 40 The alterations which the corporation had undertaken to make in the kiosk on the Grand Parade provided employment for several carpenters and plasterers for about three weeks and afterwards for several painters. This fact was sufficient to secure the working men's unqualified approval of the action of the council in letting the place to grind her, and councillor Wheatling's opposition, the reason of which they did not take the trouble to inquire into or understand, they is heartily condemned. All they knew or cared was that he had tried to prevent the work being done, and that he had referred in insulting terms to the working men of the town. What right had he to call them half-starved, poverty-stricken, poor wretches? If it came to being poverty-stricken, according to all accounts, he wasn't any too well off himself. Some of those blokes who went swaggering about in frock coats and pot hats was just as hard up as anyone else if the truth was known. As for the corporation workmen, it was quite right that their wages should be reduced. Why should they get more money than anyone else? It's also what's got to find the money, they said, where the rate payers, and why should we have to pay them more wages than we get ourselves? And why should they be paid for holidays any more than us? During the next few weeks the dearth of employment continued, for, of course, the work at the kiosk and the few other jobs that were being done did not make much difference to the general situation. Groups of workmen stood at the corners or walked aimlessly about the streets. Most of them no longer trouble to go to the different firms to ask for work. They were usually told that they would be sent for, if wanted. During this time Owen did his best to convert the other men to his views. He had accumulated a little library of socialist books and pamphlets, which he lent to those he hoped to influence. Some of them took these books and promised with the air of men who were conferring a great favour that they would read them. As a rule, when they returned them, it was with vague expressions of approval, but they usually evinced at disinclination to discuss the contents in details because in nine instances out of ten they had not attempted to read them. As for those who did make a half-hearted effort to do so, in the majority of cases that their minds were so rusty and stultified by long years of disuse that although the pamphlets were generally written in such simple language that a child might have understood, the argument was generally too obscure to be grasped by the men whose minds were addled by the stories told them by their liberal and Tory masters. Some, when Owen offered to lend them some books or pamphlets, refused to accept them, and others, who did them the great favour of accepting them, afterwards boasted that they had used them as toilet paper. Owen frequently entered into long arguments with the other men, saying that it was the duty of the State to provide productive work for all those who were willing to do it. Some few of them listened like men who only vaguely understood but were willing to be convinced. Yes, mate, you've got a right to what you say," they would remark, something ought to be done. Others ridiculed this doctrine of State employment. It was all very fine, but where was the money to come from? And then those who had been disposed to agree with Owen would relapse into their old apathy. There were others who did not listen so quietly, but shouted with many curses, that it was the likes of such fellows as Owen who were responsible for all the depression and trade. All this talk about Socialism and State employment was frightening capital out of the country. Those who had money were afraid to invest in industries, or to have any work done for fear that they would be robbed. When Owen quoted statistics to prove that as far as commerce and the quantity produced of commodities of all kinds was concerned, the last year had been a record one. They became more infuriated than ever and talked threateningly of what they would like to do to those bloody socialists who were upsetting everything. One day Crass, who was one of those upholders of the existing system, scored off Owen finally. A little group of them were standing talking in the Wade slave market near the fountain. In the course of the argument Owen made a remark that under existing conditions life was not worth living, and Crass said that if he really thought so there was no compulsion about it. If he wasn't satisfied, if he didn't want to live, he could go and die. Why the hell didn't he go and make a hole in the water, or cut his bloody throat? On this particular occasion the subject of the argument was, at first, the recent increase in the borough engineer's salary to seventeen pounds per week. Owen said that it was robbery, but the majority of the others expressed their approval of the increase. They asked Owen if he expected a man like that to work for nothing. It was not as if he was one of the likes of themselves. They said that, as for it being robbery, Owen would be very glad to have the chance of getting it himself. Most of them seemed to think that the fact that anyone would be glad to have seventeen pounds a week proved that it was right for them to pay that amount to the borough engineer. Usually whenever Owen reflected upon the gross injustices and the humanity of the existing social disorder, he became convinced that it could not possibly last. It was bound to fall to pieces because of its own rottenness. It was not just. It was not common sense, and therefore it could not endure. But always after one of these arguments, or rather disputes, with his fellow workmen, he almost relapsed into hopelessness and despondency. For then he realized how vast and how strong are the fortifications that surround the present system, the great barriers and ramparts of invincible ignorance, apathy and self-contempt, which will have to be broken down before the system of society of which they are the defenses can be swept away. At other times, as he thought of this marvellous system, it presented itself to him in such an aspect of almost comical absurdity that he was forced to laugh and to wonder whether it really existed at all, or if it were only an illusion of his own disordered mind. One of the things that the human race needed in order to exist was shelter. With so much painful labour they had constructed a large number of houses. Thousands of these houses were now standing unoccupied, while millions of the people who had helped to build the houses were either homeless or herded together in overcrowded hovels. These human beings had such a strange system of arranging their affairs, that if any one were to go and burn down a lot of the houses, he would be conferring a great boon upon those who had built them, because such an act would make a lot more work. Another very comical thing was that thousands of people wore broken boots and ragged clothes, while millions of pairs of boots and abundance of clothing, which they had helped to make, were locked up in warehouses, and the system had the keys. Thousands of people lacked the necessaries of life. The necessaries of life were all produced by work, the people who lacked, begged to be allowed to work, and create those things of which they stood in need, but the system prevented them from doing so. If any one asked the system why it prevented these people from producing the things of which they were in want, the system replied, Because they have already produced too much, the markets are glutted, the warehouses are filled and overflowing, and there is nothing more for them to do. There was in existence a huge accumulation of everything necessary. A great number of the people whose labour had produced the vast store were now living in want, but the system said that they could not be permitted to partake of the things they had created. Then, after a time, when these people, being reduced to the last extreme of misery, cried out that they and their children were dying of hunger, the system grudgingly unlocked the doors of the great warehouses and, taking out a small part of the things that were stored within, distributed it amongst the famished workers, and at the same time reminding them that it was charity, because all the things in the warehouse, although they had been made by the workers, were now the property of the people who do nothing. And then the starving, bootless, ragged, stupid wretches fell down and worshipped the system, and offered up their children as living sacrifices upon its altar, saying, This beautiful system is the only one possible, and the best that human wisdom can devise. May the system live forever. Cursed be those who seek to destroy the system." As the absurdity of the thing forced itself upon him, Owen, in spite of the unhappiness he felt at the sight of all the misery by which he was surrounded, laughed aloud, and said to himself that if he was sane, then all these people must be mad. In the face of such colossal imbecility it was absurd to hope for any immediate improvement. The little already accomplished was the work of a few self-sacrificing enthusiasts, battling against the opposition of those they ought to benefit, and the results of their labours were, in many instances, as perils cast before the swine who stood watching for opportunities to fall upon and rend their benefactors. There was only one hope. It was possible that the monopolists, encouraged by the extraordinary stupidity and apathy of the people, would proceed to lay upon them even greater burdens until at last goaded by suffering and not having sufficient intelligence to understand any other remedy. These miserable wretches would turn upon their oppressors, and drown both them and their system in a sea of blood. Besides the work of the kiosk, towards the end of March things gradually began to improve in other directions. Several firms began to take on a few hands. Several large empty houses that were re-let had to be renovated for their new tenants, and there was a fair amount of inside work arising out of the annual spring cleaning in other houses. There was not enough work to keep everyone employed, and most of those who were taken on, as a rule, only managed to make a few hours a week. But still it was better than absolute idleness, and there also began to be talk of several large outside jobs that were to be done as soon as the weather settled. This bad weather, by the way, was a sort of boon to the defenders of the present system, who were hard up for sensible arguments to explain the cause of poverty. One of the principal causes was, of course, the weather, which was keeping everything back. There was not the slightest doubt that if only the weather would allow, there would always be plenty of work, and poverty would be abolished. Russian and Coe had a fair share of the work that was there, and crafts, salken, slime, and oan were kept employed pretty regularly, although they did not start until half past eight, and left off at four. At different houses in various parts of the town they had ceilings to wash off and distemper, to strip old paper from the walls, and to repaint and paper the rooms, and sometimes there were the Venetian blinds to repair and repaint. Occasionally a few extra hands were taken on for a few days, and discharged again, as soon as the job they were taken on to do was finished. The defenders of the existing system may possibly believe that the knowledge that they would be discharged directly the job was done was a very good incentive to industry, that they would naturally, under these circumstances, do their best to get the work done as quickly as possible, but then it must be remembered that most of the defenders of the existing system are so constituted that they can believe anything provided it is not true, and sufficiently silly. All the same it was a fact that the workmen did their very best to get over this work in the shortest possible time, because although they knew to do so was contrary to their own interests, they also knew that it would be very much more contrary to their interests, not to do so. Their only chance of being kept on if further work came in was to tear into it for all they were worth. Consequently most of the work was rushed and botched and slobbered over in about half the time that it would have taken to do it properly, rooms for which the customers paid to have three coats of paint were scamped with one or two. What misery did not know about scamping and faking the work, the men suggested and showed to them in the hope of currying