 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION It was considered an intrepid thing for Walter Besant to do, when, 12 or 13 years ago, he invaded the great East End of London, and drew upon its unknown wealth of varied material to people, that most charming novel, all sorts and conditions of men. Until then, the West End knew little of its contiguous neighbour in the East. Dickens's kaleidoscopic views of low life in the south of London were manifestly caricatures of the slum specimens of human nature, which he purposely sought, and often distorted, to suit his bizarre humour. Mr Besant may be fairly considered as the pioneer of those who have since descended to the great uncharted region of East London, about which, so far as our knowledge of the existing conditions of human life in that community are concerned, we remained until, as it were yesterday, almost as ignorant as of the undiscovered territories in Central Africa. Contemporaneous, with Mr Besant's discovery of East London, began the eastward march of the Salvation Army, which has since honeycombed this quarter of the metropolis with its militant camps. Gradually the barriers were thrown down, and the east has become accessible to literature and to civilisation, as it never had been to the various charity and church missionary organisations. It was, as the secretary of an old charity trust, that Mr Arthur Morrison first made his acquaintance with East London, and, by dint of several years' residence and attentive study, acquired his knowledge of the east end and its myriad denizens. Right in the midst of the Great Square, bounded by the Thames, the Lee, the City, Kingsland, and the Hackney Open Spaces, lie the dreary Mean Streets, which Mr Morrison has described with uncommon power and vigour, and among which the operations of his secretarieship engaged him laboriously for years. The possibility of presenting his observations of East London in narrative form began to grow upon him, while casting a round for literary pabulum to convert into magazine articles, and in October 1891 appeared his first sketch entitled A Street, in Macmillan's magazine. This, in a remodelled form, now serves as an introductory chapter to the present collection. The article in Macmillan's attracted a good deal of attention, and one for its author, the good fellowship of Mr W. E. Henley, who encouraged him in his idea of writing a series of short stories and studies, which should describe East End Life with austerity, restraint, and frankness. A large number of the tales appeared in the National Observer, and several followed in the Palmel Budget. The dedication to Mr Henley of Tales of Mean Streets is a grateful acknowledgement by the author of the kindly and frank counsel of his friendly critic, whose criticism, it may be added, has been mainly directed towards the author's craftsmanship. His conceptions of the life he was portraying, the critic was wise enough to let alone. Mr Morrison has also been indebted on the side of art in fiction to Mr Walter Besant, whom he met in the East End. Mr Morrison has been fortunate in his literary experience. He is another witness to the fact that Merritt makes its way from the outside, without necessarily receiving aid, or having influence brought to bear on editors or publishers. It is curious to note that a manuscript of his, which happened to be rejected once, was accepted on the day following, and now has a place in this book. Some cycling verses contributed as a lad to a cycling magazine began his literary career, and for some years he continued to write on what was then a novel sport. He drifted into broader channels, and became a frequent contributor to popular papers and magazines. During this period he was working on the Charity Commission, and wrote only by way of relaxation. About five years ago he resigned his office on the trust, and occupying chambers near the Strand. Joined the editorial staff of an old established evening paper, where for some months he continued to write literates and miscellaneous articles and notes, until becoming convinced that he could not do justice to such ability for better work, which he might possess amidst the grinding routine of newspaper scribbling, he gave up his post and applied himself to more serious writing, contributing to the Strand and other magazines and reviews. About this time he began the series, which is now gathered under the common title, Tales of Mean Streets. On its recent publication in England it was received with instant recognition as a book of extraordinary merit, and it has met with signal success. Some idea of the strong impression which it has made in England may be gathered from Mr Arthur War's warm tribute to the author's distinction in a recent letter to the critic. He deals exclusively, writes Mr War, with life in the east end of London, and he does so with a fearlessness and originality which are of more value than many sermons. I do not know whether his book is published in America, but if so I strongly advise every reader of this letter to secure it. Those who do so will learn from its pages more of the degradation and misery of a certain side of London life than they could in many weeks of philanthropic slumming. Mr Morrison's will be a name to conjure with in another season. Mr Arthur Morrison is but 31, and has just stepped on to the threshold of literary fame as a writer of decided promise and strength. He has only broken ground as yet in the field which has brought him his spurs, and is at present contemplating a longer story of east end life. The number of those who have attempted to write, familiarly of the seamy side of our great cities from close observation and laborious study of its life in a first hand fashion, is so small that it is easy to believe that the author of Tales of Mean Streets possessing as he does the prime qualities of a novelist has a future before him in an unprecedented form of literature. Signed James MacArthur, New York March 2, 1895. Introduction to the American Edition. Chapter 2 of Tales of Mean Streets. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison. Introduction. A Street. This street is in the east end. There is no need to say in the east end of what. The east end is a vast city, as famous in its way as any the hand of man has made. But who knows the east end? It is down through Cornhill and out beyond Leddenhall Street and Old Gate Lump, one will say. A shocking place where he once went with a curate. An evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things. Where filthy men and women live on peniths of gin. Where collars and clean shirts are decencies unknown. Where every citizen wears a black eye and none ever combs his hair. The east end is a place, says another, which is given over to the unemployed. And the unemployed is a race whose token is a clay pipe and whose enemy is soap. Now and again it migrates bodily to Hyde Park with banners and furnishers adjacent police courts with disorderly drunks. Still another knows the east end only as the place whence begging letters come. There are coal and blanket funds there. All perennially insolvent and everybody always wants a day in the country. Many and misty are people's notions of the east end. And each is commonly but the distorted shadow of a minor feature. Foul slums there are in the east end, of course, as there are in the west. Want and misery there are, as wherever a host is gathered together to fight for food. But they are not often spectacular in kind. Of this street there are about 150 yards on the same pattern all. It is not pretty to look at. A dingy little brick house, twenty feet high, with three square holes to carry the windows, and an oblong hole to carry the door, is not a pleasing object. And each side of this street is formed by two or three score of such houses in a row, with one front wall in common, and the effect is as of stables. Round the corner there are a baker's, a chandler's and a beer shop. They are not included in the view from any of the rectangular holes, but they are well known to every denizen. And the chandler goes to church on Sunday and pays for his seat. At the opposite end, turnings lead to streets less rigidly respectable. Somewhere mangling done here, stairs from windows, and where doors are left carelessly open. Others where squalid women sit on doorsteps and girls go to factories in white aprons. Many such turnings, of as many grades of decency, are set between this and the nearest slum. They are not a very noisy or obtrusive lot in this street. They do not go to Hyde Park with banners, and they seldom fight. It is just possible that one or two among them, at some point in a life of ups and downs, may have been indebted to a coal and blanket fund. But whosoever these may be, they would rather die than publish the disgrace. And it is probable that they very nearly did so air submitting to it. Some who inhabit this street are in the docks, some in the gasworks, some in one or other of the few shipbuilding yards that yet survive on the Thames. Two families in a house is the general rule, for there are six rooms behind each set of holes. This, unless young men lodgers are taken in, or there are grown sons paying for bed and board. As for the grown daughters, they marry as soon as may be. Domestic service is a social dissent, and little under millinery and dressmaking is compatible with self-respect. The general servant may be caught young among the turnings at the end where mangling is done, and the factory girls live still further off, in places skirting slums. Every morning at half-past five there is a curious demonstration. The street resounds with thunderous knockings, repeated upon door after door, and acknowledged ever by a muffled shout from within. These signals are the work of the night watchman or the early policeman or both, and they summon the sleepers to go forth to the docks, the gasworks and the shipyards. To be awakened in this wise costs fourpence a week, and for this fourpence a fierce rivalry rages between night watchman and policeman. The night watchman, a sort of by-blow of the ancient Charlie, and himself a fast vanishing quantity, is the real professional performer, but he goes to the war because a large connection must be worked if the pursuit is to pay at fourpence a knocker. Now it is not easy to bang at two knockers, three quarters of a mile apart, and a hundred others lying between, all punctually at half-past five. Wherefore the policeman, to whom the fourpence is but a perquisite, and who