 Chapter 14 of Tales of Mean Streets. Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and forty. His mould-skin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he wore his coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his chest. The casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper punctiliously made it known that he was in the paving, which meant that he was a pavier. He lived in Canning Town, and was on a footpath job at West Ham. Allen was the contractor, when he won and began to wear the nickname Squire. Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighbouring church, Bill Napper's mates let drop hammer, trowel, spade and pig, and turned toward a row of basins, tired in blue and red handkerchiefs, under company of diver's tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked toward the street corner for the punctual Polly bearing his own dinner, fresh and hot, for home was not far, and Polly being thirteen had no school now. One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first impatient, grew savage, and thought rothfully on the strap on its nail by the kitchen dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly came, bringing a letter as well as the basin load of beef and cabbage. A young man had left it, she said, after asking many ill-mannered questions. The letter was addressed W. Napper, Squire, with a flourish. The words by hand stood in the corner of the envelope, and on the flap at the back were the embossed characters T and N. These things Bill Napper noted several times over as he turned the letter about in his hand. Seems to me you'll have to out me after all, said one of Bill's mates. And he opened it, setting back his hat as a preparation to serious study. The letter was dated from old jewellery and ran thus. Ray B. Napper deceased. Dear sir, we have a communication in this matter from our correspondents at Sydney in New South Wales in respect of testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We should be obliged if you can make it convenient to call at this office any day except Saturday between two and four, your obedient servants Timms and Norton. The dinner hour had gone by before the full inner meaning had been rested from this letter. B. Napper deceased, Bill accepted with a little assistance, as an announcement of the death of his brother Ben, who had gone to Australia nearly twenty years ago and had been forgotten. Testamentary dispositions nobody would tackle with confidence, although its distinct suggestion of Biblical study was duly remarked. Benefit was right enough and led one of the younger men after some thought to the opinion that Bill Napper's brother might have left him something, a theory instantly accepted as the most probable, although some thought it foolish of him not to leave it direct, instead of authorising the interference of a lawyer who would want to do Bill out of it. Bill Napper put up his tools and went home. There the Mrs put an end to doubt by repeating what the lawyer's clerk said, which was nothing more definite than that Bill had been left a bit, and the clerk only acknowledged so much when he had satisfied himself by sinuous questionings that he had found the real legatee. He further advised the bringing of certain evidence on the visit to the office. Thus it was plain that the Napper fortunes were in good case, for as a bit means money all the world over, the thing was clearly no worthless keepsake. On the afternoon of the next day Bill Napper in clean mould skins and black coat made for old jewellery. On mature consideration he had decided to go through it alone. There was not merely one lawyer, which would be bad enough, but two of them in a partnership, and to take the Mrs, whose intellects being somewhat flighty were quickly divertible by the palaverer which a lawyer was master, would be to distract and impede his own faculties. A male friend might not have been so bad, but Bill could not call to mind one quite cute enough to be of any use, and in any case such a friend would have to be paid for the loss of his day's work. Moreover he might imagine himself to hold a sort of interest in the proceeds. So Bill Napper went alone. Having waited the proper time without the bar in the clerk's office, he was shown into a room where a middle-aged man sat at a writing-table. There was no other lawyer to be seen. This was a stratagem for which Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked suspiciously about the room, but without discovering anything that looked like a hiding-place. Plainly there were two lawyers because their names were on the door and on the letter itself, and the letter said, Wee. Why one should hide it was hard to guess, unless it were to bear witness to some unguarded expression. Bill Napper resolved to speak little and not loud. The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting him to sit. Then he asked to see the papers that Bill had brought. These were an old testimonial reciting that Bill had been employed with his brother Benjamin as a boy in a brick field, and had given satisfaction. A letter from a parish guardian, the son of an old employer of Bill's father, certifying that Bill was his father's son and his brother's brother. Copies of the birth registry of both Bill and his brother procured that morning, and a letter from Australia, the last word from Benjamin, dated eighteen years back. These Bill produced in succession, keeping a firm grip on each as he placed it beneath the lawyer's nose. The lawyer behaved somewhat testily under this restraint, but Bill knew better than to let the papers out of his possession and would not be done. When he had seen all… Well, Mr. Napper said the lawyer rather snappishly. Obviously, he was balked. These things seem all right, and with the inquiries I have already made, I suppose I may proceed to pay you the money. It is a legacy of three hundred pounds. My brother was married, and I believe his business and other property goes to his wife and children. The money is intact, the estate paying legacy duty and expenses. In cases of this sort, there is sometimes an arrangement for the amount to be paid a little at a time, as required. That, however, I judge, would not be an arrangement to plead you. I hope at any rate you will be able to invest the money in a profitable way. I will draw a cheque. Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill Napper's wildest dreams, but he would not bedazzle out of his caution. Presently, the lawyer tore the cheque from the book and pushed it across the table with another paper. He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other hand at the bottom of the second paper, and saying, This is the receipt. Sign just there, please. Bill took up the cheque, but made no movement toward the pen. Receipt, he grunted softly. Receipt, what for? I ain't had no money. There's the cheque in your hand. The same thing. It's an order to the bank to hand you the amount, the usual way of paying money in business affairs. If you would rather have the money paid here, I can send a clerk to the bank to get it. Give me the cheque. But again, Bill was not to be done. The lawyer, finding him sharper than he expected, now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper back, so Bill only gringed at him, keeping a good hold of the cheque. The lawyer lost his temper. Why, damn it, he said. You're a curious person to deal with. Do you want the money and the cheque, too? He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. Mr. Dixon said the lawyer, I have given this person a cheque for £300. Just take him round to the bank and get it cashed. Let him sign the receipt of the bank. I suppose, he added, turning to Bill, that you won't object to giving a receipt when you get the money, eh? Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, expressed his willingness to do the proper thing at the proper time, and went out with the clerk. At the bank, there was little difficulty, except the clerk's advice to take the money chiefly in notes, which instantly confirmed to Bill in a determination to accept nothing but gold. When all was done, and the three hundred sovereigns carefully counted over for the third and fourth time were stowed in small bags about his person, Bill, much relieved after his spell of watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk a drink. Ah, he said, all you city lawyers and clerks are pretty bleeding sharp, I know, but you ain't done me, and I don't bear no malice. Have what you like, have wine, or a six Irish. I ain't gonna be stingy. I'm gonna do it open and free, I am, and set an example to men of property. Bill Napper went home in a handsome, ordering a barrel of beer on the way. One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have beer in by the barrel. For then, Sundays and closing times vex not, and you have but to reach the length of your arm for another pot whenever moved there unto. Nobody in Canningtown had beer by the barrel, except the tradesman, and for that Bill had long envied the man who kept shop, and now at his first opportunity he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons. Once home with the news, and Canningtown was ablaze, Bill Napper had come in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred thousand, any number of thousands that were within the compass of the gossip's command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called W. Napper Esquire. He was to be