favour with them in order that they might get the preference over others and be sent for when the next job came in. This is the principal incentive provided by the present system, the incentive to cheat. These fellows cheated the customers of their money, they cheated themselves on their fellow workmen of work and their children of bread, but it was all for a good cause to make profit for their master. Harlow and Slime did one job in a room that Rushton and Coe had contracted to paint three coats. It was finished with two, and the men cleared away their paints. The next day when Slime went there to paper the room, the lady of the house said that the painting was not yet finished. It was to have another coat. Slime assured her that it had already had three, but as the lady insisted Slime went to the shop and sought out misery. Harlow had been stood off as there was not another job in just yet, but fortunately he happened to be standing in the street outside the shop, so they called him and then the three of them went round to the job and swore that the room had had three coats. The lady protested that it was not so. She had watched the progress of the work. Besides, it was impossible. They had only been there three days. The first day they had not put any paint on at all. They had done the sealing and stripped the walls, but the painting was not started till the second day. How then could it have had three coats? Misery explained the mystery. He said that for first coating they had an extra special fast drying paint. Paint had dried so quickly that they were able to give the work two coats in one day. For instance, one man did the window, the other the door. When these were finished both men did the skirting. By the time the skirting was finished the door and window were dry enough to second coat and then on the following day the finishing coat. Of course this extra special quick drying paint was very expensive, but the firm did not mind that. They knew that most of their customers wished to have the work finished as quickly as possible, and their study was to give satisfaction to the customers. This explanation satisfied the lady, a poverty-stricken widow making a precarious living by taking in lodgers, who was the more easily deceived because she regarded misery as a very holy man, having seen him preaching in the street on many occasions. There was another job at another boarding-house that Owen and Easton did. Two rooms which had to be painted three coats of white paint and one of enamel, making four coats all together. That was what the firm had contracted to do. As the old paint in these rooms was of a rather dark shade, it was absolutely necessary to give the work three coats before enameling it. Misery wanted them to let it go with two, but Owen pointed out that if they did so it would be such a ghastly mess that it would never pass. After thinking the matter over for a few minutes, Misery told them to go on with the third coat of paint. Then he went downstairs and asked to see the lady of the house. He explained to her that, in consequence of the old paint being so dark, he found that it would be necessary, in order to make a good job of it, to give the work four coats before enameling it. Of course they had only agreed for three, but as they always made a point of doing their work in a first-class manner rather than not make a good job of it, they would give it the extra coat for nothing, but he was sure she would not wish them to do that. The lady said that she did not want them to work for nothing, and she wanted it done properly. If it were necessary to give it an extra coat, they must do so, and she would pay for it. How much would it be? Misery told her. The lady was satisfied, and Misery was in the seventh heaven. He went upstairs again and warned Owen and Easton to be sure to say, if they were asked, that the work had had four coats. It would not be reasonable to blame Misery or Rushton for not wishing to do good, honest work. There was no incentive. When they secured a contract, if they had thought first of making the very best possible job of it, they would not have made so much profit. The incentive was not to do the work as well as possible, but to do as little as possible. The incentive was not to make good work, but to make good profit. The same rule applied to the workers. They could not just be blamed for not doing good work. There was no incentive. To do good work requires time and pains. Most of them would have liked to take time and pains, because all those who are capable of doing good work find pleasure and happiness in doing it, and have pride in it when done. But there was no incentive, unless the certainty of getting the sack could be called an incentive, for it was a moral certainty that any man who was caught taking time and pains with his work would be promptly presented with the order of the boot. But there was plenty of incentive to hurry and scamp and slover and botch. There was another job at a lodging-house, two rooms to be painted and papered. The landlord paid for the work, but the tenant had the privilege of choosing the paper. She could have any pattern she liked, so long as the cost did not exceed one shilling per roll, Russian's estimate being for paper of that price. Misery sent her several patterns of sixpony papers marked at a shilling to choose from, but she did not fancy any of them, and said that she would come to the shop to make her selection. So Hunter tore round to the shop in a great hurry to get there before her. In his haste to dismount he fell off his bicycle into the muddy road, and nearly smashed a plate-glass window with the handle-bar of the machine as he placed it against the shop-front before going in. Without waiting to clean the mud off his clothes, he ordered Bud, the pimply-faced shopman, to get out rolls of all the sixpony papers they had, and then they both set to work and altered the price marked upon them from sixpence to a shilling. Then they got out a number of shilling papers and altered the price marked upon them, changing it from a shilling to one and six. When the unfortunate woman arrived, Misery was waiting for her with a benign smile upon his long visage. He showed her all the sixpony ones, but she did not like any of them, so after a while Nimrod suggested that perhaps she would like a paper of a little better quality, and she could pay the trifling difference out of her own pocket. Then he showed her the shilling papers that he had marked up to one and sixpence, and eventually the lady selected one of these and paid the extra sixpence per roll herself as Nimrod suggested. There were fifteen rolls of paper altogether, seven for one room and eight for the other, so that in addition to the ordinary profits of the sale of the paper, about 275%, the firm made seven and sixpence on this transaction. They might have done better out of the job itself if Slime had not been hanging the paper piecework for the two rooms being of the same pattern. He could easily have managed to do them with fourteen rolls. In fact it was all he did use, but he cut up and partly destroyed the one that was over, so that he could charge for hanging it. Owen was working there at the same time, for the painting of the rooms was not done before Slime papered them. The finishing coat was put on after the paper was hung. He noticed Slime destroying the paper and getting the reason, asked him how he could reconcile such conduct as that with his profession of religion. Slime replied that the fact that he was a Christian did not imply that he never did anything wrong. If he committed a sin, he was a Christian all the same, and it would be forgiven him for the sake of the blood. As for the affair of the paper, it was a matter between himself and God, and Owen had no right to set himself up as a judge. In addition to all this work there were a number of funerals. Crass and Slime did very well out of it all, working all day whitewashing our painting, and sometimes part of the night painting Venetian blinds are polishing coffins and taking them home to say nothing of the lifting in of the corpse and afterwards acting as bearers. As time went on the number of small jobs increased, and as the days grew longer the men were allowed to put in a greater number of hours. Most of the firms had some work, but there was never enough to keep all the men in the town employed at the same time. It worked like this. Every firm had a certain number of men who were regarded as the regular hands. When there was any work to do, they got the preference over strangers or outsiders. When things were busy, outsiders were taken on temporarily. When the work fell off, these casual hands were the first to be stood still. If it continued to fall off, the old hands were also stood still in order of seniority. The older hands being preferred to strangers, as long as they were not old in the sense of being aged or inefficient. This kind of thing usually continued all through the spring and summer. In good years the men of all trades, carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, and so on, were able to keep almost regularly at work, except in wet weather. The difference between a good and bad spring and summer is that in good years it is sometimes possible to make a little overtime, and the periods of unemployment are shorter and less frequent than in bad years. It is rare even in good years for one of the casual hands to be employed by one firm for more than one, two, or three months without a break. It is usual for them to put in a month with one firm, then a fortnight with another, then perhaps six weeks somewhere else, and often between there are two or three days or even weeks of enforced idleness. This sort of thing goes on all through spring, summer, and autumn. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 of the Ragged Trousard Philanthropists. The Easter offering, the Beano meeting. By the beginning of April, Russian and Coe were again working nine hours a day, from seven in the morning till five thirty at night, and after Easter they started working full time from six a.m. till five thirty p.m., eleven and a half hours, or rather ten hours, for they had to lose half an hour at breakfast and an hour at dinner. Just before Easter several of the men asked Hunter if they might be allowed to work on Good Friday and Easter Monday, as they said they had had enough holidays during the winter. They had no money to spare for holiday making, and they did not wish to lose two days' pay when there was work to be done. Hunter told them that there was not sufficient work in to justify him in doing as they requested. Things were getting very slack again, and Mr. Russian had decided to cease work from Thursday night till Tuesday morning. They were thus prevented from working on Good Friday, but it is true that not more than one working man in fifty went to any religious service on that day, or on any other day during the Easter festival. On the contrary, this festival was the occasion of much cursing and blaspheming on the part of those whose penniless, poverty-stricken condition it helped to aggravate by enforcing unprofitable idleness which they lacked the means to enjoy. During these holidays some of the men did little jobs on their own account, and others put in the whole time including Good Friday and Easter Sunday, gardening, digging and planting their plots of allotment ground. When Owen arrived home one evening during the week before Easter, Frankie gave him an envelope which he had brought home from school. It contained a printed leaflet. Church of the White at Seppelker, Mugsborough, Easter, 19-something. Dear Sir or Madam, in accordance with the usual custom we invite you to join us in presenting the vicar, the Reverend Habakkuk Bosher, with an Easter offering as a token of affection and regard. Yours faithfully, A. Cheeseman, W. Taylor, Church Wardens. Mr. Bosher's income from various sources connected with the church was over six hundred pounds a year, or about twelve pounds a week, but as that sum was evidently insufficient, his admirers had adopted this device for supplementing it. Frankie said that all the boys had one of these letters, and were going to ask their fathers for some money to give towards the Easter offering. Most of them expected to get twopence. As the boy had evidently set his heart on doing the same as the other children, Owen gave him the twopence, and they afterwards learned that the Easter offering for that year was one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which was made up of the amounts collected from the