is content with a smaller round, is rapidly supplanting the night watchman, whose cry of, past nine o'clock, as he collects orders in the evening, is now seldom heard. The knocking and the shouting pass, and there comes the noise of opening and shutting of doors, and a clattering away to the docks, the gasworks and the shipyards. Later more door-shutting is heard, and then the trotting of sorrow-laden little feet, along the grim street, to the grim board school, three grim streets off. Then silence, save for a subdued sound of scrubbing here and there, and the puny squall of creepy infants. After this a new trotting of little feet to docks, gasworks and shipyards, with father's dinner in a basin and a red handkerchief, and so to the board school again. More muffled scrubbing and more squalling, and perhaps a feeble attempt or two at decorating the blankness of a square hole here and there, by pouring water into a grimy flowerpot full of dirt. Then comes the trot of little feet toward the oblong holes, heralding the slower tread of sooty artisans, a smell of bloater up and down, nightfall, the fighting of boys in the street, perhaps of men at the corner near the beer shop, sleep. And this is the record of a day in this street, and every day is hopelessly the same. Every day, that is, but Sunday. On Sunday morning a smell of cooking floats round the corner from the half-shut bakers, and the little feet trot down the street under steaming burdens of beef, potatoes and batter pudding. The lucky little feet these, with Sunday boots on them, when father is in good work and has brought home all his money. Not the poor little feet in worn shoes, carrying little bodies in the threadbare clothes of all the weak, when father is out of work, or ill, or drunk, and the Sunday cooking may very easily be done at home, if any there be to do. On Sunday morning one or two heads of families appear in wonderful black suits, with unnumbered cruisers and wrinklings at the seams. At their sides and about their heels trot the unresting little feet, and from under-paintful little velvet caps and straw hats stare solemn little faces, talled to a polish. Thus disposed and arrayed they fare gravely through the grim little streets to a grim little Bethel, where are gathered to gather others in like garb and attendance, and for two hours they endure the frantic menace of hellfire. Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and trousers on their beds and read the Sunday paper, while some are driven forth, for they hinder the housework to loaf and await the opening of the bear shop round the corner. Thus goes Sunday in this street, and every Sunday is the same as every other Sunday, so that one monotony is broken with another. For the women, however, Sunday is much as other days, except there is rather more work for them. The break in their round of the week is washing day. No event in the outer world makes any impression in this street. Nations may rise or may totter in ruin, but here the colourless day will work through its twenty-four hours, just as it did yesterday, and just as it will tomorrow. Without there may be party strife, wars and rumours of wars, public rejoicings, but the trotting of the little feet will be neither quickened nor staid. Those quaint little women, the girl-children of this street, who use a motherly management toward all girl things younger than themselves, and toward all boys as old or older with, bless the child, or drat the children, those quaint little women will still go marketing with big baskets, and will regard the price of bacon as chief among human considerations. Nothing disturbs this street, nothing but a strike. Nobody laughs here, life is too serious a thing. Nobody sings. There was once a woman who sang, a young wife from the country, but she bore children, and her voice cracked. Then her man died, and she sang no more. They took away her home, and with her children about her skirts she left this street forever. The other women did not think much of her. She was helpless. One of the square holes in this street, one of the single ground floor holes, is found on individual examination to differ from the others. There has been an attempt to make it into a shop window. Half a dozen candles, a few sickly sugar sticks, certain shriveled bloaters, some bootlaces and a bundle or two of firewood compose a stock which at night is sometimes lighted by a little paraffin lamp in a tin sconce, and sometimes by a candle. A widow lives here, a gaunt bony widow with sunken red eyes. She has other sources of income than the candles and the bootlaces. She washes and chars all day, and she sows cheap shirts at night. Two young men lodges, moreover sleep upstairs, and the children sleep in the back room. She herself is supposed not to sleep at all. The policeman does not knock here in the morning. The widow wakes the lodgers herself, and nobody in the street behind ever looks out of window before going to bed, no matter how late, without seeing a light in the widow s room where she plies her needle. She is a quiet woman who speaks little with her neighbours, having other things to do. A woman of pronounced character, to whom it would be unadvisable, even dangerous, to offer coals or blankets. Hers was the strongest contempt for the helpless woman who sang. A contempt whose added bitterness might be traced to its source. For when the singing woman was marketing, from which door of the pawnshop had she twice met, the widow coming forth. This is not a dirty street taken as a whole. The widow's house is one of the cleanest, and the widow's children match the house. The one house cleaner than the widow's is ruled by a despotic scotch woman, who drives every hawker off her whiteen step, and rubs her door handle if a hand have rested on it. The scotch woman has made several attempts to accommodate young men lodgers, but they have ended in shrill rows. There is no house without children in this street, and the number of them grows ever and ever greater. Nine-tenths of the doctor's visits are on this account alone, and his appearances are the chief matter of such conversation as the women make across the fences. One after another the little strangers come to live through lives as flat and colourless as the day's life in this street. Existence dawns, and the doctor Watchman's door-knock resounds along the row of rectangular holes. Then a muffled cry announces that a small new being has come to trudge and sweat its way in the appointed groove. Later the trotting of little feet and the school, the midday player, when love peeps even into this street. After that more trotting of little feet, strange little feet, new little feet, and the scrubbing, and the squalling, and the barren flowerpot, the end of the sooty day's work, the last homecoming, nightfall, sleep. When love's light falls into some corner of the street, it falls at an early hour of this mean life, and is itself but a dusty ray. It falls early because it is the sole bright thing which the street sees, and is watched for and countered on. Lads and lassers, awkwardly arm in arm, go pacing up and down this street, before the natural interest in marbles and doll's houses would have left them in a brighter place. They are keeping company. The manner of which proceeding is indigenous. It is a custom native to the place. The young people first walk out in pairs. There is no exchange of promises, no troth plight, no engagement, no love talk. They patrol the streets side by side, usually in silence, sometimes with fatuous chatter. There are no dancers, no tennis, no water parties, no picnics to bring them together, so they must walk out, or be unacquainted. If two of them grow dissatisfied with each other's company, nothing is easier than to separate and walk out with somebody else. When, by these means, each has found a fit mate, or think so, a ringer's bought, and the odd association becomes a regular engagement. But this is not until the walking out has endured for many months. The two stages of courtship are spoken of indiscriminately as keeping company, but a very careful distinction is drawn between them by the parties concerned. Nevertheless, in the walking out period it would be almost as great a breach of faith for either to walk out with more than one, as it would be if the full engagement had been made. And lovemaking in this street is a dreary thing, when one thinks of lovemaking in other places. It begins and it ends too soon. Nobody from this street goes to the theatre. That would mean a long journey, and it would cost money, which might buy bread and beer and boots. For those too, who wear black sundae suits, it would be sinful. Nobody reads poetry or romance. The very words are foreign. A Sunday paper in some few houses provides such reading as this street is disposed to achieve. Now and again a penny novel has been found among the private treasures of a growing daughter, and has been roughly confiscated. For the air of this street is unfavorable to the ideal. Yet there are aspirations. There has lately come into the street a young man lodger who belongs to a mutual improvement society. Membership in this society is regarded as a sort of learned degree, and at its meetings debates are held and papers smugly read by lamentably self-satisfied young men lodgers, whose only preparation for debating and writing is a fathomless ignorance. For ignorance is the inevitable portion of dwellers here, seeing nothing, reading nothing, and considering nothing. Where in the east end lies this street? Everywhere. The hundred and fifty yards is only a link in a long and mightily tangled chain, is only a turn in a tortuous maze. This street of the square holes is hundreds of miles long. That it is planned in short lengths is true, but there is no other way in the world that can more properly be called a single street, because of its dismal lack of accent, its sordid uniformity, its utter remoteness from delight. End of Introduction, A Street Chapter 3 of Tales of Mean Streets This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison Chapter 3 Leserunt 1. Leser's wooing Somewhere in the register was written the name Elizabeth Hunt, but 17 years after the entry the spoken name was Leserunt. Leserunt worked at a pickle factory and appeared abroad in an elaborate and shabby costume, usually supplemented by a white apron. With all she was something of a beauty. That is to say her cheeks were very red, her teeth were very large and white, her nose was small and snub, and her fringe was