhaust himself. He afterwards said that he would not have been able to say much even if they had permitted him to speak, because he felt too full.

“During the absence of our beloved pastor,” said Brother Didlum, who now rose to give out the closing hymn, “his flock will not be left hentirely without a shepherd, for we ’ave arranged with Mr Starr to come and say a Few Words to us hevery Sunday.”

From the manner in which they constantly referred to themselves, it might have been thought that they were a flock of sheep instead of being what they really were—a pack of wolves.

When they heard Brother Didlum’s announcement a murmur of intense rapture rose from the ladies, and Mr Starr rolled his eyes and smiled sweetly. Brother Didlum did not mention the details of the “arrangement”, to have done so at that time would have been most unseemly, but the following extract from the accounts of the chapel will not be out of place here: “Paid to Rev. John Starr for Sunday, Nov. 14—£4.4.0 per the treasurer.” It was not a large sum considering the great services rendered by Mr Starr, but, small as it was, it is to be feared that many worldly, unconverted persons will think it was far too much to pay for a Few Words, even such wise words as Mr John Starr’s admittedly always were. But the Labourer is worthy of his hire.

After the “service” was over, most of the children, including Charley and Frankie, remained to get collecting cards. Mr Starr was surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and a little later, when he rode away with Mr Belcher and Mr Sweater in the latter’s motor car, the ladies looked hungrily after that conveyance, listening to the melancholy “pip, pip” of its hooter and trying to console themselves with the reflection that they would see him again in a few hours’ time at the evening service.

18. The Lodger

In accordance with his arrangement with Hunter, Owen commenced the work in the drawing-room on the Monday morning. Harlow and Easton were distempering some of the ceilings, and about ten o’clock they went down to the scullery to get some more whitewash. Crass was there as usual, pretending to be very busy mixing colours.

“Well, wot do you think of it?” he said as he served them with what they required.

“Think of what?” asked Easton.

“Why, hour speshul hartist,” replied Crass with a sneer. “Do you think ’e’s goin’ to get through with it?”

“Shouldn’t like to say,” replied Easton guardedly.

“You know it’s one thing to draw on a bit of paper and colour it with a penny box of paints, and quite another thing to do it on a wall or ceiling,” continued Crass. “Ain’t it?”

“Yes; that’s true enough,” said Harlow.

“Do you believe they’re ’is own designs?” Crass went on.

“Be rather ’ard to tell,” remarked Easton, embarrassed.

Neither Harlow nor Easton shared Crass’s sentiments in this matter, but at the same time they could not afford to offend him by sticking up for Owen.

“If you was to ast me, quietly,” Crass added, “I should be more inclined to say as ’e copied it all out of some book.”

“That’s just about the size of it, mate,” agreed Harlow.

“It would be a bit of all right if ’e was to make a bloody mess of it, wouldn’t it?” Crass continued with a malignant leer.

“Not arf!” said Harlow.

When the two men regained the upper landing on which they were working they exchanged significant glances and laughed quietly. Hearing these half-suppressed sounds of merriment, Philpot, who was working alone in a room close by, put his head out of the doorway.

“Wot’s the game?” he inquired in a low voice.

“Ole Crass ain’t arf wild about Owen doin’ that room,” replied Harlow, and repeated the substance of Crass’s remarks.

“It is a bit of a take-down for the bleeder, ain’t it, ’avin’ to play second fiddle,” said Philpot with a delighted grin.

“’E’s ’opin’ Owen’ll make a mess of it,” Easton whispered.

“Well, ’e’ll be disappointed, mate,” answered Philpot. “I was workin’ along of Owen for Pushem and Sloggem about two year ago, and I seen ’im do a job down at the Royal ’Otel—the smokin’-room ceilin’ it was—and I can tell you it looked a bloody treat!”

“I’ve heard tell of it,” said Harlow.

“There’s no doubt Owen knows ’is work,” remarked Easton, “although ’e is a bit orf is onion about Socialism.”

“I don’t know so much about that, mate,” returned Philpot. “I agree with a lot that ’e ses. I’ve often thought the same things meself, but I can’t talk like ’im, ’cause I ain’t got no ’ead for it.”

“I agree with some of it too,” said Harlow with a laugh, “but all the same ’e does say some bloody silly things, you must admit. For instance, that stuff about money bein’ the cause of poverty.”

“Yes. I can’t exactly see that meself,” agreed Philpot.

“We must tackle ’im about that at dinner-time,” said Harlow. “I should rather like to ’ear ’ow ’e makes it out.”