knighted. He was a long lost baronet, anything. Bill Napper came home in a handsome, a brunam, a state coach. Mrs. Napper went that very evening to the Grove at Stratford to buy silk and satin, green, red and yellow, cutting her neighbour's dead right and left. And by the next morning tradesmen had sent circulars and samples of goods. Mrs. Napper was for taking a proper position in society, and the house in a fashionable part, barking road, for instance, or even East India road, popular. But Bill would none of such foolishness. He wasn't proud, and Canningtown was quite good enough for him. This much, though, he conceded, that the family should take a whole house of five rooms in the next street, instead of the two rooms and a cellule upstairs now rented. That morning Bill lit his pipe, stuck his hands in his pockets, and stalled as far as his job. Why, O. Esquire! shouted one of the men as he approached. Here comes the bleeding toff, remarked another. Cheer, cheer, mates! Bill responded, calmly complacent. Or am I gonna wet it? And all the fourteen men left their paving for the beer house close by. The foreman made some demure, but was helpless, and ended by coming himself. That ain't gaffer, said Bill. None of your soaks. No one ain't gonna stand out of a drink of wine, unless he wants to fight. As for the job, damn the job. A boy up fifty jobs like that here, and not stop for the change. You send to Governor to me, if he says anything. Understand? You send him to me. And he laid hands on the foreman, who was not a big man, and hauled him after the others. They wetted it for two or three hours, from many quart pots. Then there appeared between the swing doors the wrathful face of the Governor. The Governor's position was difficult. He was only a small master, and but a few years back had been a working mason. This deserted job was his first, for the parish, and by contract he was bound to end it quickly under penalty. Moreover, he much desired something on account that week, and must stand well with the vestry. On the other hand, this was a time of strikes, and the air was electrical. Several large and successful movements had quickened a spirit of restlessness in the neighbourhood, and no master was sure of his men. Some slight was fancied, some thing was not done as it should have been done from the point of view of the workshop, and there was a strike, picketing and bashing. Now the worst thing that could have happened to the Governor at this moment was one of those tiny unrecorded strikes that were bursting out weekly and daily about him, with the picketing of his two or three jobs. Furious, therefore, as he was, he dared not discharge every man on the spot. So he stood in the door and said, Look here, I won't stand this sort of thing. It's damn robbery. Oh, that's all I'll croak! Rod Bill Napper reaching toward the Governor. You come and have a tiddly. I'm a bleeding millionaire myself now, but I ain't proud. Well, you won't, for the Governor, unenthusiastic, remained at the door. You're a sulky old bleeder. These are your friends of mine who are having half a day off at my expense, understand? My expense. I'll be paying for their time if you dock them, and I can give you a bob before I'm further if you're hard up, see? The Governor addressed himself to the foreman. What's the meaning of this, Walker? He said. What games you call it? Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots had made up rorious, slapped the foreman violently on the shoulder. This is a gaffer, he shouted. He's all right. He'd come here because he couldn't help himself. I made him come, forcible. Don't bear no spite against the gaffer, do you? He's my mate, he's a gaffer, and I could buy you up 40 times to help me. But I ain't proud, and you're a bleeding, gall-blimely, slack bait. Well, said the Governor to the assembled company, but still ignoring Bill, don't you think there's been a bad enough of this? A few of the men glanced at one another, and one or two rose. All right, Governor, said one. We're off, and two more echoed. All right, Governor, and began to move away. Ah, said Bill Napper with disgust, as he turned to finish his pot. You're a blasted nigger driver you are, and a sulky beast. He added as he set the pot down. Never mind, he pursued. I'm all right, and I ain't half-paid kerbwacker no more under you. He was a damn sight better kerbwacker than you are a millionaire. The Governor retorted, feeling safer now that his men were getting back to work. None are your lip, replied Bill, rising and reaching for a pipe spill. None are your lip, you worker stonebreaker. Then, turning with a sudden access of fury, I'll knock your face off, blimey, he shouted, and raised his fist. Now then, none of that air, please, cried the landlord from behind the bar, unto whom Bill Napper, with all his wanted obedience in that quarter, answered only, All right, Governor, and subsided. Left alone, he soon followed the master Pavia and his men through the swing doors, and so went home. In his own street, observing two small boys in the pre-losery stages of a fight, he put up sixpence by way of stakes, and supervised the battle from the seat afforded by a convenient windowsill. After that, he bought a morning paper, and lay upon his bed to read it, with a pipe and a jug. For he was beginning a life of leisure and comfort, where in every day should be a superior Sunday. Thus far the outward and visible signs of the Napper wealth were these, the separate house, the barrel of beer, a piano, not bought as a musical instrument, but as one of the visible signs, a daily paper, also primarily a sign, the bonnets and dresses of the misses, and the perpetual possession of Bill Napper by a varying degree of fuddlement. An inward and dissembled sign was a regiment continually reinforced of mostly empty bottles in a cupboard kept sacred by the misses, and the faculties of that good lady herself experienced a fluctuating confusion from causes not always made plain to Bill. For the money was kept in the bedroom chest of drawers, and it was easy to lay hands on half a sovereign as required without unnecessary disturbance. Now and again Bill Napper would discuss the abstract question of entering upon some investment or business pursuit. Land had its advantages, great advantages, and he had been told that it was very cheap just now in some places. Houses were good too and a suitable possession for a man of consideration, not so desirable on the whole however as land. You bought your land and well there it was and you could take things easily, but with houses there was rent to collect and repairs to see to and so forth. It was a vastly paying thing for any man with capital to be a merchant, but there was work even in that, and you had to be perpetually on guard against sharp chaps in the city. A public house suggested by one of his old mates on the occasion of wetting it was out of the question. There was tick and long hours and a sharp lookout at all kinds of trouble which a man with money would be a fool to encounter. All together perhaps land seemed to be the thing. Although there was no need to bother now and plenty of time to turn things over even if the matter were worth pondering at all when it was so easy for a man to live on his means. After all, to take your boots off and lie on the bed with a pipe and a part of the paper was very comfortable and you could always stroll out and meet a mate or bring him in when so disposed. Of an evening the Albert Music Hall was close at hand and the Queen's not very far away and on Sundays and Saturday afternoons Bill would often take a turn down by the Dock Gates or even in Victoria Park or Mile End Waste where there were speakers of all sorts. At the Dock Gates it was mostly labour and anarchy, but at the other places there was a fine variety. You could always be sure of a few minutes of tea totalism, evangelism, atheism, republicanism, salvationism, socialism, anti-vaccinationalism and social purity, with now and again some Mormonism or another curious exotic. Most of the speakers denounced something and if the denunciations of one speaker were not sufficiently picturesque and lively you passed on to the next. Indeed you might always judge you far off where the best announcing was going on by the size of the crowds, at least until the hat went round. It was at Mile End Waste that a good notion occurred to Bill Napper. He had always vastly admired the denunciations of one speaker, a little man, shabbier if anything than most of the others and surpassingly tentestuous of Antig. He was an unattached orator, not confining himself to any particular creed, but denouncing whatever seemed advisable, considering the audience and circumstances. He was always denouncing something somewhere and was ever in a crisis that demanded the circulation of a hat. Bill esteemed this speaker for his versatility as well as for the freshness of his abuse and Bill's sudden notion was to engage him for private addresses. The orator did not take kindly to the proposal at first, strongly suspecting something in the nature of guy or kid, but a serious assurance of a shilling for an occasional hour and the payment of one in advance brought him over. After this, Squire Napper never troubled to go to Mile End Waste. He sat at ease in his parlour with his pot on the piano, while the orator, with another pot on the mantelpiece, stood up and denounced to order. Tip us a tea-towel and down with the public-ass, Bill