long and shiny. While her face, newly washed, was susceptible of a high polish. Many such girls are married at sixteen, but Leserunt was belated and had never a bloke at all. Billy Chope was a year older than Leserunt. He wore a billy cock with a thin rim and a permanent dent in the crown. He had a bobtail coat with the collar turned up at one side and down at the other, as an expression of independence. Between his meals he carried his hands in his britches pockets, and he lived with his mother, who mangled. His conversation with Leserunt consisted long of perfunctory nods, but great things happened this special Thursday evening, as Leserunt, making for home, followed the fading red beyond the furthest end of commercial road. For Billy Chope, slouching in the opposite direction, lurched across the pavement as they met, and taking the mirror hand from his pocket, caught and twisted her arm, bumping her against the wall. Gone! said Leserunt, greatly pleased, let go! For she knew that this was love. Way off to, Leser! Oh, of course, cheeky, let go! And she snatched, in vain, at Billy's hat. Billy let go, and capered in front of her. She feigned to dodge carefully not to be too quick, because affairs were developing. I say, Leser, said Billy, stopping his dance and becoming business-like. Go in anywhere Monday. Not along are you, cheeky. You go along a Bella Dawson, like what you did Easter. Blow Bella Dawson, she ain't no good. I'm going on the flats, come! Leserunt, delighted but derisive, ended with a promise to see. The bloke had come at last, and she walked home with a feeling of having taken her degree. She had half assured herself of it two days before when Sam carded you through an orange peel at her, but went away after a little prancing on the pavement. Sam was a smarter fellow than Billy, and earned his own living. Probably his attentions were serious, but one must prefer the bird in hand. As for Billy Chope, he went his way, resolved himself to take home what mangling he should find his mother had finished, and stick to the money. Also, to get all he could from her, by blandishing and bullying, that the drawn-to-once-did flats might be adequately done. There is no other fare like Whitmondays on once-did flats. Here is a square mile and more of open land, where you may howl at large. Here is no danger of losing yourself, as in ebbing forest. The public houses are always with you. Shows, shies, swings, merry-go-rounds, fried fish stalls, donkeys, are packed closer together than on hamstered heath. The ladies' tormentors are larger, and their contents smell worse than at any other fare. Also, you may be drunk and disorderly without being locked up, for the stations won't hold everybody, and when all else has pulled, you may set fire to the turf. Herein, too, Billy and Lizarunt projected themselves from the doors of the holly-tree on Whitmonday morning. But through hours on hours of fried fish and half-pints, both were conscious of a deficiency. For the hat of Lizarunt was brown and old. Plush it was not, and its feather was a mere foot long and of a very rusty black. Now it was not decent for a factory girl from Limehouse to go bank holidaying under any but a hat of plush, very high in the crown, of a wild blue or a wilder green, and carrying with all an ostrich feather, pink or scarlet or whatnot. A feather that springs from the forepart, climbs the crown, then drops as far down the shoulders as may be. Lizarunt knew this, and had she had no bloke, would have stayed at home. But a chance is a chance. As it was, only another such hapless girl could measure her bitter envy of the feathers about her, or would so joyfully have given an ear for the proper splendour. Billy, too, had a vague impression, muddled by but not drowned in half pints, that some degree of plush was confined to the occasion and to his own expenditure. Still there was no quarrel, and the pair walked and ran with arms about each other's necks, and Lizarunt thumped her bloke on the back at proper intervals so that the affair went regularly on the whole. Although in view of Lizarunt's shortcomings, Billy did not insist on the exchange of hats. Everything, I say, went well and well enough until Billy bought a lady's tormentor and began to squirt it at Lizarunt. For then Lizarunt went scampering madly with piercing shrieks until her bloke was left some little way behind, and Sam Cardew, turning up at that moment and seeing her running alone in the crowd, threw his arms about her waist and swung her round him again and again, as he floundered gallantly this way and that among the shies and the hokey-pokey barrels. Hello, Lizar! Where are you coming to? If I hadn't laid old, are you? But here Billy Chope arrived to demand what the old Sam Cardew was doing with his gal. Now, Sam was ever readyer for a fight than Billy was, but the sum of Billy's half-pints was large, wherefore the fight began. On the skirt of an hilarious ring Lizarunt, after some small outcry, triumphed aloud. Four days before she had no bloke and here she stood with two and those two fighting for her. Here, in the public gaze on the flats, for almost five minutes she was Helen of Troy and in much less time Billy tasted repentance. The haze of half-pints was dispelled and some teeth went with it. Presently, whimpering and with a bloody muzzle, he rose and made a running kick at the other. Then, being thwarted in a bolt he flung himself down and it was like to go hard with him at the hands of the crowd. Punch, you may or musted flats, but execration and worse is your portion if you kick anybody except your wife. But, as the ring closed the helmets of two policemen were seen to be working in over the surrounding heads and Sam Cardew, quickly assuming his coat, turned away with such an air of blamelessness as is practicable with a damaged eye while Billy went off unheeded in an opposite direction. Lizarunt and her new bloke went the routine of half-pints and merry-go-rounds and were soon on right thumping terms and Lizarunt was as well satisfied with the issue and she was proud of the adventure. Billy was all very well but Sam was better. She resolved to draw him for a feathered hat before next bank holiday. So the Sam went down on her and her bloke hanging on each other's necks and struggling toward the Rompford Road with shouts and choruses. The rest was tram-car, bow-musical, half-pints and darkness. Billy took home his wounds and his mother, having moved his roth by asking their origin, sought refuge with a neighbour. He accomplished his revenge in two instalments. Two nights later Lizarunt was going with a jug of beer when somebody sprang from a dark corner, landed her under the ear, knocked her sprawling and made off to the sound of her lamentations. She did not see who it was but she knew. The next day Sam Cardew was swearing he'd break Billy's back. He did not, however, for that same evening a gang of seven or eight fell on him with sticks and belts. They were causeway chaps while Sam was a Brady's laner which would have been reason enough by itself even if Billy Chope had not been one of them. Sam did his best for a burst through and a run pulled and battered him down and they kicked him about the head and they kicked him about the belly and they took to their heels when he was speechless and still. He lay at home for near four weeks and when he stood up again he was in many bandages. Lizarunt came often to his bedside and twice she brought an orange. On these occasions there was much talk of vengeance but the weeks went on. It was a month since Sam had left his bed and Lizarunt was getting a little tired of bandages. Also she had begun to doubt and to consider bank holiday. Scarce a fortnight off for Sam was stone broke and a plush hat was further away than ever. And all through the later of these weeks Billy Chope was harder than ever on his mother and she, while knowing that if he helped her by taking home he would pocket the money at the other end had taken to furnishing and delivering in his absence and threats failing to get at the money Billy Chope was impelled to punch her head and gripe her by the throat. There was a milliner's window with a show of nothing but fashionable plush and feather hats and Lizarunt was lingering here about one evening when someone took her by the waist and someone said, which do you like, Lizar, the Yellerun? Lizarunt turned and saw that it was Billy. She pulled herself away and backed off, sullen and distrustful. Gone, she said. Straight, said Billy, I'll sport you one, no kid I will. Gone, said Lizarunt once more. What you getting at now? But presently being convinced that bashing wasn't in it she approached less guardedly and she went away with a paper bag and the reddest of all the plushes and the bluest of all the feathers. A hat that challenged all the flats the next bank holiday. A hat for which no girl need have hesitated to sell her soul. As for Billy why he was as good as another and you can't have everything and Sam Cardew with his bandages and his grunts and groans was no great catch after all. This was the wooing of Lizarunt for in a few months she and Billy met under the blessing of a benign director who periodically set aside a day for free weddings and on principle encouraged early matrimony and they lived with Billy's mother. End of Chapter 3 When Billy Chope married Lizarunt there was a small rejoicing there was no wedding party because it was considered that what there might be to drink would be better in the family. Lizarunt's father was not and her mother felt no interest in the affair not having seen her daughter for a year and happening at the time and her mother felt no interest in the affair not having seen her daughter for a year and happening at the time to have a month's engagement in respect of a drunk and disorderly. So that there were but three of them and Billy Chope got exceedingly tipsy early in the day and in the evening his bride bawled a continual chorus while his mother influenced by that unwanted quatern of gin the occasion sanctioned wept dismally over her boy who was much too far gone to resent it. His was the chief reason for rejoicing for Lizarunt had always been able to extract ten shillings a week from the Pickle Factory and it was to be presumed that as Lizar Chope her earning capacity would not diminish and the wages would make a very respectable addition to the precarious revenue depending on the mangle that Billy extorted from his mother. As for Lizar she was married that was the considerable thing for