parishioners by the children, the district visitors and the verger, the collection at a special service, and donations from the feeble-minded old females elsewhere referred to. By the end of April nearly all the old hands were back at work, and several casual hands had also been taken on, the semi-drunk being one of the number. In addition to these, misery had taken on a number of what he called light-weights, men who were not really skilled workmen, but had picked up sufficient knowledge of the simpler parts of the trade to be able to get over it passably. These were paid pfeifens, or pfeifenshapeany, but were employed in preference to those who had served their time, because the latter wanted more money, and therefore were only employed when absolutely necessary. Besides the light-weights, there were a few young fellows, called approvers, who were also employed because they were cheap. Crass now acted as colour-man, having been appointed possibly because he knew absolutely nothing about the laws of colour, and most of the work consisted of small jobs. All the paint and the temper was mixed up at the shop, and sent out ready for use to the various jobs. Sawkins, or some other of the light-weights, generally carry the heavier lots of colour or scaffolding, but the smaller lots of colour, or such things as a pair of steppes or a painter's plank, were usually sent by the boy, whose slender legs had become quite bold since he had been engaged helping the other philanthropists to make money from Mr. Rushton. Crass's work as colour-man was simplified, to a certain extent, by the great number of specially prepared paints and the stempers in all colours, supplied by the manufacturers ready for use. Most of these newfangled concoctions were regarded with an eye of suspicion and dislike by the hands, and Philpott voiced a general opinion about them one day during a dinner-hour discussion, when he said that they might appear to be all right for a time, but they would probably not last because they were mostly made of chemicals. Most of these new-fashioned paints was called petrifying liquid, and was used for first-coating decaying stone or plaster work. It was also supposed to be used for thinning up a certain kind of patent stemper, but when misery found out that it was possible to thin the latter with water, the use of petrifying liquid for that purpose was discontinued. This petrifying liquid was a source of much merriment to the hands. The name was applied to the tea that they made in buckets on some of the jobs, and also to the forail that was supplied by certain pubs. One of the new inventions was regarded with a certain amount of indignation by the hands. It was a white enamel, and they objected to it for two reasons. One was because, as Philpott remarked, it dried so quickly that you had to work like greased lightning. You had to be all over the door directly you started it. The other reason was that because it dried so quickly, it was necessary to keep closed the doors and windows of the room where it was being used, and the smell was so awful that it brought on fits of dizziness and sometimes vomiting. Needless to say, the fact that it compelled those who used it to work quickly recommended this stuff to misery. As for the smell, he did not care about that. He did not have to inhale the fumes himself. It was just about this time that crass, after due consultation with several of the others, including Philpott, Harlow, Bundy, Slime, Easton and the Semi-Drunk, decided to call a meeting of the hands for the purpose of considering the advisability of holding the usual beano later on in the summer. The meeting was held in the carpenter's shop down at the yard one evening at six o'clock, which allowed time for those interested to attend after leaving work. The hands sat on the benches or carpenter's stools or reclined upon heaps of shavings. Some a pair of trestles in the centre of the workshop stood a large oak coffin which crass had just finished polishing. When all those who were expected to turn up had arrived, Payne, the foreman carpenter, the man who made the coffins, was voted to the chair on the proposition of crass, seconded by Philpott, and then a solemn silence ensued which was broken at last by the chairman, who, in a lengthy speech, explained the object of the meeting. Usually with a laudable desire that there should be no mistake about it, he took the trouble to explain several times, going over the same ground and repeating the same words over and over again, whilst the audience waited in a death-like and miserable silence for him to leave off. Payne, however, did not appear to have any intention of leaving off, for he continued like a man in a trance to repeat what he had said before, seeming to be under the impression that he had to make a separate explanation to each individual member of the audience. At last the crowd could stand it no longer, and began to shout, hear, hear, and to bang bits of wood and hammers on the floor and the benches, and then, after a final repetition of the statement, that the object of the meeting was to consider the advisability of holding an outing, or bean-feast, the chairman collapsed onto a carpenter's stool and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Crass then reminded the meeting that last year's bino had been an unqualified success, and for his part he would be very sorry if they did not have one this year. Last year they had four breaks, and they went to Tuberton Village. It was true that there was nothing much to see at Tuberton, but there was one thing that they could rely on getting there that they could not be sure of getting for the same money anywhere else, and that was a good feed. Applauds! Just for the sake of getting on with the business, he would propose that they decide to go to Tuberton, and that a committee be appointed to make arrangements about their dinner, with the landlord of the Queen Elizabeth's head at that place. Philpott seconded the motion, and Payne was about to call for a show of hands when Harlow rose to a point of order. It appeared to him that they were getting on a bit too fast. The proper way to do this business was first to take the feeling of the meeting as to whether they wished to have a bino at all, and then, if the meeting was in favour of it, they could decide where they were to go, and whether they would have a whole day or only a half day. The semi-drunk said that he didn't care a dreadful expression where they went. He was willing to abide by the decision of the majority. Applauds! It was a matter of indifference to him whether they had a day or a half day or two days. He was agreeable to anything. Easton suggested that a special saloon carriage might be engaged, and they could go and visit Madame Tussaud's wax-works. He had never been to that place and had often wished to see it, but Philpot objected that if they went there, Madame Tussaud's might be unwilling to let them out again. Bundy endorsed the remarks that had fallen from crass with reference to Toberton. He did not care where they went. They would never get such a good spread for the money as they did last year at the Queen Elizabeth. Cheers! The chairman said that he remembered the last bino very well. They had half a day left off work on Saturday at twelve instead of one, so there was only one hour's wages lost. They went home, had a wash, and changed their clothes. They got up to the cricketers where the brakes was waiting at one. Then they had a two hours' drive to Toberton, stopping on the way for drinks at the Blue Lion, the Warrior's Head, the Burden Hand, the Dew Drop Inn, and the Whirl turned upside down. Applauds! They arrived at the Queen Elizabeth at three thirty, and the dinner was ready, and it was one of the finest blow-outs he had ever had. Here, here! There were soup, vegetables, roast beef, roast mutton, lamb, and mint sauce, plum duff, Yorkshire, and a lot more. The landlord of the Elizabeth kept as good a drop of beer as anyone could wish to drink, and as for the tea-totalers, they could have tea, coffee, or ginger beer. Having thus made another start, Payne found it very difficult to leave off, and he was proceeding to relate further details of the last binoe, when Harlow again rose up from his heap of shavings, and said he wished to call the chairman to order. Here, here! What the hell was the use of all this discussion before they had even decided to have a binoe at all? Was the meeting in favour of a binoe or not? That was the question. A prolonged and awkward silence followed. Everyone was very uncomfortable, looking stolidly on the ground or staring straight in front of them. At last Easton broke the silence, by suggesting that it would not be a bad plan if someone was to make a motion that a binoe be held. This was agreed with a general murmur of here, here, followed by another awkward pause, and then the chairman asked Easton if he would move a resolution to that effect. After some hesitation, Easton agreed, and formally moved, that this meeting is in favour of a binoe. The semi-drunk said that in order to get on with the business, he would second the resolution. But meantime several arguments had broken out between the advocates of different places, and several men began to relate anecdotes of previous binos. Nearly everyone was speaking at once, and it was some time before the chairman was able to put the resolution. Finding it impossible to make his voice heard above the uproar, he began to hammer on the bench with a wooden mallet and to shout requests for order. But this only served to increase the din. Some of them looked at him curiously and wondered what was the matter with him. But the majority were so interested in their own arguments that they did not notice him at all. Whilst the chairman was trying to get the attention of the meeting in order to put the question, Bundy had become involved in an argument with several of the new hands who claimed to know of an even better place than the Queen Elizabeth. A pub called The New Found Out at Mirkfield, a few miles further on than Toberton, and another individual joined in the dispute, alleging that a house called The Three Lagerheads at Slushton-come-Dry-Ditch was the finest place for a bino within a hundred miles of Mugsborough. He went there last year with Pushum and Driver's crowd, and they had roast beef, goose, jam-tarts, mince pies, sardines, blamange, calves, feet, jelly, and one pint for each man was included in the cost of the dinner. In the middle of the discussion they noticed that most of the others were holding up their hands, so to show that there was no ill feeling, they held up theirs also, and then the chairman declared that it was carried unanimously. Bundy said he would like to ask the chairman to read out the resolution which had just been passed, as he had not caught the words. The chairman replied that there was no written resolution. The motion was just to express the feeling of this meeting as to whether there was to be an outing or not. Bundy said he was only asking a civil question, a point of information. All he wanted to know was what was the terms of the resolution. Was they in favour of the bino or not? The chairman responded that the meeting was unanimously in favour. Applauds. Harlow said that the next thing to be done was to decide upon the date. Crass suggested the last Saturday in August. That would give them plenty of time to pay in. Salkins asked whether it was proposed to have a day or only half a day. He himself was in favour of the whole day. It would only mean losing a morning's work. It was hardly worth going at all if they only had half a day. The semi-drunk remarked that he had just thought of a very good place to go if they decided to have a change. Three years ago he was working for Dobber and Botchett, and they went to the first inn and the last out at Bashford. It was a very small place, but there was a field where you could have a game of cricket or football, and their dinner was A-1 at Lloyds. There was also a skittle alley attached to the pub, and no charge was made for the use of it. There was a bit of a river there, and one of the chaps got so drunk that he went off his onion and jumped into the water, and when they got him out the village policeman locked him up, and the next day he was took before the beak and fined £2 or a month's hard labour for trying to commit suicide. Easton pointed out that there was another way to look at it. Supposing they decided to have the beano, he supposed it would come to about six shillings ahead. If they had it at the end of August and started paying in now, say