“For Gord’s sake don’t go startin’ no arguments at dinner-time,” said Easton. “Leave ’im alone when ’e is quiet.”

“Yes; let’s ’ave our dinner in peace, if possible,” said Philpot. “Sh!!” he added, hoarsely, suddenly holding up his hand warningly. They listened intently. It was evident from the creaking of the stairs that someone was crawling up them. Philpot instantly disappeared. Harlow lifted up the pail of whitewash and set it down again noisily.

“I think we’d better ’ave the steps and the plank over this side, Easton,” he said in a loud voice.

“Yes. I think that’ll be the best way,” replied Easton.

While they were arranging their scaffold to do the ceiling Crass arrived on the landing. He made no remark at first, but walked into the room to see how many ceilings they had done.

“You’d better look alive, you chaps,” he said as he went downstairs again. “If we don’t get these ceilings finished by dinner-time, Nimrod’s sure to ramp.”

“All right,” said Harlow, gruffly. “We’ll bloody soon slosh ’em over.”

“Slosh” was a very suitable word; very descriptive of the manner in which the work was done. The cornices of the staircase ceilings were enriched with plaster ornaments. These ceilings were supposed to have been washed off, but as the men who were put to do that work had not been allowed sufficient time to do it properly, the crevices of the ornaments were still filled up with old whitewash, and by the time Harlow and Easton had “sloshed” a lot more whitewash on to them they were mere formless unsightly lumps of plaster. The “hands” who did the “washing off” were not to blame. They had been hunted away from the work before it was half done.

While Harlow and Easton were distempering these ceilings, Philpot and the other hands were proceeding with the painting in different parts of the inside of the house, and Owen, assisted by Bert, was getting on with the work in the drawing-room, striking chalk lines and measuring and setting out the different panels.

There were no “political” arguments that day at dinner-time, to the disappointment of Crass, who was still waiting for an opportunity to produce the Obscurer cutting. After dinner, when the others had all gone back to their work, Philpot unobtrusively returned to the kitchen and gathered up the discarded paper wrappers in which some of the men had brought their food. Spreading one of these open, he shook the crumbs from the others upon it. In this way and by picking up particles of bread from the floor, he collected a little pile of crumbs and crusts. To these he added some fragments that he had left from his own dinner. He then took the parcel upstairs and opening one of the windows threw the crumbs on to the roof of the portico. He had scarcely closed the window when two starlings fluttered down and began to eat. Philpot watching them furtively from behind the shutter. The afternoon passed uneventfully. From one till five seemed a very long time to most of the hands, but to Owen and his mate, who were doing something in which they were able to feel some interest and pleasure, the time passed so rapidly that they both regretted the approach of evening.

“Other days,” remarked Bert, “I always keeps on wishin’ it was time to go ’ome, but today seems to ’ave gorn like lightnin’!”

After leaving off that night, all the men kept together till they arrived down town, and then separated. Owen went by himself: Easton, Philpot, Crass and Bundy adjourned to the “Cricketers Arms” to have a drink together before going home, and Slyme, who was a teetotaler, went by himself, although he was now lodging with Easton.

“Don’t wait for me,” said the latter as he went off with Crass and the others. “I shall most likely catch you up before you get there.”

“All right,” replied Slyme.

This evening Slyme did not take the direct road home. He turned into the main street, and, pausing before the window of a toy shop, examined the articles displayed therein attentively. After some minutes he appeared to have come to a decision, and entering the shop he purchased a baby’s rattle for fourpence halfpenny. It was a pretty toy made of white bone and coloured wool, with a number of little bells hanging upon it, and a ring of white bone at the end of the handle.

When he came out of the shop Slyme set out for home, this time walking rapidly. When he entered the house Ruth was sitting by the fire with the baby on her lap. She looked up with an expression of disappointment as she perceived that he was alone.

“Where’s Will got to again?” she asked.

“He’s gone to ’ave a drink with some of the chaps. He said he wouldn’t be long,” replied Slyme as he put his food basket on the dresser and went upstairs to his room to wash and to change his clothes.

When he came down again, Easton had not yet arrived.

“Everything’s ready, except just to make the tea,” said Ruth, who was evidently annoyed at the continued absence of Easton, “so you may as well have yours now.”

“I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait a little and see if he comes. He’s sure to be here soon.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind, I shall be glad if you will wait,” said Ruth, “because it will save me making two lots of tea.”