she was but a few months short of eighteen and that as you know is a little late. Of course there were quarrels very soon for the new Mrs. Chope less submissive at first than her mother-in-law took a little breaking in and a liberal renewal of the manual treatment once applied in her courting days but the quarrels between the women were comforting to Billy a diversion and a source of better service. As soon as might be Lizar took the way of womankind this circumstance brought an unexpected half-crown the evangelical rector who had married the couple Grados for recognizing Billy in the street by accident and being told of Mrs. Chope's prospects as well as that Billy was out of work a fact undeniable he reflected that his principles did on occasion lead to discomfort of a material sort and Billy to whose comprehension the half-crown opened a new field of receipt would doubtless have long remained a client of the rector had not that zealot hastened to discover a vacancy for a warehouse porter the offer of presentation were unto alienated Billy Chope forever but there were meetings and demonstrations of the unemployed and it was said that shillings had been given away and as being at a meeting in a street was at least as amusing as being in a street where there was no meeting Billy often went on the off chance but his lot was chiefly disappointment wherefore he became more especially careful to himself ere he left home for certain weeks cash came less freely than ever from the two women lies are spoke of providing for the necessities of the expected child a manifestly absurd procedure as Billy pointed out since if they were unable to clothe or feed it the duty would fall on its grandmother that was law and nobody could get over it but even with this argument a shelling cost him many more demands and threats than it had used and a deal more general trouble at last lies are seized from going to the pickle factory and could not even help Billy's mother at the mangle for long this lasted for near a week when Billy rising at ten with a bad mouth resolved to stand no nonsense and demanded two shillings to Bob what for lies are asked cause I want it none of your lip ain't got it said lies are so cold that's a bleeding lie lie yourself all brick in arms you blasted effort he ran at her throat and forced her back over a chair I'll pull your face off if you ain't giving the money got by me I'll do for you lies are strained and squalled let go you'll kill me and the kid too she grunted hoarsely Billy's mother ran in and threw her arms about him dragging him away don't Billy she said in terror don't Billy not now you'll get in trouble come away you might go off and you get in trouble Billy choped flung his wife over and turned to his mother take your hands off me he said go on or I'll give you something for yourself and he punched her in the breast by way of illustration you should have what I've got Billy if it's money his mother said but don't go and get yourself in trouble don't will a shillin do no it won't think I'm a blooming kid I mean I've been to Bob this morning I wasn't keeping it for the rent Billy yes think of the bleeding landlord for me doncher and he pocketed the two shillings I ain't settled with you yet my gal he added to Lyser looking about at home and I'd money you wait a bit Lyser had climbed into an erect position and Gravid and Slow had got as far as the passage mistaking this for a safe distance she replied with defiant railings Billy made for her with a kick that later on the lower stairs his legs round his mother as she obstructed him and treating him not to get in trouble he attempted to kick again in a more telling spot but a movement among the family upstairs and a tap at the door hinted of interference and he took himself off Lyser lay doubled upon the stairs howling but her only articulate cry was God help me it's coming Billy went to the meeting of the unemployed and cheered a proposal to storm the Tower of London but he did not join the procession following a man with a handkerchief on a stick who promised destruction to every policeman in his path for he knew the fate of such processions with a few others he hung about the nearest tavern for a while on the chance of the advent of a flush sailor from St. Catherine's disposed to treat out of workers then he went alone to a quieter bill house and took a pint or two at his own expense a glance down the music hall bills hanging in the bar having given him an ocean for the evening he be thought himself of dinner and made for home the front door was open and in the first room where the mangle stood there were no signs of dinner and this was at three o'clock Billy pushed into the room behind demanding why Billy, Lyser said faintly from the bed look at the baby something was moving feebly under a flannel petticoat Billy pulled the petticoat aside and said that? well it is a measly snipe it was a blind hairless homunculus short of a foot long with a skinny face set in a great skull there was a black bruise on one side from hip to armpit Billy dropped the petticoat and said where's my dinner? I don't know Lyser responded hazily what's the time? time don't try to kid me you get up go on I want my dinner mothers get in it I think said Lyser had to slap him like anything before he'd cry you don't cry now much go on out you get I don't want no more damn jaw get my dinner I'm a getting of it Billy his mother said at the door she had begun when he first entered it won't be a minute you come here you aint always so ready to do work are you she aint no call to stop there no longer and I owe her one for this morning will you get out or shall I kicky she can't Billy and Lyser sniffled and said you're a damn brute you ought to be bleeding well booted but Billy had her by the shoulders and began to haul and again his mother besought him to remember what he might bring upon himself at this moment the doctors dispenser a fourth year London hospital student of many inches who had been washing his hands in the kitchen came in for a moment he failed to comprehend the scene then he took Billy choked by the collar hauled him all along the passage kicked him hard into the gutter and shut the door when he returned to the room Lyser sitting up and holding on by the bed frame gasped hysterically you bleeding makeshift I'd have your liver out if I could reach you you touch my husband you long pison and hound you and in from of aim she flung a cracked teapot at his head Billy's mother said you ought to be ashamed of yourself you low blaggard his father was alive he'd knock your head off call yourself a doctor a parcel of boys get out go out of my house or I'll give you in charge but why hang it he'd have killed her then Lyser lie down shant lay down keep off if you come near me I'll corpse you you go while you're safe the dispenser appealed to Billy's mother for God's sake make her lie down she'll kill herself I'll go perhaps the doctor had better come and he went leaving the coast clear for Billy Chope to return and avenge his kicking end of chapter four chapter five of Tales of Mean Streets this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Lynette Calkins Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison a change of circumstances Lyser was some months short of twenty-one when her third child was born the Pickle Factory had discarded her some time before and since that her trade had consisted in odd jobs of charring odd jobs of charring have ashamed the better of a Pickle Factory in the matter of respectability but they are precarious and they are worse paid at that in the East End they are sporadic and few moreover it is in the household where paid help is a rarity that the bitterness of servitude is felt also the uncertainty and irregularity of the returns were a trouble to Billy Chope he was never sure of having got them all it might be nine pence or a shilling or eighteen pence once or twice to his knowledge it had been half a crown from a chance job at a doctor's or a parson's and once it was three shillings that it might be a half crown or three shillings again and that some of it was being kept back was ever the suspicion evoked by Leiser's evening homing plainly with these fluctuating and uncertain revenues more bashing than ever was needed to ensure the extraction of the last copper empty handedness called for bashing on its own account so that it was often Leiser's hap to be refused a job because of a black eye Leiser's self was scarcely what it had been the red of her cheeks once bounded only by the eyes and the mouth had shrunk to a spot in the depth of each hollow gaps had been driven in her big white teeth even the snub nose had run to a point and the fringe hung dry and ragged while the bodily outline was as a sacks at home the children lay in her arms or tumbled at her heels pooling in foul whenever she was near it there was a mangle to be turned for lately Billy's mother had exhibited strange weakness sometimes collapsing with a gasp in the act of brisk or prolonged exertion and often leaning on whatever stood hard by and grasping at her side this ailment she treated when she had tuppence in such terms as made her smell of gin and peppermint and more than once this circumstance had inflamed the breast of Billy her son who was morally angered by this boozing away of money that was really his Leiser's youngest being seven eight months old was mostly taking care of itself when Billy made a welcome discovery after a hard and pinching day the night was full of blinding wet and the rain beat on the window as on a drum Billy sat over a small fire in the front room smoking his pipe while his mother folded clothes for delivery he stamped twice on the hearth and then drawing off his boot he felt inside it it was a nail the poker head made a good anvil and looking about for a hammer Billy be thought him of a brick from the mangle he rose and lifting the lid of the weight box groped about among the clinkers and the other ballast till he came upon a small but rather heavy paper parcel ear what's this he said and pulled it out his mother whose back had been turned hastened across the room hand to breast it had got to be her habit what is it Billy she said not that there's nothing there I'll get anything you want Billy and she made a nervous cash at the screw of paper but Billy fended her off and toward the package open it was money arranged in little columns of farthings half pence and three penny pieces with a few six pence's a shilling or two and a single half sovereign