a tanner a week, they would have plenty of time to make up the amount, but supposing the work fell off and some of them got the push. Crass said that in that case a man could either have his money back, or he could leave it and continue his payments, even if he were working for some other firm. The fact that he was off from Rushtons would not prevent him from going to the beano. Harlow proposed that they decide to go to the Queen Elizabeth the same as last year, and that they have half a day. Philpott said that in order to get on with the business he would second the resolution. Bundy suggested, as an amendment, that it should be a whole day, starting from the cricketer at nine in the morning, and Sorkin said that in order to get on with the business he would second the amendment. One of the new hands said he wished to move another amendment. He proposed to strike out the Queen Elizabeth and substitute the three loggerheads. The chairman, after a pause, inquired if there were any seconder to this, and the semi-drunk said that although he did not care much where they went, still to get on with the business he would second the amendment, although for his own part he would prefer to go to the first inn and last out at Batchford. The new hand offered to withdraw his suggestion, read the three loggerheads in favour of the semi-drunk's proposition, but the latter said it didn't matter. It could go as it was. As it was getting rather late several men went home, and cries of, put the question, began to be heard on all sides. The chairman, accordingly, was proceeding to put Harlow's proposition, when the new hand interrupted him by pointing out that it was his duty as chairman to put the amendment first. This produced another long discussion, in the course of which a very tall, thin man who had a harsh metallic voice gave a long rambling lecture about the rules of order and conduct of public meetings. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, using very long words and dealing with the subject in an exhaustive manner. A resolution was a resolution, and an amendment was an amendment. Then there was what he called an amendment to an amendment. The procedure of the House of Commons differed very materially from that of the House of Lords, and so on. This man kept on talking for about ten minutes. He might have continued for ten hours if he had not been rudely interrupted by Harlow, who said that it seemed to him that they were likely to stay there all night if they went on like they were going. He wanted his tea, and he would also like to get a few hours sleep before having to resume work in the morning. He was getting about sick of all this talk. Hear, hear. In order to get on with the business, he would withdraw his resolution if the others would withdraw their amendments. If they would agree to this, he would then propose another resolution which, if carried, would meet all the requirements of the case. Applause. The man with a metallic voice observed that it was not necessary to ask the consent of those who had moved amendments. If the original proposition was withdrawn, all the amendments fell to the ground. Hear, observed crass. When we was going out of the room after we had finished our dinner at the Queen Elizabeth, the landlord pointed to the table and said, There's enough left over for you all to have another lot. Cheers! Harlow said that he would move, that it be held on the last Saturday in August, that it be for half a day, starting at one o'clock, so that they could work up till twelve, which would mean that they would only have to lose one hour's pay, that they go to the same place as last year, the Queen Elizabeth. Hear, hear. That the same committee that acted last year, crass and Bundy, be appointed to make all the arrangements and collect the subscriptions. Applause. The tall man observed that this was what was called a compound resolution, and was proceeding to explain further when the chairman exclaimed that it did not matter a damn what it was called. Would any one second it? The semi-drunk said that he would in order to get on with the business. Bundy moved, and so consented as an amendment that it should be a whole day. The new hand moved to substitute the loggerheads for the Queen Elizabeth. Eastern proposed to substitute Madame Tussaud's wax-works for the Queen Elizabeth. He said he moved this just to test the feelings of the meeting. Harlow pointed out that it would cost at least a pound ahead to defray the expenses of such a trip, the railway fares, the tram fares in London, meals, for it would be necessary to have a whole day, and other incidental expenses to say nothing of the loss of wages. It would not be possible for any of them to save the necessary amount during the next four months. Here, here! Philpot repeated his warning as to the dangers of visiting Madame Tussaud's. He was certain that if she once got him in there, she would never let them out again. He had no desire to pass the rest of his life as an image in a museum. One of the new hands, a man with a red tie, said that they would look well, after having been soaked for a month or two in petrifying liquid, chained up in the chamber of horrors with labels round their necks, specimens of liberal and conservative upholers of the capitalist system, 20th century. Crass protested against the introduction of politics into that meeting. Here, here! The remarks of the last speakers were most uncalled for. Easton said that he would withdraw his amendment. Acting under the directions of the man with the metallic voice, the chairman now proceeded to put the amendment to the vote. Bundy's proposal that it should be a whole day was defeated, including himself, Sorkin's, and the semi-drunk being in favour. The motion to substitute the loggerheads for the Queen Elizabeth was also defeated, and the compound resolution proposed by Harlow was then carried, Nem Conn. Philpott now proposed a hearty vote of thanks to the chairman, for the very able manner in which he had conducted the meeting. When this had been unanimously agreed to, the semi-drunk moved a similar tribute of gratitude to Crass for his services to the cause and the meeting dispersed. During the early part of May the weather was exceptionally bad, with bitterly cold winds. Rain fell nearly every day, covering the roads with a slush that penetrated the rotten leather of the cheaper second-hand boots worn by the workmen. This weather had the effect of stopping nearly all outside work, and also caused a lot of illness, for those who were so fortunate as to have inside jobs, frequently got wet through on their way to work in the morning, and had to work all day in damp clothing and with their boots saturated with water. It was also a source of trouble to those of the men who had allotments, because if it had been fine they would have been able to do something to their gardens while they were out of work. Newman had not succeeded in getting a job at the trade since he came out of prison, but he tried to make a little money by hawking bananas. Philpott, when he was at work, used often to buy a tanners or a bobsworth from him, and give them to Mrs. Lyndon's children. On Saturdays, old Joe used to wailay these children and buy them bags of cakes at the baker's. One week, when he knew that Mrs. Lyndon had not much work to do, he devised a very cunning scheme to help her. He had been working with slime, who was papering a large boarded ceiling in a shop. It had to be covered with unbleached calico before it could be papered, and when the work was done there were a number of narrow pieces of calico left over. These he collected and tore into strips about six inches wide, which he took round to Mrs. Lyndon and asked her to sew them together end to end, so as to make one long strip. Then this long strip had to be cut into four pieces of equal length, and the edges sewn together in such a manner that it would form a long tube. Philpott told her that it was required for some work that Rushton's were doing, and said he had undertaken to get the sewing done. The firm would have to pay for it so she could charge a good price. You see, he said with a wink, this is one of these jobs where we get a chance to get some of our own back. Mary thought it was a rather strange sort of a job, but she did as Philpott erected, and when he came for the stuff and asked how much it was, she said three pence. It had only taken about half an hour. Philpott ridiculed this. It was not nearly enough. They were not supposed to know how long it would take. It ought to be a bob at the very least, so after some hesitation she made out a bill for that amount on a half sheet of note-paper. He brought her the money the next Saturday afternoon and went off chuckling to himself over the success of the scheme. It did not occur to him until the next day that he might just as well have got her to make an apron or two, and when he did think of this, he said that after all it didn't matter, because if he had done that it would have been necessary to buy new calico, and anyhow it could be done some other time. One did not make his fortune out of the bananas, sell them more than two shillings a day, and consequently he was very glad when Philpott called at his house one evening and told him there was a chance of a job at Rushton's. Newman accordingly went to the yard the next morning, taking his apron and blouse and his bag of tools with him, ready to start work. He got there about a quarter to six, and was waiting outside when Hunter arrived. The latter was secretly very glad to see him, for there was a rush of work in, and they were short of men. He did not let disappear, of course, but hesitated for a few minutes when Rushton repeated the usual formula. Any chance of a job, sir? We wasn't at all satisfied which at the last time he was on you now, said misery. Still, I don't mind giving you another chance, but if you want to hold on to your job, you'll have to move yourself a bit quicker than you did before. Towards the end of the month things began to improve all round. The weather became finer and more settled. As time went on the improvement was maintained and nearly everyone was employed. Rushton's were so busy that they took on several other old hands who had been sacked the previous year for being too slow. Thanks to the influence of crass, Easton was now regarded as one of the regular hands. He had recently resumed the practice of spending some of his evenings at the cricketers. It is probable that even if it had not been for his friendship with crass, he would still have continued to frequent the public house, for things were not very comfortable at home now. Somehow or other, Ruth and he seemed to be always quarrelling, and he was satisfied that it was not always his fault. Sometimes after a day's work was over he would go home resolved to be good friends with her. He would plan on his way homewards to suggest to her that they should have their tea and then go out for a walk with the child. Once or twice she agreed, but on each occasion they quarrelled before they got home again. So after a time he gave up trying to be friends with her, and went out by himself every evening as soon as he had had his tea. Mary Linden, who was still lodging with them, could not help perceiving their unhappiness. She frequently noticed that Ruth's eyes were red and swollen as if with crying, and she gently sought to gain her confidence but without success. On one occasion when Mary was trying to advise her, Ruth burst into a terrible fit of weeping. But she would not say what was the cause except that her head was aching. She was not well. That was all. Sometimes Easton passed the evening at the cricketers but frequently he went over to the allotments where Harlow had a plot of ground. Harlow used to get up about four o'clock in the morning and put in an hour or so at his garden before going to work, and every evening as soon as he had finished tea he used to go there again and work till it was dark. Sometimes he did not go home to tea at all but went straight from work to the garden, and his children used to bring his tea to him there in a glass bottle with something to eat in a little basket. He had four children, none of whom were yet old enough to go to work, and as may be imagined he found it a pretty hard struggle to live. It was not a tea-totaler, but as he often remarked that the publicans got from him wouldn't make them very fat, for he often went for weeks together without tasting the stuff except a glass or two with a Sunday dinner, which he did not regard as an unnecessary expense, because it was