They waited for about half an hour, talking at intervals in a constrained, awkward way about trivial subjects. Then as Easton did not come, Ruth decided to serve Slyme without waiting any longer. With this intention she laid the baby in its cot, but the child resented this arrangement and began to cry, so she had to hold him under her left arm while she made the tea. Seeing her in this predicament, Slyme exclaimed, holding out his hands:

“Here, let me hold him while you do that.”

“Will you?” said Ruth, who, in spite of her instinctive dislike of the man, could not help feeling gratified with this attention. “Well, mind you don’t let him fall.”

But the instant Slyme took hold of the child it began to cry even louder than it did when it was put into the cradle.

“He’s always like that with strangers,” apologized Ruth as she took him back again.

“Wait a minute,” said Slyme, “I’ve got something upstairs in my pocket that will keep him quiet. I’d forgotten all about it.”

He went up to his room and presently returned with the rattle. When the baby saw the bright colours and heard the tinkling of the bells he crowed with delight, and reached out his hands eagerly towards it and allowed Slyme to take him without a murmur of protest. Before Ruth had finished making and serving the tea the man and child were on the very best of terms with each other, so much so indeed that when Ruth had finished and went to take him again, the baby seemed reluctant to part from Slyme, who had been dancing him in the air and tickling him in the most delightful way.

Ruth, too, began to have a better opinion of Slyme, and felt inclined to reproach herself for having taken such an unreasonable dislike of him at first. He was evidently a very good sort of fellow after all.

The baby had by this time discovered the use of the bone ring at the end of the handle of the toy and was biting it energetically.

“It’s a very beautiful rattle,” said Ruth. “Thank you very much for it. It’s just the very thing he wanted.”

“I heard you say the other day that he wanted something of the kind to bite on to help his teeth through,” answered Slyme, “and when I happened to notice that in the shop I remembered what you said and thought I’d bring it home.”

The baby took the ring out of its mouth and shaking the rattle frantically in the air laughed and crowed merrily, looking at Slyme.

“Dad! Dad! Dad!” he cried, holding out his arms.

Slyme and Ruth burst out laughing.

“That’s not your Dad, you silly boy,” she said, kissing the child as she spoke. “Your dad ought to be ashamed of himself for staying out like this. We’ll give him dad, dad, dad, when he does come home, won’t we?”

But the baby only shook the rattle and rang the bells and laughed and crowed and laughed again, louder than ever.

19. The Filling of the Tank

Viewed from outside, the “Cricketers Arms” was a pretentious-looking building with plate-glass windows and a profusion of gilding. The pilasters were painted in imitation of different marbles and the doors grained to represent costly woods. There were panels containing painted advertisements of wines and spirits and beer, written in gold, and ornamented with gaudy colours. On the lintel over the principal entrance was inscribed in small white letters:

“A. Harpy. Licensed to sell wines, spirits and malt liquor by retail to be consumed either on or off the premises.”

The bar was arranged in the usual way, being divided into several compartments. First there was the “Saloon Bar”: on the glass of the door leading into this was fixed a printed bill: “No four ale served in this bar.” Next to the saloon bar was the jug and bottle department, much appreciated by ladies who wished to indulge in a drop of gin on the quiet. There were also two small “private” bars, only capable of holding two or three persons, where nothing less than fourpennyworth of spirits or glasses of ale at threepence were served. Finally, the public bar, the largest compartment of all. At each end, separating it from the other departments, was a wooden partition, painted and varnished.

Wooden forms fixed across the partitions and against the walls under the windows provided seating accommodation for the customers. A large automatic musical instrument—a “penny in the slot” polyphone—resembling a grandfather’s clock in shape—stood against one of the partitions and close up to the counter, so that those behind the bar could reach to wind it up. Hanging on the partition near the polyphone was a board about fifteen inches square, over the surface of which were distributed a number of small hooks, numbered. At the bottom of the board was a net made of fine twine, extended by means of a semi-circular piece of wire. In this net several india-rubber rings about three inches in diameter were lying. There was no table in the place but jutting out from the other partition was a hinged flap about three feet long by twenty inches wide, which could be folded down when not in use. This was the shove-ha’penny board. The coins—old French pennies—used in playing this game were kept behind the bar and might be borrowed on application. On the partition, just above the shove-ha’penny board was a neatly printed notice, framed and glazed:

NOTICE Gentlemen using this house are requested to refrain from using obscene language.