oh ho said Billy this is the game is it I'd money in the mangle got any more and he hastily turned the brick bats no Billy don't take that don't implored his mother there'll be some money for them things when they go on avat I'm saving it Billy for something particular something God I am Billy yes replied Billy raking diligently among the clinkers saving it for good old booze and now you won't have one bleeding nice thing hiding money away from your own son it ain't for that Billy something it ain't it's case anything happens to me only to put me away decent Billy that's all we never know and you'll be glad of it to bury me if I should go anytime I'll be glad of it now answered Billy who had it in his pocket and I've got it you ain't a dying sort you ain't and if you was the person soon took you up perhaps you'd be straighter about money after this let me have some then you can't want it all give me some and then have the money for the things there's ten dozen and seven and you can take them yourself if you like what in this year rain not me I bet I'd have the money if I wanted it without that ear change easier fart inside the draper's when you go out there's two bobs worth and penners I don't want to bust my pockets with them while they spoke Liza had come in from the back room but she said nothing she rather busied herself with the child she had in her arms when Billy's mother despondent and tearful had tramped out into the rain with a pile of clothes in an oil cloth wrapper she said sulkily without looking up you might a letter kept that you get all you want at another time this remonstrance would have provoked active hostilities but now with the money about him Billy was complacently disposed you shut your head he said I got this anyhow she can make it up out of my rent if she likes this last remark was a joke and he chuckled as he made it for Billy's rent was a simple fiction devised on the suggestion of a smart canvasser to give him a parliamentary vote that night Billy and Liza slept as usual in the bed in the back room where the two younger children also were Billy's mother made a bedstead nightly with three chairs and an old trunk in the front room by the mangle and the eldest child lay in a floor bed near her early in the morning Liza awoke at a sudden outcry of the little creature he clawed at the handle till he opened the door and came staggering and tumbling into the room with screams of terror ring his blasted neck his father grunted sleepily what's the kid owling for I was afraid againy I was afraid againy was all the child would say and when he had said it he fell to screaming once more Liza rose and went to the next room and straightway came a scream from her also oh Billy oh my god Billy come here and Billy fully startled followed in Liza's wake covered in rubbing his eyes and saw Stark on her back in the huddled bed of old wrappers and shawls lay his mother the outline of her poor face strained in an upward stare of painful surprise stood sharp and meager against the black of the great beyond but the muddy old skin was white and looked cleaner than it's want and many of the wrinkles were gone Billy choped halfway across the floor recoiled from the corpse from the doorway good god he croaked faintly is she dead seized by a fit of shuddering breaths Liza sank on the floor and with her head across the body presently broke into a storm of hysterical blubbering while Billy, white and dazed dressed hurriedly and got out of the house he was at home as little as might be until the coroner's officer carried away the body two days later when he came for his meals he sat doubtful and quellous in the matter of the front room doors being shut the dead once cleared away however he resumed his faculties and clearly saw that here was a bad change for the worse there was the mangle but who was to work it if Liza did there would be no more charring jobs a clear loss of one third of his income and it was not at all certain that the people who had given their mangling to his mother would give it to Liza we're pretty sure that many would not because mangling is a thing given by preference to widows and many widows of the neighborhood were perpetually competing for it widows moreover had the first call in most odd jobs where unto Liza might turn her hand and injustice whereupon Billy meditated with bitterness the inquest was formal and unremarked the medical officer having no difficulty in certifying a natural death from heart disease that idea of a collection among the jury which Billy communicated with pitiful representations to the coroner's office was brutally swept aside by that functionary made cunning by much experience so the inquest brought him not save disappointment and a sense of injury the mangling orders fell away as suddenly and completely as he had feared they were duly absorbed among the local widows neglect the children as Liza might she could no longer leave them as she had done things then were bad with Billy and neither threats nor thumps could evoke a shilling now it was more than Billy could bear so that ear he said one night I've had enough of this you go and get some money go on go and get it replied Liza oh yes that's easy ain't it go and get it says you ow any ow I don't care go on why replied Liza looking up with wide eyes pick it up in the street course you can plenty others does don't they God Billy what do you mean what I say plenty others does it go on you ain't so bleedin innocent as all that go and see Sam Cardew go on hook it Liza who had been kneeling at the child's floor bed rose to her feet pale faced and bright of eye stop kidding Billy she said you don't mean that I'll go around in the morning perhaps they'll take me on temporary damn the factory he pushed her into the passage go on you get me some money if you don't want your bleedin head knocked off there was a scuffle in the dark passage with certain blows a few broken words and a sob then the door slammed and Liza Chope was in the windy street end of chapter 5 chapter 6 of tales of mean streets this is a Librivox recording all Librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org recording by Richard Orte tales of mean streets by Arthur Morrison chapter 6 without visible means all East London idled or walked in a procession or waylaid and bashed or cried in an empty kitchen for it was the autumn of the great strikes one army of men having been prepared was ordered to strike and struck other smaller armies of men with no preparation were ordered to strike to express sympathy and struck other armies still were ordered to strike because it was the fashion and struck then many hands were discharged in other trades left them no work many others came from other parts in regiments to work but remained to love in gangs taught by the example of earlier regiments which the situation being explained an expression devised to include mobbing and kickings and flinging into docks had returned whence they came so that East London was very noisy and largely hungry and the rest of the world looked on for its interest making earnest suggestions and comprehending nothing lots of strikers having no strike pay and finding little nourishment in processions started off to walk to Manchester Birmingham Liverpool or Newcastle where work might be got along the great north road such men might be seen in silent companies of a dozen or twenty now and again singly or in couples in the Burdette Road and found its way into the Enfield Road by way of Victoria Park Clapton and Stamford Hill walked a little group of three a voluble young man of thirty a stolid workman rather older and a pale anxious little fellow with a nasty spasmic cough and a canvas bag of tools the little crowd struggled over the footpath of the road few of its members speaking with their faces at themselves as yet there was nothing of the tramp in the aspect of these mechanics with their washed faces and well-mended clothes they might have been taken for a jewellery coming from a local inquest as the streets got broken and detached with patches of feel between they began to look about them one young fellow in front with no family to think of who looked upon the enterprise as an amusing sort of tour when the accordion began to rebel against the general depression and attempted a joke about going to the Alexandra Palace but in the rear the little man with the canvas bag putting his hand abstractively into his pocket suddenly stared and stopped he drew out the hand and saw in it three shillings Swell me he said the missus is done there no one will come away she's only got a bob for herself and the kids he broke into a sweat of uneasiness oh I'll have to send it back at the next post office that's all send it back not you thus with deep scorn the voluble young man at his side she'll be alright you lay your life a woman always knows that all bleeding soon won it and bad you do as I tell you Joey stick to it that's right Dave ain't it matter of fancy my missus cleared my pockets out before I got away shunt wonder at being sent after for leaving her chargeable for I don't soon sense any more women's different the march continued and grew duster in front produced his accordion at Palmer's Green four went straight ahead to try for work at the Enfield Arms Factory the others knowing the thing hopeless turned off to the left for Potter's Bar after a long silence which you'll be nearest Dave asked little Joey Clayton no castle or Middlesbrough and the losebrough said don't I'll don it a four tramping ain't so rough on a man is he after all asked Joey wistfully you've done alright didn't you got through all depends though it's rough enough matter of luck I had to burn with her if I don't get a good easy job where we're going remarked the valuable young man I'll have a strike there too have a strike there exclaimed Joey now who call him out why I would I think I'm equal to doing it ain't I and when working men stand idle and hungry in the midst of the wealth and the luxury and the extravagance they've produced with the sweat of their brow why then fellow workman it's time to act it's time to bring the nigger driving bloated capless to their knees area applauded Joey Clayton tamely perhaps not new good on you Newman Newman had a habit of practicing this sort of thing in snatches whenever he saw the chance he had learnt the trick in a debating society and Joey Clayton was always an applause if audience there was a pause the accordion started another tune and Newman tried a different passage of his hurray in