almost as cheap as tea or coffee. Fortunately his wife was a good needle-woman, and was a sober and industrious as himself, but didn't have slaving incessantly from morning till night she managed to keep her home fairly comfortable, and the children clean and decently dressed. They always looked so respectable, although they did not always have enough proper food to eat. They looked so respectable that none of the visiting ladies ever regarded them as deserving cases. Harlow paid fifteen shillings a year for his plot of ground, and although it meant a lot of hard work, it was also a source of pleasure, and some profit. He generally made a few shillings out of the flowers besides having enough potatoes and other vegetables to last them nearly all the year. Sometimes Easton went over to the allotments, and then Harlow a hand with his gardening work. But whether he went there or to the cricketers he usually returned home about half past nine, and then went straight to bed, often without speaking a single word to Ruth, who, for her part, seldom spoke to him except to answer something he said, or to ask some necessary question. At first Easton used to think that it was all because of the way he had behaved to her in the public house, but when he apologized, as he did several times, and begged her to forgive him and forget about it, she always said that it was all right, that there was nothing to forgive. Then, after a time, he began to think it was on account of their poverty and the loss of their home, for nearly all their furniture had been sold during the last winter. But whenever he talked to her of trying to buy some more things, to make the place comfortable again, she did not appear to take any interest, and the house was needy enough as it was, they could manage very well, she said indifferently. One evening, about the middle of June, when he had been over to the allotments, Easton brought her home a bunch of flowers that Harlow had given him, some red and white roses with some pansies. When he came in, Ruth was packing his food basket for the next day. The baby was asleep in its cot on the floor near the window. Although it was nearly nine o'clock, the lamp had not yet been lighted, and the mournful twilight that entered the room through the open window increased the desolation of its appearance. The fire had burnt itself out and the grate was filled with ashes. On the hearth was an old rug made of jute that had once been printed in bright colors, which had faded away till the whole surface had become almost uniformly drab, showing scarcely any trace of the original pattern. The rest of the floor was bare except for two or three pieces of old carpet that Ruth had bought for a few pence at different times at some inferior second-hand shop. The chairs and the table were almost the only things that were left of the original furniture of the room, and except for three or four plates of different patterns and sizes and a few cups and saucers, the shelves of the dresser were bare. The stillness of the atmosphere was disturbed only by the occasional sound of the wheels of a passing vehicle and the strangely distinct voices of some children who were playing in the street. I brought you these, said Ethan, offering her the flowers. I thought you'd like them. I got them from Harlow. You know I've been helping them a little with this garden. At first he thought she did not want to take them. She was standing at the table with her back to the window, so that he was unable to see the expression on her face, and she hesitated for a moment, before she faltered out some words of thanks and took the flowers which she put down on the table, almost as soon as she touched them. Offended at what he considered her contemptuous indifference, Ethan made no further attempt at conversation, but went to the scullery to wash his hands, and then went up to bed. On stairs, for a long time after he was gone, Ruth sat alone by the fireless grate, in the silence and the gathering shadows, holding the bunch of flowers in her hand, living over again the events of the last year, and consumed with an agony of remorse. The presence of Mary Linden and the two children in the house probably saved Ruth from being more unhappy than she was. Little Elsie had made an arrangement with her to be allowed to take the baby out for walks, and in return Ruth did Elsie's house work. As for Mary, she had not much time to do anything but so, almost the only relaxation she knew being when she took the work home, and on Sunday, which she usually devoted to a general clean-up of the room and to mending the children's clothes. Sometimes on Sunday evening she used to go with Ruth and the children to see Mrs. Owen, who, although she was not ill enough to stay in bed, seldom went out of the house. She had never really recovered from the attack of illness which was brought on by her work at the boarding-house. The doctor had been to see her once or twice, and had prescribed rest. She was to lie down as much as possible, not to do any heavy work, not to carry or lift any heavy articles, scrub floors, make beds, or anything of that sort. She was to take plenty of nourishing food, beef tea, chicken, a little wine, and so on. She did not suggest a trip round the world, an esteem yacht, or a visit to Switzerland. Perhaps she thought they might not be able to afford it. Sometimes she was so ill that she had to observe one at least of the doctor's instructions, to lie down, and then she would worry and fret because she was not able to do the housework, and because Owen had to prepare his own tea when he came home at night. On one of these occasions it would have been necessary for Owen to stay at home from work, if it had not been for Mrs. Stanton, who came for several days in succession to look after her, and to attend to the house. Unfortunately, Owen's health was better since the weather had become warmer. For a long time, after the attack of hemorrhage he had while writing the show card, he used to dread going to sleep at night for fear it should occur. He had heard of people dying in their sleep from that cause. But this terror gradually left him, nor knew nothing of what had occurred that night. To have told her would have done no good, but on the contrary would have caused her a lot of useless anxiety. Sometimes he doubted whether it was right not to tell her, but as time went by and his health continued to improve he was glad he had said nothing about it. Frankie had lately resumed his athletic exercises with a flat iron. His strength was returning since Owen had been working regularly, because he had been having his porridge and milk again, and also some parish food which a chemist at Windley was selling large bottles of for his shilling. He used to have what he called a party two or three times a week, with Elsie, Charlie and Easton's baby as the guests. Sometimes if Mrs. Owen was not well, Elsie used to stay in with her after tea and do some housework whilst the boys went out to play. But more frequently the four children used to go together to the park to play or sail boats on the lake. Once one of the boats was becalmed about a couple of yards from shore and while trying to reach it with a stick Frankie fell into the water, and when Charlie tried to drag him out he also fell in. Elsie put the baby down on the bank and seized hold of Charlie and while she was trying to get him out the baby began rolling down, and would probably have tumbled in as well if a man who happened to be passing by had not rushed up in time to prevent it. Fortunately the water at that place was only about two feet deep, so the boys were not much the worse for their ducking. They returned home wet through, smothered with mud and feeling very important like boys who had distinguished themselves. After this, whenever she could manage to spare the time, Ruth Easton used to go with the boys to the park. There was a kind of summer house near the shore of the lake, only a few feet away from the water's edge, surrounded and shaded by trees whose branches arched over the path and drooped down to the surface of the water. While the children played, Ruth used to sit in this arbor and go, but often her work was neglected and forgotten, as she gazed pensively at the water, which just there looked very still and dark and deep, for it was sheltered from the wind and overshadowed by the trees that lined up banks at the end of the lake. Sometimes if it happened to be raining, instead of going out, the children used to have some games in the house. On one such occasion, Frankie produced a flat iron and went through the exercise, and Charlie had a go as well, but although he was slightly older and taller than Frankie, he could not lift the iron so often or hold it out so long as the other, a failure that Frankie attributed to the fact that Charlie had too much tea and bread and butter, instead of porridge and milk and parachute. Charlie was so upset about his lack of strength that he arranged with Frankie to come home with him the next day after school to see his mother about it. Mrs. Linden had a flat iron, so they gave a demonstration of their respective powers before her. Mrs. Easton, also being present, by request, because Frankie said that the diet and question was suitable for babies as well as big children. He had been brought up on it ever since he could remember, and it was almost as cheap as bread and butter and tea. The result of the exhibition was that Mrs. Linden promised to make porridge for Charlie and Elsie whenever she could spare the time, and Mrs. Easton said that she would try it on the baby also. CHAPTER 43 All through the summer the crowd of ragged trousered philanthropists continue to toil and sweat at their noble and unselfish task of making money from Mr. Rushton. Painting the outside of houses and shops, washing off and destempering ceilings, stripping old wallpaper off walls, painting and papering rooms and staircases, building new rooms or other additions to old houses or business premises, digging up old drains, repairing leaky roofs and broken windows. Their zeal and enthusiasm and the good cause was unbounded. They were supposed to start work at six o'clock, but most of them were usually to be found waiting outside the job at about a quarter to that hour, sitting on the curb-stone or the doorstep. Their operations extended all over the town. At all hours of the day there were seen to be either going or returning from jobs, carrying ladders, planks, pots of paint, pales of whitewash, earthenware, chimney-pots, drain-pipes, lengths of guttering, closet-pans, grates, bundles of wallpaper, buckets of paste, sacks of cement, and loads of bricks and mortar. Quite a common spectacle for gods and men was a procession consisting of a hand-card loaded up with such materials being pushed or dragged through the public streets by about half a dozen of these imperialists in broken boots, and with battered, stained, discoloured bowler hats, or caps splashed with paint and whitewash. Their stand-up collars, dirty, limp and crumpled, and their rotten second-hand misfit clothing saturated with sweat and plastered with mortar. Even the assistants in the grocers and draper shops laughed and ridiculed and pointed the finger of scorn at them as they passed. The superior classes, those who do nothing, regarded them as a sort of lower animal. A letter appeared in the obscura one week from one of these well-dressed loafers, complaining of the annoyance caused to the better-class visitor by workmen walking on the pavement as they passed along the grand parade in the evening on their way home from work, and suggesting that they should walk in the roadway. When they heard of the letter, a lot of the workmen adopted the suggestion and walked in the road so as to avoid contaminating the idlers. This letter was followed by others of a somewhat similar kind, and one or two written in a patronising strain in defence of the working classes by persons who evidently knew nothing about them. There was also a letter from an individual who signed himself Morpheus, complaining that he was often awakened out of his beauty-steep in the middle of the night by the clattering noise of the workmen's boots as they passed his house on their way to work in the morning. Morpheus wrote that not only did they make a dreadful noise with the horrible iron-clad boots, but they were in the habit of coughing and spitting a great deal which was very unpleasant to hear, and they conversed in loud tones. Sometimes their conversation was not at all edifying, for it consisted largely of bad language, which Morpheus assumed to be attributable to the fact that they were out of temper because they had to rise so early. As a rule they worked till half-past five in the evening, and by the time they reached home it was six o'clock. When they had taken their evening meal and had a wash it was nearly eight. About nine most of them went to bed so as to be able to get up about half-past four the next morning to make a cup of tea before leaving home at half-past five to go to work again. Frequently it happened that they had to leave home earlier than this because their job was more than half an hour's walk away. It did not matter how far away the job was from the shop. The men had to walk to and fro in their own time, for trade union rules were a dead letter in Mugsborough. There were no tram-fairs or train-fairs or walking-time allowed for the likes of them. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of them did not believe in such things as those. They had much more sense than to join trade unions. On the contrary, they believed in placing themselves entirely at the mercy of their good, kind, liberal and Tory masters. Very frequently it happened when only a few men were working together that it was not convenient to make tea for breakfast or dinner, and then some of them brought tea with them, ready-made in bottles, and drank it cold. But most of them went to the nearest pub and ate their food there with a glass of beer. Even those who would rather have had tea or coffee had beer because if they went to a temperance restaurant or a coffee tavern, it generally happened that they were not treated very civilly, unless they bought something to eat as well as to drink, and the tea at such places was really dearer than beer, and the latter certainly was quite as good a drink as the stewed tea or the liquid mud that was sold as coffee at cheap workmen's eating-houses. There were some men who were, as they thought, exceptionally lucky. The firms they worked for were busy enough to let them work two hours overtime every night till half past seven without stopping for tea. Most of these arrived home about eight, completely flattened out. Then they had some tea and a wash, and before they knew where they were it was about half past nine. Then they went to sleep again till half past four or five the next morning. They were usually so tired when they got home at night that they never had any inclination for study or any kind of self-improvement, even if they had had the time. They had plenty of time to study during the winter, and their favourite subject then was how to preserve themselves from starving to death. This overtime, however, was the exception, for although in former years it had been the almost invariable rule to work till half past seven in summer, most of the firms now made a practice of ceasing work at five-thirty. The revolution which had taken place in this matter was a favourite topic of conversation amongst the men who spoke regretfully of the glorious past when things were busy, and they used to work fifteen, sixteen, or even eighteen hours a day. But nowadays there were nearly as many chapters of work in the summer as in the winter. They used to discuss the causes of the change. One was, of course, the fact that there was not so much building going on as formally, and another was the speeding up of the slave-driving, and the manner in which the work was now done are rather scamped. As old Philpot said he could remember the time, when he was a nipper, when such a job as that of the cave would have lasted at least six months, and they would have had more hands on it, too. But it would have been done properly, not messed up like it was. All the woodwork would have been rubbed down with pumice-stone and water, all the knots cut out and the holes properly filled up, and the work properly rubbed down with glass-paper between every coat. But nowadays the only place you see a bit of pumice-stone was in a glass case in the museum, with a label on it, pumice-stone, formally used by house-painters. Most of them spoke of the bygone times with poignant regret, but there were a few, generally fellows, who had been contaminated by contact with socialists, or whose characters had been warped and degraded by the perusal of socialist literature, who said that they did not desire to work overtime at all. Ten hours a day were quite enough for them. In fact, they would rather do only eight. What they wanted, they said, was not more work, but more grub, more clothes, more leisure, and more pleasure and better homes. They wanted to be able to go for country walks or bicycle rides, to go out fishing, or to go to the seaside and bathe and lie on the beach and so forth. But these were only a very few. There were not many so selfish as this. The majority desired nothing but to be allowed to work, and as for their children, why, what was good enough for themselves ought to be good enough for their kids. They often said that such things as leisure, culture, pleasure, and the benefits of civilisation were never intended for the likes of us. They did not all actually say this, but that was what their conduct amounted to, for they not only refused to help to bring about a better state of things for their children, but they ridiculed and opposed and cursed and abused those who were trying to do it for them. The foulest words that came out of their mouths were directed against the men of their own class in the House of Commons, the labour members, and especially the socialists, whom they spoke of as fellows who were too bloody lazy to work for a living and who wanted the working classes to keep them. Some of them said that they did not believe in helping their children to become anything better than their parents had been, because in such cases the children, when they grew up, looked down upon and were ashamed of their fathers and mothers. They seemed to think that if they loved and did their duty to their children, the probability was that the children would prove ungrateful, as if even if that were true, it would be any excuse for their indifference. Another cause of the shortage of work was the intrusion into the trade of so many outsiders, fellows like Salkins and the other lightweights. Whatever other causes there were, there could be no doubt that the hurrying and scamping was a very real one. Every job had to be done at once, as if it were a matter of life or death, it must be finished by a certain time. If the job was an empty house, misery's yarn was that it was let, and the people were coming at the end of the week. Therefore everything must be finished by Wednesday night. All the ceilings had to be washed off, the walls stripped and repapered, and two coats of paint inside and outside the house. New drains were to be put in, and all broken windows and locks and broken plaster repaired. A number of men, usually about half as many as there should have been, would be sent to do the work, and one man was put in charge of the job. These sub-formen or coddies knew that if they made their jobs pay, they would be put in charge of others and be kept on in preference to other men as long as the firm had any work. So they helped misery to scheme and scamp the work, and watched and drove the men under their charge, and these latter poor wretches, knowing that their only chance of retaining their employment was to tear into it, tore into it like so many maniacs. Instead of cleaning any parts of the woodwork that were greasy or very dirty, they brushed them over with a coat of spirit varnish before painting, to make sure that the paint would dry. Places where the plaster of the walls was damaged were repaired with what was humorously called garden cement, which was the technical term for dirt out of the garden, and the surface was skimmed over with proper material. Ceilings that were not very dirty were not washed off but dusted and lightly gone over with a thin coat of whitewash. The old paper was often left upon the walls of rooms that were supposed to be stripped before being repapered, and to conceal this the joints of the old paper were rubbed down so that they should not be perceptible through the new paper. As far as possible misery and the subforman avoided doing the work the customers paid for, and even what little they did was hurried over anyhow. A reign of terror, the terror of the sack, prevailed on all jobs which were carried on to the accompaniment of a series of alarm and excursions. No man felt safe for a moment. At the most unexpected times misery would arrive and rush like a whirlwind all over the job. If he happened to find a man having a spell the culprits was immediately discharged, but he did not get the opportunity of doing this very often, for everybody was too terrified to leave off working even for a few minutes' rest. From the moment of Hunter's arrival until his departure a state of panic, hurry, scurry, and turmoil reigned. This strident voice rang through the house as he bellowed out to them to rowse themselves. Get it done! Smear it on anyhow! Tire it over. We've got another job to start when you've done this." Occasionally, just to keep the others up to concert pitch, he used to sack one of the men for being too slow. They all trembled before him and ran about whenever he spoke to or called them, because they knew that there was always a lot of other men out of work who would be willing and eager to fill their places if they got the sack. Although it was now summer, and the Distress Committee and all the other committees had suspended operations, there was still always a large number of men hanging about the vicinity of the fountain on the parade, the wage-slave market. When men finished up for the firm they were working for, they usually made for that place. Any master in want of a wage-slave for a few hours, days, or weeks, could always buy one there. The men knew this, and they also knew that as they got the sack from one firm it was no easy matter to get another job, and that was why they were terrified. When misery was gone, to repeat the same performance at some other job, the sub-formant would have a crawl round to see how the chaps were getting on, to find out if they had used the ball in their paint yet, or to bring them some putty so that they should not have to leave their work to go to get anything themselves, and then very often Lushton himself would come and stalk quietly about the house or stand silently behind the men, watching them as they worked. He seldom spoke to anyone, but just stood there like a graven image, or walk about like a dumb animal, a pig, as the men used to say. This individual had a very exalted idea of his own importance and dignity. One man got the sack for presuming to stop him in the street, to ask some question about some work that was being done. Misery went round to all the jobs the next day, and told all the coddies to tell all the hands that they were never to speak to Mr. Lushton if they met him in the street, and the following Saturday the man who had so offended was given his back day, ostensibly because there was nothing for him to do, but really for the reason stated above. There was one job, the outside of a large house that stood an elevated ground overlooking the town. The men who were working there were even more than unusually uncountable, for it was said that Lushton used to sit in his office and watched them through a telescope. Sometimes when it was really necessary to get a job done by a certain time they had to work late, perhaps till eight or nine o'clock. No time was allowed for tea, but some of them brought sufficient food with them in the morning to enable them to have a little about six o'clock in the evening. Others arranged for their children to bring them some tea from home. As a rule they partook of this without stopping work. They had it on the floor beside them, and ate and drank, and worked at the same time, a paintbrush full of white lead in one hand, and a piece of bread and margarine in the other. On some jobs, if the coddy happened to be a decent sort, they posted a sentry to look out for Hunter or Lushton while the others knocked off for a few minutes to snatch a mouthful of grub. But it was not always safe to do this, for there was often some crawling sneak with an ambition to become a coddy, who would not scruple to curry favour with misery by reporting the crime. As an additional precaution against the possibility of any of the men idling or wasting their time, each one was given a timesheet on which he was required to account for every minute of the day. The form of these sheets vary slightly with different firms. That