Alongside this notice were a number of gaudily-coloured bills advertising the local theatre and the music-hall, and another of a travelling circus and menagerie, then visiting the town and encamped on a piece of waste ground about half-way on the road to Windley. The fittings behind the bar, and the counter, were of polished mahogany, with silvered plate glass at the back of the shelves. On the shelves were rows of bottles and cut-glass decanters, gin, whisky, brandy and wines and liqueurs of different kinds.

When Crass, Philpot, Easton and Bundy entered, the landlord, a well-fed, prosperous-looking individual in white shirt-sleeves, and a bright maroon fancy waistcoat with a massive gold watch-chain and a diamond ring, was conversing in an affable, friendly way with one of his regular customers, who was sitting on the end of the seat close to the counter, a shabbily dressed, bleary-eyed, degraded, beer-sodden, trembling wretch, who spent the greater part of every day, and all his money, in this bar. He was a miserable-looking wreck of a man about thirty years of age, supposed to be a carpenter, although he never worked at that trade now. It was commonly said that some years previously he had married a woman considerably his senior, the landlady of a third-rate lodging-house. This business was evidently sufficiently prosperous to enable him to exist without working and to maintain himself in a condition of perpetual semi-intoxication. This besotted wretch practically lived at the “Cricketers”. He came regularly every morning and sometimes earned a pint of beer by assisting the barman to sweep up the sawdust or clean the windows. He usually remained in the bar until closing time every night. He was a very good customer; not only did he spend whatever money he could get hold of himself, but he was the cause of others spending money, for he was acquainted with most of the other regular customers, who, knowing his impecunious condition, often stood him a drink “for the good of the house”.

The only other occupant of the public bar—previous to the entrance of Crass and his mates—was a semi-drunken man, who appeared to be a house-painter, sitting on the form near the shove-ha’penny board. He was wearing a battered bowler hat and the usual shabby clothes. This individual had a very thin, pale face, with a large, high-bridged nose, and bore a striking resemblance to the portraits of the first Duke of Wellington. He was not a regular customer here, having dropped in casually about two o’clock and had remained ever since. He was beginning to show the effects of the drink he had taken during that time.

As Crass and the others came in they were hailed with enthusiasm by the landlord and the Besotted Wretch, while the semi-drunk workman regarded them with fishy eyes and stupid curiosity.

“Wot cheer, Bob?” said the landlord, affably, addressing Crass, and nodding familiarly to the others. “’Ow goes it?”

“All reet me ole dear!” replied Crass, jovially. “’Ow’s yerself?”

“A.1,” replied the “Old Dear”, getting up from his chair in readiness to execute their orders.

“Well, wot’s it to be?” inquired Philpot of the others generally.

“Mine’s a pint o’ beer,” said Crass.

“Half for me,” said Bundy.

“Half o’ beer for me too,” replied Easton.

“That’s one pint, two ’arves, and a pint o’ porter for meself,” said Philpot, turning and addressing the Old Dear.

While the landlord was serving these drinks the Besotted Wretch finished his beer and set the empty glass down on the counter, and Philpot observing this, said to him:

“’Ave one along o’ me?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” replied the other.

When the drinks were served, Philpot, instead of paying for them, winked significantly at the landlord, who nodded silently and unobtrusively made an entry in an account book that was lying on one of the shelves. Although it was only Monday and he had been at work all the previous week, Philpot was already stony broke. This was accounted for by the fact that on Saturday he had paid his landlady something on account of the arrears of board and lodging money that had accumulated while he was out of work; and he had also paid the Old Dear four shillings for drinks obtained on tick during the last week.

“Well, ’ere’s the skin orf yer nose,” said Crass, nodding to Philpot, and taking a long pull at the pint glass which the latter had handed to him.

Similar appropriate and friendly sentiments were expressed by the others and suitably acknowledged by Philpot, the founder of the feast.

The Old Dear now put a penny in the slot of the polyphone, and winding it up started it playing. It was some unfamiliar tune, but when the Semi-drunk Painter heard it he rose unsteadily to his feet and began shuffling and dancing about, singing:

“Oh, we’ll inwite you to the wedding, An’ we’ll ’ave a glorious time! Where the boys an’ girls is a-dancing, An’ we’ll all get drunk on wine.”

“’Ere! that’s quite enough o’ that!” cried the landlord, roughly. “We don’t want that row ’ere.”

The Semi-drunk stopped, and looking stupidly at the Old Dear, sank abashed on to the seat again.