would request, and the orator, his name was Minns, would oblige in that line till most of the strong phrases had run out and begun to recur. Then Bill would say, Now come, Nero, it's a labour-kiper, whereupon Minns would take a pull at the pot and proceed to denounce capital. Bill Napper, applauding or groaning at the pauses provided for these purposes, and so on with whatever subjects appealed to the patron's fancy. It was a fancy that sometimes put the orator's invention to grievous straits, but for Bill the whole performance was peculiarly privileged and dignified, for to have an orator gesticulating and specifying all to oneself on one's own order and choice of subject is a thing not given to all men. One day Minns turned up, not having been invited, with a friend. Bill did not take to the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a shifty eye, who smiled as he spoke, and showed a top row of irregular and dirty teeth. This friend, Minns explained, was a journalist, a writer of newspapers, and between them they had an idea, which idea the friend set forth. Everybody, he said, who knew the history of Mr Napper, admired his sturdy independence and democratic simplicity. He was of the people and not ashamed of it. Well now, I'm proud, Bill interjected, wondering what was coming. With all the advantages of wealth, he preferred to remain one of the people, living among them plainly, conforming to their simple habits and sympathising with their sorrows. This chap, thought Bill, wants to be took on to old fourth turnabout with the other, and he's shown his capers, but loyal ain't on it. It was the knowledge of these things, so greatly to Mr Napper's honour that had induced Minns and Minns' friend to place before him a means by which he might do the cause of toiling humanity a very great service. A new weekly paper was wanted, wanted very badly, a paper that should rear its head on behalf of the downtrodden toilers and make its mighty voice heard with dread by the bloated circles of class and privilege. That paper would prove a marvellously paying investment to its proprietor, bringing him enormous profits every week. He would have a vast fortune in that paper alone, besides the glory and satisfaction of striking the great blow that should pave the way to the emancipation of the masses and the destruction of the vile system of society whose whole and sole effect was the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the grasping few. Being professionally disengaged at present, he, the speaker in conjunction with his friend Minns, had decided to give Mr Napper the opportunity of becoming its proprietor. Bill was more than surprised. He was also a little bewildered. What? he said, after two draws of his pipe. Do you mean you want me to go in the printing line? That was not at all necessary. The printing would be done by contract. Mr Napper would only have to find the money. The paper, with a couple of thousand pounds behind it, or even one thousand, Minns friend read a difficulty in Bill's face, would be established forever. Even five hundred would do, and many successful papers had been floated with no more than a couple of hundred or so. Suppose they said just a couple of hundred to go on with till the paper found its legs and began to pay. How would that do? Bill Napper smoked a dozen whiffs. Then he said, and what should I have to do with the two hundred pound? Boy, anything? Not directly that, the promoters explained. It would finance the thing, just finance it. Who'd have the money then? That was perfectly simple. It would simply be handed over to Minns and his friend, and they would attend to all the details. Bill Napper continued to smoke. Then, beginning with a slight chuckle at the back of his throat, he said, When I got my money, I went to a lawyer's for it. There was two lawyers, one laying low, and there were two frustrated lawyers and a lot of clerks, city clerks, and a bank and all. And they couldn't have me, not for a single farting, not a farting, try and fiddle as they would. Well, after that, it ain't much good you tried it on, is it? And he chuckled again, louder. Minns was indignant, and Minns' friend was deeply hurt. Both protested. Bill Napper laughed aloud. All right, you'll do. He said, you'll do. My habits may be simple, but they ain't as simple as all that. Here, have a drink. You ain't done no harm, and I ain't spiteful. It was on an evening, a fortnight after this, that, as Bill Napper lay, very full of beer and rather sleepy on the bed, the rest of his household being out of doors, a ladder was quietly planted against the outer wall from the backyard. Bill heard nothing, until the window, already a little open, was slowly pushed up, and from the twilight outside a head and an arm plunged into the thicker darkness of the room, and a hand went feeling along the edge of the chest of drawers by the window. Bill rolled over on the bed and reached from the floor one of a pair of heavy iron set boots. Taking the toe in his right hand and grasping the foot rail of the bedstead with his left, he raised himself on his knees and brought the boot heel down heavily on the intruding head. There was a gasp, and the first breath of a yell, and head, arms, and shoulders, and body vanished with a bump and a rattle. Bill Napper let the boot fall, dropped back on the bed, and took no further heed. Neither Min's noise friend ever came back again, but for some time after, at Victoria Park, Min's inciting and outraged populist rise and sweep police and army from the earth, was able to point to an honourable scar on his own forehead, the proof and sign of a police bludgeoning at Tower Hill, or Trafalgar Square. Things went placidly on for near ten months. Many barrels of beer had come in full, and been sent empty away. Also the Mrs had got a gold watch and divers new bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill, some by applying privilege to the draw. Her private collection of bottles, too, had been cleared out twice, and was respectable for the third time. Everybody was not friendly with her, and one bonnet had been torn off ahead by a neighbour who disliked her heirs. So it stood when on a certain morning Bill, being minded to go out, found but two shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to the Mrs, as was his custom in such a past, asking her to fetch a sovereign or two when she came down, and as she was long in coming he went up himself. The Mrs left the room hurriedly, and Bill, after raking out every corner of the draw, which he himself had not opened for some time, saw not a single coin. The Mrs had no better explanation than that there must have been thieves in the house some time lately, a suggestion deprived of some value by the subsequent protest that Bill couldn't expect money to last forever, and that he had had the last three days ago. In the end there was a vehement row, and the Mrs was severely thumped. The thumping over Bill Napper conceived a great idea. Perhaps after all the lawyers had done him by understating the amount his brother had left, it might well have been five hundred pounds, a thousand pounds, anything, probably it was, and the lawyers had had the difference. Plainly three hundred pounds was a suspiciously small sum to inherit from a well-to-do brother. He would go to the lawyers and demand the rest of his money. He would not reveal his purpose till he saw the lawyers face to face, and then he would make his demand, suddenly, so that surprise and consternation should overwhelm and betray them. He would give them to understand that he had complete evidence of the whole swindle. In any case, he could lose nothing. He went after carefully preparing his part, and was turned out by a policeman. After that, he was to squire Napper going home. I suppose I'd better see about getting a job at Allen's again. He can't but make me gaffer, considering I've been a man of property. End of chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Tales of Mean Streets. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Catherine Phipps. Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison. A Poor Stick. Mrs Jennings, or Jenins, as the neighbours would have it, ruled absolutely at home, when she took so much trouble as to do anything at all there, which was less often than might have been. As for Robert, her husband, he was a poor stick, said the neighbours, and yet he was a man with enough of hardy-hood to remain a non-unionist in the erector shop at Maidments all the years of his service. No mean test of a man's fortitude and resolution, as many a sufferer for independent opinion, might testify. The truth was that Bob never grew out of his courtship blindness. Mrs Jennings governed as she pleased, stayed out or came home as she chose, and cooked to dinner or didn't, as her inclinations stood. Thus it was for ten years, during which time there were no children, and Bob bore all things uncomplaining, cooking his own dinner when he found none cooked, and sowing on his own buttons. Then of a sudden came children, till in three years there were three, and Bob Jennings had to nurse and to wash them, as often as not. Mrs Jennings at this time was what is called rather a fine woman, a woman of large scale and full development, whose slattenly habit left her coarse black hair to tumble in snake-locks about her face and shoulders half the day, who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore herself notoriously and unabashed in her fullness, and of whom ill things were said regarding the lodger. The Gossips had their excuse. The lodger was an irregular young cabinet-maker who lost quarters and halves and whole days, who had been seen abroad with his landlady, what time Bob Jennings was putting the children to bed at home, who on his frequent holidays brought in much beer, which he and the woman shared, while Bob was at work. To carry the tale to Bob would have been a thankless errand, for he would have none of anybody's sympathy, even in regard to misery's plain to his eye. But the thing got about in the workshop, and there his days were made bitter. At home things grew worse. To return at half-past five, and find the children still undressed, screaming, hungry and dirty, was a matter of habit, to get them food, to wash them, to tend the cuts and bumps sustained through the day of neglect, before lighting a fire and getting tea for himself, were matters of daily duty. Ah, he said to his sister, who came at intervals to say plain things about Mrs. Jennings, you shouldn't go for to set a man against his wife, Jen. Melia don't like work, I know, but that's natural to her. She ought to marry the swells, dead of me. She might have done easy if she liked, being such a fine gal. But she's good-hearted, is Melia, and she can't help being a bit thoughtless. Where at his sister called him a fool? It was her customary goodbye at such times, and took herself off. Bob Jennings' intelligence was sufficient for his common needs, but it was never of vast intelligence. Now, under a daily burden of dull misery, it clouded and stooped. The base wist of the workshop he comprehended less, and realized more slowly than before, and the gaffer cursed him for a sleepy dolt. Mrs. Jennings ceased from any pretense of house wifery, and would sometimes sit, per chance not quite sober, while Bob washed the children in the evening, opening her mouth only to express her contempt for him and his establishment, and to make him understand that she was sick of both. Once, exasperated by his quietness, she struck at him, and for a moment he was another man. Don't do that, Melia! he said, else I might forget myself. His manner surprised his wife, and it was such that she never did do that again. So was Bob Jennings, without a friend in the world, except his sister, who chid him, and the children who squawed at him, when his wife vanished with the lodger, the clock, a shade of wax flowers, Bob's best boots, which fitted the lodger, and his silver watch. Bob had returned, as usual, to the dirt and the children, and it was only when he struck a light that he found the clock was gone. Mummy took the talk, said Millie, the eldest child, who had followed him in from the door, and now gravely observed his movements. She took the talk, and went ta-ta, and she took the flowers. Bob lit the paraffin lamp with the green glass reservoir, and carried it and its evil smell about the house. Some things had been turned over, and others had gone, plainly. All Melia's clothes were gone, the lodger was not in, and under his bedroom window, where his box had stood, there was nought but an oblong patch of conspicuously clean wallpaper. In a muddle of doubt and perplexity, Bob found himself at the front door, staring up and down the street. Divers, women, neighbours stood at their doors and eyed him curiously. For Mrs. Webster, moralist, opposite, had not watched the day's proceedings, nor those of many other days, for nothing, nor had she kept her story to herself. He turned back into the house, a vague notion of what had befallen, percolating, feebly, through his bewilderment. Why to know? I don't know. He faltered, rubbing his ear. His mouth was dry, and he moved his lips uneasily, as he gazed with aimless looks about the walls and ceiling. Presently, his eyes rested on the child, and, melly, he said decisively, come and have your face washed. He put the children to bed early, and went out. In the morning, when his sister came, because she had heard the news in common with everybody else, he had not returned. Bob Jennings had never lost more than two quarters in his life, but he was not seen at the workshop all this day. His sister stayed in the house, and in the evening, at his regular homing time, he appeared, haggard, and dusty, and began his preparations for washing the children. When he was made to understand that they had been already attended to, he looked doubtful and troubled for a moment. Presently, he said, I ain't found her yet, Jen. I was in, oh, she might have been back by this. I don't expect she'll be very long. She was always a bit lucky, was Melia, but very good-hearted. His sister had prepared a strenuous lecture on the theme of, I told you so, but the man was so broken, so meek, and so plainly unhinged in his faculties, that she suppressed it. Instead, she gave him comfortable talk, and made him promise in the end to sleep that night, and take up his customary work in the morning. He did these things, and could have worked placidly enough, had he been alone. But the tale had reached the workshop, and there was no lack of British chaff to disorder him. This, the dissenter men would have no part in, and even protested against. But the ill-conditioned kept their way, till, at the cry of, Belle, oh! When all were starting for dinner, one of the worst shouted the cruelest jive of all. Bob Jennings turned on him, and knocked him over a scrap heap. A shout went up from the hurrying workman, with the chorus of, serve ye right! And the fallen joker found himself awkwardly confronted by the shot bruiser. But Bob had turned to a corner, and buried his eyes in the bend of his arm, while his shoulders heaved and shook. He slunk away home, and stayed there, walking restlessly to and fro, and often peeping down the street from the window. When, at twilight, his sister came again. He had become almost cheerful, and said with some briskness, I'm a going to meet her, Jen, at seven. I know where she'd be waiting. He went upstairs, and after a little while, came down again in his best black coat, carefully smoothing a tall hat of obsolete shape, with his pocket handkerchief. I ain't wore it for years, he said. I ought to have wore it. It might have pleased her. She used to say she wouldn't walk with me and no other. When I used to meet her in the evening at seven o'clock, he brushed assiduously and put the hat on. I'd better have a shave round the corner as I go along, he added, fingering his stubbly chin. He received, as one not comprehending, his sister's persuasion to remain at home. But when he went, she followed a little distance. After his penny shave, he made for the main road, where company keeping couples walked up and down all evening. He stopped at a church, and began pacing slowly to and fro before it, eagerly looking out each way as he went. His sister watched him for nearly half an hour, and then went home. In two hours more, she came back with her husband. Bob was still there, walking to and fro. Hello, Bob, said his brother-in-law. Come along home and get to bed. There's a good chat. You'll be all right in the morning. She ain't turned up, Bob complained. Or else I'd missed her. This is the regular place where I always used to meet her. But she'll come tomorrow. She used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, being naturally larky, but very good-hearted, mind you, very good-hearted. She did not come the next evening, nor the next, nor the evening after, nor the one after that. But Bob Jennings, how be it depressed and anxious, was always confident. Some things prevented her tonight, he would say. But she'll come tomorrow. I'll buy a blue tie tomorrow. She used to light me in a blue tie. I won't miss her tomorrow. I'll come a little earlier. So it went. The black coat grew ragged in the service, and hobbledy hoys, finding him safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes time after time. He wept over the hat and straightened it as best he might. Was she coming night after night and night and night? But tomorrow. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Tales of Mean Streets. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison. Chapter 16. A Conversion. There are some poor criminals that never have a chance. Circumstances are against them from the first, as they explain with tears to sympathetic mission readers. Circumstances had always been against Scuddy, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly synonym for thief. His first name was Properly James, but that had long been forgotten. Scuddy meant nothing in particular, was derived from nothing, and was not apparently the invention of any distinct person. Still, it was commonly his only name, and most of his acquaintances had also nicknames of, similarly, vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of a most creditable hour of rapturous misery after hearing perhaps a sing-song put me in my little bed, or any other diddy that was rank enough in sentiment. Wherefore the mission readers never really disbared of him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking younger, with a runaway chin, a sharp yellow face, and tremulously sly eyes, with but faint traces of hair on his face. He had a great deal of it, straight and ragged and dirty on his head. Scuddy Lund's misfortunes began early. Temptation had prevailed against him when he was at school, but that was nothing. He became errand boy in a grocery shop, and complications with a till brought him a howling penitent to the police court. Here, while his mother hit her head in the waiting room, he set forth the villainy of older boys who had prompted him to sin, and got away with no worse than a lettuce on the evils of bad company. So that a philanthropist found him a better situation at a distance where the evil influence could no longer move him. Here he stayed a good while, longer than some who had been there before him, but who had to leave because of vanishing postal orders. Nevertheless, the postal orders still went, and in the end he confessed to another magistrate, and fervently promised to lead a better life if his false start were only forgiven. Betting he protested was this time the author of his fall, and as that pernicious institution was clearly to blame for the unhappy young man's ruin, the lamenting magistrate let him off with a simple month in consideration of his misfortune, and the intercession of his employer, who had never heard of the grocer and his till. After his month, Scuddy went regularly into business as a lob crawler, that is to say, he returned to his first love, the till. Not narrowly to any individual till, but broadmindedly to the till as a general institution, to be approached in unattended shops by stealthy groveling on the belly. This he did until he perceived the greater security and comfort of waiting without, while a small boy did the actual work within. From this, and with this, he ventured on Peter claiming, laying hands nonchalantly on unconsidered parcels and bags at railway stations, until the day when, bearing a fat portman due, he ran against its owner by the door of a refreshment bar. This time the responsibility lay with drink, strong drink he declared with deep emotion, had been his ruin. He dated his downfall from the day when a false friend persuaded him to take a social glass. He would still have been an honest, upright, self-respecting young man, but for the cursed drink. From that moment he would never touch it more. The case was met with three months with hard labor, and for all that Scuddy Lund had so clearly pointed out to the culpability of drink, he had to do the drag himself. But the mission readers were comforted, for clearly there was hope for one whose eyes were so fully open to the causes of his degradation. After the drag, Scuddy for long made a comfortable living, free from the injurious overwork, and the several branches of lob crawling and Peter claiming, with an occasional deviation into parley jumping. It is true that this last did sometimes involve unpleasant exertion when the window was high and the boy heavy to bunk up, and it was necessary at times to run. But Scuddy was out of work and hunger drove him to anything, so long as it was light and not too risky. And it is marvelous to reflect how much may be picked up in the streets and at the side doors of London, and the suburbs without danger or vulgar violence. And so Scuddy's life went on with occasional misfortunes in the way of a moon or another drag, or perhaps a sixer. And the mission readers never despaired, because the real cause was always hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden temptation, or something quite exceptional, never anything like real hardened, unblushing wickedness. And the man himself was always truly penitent. He made such touching references to his innocent childhood, who was so grateful for good advice, or anything else you might give him. One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize his desire for better things. He resolved to depart from his evil ways and to become a narc, a copper's narc, which is a police spy or informer. The work was not hard, there was no imprisonment, and he would make amends for the past. But hardly had he begun his narcing when some of the Cate Street mob dropped on him in brick lane and bashed him full sore. This would never do, so once more in plackable circumstance drove him to his old courses. And there was this added discomfort, that no boy would parlor jump nor dip the lob for him. Indeed, they bawled aloud, Yes, Scuddy-lon, the copper's narc, so that the hand of all flower and Dean Street was against him. Scuddy grew very sad. These and other matters were heavy upon his heart on an evening, when with nothing in his pockets, but the piece of coal that he carried for luck, he turned aimlessly up Baker's Row. Things were very bad. It was as though the whole world knew him and watched. Shopkeepers stood frowningly at their doors. People sat defiantly on piles of luggage at the railway stations, and there was never a peeler to touch for. All the areas were empty and there were no side doors left unguarded, where, failing the more desirable wedge, one might claim a pair or two of daisies put out for cleaning. All the hundred trifling things that commonly came freely to hand in a mile or two of streets were somehow swept out of the world's economy. And Scuddy tramped into Baker's Row in a melting mood. Why were things so hard for some and so easy for others? It was not as though he were to blame—he, a man of feeling and sentiment. Why were others living comfortable lives unvext of any dread of the police? And apart from that, why did other Ghanafs get lucky touches for half a century of quids at a time, while he— But there the world was one brutal oppression, and he was its most pitiable victim, and he slunk along, dank with a pathos of things. At a corner, a group was standing about a woman whose voice was uplifted to a man's accompaniment on a stand accordion. Scuddy listened. She sang with a harsh tremble, and sang a song of ohm, sweet ohm, the song that reached my heart. Ohm, ohm, sweet, sweet ohm, she sang the song of ohm, sweet ohm, that song that reached my heart. Here, indeed, was something in tune with Scuddy's fine feelings. He looked up. From the darkening sky, the evening star winked through the smoke from a factory chimney. From a near came an exquisite scent of Savalos. Plaintiff influences all. He tried to think of ohm himself, of ohm strictly in the abstract, so that it might reach his heart. He stood for some minutes, torbid and mindless, oozing with sentiment till the song ended, and he went on. Fine feelings, fine. He crossed the road and took a turning. A lame old woman sat in a recess selling trotters, where a dark passage led back to a mission hall. About the opening a man hovered, fervent, watchful, and darted forth on past her eyes. He laid his hand on Scuddy's shoulder and said, My dear friend, will you come and hear the word of the Lord Jesus Christ? Scuddy turned. The sound of an armonium in many strenuous voices came faintly down the passage. It was his mood. Why not give his fine feelings another little run? He would. He would go in. Trotters quavered the lame old woman, looking up wistfully. To a penny. To a penny. But no, he went up the passage and she turned patiently to her board. Along the passage the singing grew louder and burst on his ears unchecked as he pushed open the door at the end. Whosoever will, whosoever will, send the proclamation over Val and Hill. Tis a loving father calls the wanderer home. Whosoever will may come. A man by the door knew him at once for a stranger and found him a seat. The hymn went quavering to an end, and the preacher in charge, a small bright-eyed man with rebellious hair and a surprisingly deep voice, announced that Brother Spires would offer a prayer. The man prayed with his every faculty. He was a sturdy red-necked artisan, great of hand and wiry of beard, a smith perhaps or a bricklayer. He spread his arms wide and his head thrown back brought forth with passion and pain as fervent disordered sentences. As he went on his throats welled and convulsed in desperate knots and the sweat-hung thick on his face. He called for grace that every unsaved soul there might come to the fold and believe that night. Or if not all, then some. Even a few, that at least one, only one poor soul, might be plucked as a brand from the burning. And as he flung together with clumsy travail his endless formless unconsidered vehemences of uttermost cockney, the man stood transfigured, admirable. From here and there came deep amens, then more with gas groans and sobs. Scuddy Lund carried away luxuriously on a tide of grievous sensation groaned with the others. The prayer ended in a chorus of ejaculations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody stuffed an open hymn-book into Scuddy's hand, but he scarce sought, abandoning himself to the mesmeric influence of the many who were singing about him. He plunged and reveled in a debauch of emotion. He heard, he even joined in, but understood nothing, for his feelings filled him to overflowing. I have a robe, tis resplendent in whiteness, waiting in glory in my wandering view. Oh, when I receive it, all shining in brightness, dear friend, could I see you receiving one too? For you I am praying, for you I am praying, for you I am praying, I am praying for you. The hymn ceased, all sat down, and the preacher began his discourse, quietly at first, and then, though in a different way, with all the choking fervor of the man who had prayed. For the preacher was fluent as well as zealous, and his words, except when emotion stayed them, poured in a torrent. He preached faith, salvation and faith, declaiming, beseeching, commanding, come, come. Now is the appointed time. Only believe, only come, only, only come, to