of Lushton and Co. was shown. One Monday morning misery gave each of the sub-form and an envelope containing one of the firm's memorandum forms. Crass opened his, and found the following. Crass, when you are on a job with men under you, check and initial their timesheets every night. If they are called away and sent to some other job or stood off, check and initial their timesheets as they leave your job. Any man coming on your job during the day, you must take a note of the exact time of his arrival, and see that his sheet is charged right. Any man who is slow or lazy, or any man that you take notice talking more than is necessary during working hours, you must report him to Mr. Hunter. We expect you and the other firmmen to help us carry out these rules, and any information given us about any man is treated in confidence. Lushton and Co. Note, this applies to all men of all trades who come on the jobs of which you are the foreman. Every week the timesheets were scrutinized, and every now and then, a man would be had up on the carpet in the office before Lushton and Misery, and interrogated as to why he had taken fifteen hours to do ten hours' work. In the event of the accused being unable to give a satisfactory explanation of his conduct, he was usually sacked on the spot. Misery was frequently called up on the carpet himself. If he made a mistake in figuring out a job, and gave in too high a tender for it, so that the firm did not get the work, Lushton grumbled. If the price was so low that there was not enough profit, Lushton was very unpleasant about it. And whenever it happened that there was not only no profit, but an actual loss, Lushton created such a terrible disturbance that Misery was nearly frightened to death, and used to get on his bicycle and rush off to the nearest job and howl and bellow at the chaps to get it done. All the time the capabilities of the men, especially with regard to speed, were carefully watched and noted, and whenever there was a slackness of work and it was necessary to discharge some hands, those that were too slow or took too much pains were weeded out. This of course was known to the men, and it had a desired effect upon them. In justice to Lushton and Hunter, it must be remembered that there was a certain amount of excuse for all this driving and cheating, because they had to compete with all the other firms who conducted their business in precisely the same way. It was not their fault, but the fault of the system. A dozen firms tendered for every job, and of course, the lowest tender usually obtained the work. Knowing this, they all cut the price down to the lowest possible figure, and the workmen had to suffer. The trouble was that there were too many masters. It would have been far better for the workmen if nine out of every ten of the employers had never started business. Then the others would have been able to get a better price for their work, and the men might have had better wages and conditions. The hands, however, made no such allowances or excuses as these for misery and Lushton. They never taught or spoke of them except with hatred and curses. But whenever either of them came to the job, the coddies cringed and groveled before them, greeting them with disgustingly servile salutations, plentifully interspersed with the word Saur. Greetings which were frequently either ignored altogether, or answered with an inarticulate grunt. They said, Saur, at nearly every second word, it made one feel sick to hear them, because it was not courtesy, they were never courteous to each other. It was simply abject servility and self-contempt. One of the results of all the frenzied hurrying was that every now and then there was an accident, somebody got hurt, and it was strange that accidents were not more frequent considering the risks that were taken. When they happened to be working on ladders in busy streets, they were often not allowed to have anyone to stand at the foot. And the consequence was that all sorts and conditions of people came into violent collision with the bottom of the ladders. Small boys playing in the reckless manner characteristic of their years rushed up against them. Ehren boys absorbed in the perusal of penny instalments of the adventures of Claude Duval, and carrying large baskets of green groceries wandered into them. Blind men fell foul of them. Adventurous schoolboys climbed up them. People with large feet became entangled in them. Fat persons of both sexes who thought it unlucky to walk underneath tried to negotiate the narrow strip of pavement between the foot of the ladder and the curb, and in their passage knocked up against the ladder and sometimes fell into the road. Nurse-mates wheeling perambulators lolling over the handle, which they usually held with their left hands, the right one holding a copy of orange, blossom, or some hapeny paper, and so interested in the story of the Marquis of Limejuice, a young man of noble presence and fabulous wealth, with a drooping golden moustache and very long legs who, notwithstanding the diabolical machinations of Lady Sybil Malvoise—who loves him as well as a woman with a name like that is capable of loving any one—is determined to wed none other than the scullery made at the village inn, inevitably bashed the perambulators into the ladders. Even when the girls were not reading, they nearly always ran into the ladders, which seemed to possess a magnetic attraction for perambulators and go-carts of all kind. They were propelled by nurses or mothers. Sometimes they would advance very cautiously towards the ladder. Then, when they got very near, hesitate a little whether to go under or run the risk of falling into the street by assaying the narrow passage. Then they would get very close up to the foot of the ladder, and dodge and dance about, and give the little cart pushes from side to side, until at last the magnetic influence exerted itself and the perambulator crashed into the ladder, perhaps at the very moment that the man at the top was stretching out to do some part of the work almost beyond his reach. Once Harlow had just started painting some rain-pipes from the top of a forty-foot ladder, when one of several small boys who were playing in the street ran violently against the foot. Harlow was so startled that he dropped his brushes and clutched wildly at the ladder, which turned completely round and slid about six feet along the parapet, into the angle of the wall, with Harlow hanging beneath by his hands. The paint-pot was hanging by a hook from one of the rungs, and the jerk scattered the brown paint it contained all over Harlow and all over the brickwork of the front of the house. He managed to descend safely by clasping his legs round the sides of the ladder and sliding down. When misery came there was a row about what he called carelessness, and the next day Harlow had to wear his Sunday trousers to work. On another occasion they were painting the outside of a house called Gothic Lodge. At one corner it had a tower surmounted by a spire or steeple, and this steeple terminated with an ornamental wrought iron pinnacle which had to be painted. The ladder they had was not quite long enough, and besides that, as it had to stand in a sort of courtyard at the base of the tower it was impossible to slant it sufficiently. Instead of lying along the roof of the steeple it was sticking up in the air. When Easton went up to paint the pinnacle he had to stand almost on the very top rung of the ladder, to be exact the third from the top, and lean over to steady himself by holding on to the pinnacle with his left hand while he used the brush with his right. As it was only about twenty minutes' work there were two men to hold the foot of the ladder. It was cheaper to do it this way than to rig up a proper scaffold which would have entailed perhaps two hours' work for two or three men. Of course it was very dangerous, but that did not matter at all, because even if the man fell it would make no difference to the firm. All the men were insured and somehow or other, although they frequently had narrow escapes, they did not often come to grief. On this occasion just as Easton was finishing he felt the pinnacle that he was holding on to give way, and he got such a fright that his heart nearly stopped beating. He let go his hold and steadied himself on the ladder as well as he was able, and when he had descended three or four steps to comparative safety he remained clinging convulsively to the ladder, and feeling so limp that he was unable to go down any further for several minutes. When he arrived at the bottom and the others noticed how white and trembling he was, he told them about the pinnacle being loose, and the coddy coming along just then they told him about it and suggested that it should be repaired, as otherwise it might fall down and hurt somebody, but the coddy was afraid that if they reported it there might be blamed for breaking it, and the owner might expect the firm to put it right for nothing, so they decided to say nothing about it. The pinnacle is still on the apex of the steeple, waiting for a sufficiently strong wind to blow it down on somebody's head. When the other men heard of Easton's narrow shave, most of them said that it would have served him bloody well right if he had fallen and broken his neck. He should have refused to go up at all without a proper scaffold. That's what they would have done. If misery or the coddy had ordered any of them to go up and paint the pinnacle off that ladder, they would have chucked their tools down and demanded their haypence. That was what they said, but somehow or other it never happened that any of them ever chucked down their tools at all, although such dangerous jobs were a very frequent occurrence. The scamping business was not confined to houses or properties of an inferior class. It was the general rule. Large good-class houses, villas and mansions, the residences of wealthy people, were done in exactly the same way. Generally in such places costly and beautiful materials were spoiled in the using. There was a large mansion where the interior would work, the doors, window and staircase had to be finished in white enamel. It was rather an old house, and the woodwork needed rubbing down and filling up before being repainted, but of course there was no time for that. So they painted it without properly preparing it. And when it was enameled, the rough uneven surface of the wood looked horrible, but the owner appeared quite satisfied because it was nice and shiny. The dining-room of the same house was papered with a beautiful and expensive plush paper. The ground of this wall hanging was made to imitate crimson-watered silk, and it was covered with a raised pattern in plush of the same colour. The price marked on the back of this paper in the pattern book was eighteen shillings a roll. Slime was paid six months a roll for hanging it. The room took ten rolls, so it cost nine pounds for the paper and five shillings to hang it. To fix such a paper as this properly, the wall should first be done with a plain lining paper of the same colour as the ground of the wallpaper itself, because unless the paper hanger lapsed the joints, which should not be done, they were apt to open a little as the paper dries and to show the white wall underneath. Slime suggested this lining to Misery, who would not entertain the idea for a moment. They had gone to quite enough expenses it was, stripping the old paper off. So Slime went ahead, and as he had to make his wages, he could not spend a great deal of time over it. Some of the joints were lapped, and some were butted, and two or three weeks after the owner of the house moved in, as the paper became more dry, the joints began to open and to show the white plaster of the wall. And then Owen had to go there with a small pot of crimson paint and a little brush and touch out the white line. While he was doing this, he noticed and touched up a number of other faults. Places where Slime, in his haste to get the work done, had slobbered and smeared the face of the paper with finger marks and paste. The same ghastly mess was made of several other jobs besides this one, and presently they adopted the plan of painting strips of colour on the wall in the places where the joints would come, so that if they opened the white wall would not show. But it was found that the paste on the back of the paper dragged the paint off the wall, and when the joints opened the white streaks showed all the same, so misery abandoned all attempts to prevent joints showing, and if a customer complained he sent someone to