“Well, we may as well sit as stand—for a few minutes,” remarked Crass, suiting the action to the word. The others followed his example.

At frequent intervals the bar was entered by fresh customers, most of them working men on their way home, who ordered and drank their pint or half-pint of ale or porter and left at once. Bundy began reading the advertisement of the circus and menageries and a conversation ensued concerning the wonderful performances of the trained animals. The Old Dear said that some of them had as much sense as human beings, and the manner with which he made this statement implied that he thought it was a testimonial to the sagacity of the brutes. He further said that he had heard—a little earlier in the evening—a rumour that one of the wild animals, a bear or something, had broken loose and was at present at large. This was what he had heard—he didn’t know if it were true or not. For his own part he didn’t believe it, and his hearers agreed that it was highly improbable. Nobody ever knew how these silly yarns got about.

Presently the Besotted Wretch got up and, taking the india-rubber rings out of the net with a trembling hand, began throwing them one at a time at the hooks on the board. The rest of the company watched him with much interest, laughing when he made a very bad shot and applauding when he scored.

“’E’s a bit orf tonight,” remarked Philpot aside to Easton, “but as a rule ’e’s a fair knockout at it. Throws a splendid ring.”

The Semi-drunk regarded the proceedings of the Besotted Wretch with an expression of profound contempt.

“You can’t play for nuts,” he said scornfully.

“Can’t I? I can play you, anyway.”

“Right you are! I’ll play you for drinks round!” cried the Semi-drunk.

For a moment the Besotted Wretch hesitated. He had not money enough to pay for drinks round. However, feeling confident of winning, he replied:

“Come on then. What’s it to be? Fifty up?”

“Anything you like! Fifty or a ’undred or a bloody million!”

“Better make it fifty for a start.”

“All right!”

“You play first if you like.”

“All right,” agreed the Semi-drunk, anxious to distinguish himself. Holding the six rings in his left hand, the man stood in the middle of the floor at a distance of about three yards from the board, with his right foot advanced. Taking one of the rings between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, and closing his left eye, he carefully “sighted” the centre hook, No. 13; then he slowly extended his arm to its full length in the direction of the board: then bending his elbow, he brought his hand back again until it nearly touched his chin, and slowly extended his arm again. He repeated these movements several times, whilst the others watched with bated breath. Getting it right at last he suddenly shot the ring at the board, but it did not go on No. 13; it went over the partition into the private bar.

This feat was greeted with a roar of laughter. The player stared at the board in a dazed way, wondering what had become of the ring. When someone in the next bar threw it over the partition again, he realized what had happened and, turning to the company with a sickly smile, remarked:

“I ain’t got properly used to this board yet: that’s the reason of it.”

He now began throwing the other rings at the board rather wildly, without troubling to take aim. One struck the partition to the right of the board: one to the left: one underneath: one went over the counter, one on the floor, the other—the last—hit the board, and amid a shout of applause, caught on the centre hook No. 13, the highest number it was possible to score with a single throw.

“I shall be all right now that I’ve got the range,” observed the Semi-drunk as he made way for his opponent.

“You’ll see something now,” whispered Philpot to Easton. “This bloke is a dandy!”

The Besotted Wretch took up his position and with an affectation of carelessness began throwing the rings. It was really a remarkable exhibition, for notwithstanding the fact that his hand trembled like the proverbial aspen leaf, he succeeded in striking the board almost in the centre every time; but somehow or other most of them failed to catch on the hooks and fell into the net. When he finished his innings, he had only scored 4, two of the rings having caught on the No. 2 hook.

“’Ard lines,” remarked Bundy as he finished his beer and put the glass down on the counter.

“Drink up and ’ave another,” said Easton as he drained his own glass.

“I don’t mind if I do,” replied Crass, pouring what remained of the pint down his throat.

Philpot’s glass had been empty for some time.

“Same again,” said Easton, addressing the Old Dear and putting six pennies on the counter.

By this time the Semi-drunk had again opened fire on the board, but he seemed to have lost the range, for none of the rings scored.

They flew all over the place, and he finished his innings without increasing his total.

The Besotted Wretch now sailed in and speedily piled up 37. Then the Semi-drunk had another go, and succeeded in getting 8. His case appeared hopeless, but his opponent in his next innings seemed to go all to pieces. Twice he missed the board altogether, and when he did hit it he failed to score, until the very last throw, when he made 1. Then the Semi-drunk went in again and got 10.