impassioned, broken and treated, he added, sudden command in the menace of eternity, but broke away pitifully, again in urgent pleadings, pantings, gas, pointing above, spreading his arms abroad, stretching them forth imploringly. Come, only come. Sobs broke out more than one place, a woman bowed her head and rocked, while her shoulders shook again. Brother Spire's face was alight with joy. A tremor, a throw of the senses, ran through the assembly as though a single body. The preacher, nearing his pure oration, rose to a last frenzy of adoration, then ending in a steadier key, he summoned any to stand forth who had found grace that night. His bright, strenuous eyes were on the sovers, charging them, drawing them. First rose the woman who had bowed her head, her face uncovered, but distorted and twitching, still weeping, but wrapped in unashamed, she tottered out between the seeds and sank at last on the vacant form in front. Next to child, a little maid of ten, length-legged, an outgrown of her short skirts, her eyes squeezed down on a tight knot of pocket handkerchief, crying waddly, broken heartedly, sobbed and blundered over seat corners and toes, and sat down, forlorn and solitary at the other end of the form. And after her came Scotty Lund, why he knew not nor cared in the full enjoyment of a surfeit of indefinite emotion, tearful, rapturous he had accepted the command put on him by the preacher, and he had come forth, walking on clouds, regenerate, compact of fine feelings. There was a short prayer of thanks, and then a final hymn. Ring the bells of Evan, there is joy today, for a soul returning from the wild. Scotty felt a curious, equitable lightness of spirits, a serene cheerfulness. His emotional orgasm was spent, and in its place was a numb calm, pleasant enough. Glory, glory, how the angels sing, glory, glory, how the loud arps ring, tis the ransomed army like a mighty sea, pealing forth the anthem of the free. The service ended, the congregation trooped forth into the evening, but Scotty sat where he was, for the preacher wanted a few words with his converts, ere he would let them go. He shook hands with Scotty Lund, and spoke with grave smiling confidence about his soul. Brother Spire is also shook hands with him, and he spoke his return on Sunday. In the cool air of the empty passage, Scotty's ordinary faculties began to assert themselves, still in an atmosphere of calm cheer, fine feelings, fine, and as he turned the piece of coal in his pocket, he reflected that after all the day had not been altogether unlucky, not in every sense a blank. Emerging into the street, he saw that the lame old woman, who was almost alone and viewed, had risen on her crutch and turned her back to roll her white cloth over her remaining trotters. On the ledge behind stood her little pile of coppers just reckoned. Scotty Lund's practice eye took the case in a flash. With too long, tipped toed steps he reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and hurried away up the street. He did not run, for the woman was lame and had not heard him. No, decidedly the day had not been blank, for here was a hot supper. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XVII. All that mess which dwelling house and premises now standing on part of the said parcel of ground was the phrase in the assignment of Lease, although it only meant number 27 Mulberry Street, Old Ford, containing five rooms and a wash house, and sharing a dirty front wall with the rest of the street on the same side. The phrase was a very fine one, and, with others more intricate, lent not a little to the triumph and the perplexity the transaction filled Old Jack Randall with all. The business was a conjunction of purchase and mortgage, whereby Old Jack Randall, having thirty pounds of his own, had, after half an hour of helpless stupefaction in a solicitor's office in Cornhill, bought a house for two hundred and twenty pounds, and paid ten pounds for stamps and lawyer's fees. The remaining two hundred pounds had been furnished by the indubitable perpetual building society on the security of a mortgage, and the loan, with its interest, was to re-repaid in monthly installments of two pounds and four pence during twelve years. Thus Old Jack Randall designed to provide for the wants and infirmities of age, and the outright purchase, he argued, was a thing of mighty easy accomplishment. For the house let at nine shillings a week, which was twenty three pounds eight shillings a year, and the mortgage installment, with the ground rent of three pounds a year, only came to twenty seven pounds four, leaving a difference of three pounds six teams, which would be more than covered by a saving of eighteen pence a week. Certainly not a difficult saving for a man with a regular job and no young family, who had put by thirty pounds in little more than three years. Thus on many evenings Old Jack Randall and his wife would figure out the thing wholly for getting rates and taxes and repairs. Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill and stared at the traffic. When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side he said, Well, mother, we done it. And his wife replied, Yes, fa, you're a landlord now. Here at he chuckled and began to walk eastward. For to be a landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you are a landlord, and there is no work. You just walk round on Monday mornings, or maybe you even drive in a trap, and you collect your rents, eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the case may be. And there you are. It is better than shopkeeping, because the money comes by itself, and it is infinitely more genteel. Also it is better than having money in a bank and drawing interest, because the house cannot run away, as is the manner of directors, nor dissolve into nothingness, as is the way of banks. And here was he, Jack Randall, walking down Leadinhall Street, a landlord. He mounted a tram car at Aldgate, and all things were real. Two. Old Jack had always been Old Jack, since at fourteen, Young Jack had come Prentice in the same engine-turner shop. Young Jack was a married man himself now at another shop, and Old Jack was near fifty, and had set himself toward thrift. All along Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, and Bow Road, he considered the shops and houses from the tram-roof, madly estimating rents and values. Near Bow End Road, he and his wife alighted, and went inspecting twenty-seven Mulberry Street once more. Old Jack remarked that the scraper was of a different shape from that he had carried in his mind since their last examination, and he mentioned it to Mrs. Randall, who considered the scraper a fact rather better than the scraper of memory. They walked to and fro several times, judging the door and three windows from each side of the street, and in the end they knocked, with a purpose of reporting the completed purchase. But the tenant's wife, peeping from behind a blind, and seeing only the people who had already come spying about the house some two or three times, retired to the back and went on with her weekly washing. They waited a little, repeated the knock, and then went away. The whole day was off, and a stroll in the Tower Hamlet Cemetery was decided on. Victoria Park was as near, but was not in the direction of home. Moreover, there was less interest for Mrs. Randall in Victoria Park because there were no funerals. In the cemetery, Mrs. Randall solaced herself and Old Jack with the more sentimental among the inscriptions. In the poor part, whose miscellaneous graves are marked by mounds alone, they stopped to look at a very cheap funeral. Lord Jack, Mrs. Randall said under her breath with a nudge, while a common coffin, why the body's very nigh a-droppin' through the bottom. The thin underboard had, in fact, a bulge. Poor chap, ain't it shocking. The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers was a thing accepted, of course, but the horror of a cheap coffin they had never realized till now. They turned away. In the main path they met the turgid funeral of a bow-road bookmaker. After the dozen morning coaches there were cars and pony traps, and behind these came a fag end of carts and donkey-barrows. Ahead of all was the glazed hearse with the attendance in weepers, and by it, full of the pride of artistry, walked the undertaker himself. Now that, said Old Jack, is something like a coffin. It was heavy and polished and beset with bright fittings. Ah, sighed his Mrs. Ain't it lovely. The hearse drew up at the chapel door where the undertaker turned to the right about and placidly surveyed the movements of his forces. Mrs. Randall murmured again, lovely, lovely, and kept her eyes on the coffin. Then she edged gently up to the undertaker and whispered, What would that kind of coffin be called, Mr? The undertaker looked at her from the sides of his eyes and answered briskly. Two inch polished oak solid, extra brass fittings. Mrs. Randall returned to Old Jack's side and repeated the words. That must cost a lot, she said. What a thing, though, to be certain you won't be buried in a trumpery box like that other. Ah, it's well to be rich. Old Jack gazed on the coffin and thought. Surely a landlord, if anybody, was entitled to indulge in an expensive coffin. All day he had nursed a fancy that some small indulgence, something a little heavier than usual in the matter of expense, would be proper to celebrate the occasion. But he reflected that his