a shop they called me Skalky Newman why? because I Skalker of course dreamin' it from Dave this time I ain't ashamed of it my friends I'm a miker out and out and I hope I should always remain a miker the lesser work that does the more it has to be employed don't they and the more the toilet rings out the capitalist don't they very well then I'm Mike and I do it it's a sacred duty you'll have all the miking you want too? said Dave Birch placidly stowy at Potters Bar the party halted and sat under a hedge to eat hunks of bread and cheese or hunks of bread and nothing else and to drink cold tea out of cans Skalky Newman who had brought nothing stood in with his two friends as they started anew and turned into the great north road he said stretching himself and looking slightly at Joey Clayton if I had a bubble too I would stand you two blokes and point a piece Joey looked troubled well as I ain't I suppose I ought to he said uneasily turning toward the little inn hard bay Dave he cried to Birch who was walking on well won't you ever drink and well if you are gonna do the off I ain't proud was the slow reply afterward Joey was inclined to stop at the post office to send away at least two shillings but Newman wouldn't he enlarged on the improvidence of putting out of reach that which might be required on an emergency he repeated his axiom as to a woman's knack of keeping alive in spite of all things and Joey determined not to send for a day or so at any rate the road got looser and dustier the symptoms of the tramp came out stronger and stronger on the gang the accordion stuck up from time to time but ceased towards the end of the afternoon the player wearied and some of the older men soon tired of walking were worried by the noise Joey Clayton whose calf was aggravated by the dust was especially tortured after every fit to hear the thing drooling and whooping the tune drooled and whooped a dozen times before but he said nothing scarce knowing what annoyed him at Hatfield station two of the foremost picked up a few coppers by helping with a heavy trap load of luggage up Diggswell Hill the party tailed out lengthily and Newman who had been letting off a set speech was feigned to save his wind the night came clear to see and sweet to smell between Wellyn and Coddicut the company broke up to roost in such bands as they might possess all but the master of the accordion who had stayed at a little public house at Wellyn with the notion of earning a pot of beer and a stable corner or better by a tune in the taproom Dave Burge lighted on a lone shed of thatched hurdles with loose hay in it and Newman straightway curled in the snuggiest corner on most of the hay Dave Burge pulled some from under him and having helped Joey Clayton to build a nest in the best place left was soon snoring but Joey lay awake all night and sat up and coughed and turned restlessly being unused to the circumstances and apprehensive of those months in jail which it is well known are rancorously dealt forth among all them that sleep in barns Luck provided a breakfast next morning at Coddicut for three bicyclists going north stood cold beef and bread round at the anchor the man with the accordion caught up he had made his lodging and breakfast and eight pence this had determined him to stay at Hitchin and work it for at least a day and then to diverge into the towns and let the rest go their way so beyond Hitchin there was no music Joey Clayton soon fell slow Newman had his idea and the three were left behind and Joey staggered after his mates with difficulty he lacked sleep and he lacked stamina Dave Burge took the canvas bag and there were many rests when Newman expressing a resolve to stick by his fellow man through thick and thin hinted at drinks Dave Burge made tuppence at Henlo level crossing by holding an unsteady horse while a train passed Joey saw little of the rest of the day the road was yellow and dazzling his calf tore him and things were red sometimes and sometimes blue he walked without knowing it now helped, now lurching on alone the others of the party were far ahead and forgotten there was talk of a windmill ahead where there would be rest and the three men camped in an old boat house by the river just outside Bigglesway Joey, sleeping as he tottered fell in a heap and lay without moving from sunset to broad morning when he woke Dave Burge was sitting at the door but Newman was gone also there was no sign of the canvas bag now you're slooking said Joey, he's done it eh? Skarky's up the twig and sneak your tools God knows where he is by now now the little man garged sitting up in a pale sweat no, snaked him is he? Swelt mead as a set of calipers with 15 bobby net bag he ain't gone Dave Burge nodded inexorably best fill in your pockets he said perhaps he's been there he had the little man broke down I was going to send home that too Bob Swelt me I was what can I do without my tools if I got no job I could have pawned and then I'd have sent home the money Swelt me I would oh it's cruel the walking with the long sleep after it had left him sore and stiff and Dave had to work to put him on the road again he had forgotten yesterday afternoon and asked at first for the others they tramped in silence for a few miles when Joey suddenly flung himself upon a tusk by the wayside why won't nobody let me live he snibbled I'm armless bloke enough I've worked at Renaissance man and boy very annoying 20 year when they come and order this out I come out with the others peaceful enough I didn't want to chuck it up but I come out prompt when they told me when I found another job on the island four big blokes sat about me and half killed me I didn't know the place was blocked until the blokes was took up they said I'd get strike pay again if I didn't identify him so I didn't but they never give me no strike pay they laughed and chucked me out and now I'm starving on the iron road and skulking blimey he's done me too there were days where in Joey learned to eat a swede pulled from behind a wagon and to feel thankful for an early turnip might have learned too just what tramping means in many ways to a man unskilled both in begging and in theft but was never equal to it he coughed at worse holding to posts and gates and often spitting blood he had little to say but trudged mechanically taking note of nothing once as they were roused from a reverie he asked wasn't there some others others said to him for a moment taken aback oh yes there were some others they've gone on to hate you know Joey tramped for half a mile in silence then he said expect error in a rough time too oh very like said Dave for a space Joey was silent safe for the cough then he went on comes and not bringing cordias with him everyone ought to take a cordian what goes tramping I knew a man once that went tramping and he took a cordian he done all right ain't so rough for them as blaze on me a cordian and Dave Burge rubbed his cup about his head and stared but aunt said nothing it was a bad day crusts were begged at cottages every rise and every turn the eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them flouting their unrest they now unimpressionable endured more placidly than even Dave Burge late in the afternoon no he said ain't so rough for them that blaze the accordian they as the best of it swelled me he added suddenly we're all accordians he sniggered thoughtfully and then burst into a cough that left him panting we're nothing but a blooming lot of accordians ourselves he went on having got his breath and they'd play any tune they'd like on us and that's how they make their living swelled me Dave we're all accordians and he laughed um yes the other man grunted and he looked curiously at his mate for he had never heard that sort of laugh before but Joey fondled the conceit and returned to it from time to time now allowed now to himself all accordians playing any tune as he's ordered blowing me all we accordians I don't believe we're as much as that no swelled me we're only the footling little keys shoved him back to suit the tune little tin keys blimey footling little keys I've been played on plenty I have Dave Burge listened with alarm and tried to talk of other things but Joey rarely heard him I've been played on plenty I have he persisted I was played on once by a pal and my spring broke at nightfall there was more bad luck they were driven from a likely barn by a leather-gated man with a dog and for some distance no dormitory could be found then it was a cut haystack with a nest near the top and steps to reach it in the night Burge was wakened by a clammy hand upon his face there was a thick mist he's shoot I finally Clayton was saying good God I thought I'd lost you what's all this here not the water is he not the dog I'm so being wet Burge himself was wet to the skin he made Joey lie down and told him to sleep but a coughing fit prevented that it was them accordions woke me he explained when it was over so the night put on the way of the fordorn and the two tramps left their perch and betook them shivering and stamping to the road that morning Joey had short fits of dizziness and faintness it's more spring broke he would say after such an attack blooming little tinky put our toon and once he added I'm up to one toon though now this is a blooming dead march just at the outskirts of a town where he stopped to cough over a gate a stout old lady walking out with a shaggy little dog gave him a shilling Dave Burge picked it up as it dropped from his incapable hand and Joey he's a bob he said a lady give it you you come and get a dropper beer they carried a topony loaf into the taproom of a small tavern with a wild ale himself but saw that Joey was served with stout with a peneth of gin in it soon the gin and stout reached Joey's head and drew it to the table and he slept leaving the rest of the shilling where it lay Dave arose and stuffed the last of the topony loaf into his pocket he took a piece of chalk from the bagatelle board in the corner and wrote this on the table Dear sir for God's sake take him to the workhouse then he gathered up the coppers where they lay and stepped quietly into the street end of chapter 6 chapter 7 of tales of mean streets this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Stephen Fellows Tales of Mean Streets by Arthur Morrison chapter 7 to Beau Bridge the 11-5 tram car from Stratford started for Beau a trifle before its time the conductor knew what he might escape by stealing a march on the closing public houses as also what was in store for all the