The scores were now:

Besotted Wretch ........................ 42 Semi-drunk ................................ 31

So far it was impossible to foresee the end. It was anybody’s game. Crass became so excited that he absentmindedly opened his mouth and shot his second pint down into his stomach with a single gulp, and Bundy also drained his glass and called upon Philpot and Easton to drink up and have another, which they accordingly did.

While the Semi-drunk was having his next innings, the Besotted Wretch placed a penny on the counter and called for a half a pint, which he drank in the hope of steadying his nerves for a great effort. His opponent meanwhile threw the rings at the board and missed it every time, but all the same he scored, for one ring, after striking the partition about a foot above the board, fell down and caught on the hook.

The other man now began his innings, playing very carefully, and nearly every ring scored. As he played, the others uttered exclamations of admiration and called out the result of every throw.

“One!”

“One again!”

“Miss! No! Got ’im! Two!”

“Miss!”

“Miss!”

“Four!”

The Semi-drunk accepted his defeat with a good grace, and after explaining that he was a bit out of practice, placed a shilling on the counter and invited the company to give their orders. Everyone asked for “the same again,” but the landlord served Easton, Bundy and the Besotted Wretch with pints instead of half-pints as before, so there was no change out of the shilling.

“You know, there’s a great deal in not bein’ used to the board,” said the Semi-drunk.

“There’s no disgrace in bein’ beat by a man like ’im, mate,” said Philpot. “’E’s a champion!”

“Yes, there’s no mistake about it. ’E throws a splendid ring!” said Bundy.

This was the general verdict. The Semi-drunk, though beaten, was not disgraced: and he was so affected by the good feeling manifested by the company that he presently produced a sixpence and insisted on paying for another half-pint all round.

Crass had gone outside during this conversation, but he returned in a few minutes. “I feel a bit easier now,” he remarked with a laugh as he took the half-pint glass that the Semi-drunk passed to him with a shaking hand. One after the other, within a few minutes, the rest followed Crass’s example, going outside and returning almost immediately: and as Bundy, who was the last to return, came back he exclaimed:

“Let’s ’ave a game of shove-’a’penny.”

“All right,” said Easton, who was beginning to feel reckless. “But drink up first, and let’s ’ave another.”

He had only sevenpence left, just enough to pay for another pint for Crass and half a pint for everyone else.

The shove-ha’penny table was a planed mahogany board with a number of parallel lines scored across it. The game is played by placing the coin at the end of the board—the rim slightly overhanging the edge—and striking it with the back part of the palm of the hand, regulating the force of the blow according to the distance it is desired to drive the coin.

“What’s become of Alf tonight?” inquired Philpot of the landlord whilst Easton and Bundy were playing. Alf was the barman.

“’E’s doing a bit of a job down in the cellar; some of the valves gone a bit wrong. But the missus is comin’ down to lend me a hand presently. ’Ere she is now.”

The landlady—who at this moment entered through the door at the back of the bar—was a large woman with a highly-coloured countenance and a tremendous bust, incased in a black dress with a shot silk blouse. She had several jewelled gold rings on the fingers of each fat white hand, and a long gold watch guard hung round her fat neck. She greeted Crass and Philpot with condescension, smiling affably upon them.

Meantime the game of shove-ha’penny proceeded merrily, the Semi-drunk taking a great interest in it and tendering advice to both players impartially. Bundy was badly beaten, and then Easton suggested that it was time to think of going home. This proposal—slightly modified—met with general approval, the modification being suggested by Philpot, who insisted on standing one final round of drinks before they went.

While they were pouring this down their throats, Crass took a penny from his waistcoat pocket and put it in the slot of the polyphone. The landlord put a fresh disc into it and wound it up and it began to play “The Boys of the Bulldog Breed.” The Semi-drunk happened to know the words of the chorus of this song, and when he heard the music he started unsteadily to his feet and with many fierce looks and gestures began to roar at the top of his voice:

“They may build their ships, my lads, And try to play the game, But they can’t build the boys of the Bulldog breed, Wot made ole Hingland’s—”

“’Ere! Stop that, will yer?” cried the Old Dear, fiercely. “I told you once before that I don’t allow that sort of thing in my ’ouse!”

The Semi-drunk stopped in confusion.

“I don’t mean no ’arm,” he said unsteadily, appealing to the company.

“I don’t want no chin from you!” said the Old Dear with a ferocious scowl. “If you want to make that row you can go somewheres else, and the sooner you goes the better. You’ve been ’ere long enough.”