touch it up. But the lining paper was never used, unless the customer or the architect knew enough about the work to insist upon it. In other parts of the same house the ceilings, the freezes and the dadoes were covered with embossed or relief papers. These hangings require very careful handling, for the raised parts are easily damaged. But the men who fixed them were not allowed to take the pains and time necessary to make good work. Consequently in many places, especially at the joints, the pattern was flattened out and obliterated. The ceiling of the drawing-room was done with a very thick, high relief paper that was made in sheets about two feet square. These squares were not very true in shape. They had evidently warped and drying after manufacture. To make them match anything like properly would need considerable time and care. But the men were not allowed to take the necessary time. The result was that when it was finished it presented a sort of higgledy-piggledy appearance. But it didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter except to get it done. One would think from the way the hands were driven and chivied and hurried over the work. They were being paid five or six shillings an hour instead of as many pence. "'Get it done!' shouted Misery, from morning till night. "'For God's sake, get it done! Haven't you finished yet? We're losing money over this job. If you chaps don't wake up or move a bit quicker, I shall see if I can't get somebody else who will.'" These costly embossed decorations were usually finished in white, but instead of carefully coating them with specially prepared paint of patent distemper, which would need two or three coats, they slathered one thick coat of common whitewash on it with ordinary whitewash brushes. This was a most economical way to get over it. Because it made it unnecessary to stop up the joints beforehand, the whitewash filled up all the cracks, and it also filled up the hollow parts, the crevices and the interstices of the ornament, destroying the sharp outlines of the beautiful designs, and reducing the whole to a lumpy, formless mass. But that did not matter either, so long as they got it done. The architect didn't notice it, because he knew that the more rusted and co-made out of the job, the more he himself would make. The man who had to pay for the work didn't notice it. He had the fullest confidence in the architect. At the risk of wearying the long-suffering listener, mention must be made of an affair that happened at this particular job. The windows were all fitted with Venetian blinds. The gentleman for whom the work was being done had only just purchased the house, but he preferred roller-blinds. He had had roller-blinds in his former residence, which he had just sold, and as these roller-blinds were about the right size, he decided to have them fitted to the windows of the new house. So he instructed Mr. Rushton to have all the Venetian blinds taken down and stored away up in the loft under the roof. Mr. Rushton promised to have this done, but they were not all put away under the roof. He had four of them taken to his own place, and fitted up in the conservatory. They were a little too large, so they had to be narrowed before they were fixed. The sequel was rather interesting, for it happened that when the gentleman attempted to take the roller-blinds from his old house, the person to whom he had sold it refused to allow them to be removed, claiming that when he bought the house he bought the blinds also. There was a little dispute, but eventually it resettled that way, and the gentleman decided that he would have to have the Venetian blinds in his new house after all, and instructed the people who moved his furniture to take the Venetian blinds down again from under the roof, and refixed them, and then, of course, it was discovered that four of the blinds were missing. Mr. Rushton was sent for, and he said that he couldn't understand it at all. The only possible explanation that he could think of was that some of his workmen must have stolen them. He would make inquiries, and endeavour to discover the culprit, but in any case, as this had happened while things were in his charge, if he did not succeed in recovering them, he would replace them. As the blinds had been narrowed to fit the conservatory, he had to have four new ones made. The customer was, of course, quite satisfied, although very sorry for Mr. Rushton. They had a little chat about it. Rushton told the gentleman that he would be astonished if he knew all the facts. The difficulties one has to contend with in dealing with working men. One has to watch them continually. Directly once back his turn they leave off working. They come in late in the morning, and go home before the proper time at night, and then, unless one actually happens to catch them, they charge the full number of hours on their time sheets. Every now and then something would be missing, and of course nobody knew anything about it. Sometimes one would go unexpectedly to a job, and find a lot of them drunk. Of course one tried to cope with these evils by means of rules and restrictions and organisation, but it was very difficult. One could not be everywhere, or have eyes in the back of one's head. The gentleman said that he had some idea of what it was like. There was something to do with the lower orders himself at one time and another, and he knew they needed a lot of watching. Rushton felt rather sick over this affair, but he consoled himself by reflecting that he had got clear away with several valuable rose-trees and other plants which he had stolen out of the garden, and that a ladder which had been discovered in the hay-loft over the stable and taken by his instructions to the yard when the job was finished had not been missed. Another circumstance which helped to compensate for the blinds was that the brass fittings throughout the house, finger-plates, sash-lifts and locks, bolts and door-handles which are supposed to be all new and which the customer had paid a good price for, were really all the old ones which Misery had had re-lackered and re-fixed. There was nothing unusual about this affair of the blinds, for Rushton and Misery robbed everybody. They made a practice of annexing everything they could lay their hands upon, provided it could be done without danger to themselves. They never did anything of a heroic or daredevil character. They had not the courage to break into banks or jewellery shops in the middle of the night, or to go picking pockets. All their robberies were of the sneak-thief order. At one house that they did up Misery made a big hall. He had to get up into the loft under the roof to see what was the matter with the water-tank. When he got up there he found a very fine hall gas-lamp made of wrought brass and copper with stained and painted glass sides. Although covered with dust it was otherwise in perfect condition, so Misery had it taken to his own house and cleaned up and fixed in the hall. In the same loft there was a lot of old brass picture rods and other fittings, and three very good planks, each about ten feet in length. These latter had been placed across the rafter so that one could walk easily and safely over to the tank, but Misery thought they would be very useful to the firm for whitewashing ceilings and other work, so he had them taken to the yard along with the old brass, which was worth about fourpence a pound. There was another house that had to be painted inside. The people who used to live there had only just left. They had moved to some other town, and the house had been re-lit before they vacated it. The new tenant had agreed with the agent that the house was to be renovated throughout before he took possession. The day after the old tenants moved away the agent gave Ruston the key so that he could go and see what was to be done and give an estimate for the work. While Ruston and Misery were looking over the house, they discovered a large barometer hanging on the wall behind the front door. It had been overlooked by those who removed the furniture. Before returning the key to the agent, Ruston sent one of his men to the house for the barometer, which he kept in his office for a few weeks to see if there would be any inquiries about it. If there had been, it would have been easy to say that he had brought it there for safety, to take care of it till he could find the owner. The people to whom it belonged thought the thing had been lost or stolen in transit, and afterwards one of the workmen who had assisted to pack and remove the furniture was dismissed from his employment on suspicion of having had something to do with its disappearance. No one ever thought of Ruston in connection with the matter. So after about a month he had it taken to his own dwelling and hung up on the wall near the carved oak marble-topped console table that he had sneaked last summer from five ninety-six grand parade. And there it hangs unto this day, and close behind it, supported by cords of crimson silk, is a beautifully beveled card about a foot square, and upon this card is written in letters of gold, Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation. And on the other side of the barometer is another card of the same kind and size which says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. From another place they stole two large brass chandeliers. This house had been empty for a very long time, and its owner, who did not reside in the town, wished to sell it. The agent, to improve the chances of a sale, decided to have the house overhauled and redecorated. Ruston and Coase tender being the lowest, they got the work. The chandeliers in the drawing-room and the dining-room were of massive brass, but they were all blackened and tarnished. Coase suggested to the agent that they could be cleaned and relacquered, which would make them equal to new. In fact they would be better than new ones, for such things as these were not made now, and for once, misery was telling the truth. The agent agreed and the work was done. It was an extra, of course, and as the firm got twice as much for the job as they paid for having it done, they were almost satisfied. When this and all the other work was finished, they sent in their account and were paid. Some months afterwards the house was sold, and Nimrod interviewed the new proprietor with the object of securing the order for any work that he might want done. He was successful. The papers on the walls of several of the rooms were not to the new owner's taste, and of course the woodwork would have to be repainted to harmonize with the new paper. There was a lot of other work besides this, a new conservatory to be built, a more modern bath and heating apparatus to be put in, and the electric light to be installed, the new people having an objection to the use of gas. The specifications were prepared by an architect and Rushden secured the work. When the chandeliers were taken down, the men, instructed by misery, put them on a handcart and covered them over with sacks and dust sheets, and took them to the front shop where they were placed for sale with the other stock. When all the work of the house was finished, it occurred to Rushden and Nimrod that when the architect came to examine and pass the work before giving them the certificate, that would enable them to present their account. He might remember the chandeliers and inquire what had become of them. So they were again placed on the handcart covered with sacks and dust sheets, taken back to the house, and put up in the loft under the roof, so that if he asked for them, they were there. The architect came, looked over the house, and passed the work and gave his certificate. He never mentioned or thought of the chandeliers. The owner of the house was present, and asked Rushden for his bill, for which he had once gave them a check, and Rushden and misery almost groveled and wallowed on the ground before him. Throughout the whole interview the architect and the gentleman had kept their hats on, but Rushden and Nimrod had been respectively uncovered all the time, and as they followed the other two about the house, their bearing had been expressive of the most abject servility. When the architect and the owner were gone, the two chandeliers were taken down again from under the roof, and put on a handcart, covered over with sacks and dust sheets, and taken back to the shop, and again placed for sale with the other stock. These are only a few of the petty thefts committed by these people. To give anything approaching a full account, the rest would require a separate volume.