conductors in his wake and more revelers left to swarm the cars for it was Saturday night and many a week's wages were knocking down and the publicans this side of Beau Bridge shut their doors at 11 under act of parliament whereas beyond the bridge, which is the county of London the law gives them another hour and a man may drink many pots therein and for this at 11 every Saturday there's a great rush westward a vast migration over Lee from all the length of High Street and in other parts they walk or do their best to walk but from further Stratford by the town hall, the church and the martyr's memorial they crowd the cars for one thing it is a long half mile and the week's work is over also the car being swamped it is odd that a man shall save his fare since no conductor may fight his way a quarter through his passengers before Beau Bridge where the vehicle is emptied at a rush and that means yet another half pint so the 11-5 car started sooner than it might have done as it was spattering with rain, I boarded it sharing the conductor's forlorn hope but taking care to sit at the extreme fore-end inside in the broad street the market clamoured and flared its lights and shadows flickering and fading about the long churchyard and the steeple in the midst thereof and toward the distant light the shining road sparkled in long reaches like a blaggard river a gap fell here and there among the lights where a publican put his gas out and at these points the crowd thickened a quiet mechanic came in and sat near a decent woman with children, a bundle, a basket and a cabbage thirty yards on the car rumbled and suddenly its hindering was taken in a mass of people howling, struggling and blaspheming who stormed and wrangled in at the door and up the stairs there were lads and men whooping and flushed there were girls and women screaming choruses and in a moment the seats were packed knees were taken and there was not an inch of standing room the conductor cried all full and tugged at his bellstrap whereupon many were hanging by the hand but he was swept from his feet and made to push hard for his own place and there was no more foothold on the back platform nor the front nor any vacant step upon the stairway and the roof was thronged and the rest of the crowd was feigned to waylay the next car this one moved off slowly with shrieks and howls that were racking to the wits from diverse quarters of the roof came a bumping thunder as of cellophlapping clogs profanity was slew down as it were by pale falls from above and it was swilled back as it were in pale falls from below blouses and feathered bonnets bald hilarious obscenity at the jiggers a little maid with a market basket hustled and jostled an elbowed at the far end listened eagerly and laughed when she could understand and the quiet mechanic whose knees had been invaded by an unsteady young woman in a crushed heart tried to look pleased my own knees were saved from capture by the near-neighbourhood of an enormous female seated partly on the seat and partly on myself snorting and gulping with sleep her head upon the next man's shoulder to offer your seat to a standing woman would as besiems of foreign antique have been visited by the riot-baldery of the whole crowd in the midst of the riot a decent woman sat silent and indifferent her children on and about her knees further along two women ate fish with their fingers and discussed personalities in voices which ran strident through the uproar as the odor of their snack asserted itself in the general feeder and opposite the decent woman there sat a bondless drab who said nothing but looked at the decent woman's children as a shoeless brat looks at the dolls in a toy-shop window so I says to her I says this from the snacksters I'm a respectable married woman I says Maureen, you could say you're bare-faced, Aussie, I says then a shower of curses a shout and a roar of laughter and the conductor making slow and laborious progress with the fares nearest him turned his head a man had jumped upon the foot-board and a passenger's toes a scuffle and a fight and both had rolled off into the mire and got left behind one to one another cried a girl they were going for a walk together and there was a guffaw the silly bladers would be too late for the pubs said a male voice and there was another for the general understanding was touched then, an effect of sympathy perhaps a scuffle broke out on the roof but this disturbed not the insides the conductor went on his plaguey task to save time he passed over the one or two that now or not seemed likely to pay at the journey's end the snacking women resumed their talk the choristers there singing the rumble of the wheels was lost in a babble of vacant tribaldry the enormous woman choked and gasped and snuggled lower down upon her neighbour's shoulder and the shabby strumpet looked at the children a man by the door vomited his liquor, whereat was more hilarity and his neighbours, with many yops shoved further up the middle but one of the little ones standing before her mother was pushed almost to falling and the harlot, seeing her chance snatched the child upon her knee the child looked up something in wonder and smiled and the woman layered as honestly as she might saying a hoarse word or two presently the conflict overhead waxing and waning to an accompaniment of angry shouts afforded another brief diversion to those within and something persuaded the standing passengers to shove toward the door the street walker's arms Ginny cried the mother reaching forward and shaking her Ginny, wake up now you mustn't go to sleep and she pulled the little thing from her perch to where she had been standing the bonnetless creature bent forward and in her curious voice like that of one sick with shouting she could sit on my knee mum, if she likes she said she's tired the mother busied herself with the jerky adjustment all she mustn't go to sleep was all she said sharply and without looking up the horsewoman bent further forward with a propitiatory grin how old is she I'd like to give her a penny the mother answered nothing but drew the child close by the side of her knee where a younger one was sitting and looked steadily through the four windows the horsewoman sat back unquestioning and unresentful and turned her eyes upon them that were crowding over the conductor for the car was rising over Bow Bridge front and back they surged down from the roof and the insides made for the door as one man the big woman's neighbour rose and let her fall over on the seat whence, awaking with a loud grunt and an incoherent curse she rolled after the rest the conductor, claimant and bedeviled was caught between the two pel-mels and demanding fares and gripping his satchel carried over the footboard in the rush the strammers overhead came tangled and swearing down the stairs gaining volume and force and random punches as it came and the crowd on the pavement streamed vocally toward a brightness at the bridge foot the lights of the Bombay grab the woman with the children waited till the footboard was clear and then carrying one child and leading another her marketing's attached about her by indeterminate means she set the two youngsters on the pavement and entered on the step of the car the harlot, lingering lifted the child again lifted her rather high and set her on the path with the others then she walked away toward the Bombay grab a man in a blue surged suit was footing it down the turning between the public house and the bridge with drunken swiftness and an intermittent stagger and tightening her shawl she went in chase the quiet mechanic stood and stretched himself and took a corner seat near the door of the tram car quiet and vacant bumped on westward end of Toboe Bridge recording by Stephen Fellows chapter 8 of tales of mean streets this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Stephen Fellows tales of mean streets by Arthur Morrison chapter 8 that brute Simmons Simmons's infamous behavior toward his wife is still matter for profound wonderment among the neighbors the other women had all along regarded him as a model husband and certainly Mrs. Simmons was a most conscientious wife she toiled enslaved for that man as any woman in the whole street would have maintained far more than any husband had a right to expect and now this was what she got for it perhaps he had suddenly gone mad before she married Simmons Mrs. Simmons had been the widowed Mrs. Ford Ford had got a birth as a donkeyman on a tramp steamer and that steamer had gone down with all hands off the cape a judgment the widow woman feared for long years of contumacy which had culminated in the wickedness of taking to the sea and taking to it as a donkeyman an immeasurable fall for a capable engine fitter twelve years as Mrs. Ford had left her still childless and childless she remained as Mrs. Simmons as for Simmons he, it was held, was fortunate in that capable wife he was a moderately good carpenter and joiner but no man of the world and he wanted one nobody could tell what might not have happened to Tommy Simmons if there had been no Mrs. Simmons to take care of him he was a meek and quiet man with a boyish face and sparse limp whiskers he had no vices even his pipe departed him after his marriage and Mrs. Simmons had engrafted on him diverse exotic virtues he went solemnly to travel every Sunday under a tall hat and put a penny one return to him for the purpose out of his weeks wages in the plate then Mrs. Simmons overseeing he took off his best clothes and brushed them with solicitude and pains on Saturday afternoon he cleaned the knives the forks, the boots, the kettles and the windows patiently and conscientiously on Tuesday evenings he took the clothes to the mangling and on Saturday nights he attended Mrs. Simmons in her marketing to carry the parcels Mrs. Simmons's own virtues were native and numerous she was a wonderful manager every penny of Tommy's thirty-six or thirty-eight shillings a week was bestowed to the greatest advantage and Tommy never ventured to guess how much of it she saved her cleanliness and house waifery was distracting to behold or whenever he came home and then and there he changed his boots for slippers balancing himself painfully on alternate feet on the cold flags this was because she scrubbed the passage and doorstep turnabout with the wife of the downstairs family and because the stair carpet was her own she vigilantly supervised her husband all through the process of cleaning himself after work so as to come between her walls and the possibility of random splashes and if in spite of her diligence the spot remained to tell the tale she was at pains to impress the fact on Simmons's memory and to set forth at length all the circumstances of his ungrateful selfishness in the beginning she had always escorted him to the ready-made clothes shop and had selected and paid for his clothes for the reason that men are such perfect fools and shopkeepers do as they like with them but she presently improved on that she found a man selling cheap remnants at a street corner and straight away she conceived the idea of making Simmons's clothes herself decision was one of her virtues and a suit of uproarious check-tweeds was begun that afternoon from the pattern furnished by an old one more it was finished by Sunday when Simmons, overcome by astonishment at the feet, was endued in it and pushed off to chapel air he could recover his senses the things were not altogether comfortable he found the trousers clung tight against his shins but hung loose behind his heels and when he sat it was on a wilderness of hard folds and seams also his waistcoat collar tickled his nape but his coat collar went straining across from shoulder to shoulder while the main garment bagged generously below his waist use made a habit of his discomfort but it never reconciled him to the chaff of his shopmates for his Mrs. Simmons elaborated successive suits each one modelled on the last the primal accidents of her design developed into principles and grew even bolder and more hideously pronounced it was vain for Simmons to hint as hint he did that he shouldn't like her to overwork herself tailoring being bad for the eyes and there was a new tailor in the Myland Road very cheap where oh yes she retorted you very considerate a dassay sitting there acting alive before your own wife Thomas Simmons as though I couldn't see through you like a book a lot you care about overworking me as long as your turn served throwing away money like dirt in the street on a lot of Swindon tailors and me working in Slavenia had to save a half penny and this is my return for it he could pick money up on the Ors Road and I believe I'd be thought better of if I laid in bed all day like some would that I do so that Thomas Simmons avoided the subject nor even murmured when she resolved to cut his hair so his placid fortune endured for years then there came a golden summer evening when Mrs. Simmons betook herself with a basket to do some small shopping and Simmons was left at home he washed and put away the tea things and then he fell to meditating on a new pair of trousers finished that day and hanging behind the parlour door there they hung in all their decent innocence of shape in the seat and they were shorter of leg longer of waist and wilder of pattern than he had ever worn before and as he looked on them the small devil of original sin awoke and clamoured in his breast he was ashamed of it of course for well he knew the gratitude he owed his wife for those same trousers among other blessings still there the small devil was and the small devil was fertile in base suggestions and cannot be kept from hinting at the new crop of workshop jibes that would spring at Tommy's first public appearance and such things pitch him in the dustbin said the small devil at last he saw their fit for Simmons turned away in sheer horror of his wicked self and for a moment thought of washing the tea things over again by way of discipline then he made for the back room but saw from the landing that the front door probably by the fault of the child downstairs now a front door standing open was a thing that Mrs. Simmons would not abide it looked low so Simmons went down that she might not be wroth with him for the thing when she came back and as he shut the door he looked forth into the street a man was loitering on the pavement and prying curiously about the door his face was tanned his knees were deep in the pockets of his unbraced blue trousers and well back on his head he wore the high crowned peaked cap topped with a knob of wool which is affected by jacquish horror about the docks he lurched a step nearer to the door and Mrs. Ford ain't in is she? he said Simmons stared at him for a matter of five seconds and then said hey Mrs. Ford is worse than Simmons now ain't it? he said this with a furtive lear that Simmons neither liked nor understood no he said Simmons she ain't in now you ain't a husband are you? yes the man took his pipe from his mouth and grinned silently and long blimey he said at length you look the sort of bloke she'd like and with that he grinned again then seeing that Simmons made ready to shut the door he put a foot on the sill and a hand against the panel don't be in a hurry matey man to man you see and he frowned fiercely Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable but the door would not shut so he parlayed what you want he asked I don't know you then if you'll excuse the liberty I'll introduce myself in a manner of speaking he touched his cap with a bob of mock humility I'm bob Ford he said come back at a kingdom come so to say safe dead five year gone I come to see my wife during this speech Thomas Simmons' job was dropping lower and lower at the end of it he poked his fingers up through his hair looked down at the mat then up at the fan light then out into the street then hard at his visitor but he found nothing to say come to see my wife the man repeated so now we can talk it over Simmons slowly shut his mouth and led the way upstairs mechanically his fingers still in his hair a sense of the state of affairs sank gradually into his brain and the small devil walk again suppose this man was Ford suppose he did claim his wife would it be a knock down blow would it hit him out or not he thought of the trousers, the tea things the mangling, the knives, the kettles and the windows then Ford clutched at his arm and asked a horse whisper how long before she's back oh, oh, oh, I expect Simmons replied having first of all repeated the question in his own mind and then he opened the parlor door ah, said Ford looking about him you've been pretty comfortable them chairs and things jerking his pipe toward them was as mine that is to say speaking straight a man to man he sat down puffing meditatively at his pipe and presently well he continued here I am again old Bob Ford dead and done for only I ain't done for C and he pointed the stem of his pipe at Simmons' waistcoat I ain't done for cause why consequence of being picked up by an old German sailor and took to Frisco for the mast I've had a few years and knocking about looking hard at Simmons I've come back to see me wife she she don't arc smoke in here said Simmons as it were at random now I bet she don't Ford answered taking his pipe from his mouth holding it low in his hand ah, now Anna, how'd you find her? she make you clean the windows well Simmons admitted uneasily ah, do help her sometimes of course ah, and the nice do I bet and the blooming kittles are now why he rose and bent to look behind Simmons' head help me, I believe she cuts your hair well I'll be damned just what she would do too he inspected the blushing Simmons from diverse points of vantage then he lifted a leg of the trousers hanging behind the door I had better trifle he said she made the easier trucks nobody else are doing like that damn they're worse than what you got on the small devil began to have the argument all its own way if this man took his wife back perhaps he'd have to wear those trousers ah, Ford pursued she ain't got no milder am I Davey, what a jaw Simmons began to feel that this was no longer his business plainly Anna was this other man's wife and he was bound in honor to acknowledge the fact the small devil put it to him as a matter of duty well, said Ford suddenly time short in this ain't business I won't be hard on you mighty I ought properly to stand on my rights but seen as you're a well-meaning young man so to speak and all settled and living here quiet and matrimonial ow this with a burst of generosity damn, yes I'll compound the felony and take me hook come I'll name a figure as man to man first and last, no less and no more five pound as it Simmons hadn't five pounds he hadn't even five pence and he said so and I wouldn't think for the cum between a man and his wife he added not on no account it may be rough on me but it's a duty I'll look it no said Ford hastily clutching Simmons by the arm making a bit cheaper say three quid, con less reasonable ain't it three quid ain't much compensation for me going away forever with a stormy winds do blow so to say and never as much as seeing me on wife again for better and worse between man and man now three quid not shunt that's fair ain't it of course it's fair Simmons replied effusively it's more unfair it's noble downright noble I call it your good-heartedness Mr. Ford she's your wife and I oughtn't to a cum between you I apologise you stop and have your proper rights it's me is up to shunt and I will and he made a step toward the door out on don't do things rash look what a loss it'll be to you with no um to go to nobody look after you in all that it'll be dreadful say a couple there we won't quarrel just a single quid man and man and I'll stand a port out of the money you can easy raise a quid the clock would pretty nigh do it a quid does it now there was a loud double knock at the front door in the east end a double knock is always for the upstairs lodgers who's that asked Bob Ford apprehensively I'll see said Thomas Simmons in reply and he made a rush for the staircase Bob Ford heard him open the front door then he went to the window and just below him he saw the crown of a bonnet it vanished and born to him from within the door there fell upon his ear the sound of a well-remembered female voice where you going now with no heart asked the voice sharply all right Anna there's uh there's somebody upstairs to see you Simmons answered and as Bob Ford could see a man went scuttling down the street in the gathering dusk and behold it was Thomas Simmons Ford reached the landing in three strides his wife was still at the front door staring after Simmons he flung into the back room threw open the window dropped from the wash house roof into the backyard scrambled desperately over the fence and disappeared into the gloom he was seen by no living soul and that is why Simmons's base desertion under his wife's very eyes too is still an astonishment to the neighbors end of chapter 8 that brute Simmons recording by Stephen Fellows