This was true. The man had been there long enough to spend every penny he had been possessed of when he first came: he had no money left now, a fact that the observant and experienced landlord had divined some time ago. He therefore wished to get rid of the fellow before the drink affected him further and made him helplessly drunk. The Semi-drunk listened with indignation and wrath to the landlord’s insulting words.

“I shall go when the bloody ’ell I like!” he shouted. “I shan’t ask you nor nobody else! Who the bloody ’ell are you? You’re nobody! See? Nobody! It’s orf the likes of me that you gets your bloody livin’! I shall stop ’ere as long as I bloody well like, and if you don’t like it you can go to ’ell!”

“Oh! Yer will, will yer?” said the Old Dear. “We’ll soon see about that.” And, opening the door at the back of the bar, he roared out:

“Alf!”

“Yes, sir,” replied a voice, evidently from the basement.

“Just come up ’ere.”

“All right,” replied the voice, and footsteps were heard ascending some stairs.

“You’ll see some fun in a minute,” gleefully remarked Crass to Easton.

The polyphone continued to play “The Boys of the Bulldog Breed.”

Philpot crossed over to the Semi-drunk. “Look ’ere, old man,” he whispered, “take my tip and go ’ome quietly. You’ll only git the worse of it, you know.”

“Not me, mate,” replied the other, shaking his head doggedly. “’Ere I am, and ’ere I’m goin’ to bloody well stop.”

“No, you ain’t,” replied Philpot coaxingly. “Look ’ere. I’ll tell you wot we’ll do. You ’ave just one more ’arf-pint along of me, and then we’ll both go ’ome together. I’ll see you safe ’ome.”

“See me safe ’ome! Wotcher mean?” indignantly demanded the other. “Do you think I’m drunk or wot?”

“No. Certainly not,” replied Philpot, hastily. “You’re all right, as right as I am myself. But you know wot I mean. Let’s go ’ome. You don’t want to stop ’ere all night, do you?”

By this time Alf had arrived at the door of the back of the bar. He was a burly young man about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age.

“Put it outside,” growled the landlord, indicating the culprit.

The barman instantly vaulted over the counter, and, having opened wide the door leading into the street, he turned to the half-drunken man and, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door, said:

“Are yer goin’?”

“I’m goin’ to ’ave ’arf a pint along of this genelman first—”

“Yes. It’s all right,” said Philpot to the landlord. “Let’s ’ave two ’arf-pints, and say no more about it.”

“You mind your own business,” shouted the landlord, turning savagely on him. “’E’ll get no more ’ere! I don’t want no drunken men in my ’ouse. Who asked you to interfere?”

“Now then!” exclaimed the barman to the cause of the trouble, “Outside!”

“Not me!” said the Semi-drunk firmly. “Not before I’ve ’ad my ’arf—”

But before he could conclude, the barman had clutched him by the collar, dragged him violently to the door and shot him into the middle of the road, where he fell in a heap almost under the wheels of a brewer’s dray that happened to be passing. This accomplished, Alf shut the door and retired behind the counter again.

“Serve ’im bloody well right,” said Crass.

“I couldn’t ’elp laughin’ when I seen ’im go flyin’ through the bloody door,” said Bundy.

“You oughter ’ave more sense than to go interferin’ like that,” said Crass to Philpot. “It was nothing to do with you.”

Philpot made no reply. He was standing with his back to the others, peeping out into the street over the top of the window casing. Then he opened the door and went out into the street. Crass and the others—through the window—watched him assist the Semi-drunk to his feet and rub some of the dirt off his clothes, and presently after some argument they saw the two go away together arm in arm.

Crass and the others laughed, and returned to their half-finished drinks.

“Why, old Joe ain’t drunk ’ardly ’arf of ’is!” cried Easton, seeing Philpot’s porter on the counter. “Fancy going away like that!”

“More fool ’im,” growled Crass. “There was no need for it: the man’s all right.”

The Besotted Wretch gulped his beer down as quickly as he could, with his eyes fixed greedily on Philpot’s glass. He had just finished his own and was about to suggest that it was a pity to waste the porter when Philpot unexpectedly reappeared.

“Hullo! What ’ave you done with ’im?” inquired Crass.

“I think ’e’ll be all right,” replied Philpot. “He wouldn’t let me go no further with ’im: said if I didn’t go away, ’e’d go for me! But I believe ’e’ll be all right. I think the fall sobered ’im a bit.”

“Oh, ’e’s all right,” said Crass offhandedly. “There’s nothing the matter with ’im.”

Philpot now drank his porter, and bidding “good night” to the Old Dear, the landlady and the Besotted Wretch, they all set out for home. As they went along the dark and lonely thoroughfare that led over the hill to Windley, they heard from time to time the weird roaring of the wild animals in the menagerie that was encamped in the adjacent field. Just as they reached a very gloomy and deserted part, they suddenly observed a dark object in the middle of the road some distance in front of them. It seemed to be a large animal of some kind and was coming slowly and stealthily towards them.

They stopped, peering in a half-frightened way through the darkness. The animal continued to approach. Bundy stooped down to the ground, groping about in search of a stone, and—with the exception of Crass, who was too frightened to move—the others followed his example. They found several large stones and stood waiting for the creature—whatever it was—to come a little nearer so as to get a fair shot at it. They were about to let fly when the creature fell over on its side and moaned as if in pain. Observing this, the four men advanced cautiously towards it. Bundy struck a match and held it over the prostrate figure. It was the Semi-drunk.

After parting from Philpot, the poor wretch had managed to walk all right for some distance. As Philpot had remarked, the fall had to some extent sobered him; but he had not gone very far before the drink he had taken began to affect him again and he had fallen down. Finding it impossible to get up, he began crawling along on his hands and knees, unconscious of the fact that he was travelling in the wrong direction. Even this mode of progression failed him at last, and he would probably have been run over if they had not found him. They raised him up, and Philpot, exhorting him to “pull himself together” inquired where he lived. The man had sense enough left to be able to tell them his address, which was fortunately at Windley, where they all resided.

Bundy and Philpot took him home, separating from Crass and Easton at the corner of the street where both the latter lived.

Crass felt very full and satisfied with himself. He had had six and a half pints of beer, and had listened to two selections on the polyphone at a total cost of one penny.

Easton had but a few yards to go before reaching his own house after parting from Crass, but he paused directly he heard the latter’s door close, and leaning against a street lamp yielded to the feeling of giddiness and nausea that he had been fighting against all the way home. All the inanimate objects around him seemed to be in motion. The lights of the distant street lamps appeared to be floating about the pavement and the roadway rose and fell like the surface of a troubled sea. He searched his pockets for his handkerchief and having found it wiped his mouth, inwardly congratulating himself that Crass was not there to see him. Resuming his walk, after a few minutes he reached his own home. As he passed through, the gate closed of itself after him, clanging loudly. He went rather unsteadily up the narrow path that led to his front door and entered.

The baby was asleep in the cradle. Slyme had gone up to his own room, and Ruth was sitting sewing by the fireside. The table was still set for two persons, for she had not yet taken her tea.

Easton lurched in noisily. “’Ello, old girl!” he cried, throwing his dinner basket carelessly on the floor with an affectation of joviality and resting his hands on the table to support himself. “I’ve come at last, you see.”

Ruth left off sewing, and, letting her hands fall into her lap, sat looking at him. She had never seen him like this before. His face was ghastly pale, the eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, the lips tremulous and moist, and the ends of the hair of his fair moustache, stuck together with saliva and stained with beer, hung untidily round his mouth in damp clusters.

Perceiving that she did not speak or smile, Easton concluded that she was angry and became grave himself.

“I’ve come at last, you see, my dear; better late than never.”

He found it very difficult to speak plainly, for his lips trembled and refused to form the words.

“I don’t know so much about that,” said Ruth, inclined to cry and trying not to let him see the pity she could not help feeling for him. “A nice state you’re in. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Easton shook his head and laughed foolishly. “Don’t be angry, Ruth. It’s no good, you know.”

He walked clumsily towards her, still leaning on the table to steady himself.

“Don’t be angry,” he mumbled as he stooped over her, putting his arm round her neck and his face close to hers. “It’s no good being angry, you know, dear.”

She shrank away, shuddering with involuntary disgust as he pressed his wet lips and filthy moustache upon her mouth. His fetid breath, foul with the smell of tobacco and beer, and the odour of the stale tobacco smoke that exuded from his clothes filled her with loathing. He kissed her repeatedly and when at last he released her she hastily wiped her face with her handkerchief and shivered.

Easton said he did not want any tea, and went upstairs to bed almost immediately. Ruth did not want any tea either now, although she had been very hungry before he came home. She sat up very late, sewing, and when at length she did go upstairs she found him lying on his back, partly undressed on the outside of the bedclothes, with his mouth wide open, breathing stertorously.