savings were gone in his pockets, no fuller than had always been their Wednesday want, though, of course, in that matter the future would be different. The bearers carried the coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Randall turned away among the graves. Old Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, looking at the ground, said. It was a knobby coffin, mother, wasn't it? Whereon, too, Mrs. Randall murmured, lovely, lovely, yet again. Old Jack walked a little further and asked. Two-inch polished oak, he said, did he? Solid, and extra brass fittings. It's beautiful. I'll remember it. That's what you shall have if it happens you go first. There. An old Jack sat on the guard chain of a flowery grave, with the heir of one giving a handsome order. Me. Get out. Look at the expense. Matter as circumstances. Look at Jenkins's gardens. Jenkins was a bent chand at the Limited, and got his houses one under another through building cites. That there coffin would be none too dear for him. We're beginning, and I promise you that the same, if you'd like it. Like it, the Mrs. ejaculated. Of course I should, wouldn't you? Why us? Anyone would prefer something a bit knobby and thick. And the Mrs. reciprocated Old Jack's promise, in case he died first. If a two-inch polished oak solid could be got for everything she had to offer. And tea-time approaching they made well-pleased for home. Three. In two days Old Jack was known as a landlord all about. On the third day, which was Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half a sovereign, but succeeded only to the extent of five shillings. Work was slack with him, and three days of it was all he had had that week. This had happened before, and he had got on as best he could. But now, with a father buying house property, it was absurd to economize for lack of half a sovereign. When he brought the five shillings home, his wife asked why he had not thrown them at his father's head. A course of procedure which, young Jack confessed, had never occurred to his mind. Stingy old onks, she scolded, are going about buying houses and won't lend his own son ten shillings. Much good may all his money do him, with his eight full mean ways. This was the beginning of Old Jack's estrangements from his relatives. For young Jack's misses expressed her opinion in other places, and young Jack was as soon ready to share it, rigidly abstaining from another attempt at a loan, though he never repaid the five shillings. In the course of the succeeding week, two of his shopmates took Old Jack aside at different times to explain that the loan of a pound or two would make the greatest imaginable difference to the whole course of their future lives, while the temporary absence of the money would be imperceptible to a capitalist like himself. When he roundly declared that he had as few loose sovereigns as themselves, he was set down as an uncommon liar, as well as a wretched old miser. This was the beginning of Old Jack's unpopularity in the workshop. Four. He took a half day off to receive the first week's rent in state, and Mrs. Randall went with him. He showed his written authority from the last landlord, and the tenant's wife paid over the sum of nine shillings, giving him at the same time the rent booked to sign and a slip of written paper. This last was a week's notice to terminate the tenancy. We're very well satisfied with the house, the tenant's wife said. She was a painfully clean, angular woman with a notable flavor of yellow soap and scrubbing brush about her. But my husband finds it too far to get to and from Albert's docks morning and night so we're going to West Am. And she politely ejected her visitors by opening the door and crowding them through it. The want of a tenant was a contingency that Old Jack had never contemplated. As long as it lasted, it would necessitate the setting by of ten and six pence a week for the building society payments and the ground rent. This was serious. It meant knocking off some of the butcher's meat, all the beer and tobacco, and perhaps a little firing. Old Jack resolved to waste no more half days in collecting but to send his misses. On the following Monday, therefore, while the tenant's wife kept a sharp eye on the man who was piling a green grocers van with chairs and tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a too-let bill in the front window. In the Leaves of the Rent book, she found another thing of chagrin, to wit, a notice demanding payment of poor highway and general rates to the amount of one pound eighteen and seven pence. Now, no thought of rates and taxes had ever vexed the soul of Old Jack. Of course, he might have known that his own landlord paid the rates for his house, but indeed he had never once thought of the thing, being content with faithfully paying the rent and troubling no more about it. That night was one of dismal wakefulness for Old Jack and his misses. If he had understood the transaction at the lawyer's office, he would have known that a large proportion of the sum due had been allowed him in the final adjustment of payment to the day. And if he had known something of the ways of rate collecting, he would have understood that payment was not expected for at least a month. As it was, the glories of Leaves of Possession grew dim in his eyes, and a landlord seemed a poor creature, spending his substance to keep roofs over the heads of strangers. Five. On Wednesday afternoon, a man called about taking the house and returned in the evening when Old Jack was home. He was a large featured quick-eyed man with a loud harsh voice in a self-assertive manner. Quickly, Old Jack recognized him as a speaker he had heard at certain street corners, a man who was secretary or delegate or that sort of thing, to something that Old Jack had forgotten. He began with the announcement, I am Joe Parsons, delivered with a stare for emphasis and followed by a pause to permit assimilation. Old Jack had some recollection of the name, but it was indefinite. He wondered whether or not he should address the man as Sir, considering the street speeches and the evident importance of the name. But then, after all, he was a landlord himself, so he only said, Yes. I am Joe Parsons, the man repeated, and I'm looking for a house. There was another pause, which lasted till Old Jack felt obliged to say something. So he said, Yes, again. I'm looking for a house, the old man repeated, and if we can arrange things satisfactory, I might take yours. Mr. Joe Parsons was far above haggling about the rent, but he had certain ideas as to painting and repairs that looked expensive. In the end, Jack promised the paint a touch-up, privily resolving to do the work himself in his evenings. And on the whole, Mr. Joe Parsons was wonderfully easy to come to terms with, considering his eminent public character. And anything in the nature of a reference in his case would have been absurd. As himself observed, his name was enough for that. Six. Old Jack did the painting and the new tenants took possession. When Mrs. Randall called for the first week, a draggled-tailed little woman with a black eye meekly informed her that Mr. Parsons was not at home, and had left no money nor any message asked to the rent. This was awkward, because the first building society installment would be due before next rent day, to say nothing of the rates. But it would never do to offend Mr. Parsons. So the money was scraped together by heroic means. The Mrs. produced an unsuspected 12 and 6 pence from a gala pot on the kitchen dresser, and the first installment was paid. Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry Street next rent day, but nobody answered her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty notion, born of use, that rent was constitutionally demandable only on Monday morning, called no more for a week. But on Thursday evening, a stout little stranger with a bald head which he wiped continually came to the Randalls to ask if the tenant of 27 Mulberry Street was Mr. Joe Parsons. Assured that it was, he nodded, said, Thanks, that's all. Wiped his head again, and started to go. Then he paused, and pay his rent regular, he asked. Old Jack hesitated. Ah, thought so, said the little stranger. He's a wrongan. I've got a bit of paper for him. And clapped on his hat with the handkerchief in it, and vanished. Seven Jack felt unhappy for a landlord. He and the Mrs. reproached themselves for not asking the little stranger certain questions, but he had gone. Next Monday morning, old Jack took another half day and went to Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, he assured himself that a belief, entertained by his Mrs., that the upper part of his house was being sublet, was well founded. He watched awhile from a corner until a dirty child kicked at the door, and it was opened. Then he went across and found the draggletailed woman who had answered Mrs. Randall before, in every respect the same to look at, except that not one eye was black, but two. Old Jack, with some abrupt miss, demanded his rent of her, addressing her as Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the name, she pleaded with meek uneasiness that Mr. Parsons really wasn't at home, and she didn't know when to expect him. At last finding this ineffectual, she produced four and six pens, begging him with increasing agitation to take that on account and call again. Old Jack took the money, called again at seven. Custom or law or whatnot, he would wait for no Monday morning now. The door was open, and a group of listening children stood about it. From within came a noise of knocks and thuds and curses, sometimes a gerbil. Old Jack asked a small boy, whose position in the passage betokened residents what was going forward. It's the man downstairs, said the boy. I give it of it to his wife for paying away the lodger's rent. At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared in the passage. The children, who had once or twice commented it in shouts, dispersed. I've come for my rent, said Old Jack. Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat, so he said, rent, ain't you at it? I don't bother about things in the house. Come again when my wife's in. She is in, rejoined Old Jack in. You've been a landen of her for paying me what little she has. Come, you pay me what you owe me. Take a week's notice now. I want my house kept respectable. Mr. Parsons had no other shift. You be damned, he said. Get out. What, gasped Old Jack, poured to tell a landlord to get out of his own house. What? Why, get out. You ought to know better than come in here, ask him for money you ain't earned. Ain't earned, what do you mean? What I say, you ain't earned it. It's you blasted landlords that sucks the blood out of the workers. You go and work for your money. Old Jack was confounded. Why, what, how do you think I could pay the rates and everything? I don't care. You'll have to pay him, and I wish there was iron. They ought to be the same as the rent, and that would do away with fellers like you. Go on, you do your damnedest and get your rent the best way you can. But what about upstairs? You're letting it out and taking the rent there, I'm… That's none of your business. Get out, will you? They had gradually worked over the doorstep, and Randall was on the pavement. I shan't pay, and I shan't go, and you can do what you like. So it's no good you're stopping, unless you want to fight. Eh, do ya? And Mr. Parsons put a foot over the threshold. Old Jack had not fought for many years. It was low. For a landlord outside his own house, it was indeed disgraceful. But it was quite dark now, and there was scarcely a soul in the street. Perhaps nobody would know, and this man deserved something for himself. He looked up the street again, and then, well, I ain't so young as I was, he said, but I won't disappoint ya. Come on. Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within, and slammed the door. Eight. Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to do. Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out in the workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for anything in the nature of sympathy or advice. Not only would he lend no money, but he refused to stand to treat on rent days. Also, there was a collection on behalf of men on strike at another factory to which he gave nothing, and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an extension of that strike, and his own intention to continue working if it happened. For what would become of all of his plans, and his savings if his wages ceased? Wherefore, there was no other man in the shop so unpopular as Old Jack, and in a workshop, unpopularity is a bad thing. He called on a professional rent receiver and sell her up. This man knew Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a profitable distress might be levied, but if he took lodgers and they were quiet people, something might be got out of them, if the job were made worthwhile. But this was not at all what Old Jack wanted. Soon after, it occurred to him to ask advice of the Secretary of the Building Society. This was a superficial young man, an auctioneer's clerk until evening, who had no disposition to trouble himself about matters outside his duties. Still, he went so far as to assure Old Jack that turning out a tenant who meant to stay was not a simple job. If he didn't mind losing the rent, it might be done by watching until the house was left ungarrysened, getting in, putting the furniture into the street, and keeping the tenant out. With his forlorn hope, Old Jack began to spend his leisure about Mulberry Street, ineffectually, for Mrs. Parsons never came out while he was there. Once he saw the man and offered to forgive him the rent if he would leave, a proposal which Mr. Parsons received with ostentatious merriment. At this, Old Jack's patient gave out and he punched his tenant on the ear. Where at, the latter, suddenly whitening in the face said something about the police and walked away at a good pace. Nine. The strike extended as it was expected and designed to do. The men at Old Jack's factory were ordered out and came, accepting only Old Jack himself. He was desperate. Since he had ventured on that cursed investment, everything had gone wrong, but he would not lose his savings if mere personal risk would preserve them. Moreover, a man of fifty is not readily re-employed once out and asked the firm was quite ready to keep one hand on to oil and see that things were in order. Old Jack stayed, making his comings and goings late to dodge the pickets and approaching subtly by a railway arch-stable and a lane thereunto. It was not as yet a very great strike and with care these things could be done. Still, he was sighted and chased twice, and he knew that, if the strike lasted and feeling grew hotter, he would be attacked in his own house. If only he could hold on through the strike, and by hook or crook keep the outgoings paid, he would attend to Mr. Parsons afterward. Ten. One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall was buying greens and potatoes, Old Jack, waiting without, strolled toward a crowd standing about a speaker. A near approach discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe Parsons, who was saying, strike pay is little enough at the time, of course, but don't forget what it will lead to, and strike pay does very well, my friends, when the party knows how to lay it out, and don't go passing it on to the landlord. Don't give it away. When the landlord comes on Monday morning, tell him, polite as you like, that there's nothing for him, till there's more for you. Let the landlord earn his money, like me and you. Let the landlords pay a bit towards this ear strike, as well as the other blaggards, the employers. Landlords gets quite enough out of you, my fellow workers, when. They don't get much out of you, shouted Old Jack in his wrath, and then felt sorry he had spoken. For everybody looked at him, and he knew some of the faces. Ho! rejoined the speaker mincingly. There's a gent there, as seems to want to address this here meeting. Perhaps you'll have the kindness to step up here, my friend, and say what you got to say plain. And he looked full at Old Jack, pointing with his finger. Old Jack fidgeted, whistling himself out of it. You pay me what you owe me, he growled sockily. As this ear individual, after intruding his self on this peaceful meeting, and got anything to say for his self, pursued Mr. Joe Parsons, I'll explain things for him. That's my landlord, that is, look at him. He comes hanging around my door, waiting for a chance to turn my poor wife and children out of house and home. He follows me in the streets, and tries to intimidate me. He comes here, my fellow workers as a spy, and to try and poison your minds again, me as devote my old life to your interests. That's the sort of man, that's the sort of landlord he is, but he's something more than a greedy thieve and overfed landlord, my friends, and I'll tell you what. He's a dirty, crawling black leg, that's what else he is. He's the only man as wouldn't come out of the maidments. And he's working there now, skulking in and out in the dark, a dirty rat. Now you all know very well, I won't have nothing to do with any violence or intimidation. It's again my principles, although I know there's very often great temptation, and it's impossible to identify in a crowd and safe to be very little evidence. But this I will say, that when a dirty, low rat, not content with fattening on starving tenants, goes and takes the bread out of his fellow men's mouths, like that bleedin' black leg, black leg, black leg. Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy boots were at work about his head and belly. Even from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her way, shedding potatoes as she ran and screaming, threw herself upon the man on the ground and shared the kicks. Over the shoulders of the kickers whirled the buckle end of a belt. One for the old cow, said a voice. Eleven. When a man is lying helpless on his back with nothing in hand, he pays nothing off a building society mortgage, because as his wife ponds the goods of the house, the resulting money goes for necessaries. To such a man the society shows no useless grace, especially when the secretary has a friend always ready to take over a forfeited house at forced sale price. So the lease of twenty-seven vanished and Old Jack's savings with it. In one day, some months later, Old Jack, supported by the missus in a stick, took his way across the workhouse forecourt. There was a door some twenty yards from that directly before them, and two men came out of it carrying a laden coffee of plain deal. Look there, Jack, the missus said as she checked her step, what a common coffin. And indeed there was a distinct bulge in the bottom. The end. End of Chapter 17 End of Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison