By Arthur Morrison
Preface by H. L. Mencken
Text from the The Modern Library Publishers: New York edition.
Copyright 1921, by Boni & Liveright, Inc. Manufactured in the
USA for the Modern Library, Inc., by H. Wolff
etext prepared 2002, using OmniPage Pro 8.0 and BBEdit Lite 4.1
Special thanks to Stanley Q. Woodvine for providing this HTML file.
Table of Contents
Lizerunt
Without Visible Means
To Bow Bridge
That Brute Simmons
Behind the shade
Three Rounds
In Business
The Red Cow Group
On The Stairs
Squire Napper
A Poor Stick
A Conversion
All that Messuage
PREFACE.
After a quarter of a century these, brief and searching tales of
Arthur Morrisons still keep the breath of life in themmodest
but precious salvages from the high washings and roarings of the
eighteen-nineties. The decadethe last of the Victorian age, as of
the centurywas so fecund that some Englishman has spread out its
record to the proportions of a book. It was a time of youngsters, of
literary rebellions, of adventures in new forms. No great
three-decker sailed out of it, but what a host there was of smaller
craft, rakish and impudentthe first Jungle Book, the
Dolly Dialogues, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,
the first plays and criticisms of George Bernard Shaw, Sherlock
Holmes, the matriculation pieces of H.G. Wells, Jerome K.
Jerome, Hewlett, Dodo Benson, Hichens and so on, and all
the best of Gissing and Wilde. Think of the novelties of one year
only, 1894: The Green Carnation,
Salomé, The Prisoner of Zenda, the
Dolly Dialogues, Gissings In the Year of
jubilee, the first Jungle Book, Arms and the
Man, Round the Red Lamp, and, not least, these
Tales of Mean Streets.
In the whole lot there was no book or play, save it be
Wildes Salomé, that caused more gabble than the one
here printed again, nor was any destined to hold its public longer.
The Prisoner of Zenda, chewed to bits on the stage, is
now almost as dead as Baal; not even the stock companies in the oil
towns set any store by it. So with The Green Carnation,
Round the Red Lamp, the Dolly Dialogues, and
even Arms and the Man, and, I am almost tempted to add,
the Jungle Book. But Tales of Mean Streets is
still on its legs. People read it, talk about it, ask for it in the
bookstores; periodically it gets out of print. Well, here it is once
more, and perhaps a new generation is ready for it, or the older
generationso young and full of fine enthusiasm in 1894!will want
to read it again.
The causes of its success are so plain that they scarcely need
pointing out. It was not only a sound and discreet piece of writing,
with people in it who were fully alive; there was also a sort of news
in it, and even a touch of the truculent. What the news uncovered was
something near and yet scarcely known or even suspected: the amazing
life of the London East End, the sewer of England and of Christendom.
Morrison, in brief, brought on a whole new company of comedians and
set them to playing novel pieces, tragedy and farce. He made them, in
his light tales, more real than any solemn Blue Book or polemic had
ever made them, and by a great deal; he not only created plausible
characters, but lighted up the whole dark scene behind them. People
took joy in the book as fiction, and pondered it as a fact. It got a
kind of double fame, as a work of art and as social documenta very
dubious and dangerous kind of fame in most cases, for the document
usually swallows the work of art. But here the document has faded,
and what remains is the book.
At the start, as I say, there was a sort of challenge in it as
well as news: it was, in a sense, a flouting of Victorian
complacency, a headlong leap into the unmentionable. Since
Dickens time there had been no such plowing up of sour soils.
Other men of the decade, true enough, issued challenges too, but that
was surely not its dominant note. On the contrary, it was rather
romantic, ameliorative, sweet-singing; its high god was Kipling, the
sentimental optimist. The Empire was flourishing; the British public
was in good humor; life seemed a lovely thing. In the midst of all
this the voice of Morrison had a raucous touch of it. He was amusing
and interesting, but he was also somewhat disquieting, and even
alarming. If this London of his really existedand inquiry soon
showed that it didthen there was a rift somewhere in the lute, and
a wart on the graceful body politic.
Now all such considerations are forgotten, and there remains only
the book of excellent tales. It has been imitated almost as much as
Plain Tales From the Hills, and to much better effect.
The note seems likely to be a permanent one in our fiction. Now and
then it appears to die out, but not for long. A year ago I thought it
was doing soand then came the Limehouse Nights of
Thomas Burke, and James Stephens Hunger. Both go
back to Tales of Mean Streets as plainly as vers
libre goes back to Mother Goose.
H.L. MENCKEN.
Baltimore, 1918.
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 Leadenhall Street and Aldgate
Pump, 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 pennorths 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
furnishes adjacent police courts with disorderly drunks. Still
another knows the East End only as a 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 peoples 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 one hundred and fifty yardson 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.
Some who inhabit this street are in the docks, some in the
gas-works, 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 descent, 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 gas-works, and the ship-yards. To be awakened in this wise
costs fourpence a week, and for this fourpence a fierce rivalry rages
between night-watchmen and policemen. The night-watchmana sort of
by-blow of the ancient Charley, and himself a fast
vanishing quantityis the real professional performer; but he goes
to the wall, 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 oclock, as he collects orders in the
evening, is now seldom heard.
The knocking and shouting pass, and there comes the noise of
opening and shutting of doors, and a clattering away to the docks, the
gas-works and the ship-yards. 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 croupy infants. After this, a new
trotting of little feet to docks, gas-works, and ship-yards with
fathers 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 flower-pot
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-puddingthe 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 week, when father
is out of work, or ill, or drunk, and the Sunday cooking may very
easily be done at homeif any there be to do.
On Sunday morning one or two heads of families appear in wonderful
black suits, with unnumbered creases and wrinklings at the seams. At
their sides and about their heels trot the unresting little feet, and
from under painful little velvet caps and straw hats stare solemn
little faces toweled to a polish. Thus disposed and arrayed, they
fare gravely through the grim little streets to a grim Little Bethel
where are gathered together others in like garb and attendance; and
for two hours they endure the frantic menace of hell-fire.
Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and trousers on their beds
and read the Sunday paper; while some are driven forthfor they
hinder the houseworkto loaf, and await the opening of the beer-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 that 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 colorless day
will work through its twenty-four hours just as it did yesterday, and
just as it will to-morrow. Without there may be party strife, wars
and rumors of wars, public rejoicings; but the trotting of the little
feet will be neither quickened nor stayed. 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 streetnothing but a
strike.
Nobody laughs herelife is too serious a thing; nobody sings.
There was once a woman who sunga young wife from the country. But
she bore children, and her voice cracked. Then her man died, and she
sung 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 streetone of the single,
ground-floor holesis 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 boot-laces, and a bundle or two of firewood
compose a stock which at night is sometimes lighted by a little
paraffine lamp in a tin sconce, and sometimes by a candle. A widow
lives herea 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 sews cheap shirts at night. Two young
men lodgers, 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 morningthe 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 widows room where she plies her needle. She is a
quiet woman, who speaks little with her neighbors, having other
things to do: a woman of pronounced character, to whom it would be
unadvisableeven dangerousto offer coals or blankets. Hers was the
strongest contempt for the helpless woman who sung: 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 widows
house is one of the cleanest, and the widows children match the
house. The one house cleaner than the widows is ruled by a
despotic Scotch woman, who drives every hawker off her whitened 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 doctors
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 colorless as the days life in this street. Existence
dawns, and the doctor-watchmans 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
mid-day play hour, when love peeps even into this street; after that
more trotting of little feetstrange little feet, new little
feetand the scrubbing, and the squalling, and the barren flowerpot;
the end of the sooty days work; the last home-coming;
nightfall; sleep.
When loves light falls into some corner of the street, it
falls at an early hour of this mean life, and is itself but a dusky
ray. It falls early, because it is the sole bright thing which the
street sees, and is watched for and counted on. Lads and lasses,
awkwardly arm-in-arm, go pacing up and down this street, before the
natural interest in marbles and dolls houses would have left
them in a brighter place. They are keeping company; the
manner of which proceeding is indigenousis 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 dances, 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
others company, nothing is easier than to separate and walk out
with somebody else. When by these means each has found a fit mate (or
thinks so), a ring is 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 love-making in
this street is a dreary thing, when one thinks of love-making in
other places. It beginsand it endstoo 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 Sunday 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
wrathfully confiscated. For the air of this street is unfavorable to
the ideal.
Round the corner there are a bakers, a chandlers 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: some
where Mangling done here stares 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 ere
submitting to it.
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 meeting 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
chainis 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.
Lizerunt
I.
Somewhere in the register was written the name Elizabeth Hunt; but
seventeen years after the entry the spoken name was Lizerunt.
Lizerunt worked at a pickle factory, and appeared abroad in an
elaborate and shabby costume, usually supplemented by a white apron.
Withal 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, new-washed,
was susceptible of a high polish. Many such girls are married at
sixteen, but Lizerunt was belated, and had never a bloke at all.
Billy Chope was a year older than Lizerunt. He wore a billycock
with a thin brim 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 breeches pockets; and he lived with his mother, who mangled.
His conversation with Lizerunt consisted long of perfunctory nods;
but great things happened this especial Thursday evening, as
Lizerunt, making for home, followed the fading red beyond the
furthermost end of Commercial Road. For Billy Chope, slouching in the
opposite direction, lurched across the pavement as they met, and
taking the nearest hand from his pocket, caught and twisted her arm,
bumping her against the wall.
Garn, said Lizerunt, greatly pleased: le
go! For she knew that this was love.
Where yer auf to, Lizer?
Ome, o course, cheeky. Le go; and
she snatchedin vainat Billys hat.
Billy let go, and capered in front of her. She feigned to dodge by
him, careful not to be too quick, because affairs were
developing.
I say, Lizer, said Billy, stopping his dance and
becoming business-like, going anywhere Monday?
Not along o you, cheeky; you go long o
Beller Dawson, like wot you did Easter.
Blow Beller Dawson; she aint no good. Im
goin on the Flats. Come?
Lizerunt, delighted but derisive, ended with a promise to
see. The bloke had come at last, and she walked home with
the feeling of having taken her degree. She had half assured herself
of it two days before, when Sam Cardew threw 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 jaunt to Wanstead Flats might be adequately
done.
There is no other fair like Whit Mondays on Wanstead 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 Epping Forest; the
public-houses are always with you; shows, shines, swings,
merry-go-rounds, fried-fish staIls, donkeys are packed closer than on
Hampstead Heath; the ladies tormentors are larger, and their
contents smell worse than at any other fair. Also, you may be drunk
and disorderly without being locked upfor the stations wont
hold everybodyand when all else has palled, you may set fire to the
turf. Hereinto Billy and Lizerunt projected themselves from the doors
of the Holly Tree on Whit Monday morning. But through hours on hours
of fried fish and half-pints both were conscious of a deficiency. For
the hat of Lizerunt was brown and old; plush it was not, and its
feather was a mere foot long and of a very rusty black. Now, it is
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 withal an ostrich feather, pink or
scarlet or what not; a feather that springs from the fore-part,
climbs the crown, and drops as far down the shoulders as may be.
Lizerunt 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 splendor. Billy,
too, had a vague impression, muddled by but not drowned in
half-pints, that some degree of plush was condign to the occasion and
to his own expenditure. Still, there was no quarrel; and the pair
walked and ran with arms about each others necks; and Lizerunt
thumped her bloke on the back at proper intervals; so that the affair
went regularly on the whole: although, in view of Lizerunts
shortcomings, Billy did not insist on the customary exchange of
hats.
Everything, I say, went well and well enough until Billy bought a
ladies tormentor and began to squirt it at Lizerunt. For then
Lizerunt 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
hokeypokey barrows.
Ullo, Lizer! where are y a-comin
to? If I adnt laid old o ye! But here
Billy Chope arrived to demand what the ell Sam Cardew was doing
with his gal. Now Sam was ever readier for a fight than Billy was;
but the sun [sum?] of Billys half-pints was large:
wherefore the fight began. On the skirt of a hilarious ring Lizerunt,
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, hd 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 on Wanstead 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 air of blamelessness as is practicable with a damaged
eye; while Billy went off unheeded in an opposite direction.
Lizerunt and her new bloke went the routine of half-pints and
merry-gorounds, and were soon on right thumping terms; and Lizerunt
was as well satisfied with the issue as 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 sun
went down on her and her bloke hanging on each others necks and
straggling toward the Romford Road with shouts and choruses. The rest
was tram-car, Bow Music Hall, half-pints, and darkness.
Billy took home his wounds, and his mother, having moved his wrath
by asking their origin, sought refuge with a neighbor. He
accomplished his revenge in two installments. Two nights later
Lizerunt was going with a jug of beer, when somebody sprung 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; and next day Sam Cardew was swearing hed
break Billys 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 Bradys 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, but they
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 it
was in many bandages. Lizerunt 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 Lizerunt was getting a little fired of bandages. Also,
she had begun to doubt and to consider bank holidayscarce 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, well knowing that if he
helped her by taking home he would pocket the money at the other end,
had taken to finishing and delivering in his absence, and threats
failing to get at the money, Billy Chope was impelled to punch her
head and grip her by the throat.
There was a milliners window, with a show of nothing but
fashionable plush-and-feather hats, and Lizerunt was lingering
hereabouts one evening, when some one took her by the waist, and some
one said: Which dyer like, Lizer? The yuller
un?
Lizerunt turned and saw that it was Billy. She pulled herself
away, and backed off, sullen and distrustful. Garn! she
said.
Straight, said Billy, Ill sport yer one
... No kid, I will.
Garn! said Lizerunt once more. Wot yer
gittin at now?
But presently, being convinced that bashing wasnt 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 cant have everything; and Sam
Cardew, with his bandages and his grunts and groans, was no great
catch after all.
This was the wooing of Lizerunt: for in a few months she and Billy
married under the blessing of a benignant rector, who periodically
set aside a day for free weddings, and, on principle, encouraged
early matrimony. And they lived with Billys mother.
II.
When Billy Chope married Lizerunt 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. Lizerunts
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, to
have a months 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 unwonted
quartern 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 Lizerunt had always
been able to extract ten shillings a week from the pickle factory,
and it was to be presumed that as Lizer 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 Lizer, 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, Lizer took the way of womankind. This
circumstance brought an unexpected half-crown from the evangelical
rector who had married the couple gratis; for, recognizing Billy in
the street by accident, and being told of Mrs. Chopes
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 whereunto
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
furnish himself ere he left home.
For certain weeks cash came less freely than ever from the two
women. Lizer 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 shilling cost him many more demands and threats
than it had used, and a deal more general trouble.
At last Lizer ceased from going to the pickle factory, and could
not even help Billys 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.
Two bob! Wot for? Lizer asked.
Cos I want it. None o yer lip!
Aint got it, said Lizer, sulkily.
Thats a bleedn lie!
Lie yerself!
Ill break yin arves, ye blasted
eifer! He ran at her throat and forced her back over a
chair. Ill pull yer face auf! If y dont give
me the money, gawblimy, Ill do for ye!
Lizer strained and squalled. Le go! Youll kill
me an the kid too! she grunted, hoarsely. Billys
mother ran in and threw her arms about him, dragging him away.
Dont, Billy! she said, in terror. Dont,
Billynot now! Youll get in trouble. Come away. She might go
auf, an youd get in trouble!
Billy Chope flung his wife over and turned to his mother.
Take yer ands auf me, he said; go on, or
Ill gi ye somethin for yerself! And he
punched her in the breast by way of illustration.
You shall ave what Ive got, Billy, if its
money, the mother said. But dont go an git
yerself in trouble, dont. Will a shillin do!
No, it wont. Think Im a bloomin kid? I
mean avin two bob this mornin.
I was a-keepin it for the rent, Billy but
Yus; think o the bleedn lanlord
fore me, doncher? And he pocketed the two shillings.
I aint settled with you yut, my gal, he added to
Lizer; mikin about at ome an idin
money. You wait a bit!
Lizer 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 laid her on the lower stairs,
and, swinging his legs round his mother as she obstructed him,
entreating 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.
Lizer lay doubled up on the stairs, howling; but her only
articulate cry was: Gawd elp me, its
comin!
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 awhile, on the chance of the advent of a flush sailor from
St. Katherines, disposed to treat out-o-workers. Then he
went alone to a quieter beer-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 a notion for the evening, he bethought 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
oclock! Billy pushed into the room behind, demanding why.
Billy, Lizer said, faintly, from her 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 humunculus, 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: Wheres my dinner?
I dunno, Lizer responded, hazily. Wots the
time?
Time? Dont try to kid me. You git up; go on. I want my
dinner!
Mothers gittin it, I think, said Lizer.
Doctor had to slap im like anythink fore
ed cry. E dont cry now much.
E
Go on; out ye git. I do want no more damn jaw. Git my
dinner!
Im a-gittin of it, Billy, his mother said,
at the door. She had begun when he first entered. It wont
be a minute.
You come ere; yaint alwis s ready to do
er work, are ye? She aint no call to stop there no
longer, an I owe er one for this mornin. Will ye
git out, or shall I kick ye?
She cant, Billy, his mother said. And Lizer
sniveled and said: Youre a damn brute. Yought to be
bleedin well booted!
But Billy had her by the shoulder 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 Chope by the collar, hauled him pell-mell along
the passage, kicked him (hard) into the gutter, and shut the
door.
When he returned to the room, Lizer, sitting up and holding on by
the bed-frame, gasped hysterically: Ye bleedin makeshift,
Id ave yer liver out if I could reach ye! You touch my
usband, ye long pisenin ound you! Ow!
And,infirm of aim, she flung a cracked teacup at his head.
Billys mother said: Yought to be ashamed of
yourself, you low blaggard. If is father was alive
ed knock yer ead auf. Call yourself a doctora
passel o boys! Git out! Go out o my ouse, or
Ill give yin charge!
Butwhy, hang it, hed have killed her. Then to
Lizer. Lie down.
Shant lay down. Keep auf; if you come near me
Ill corpse ye. You go while yere safe!
The dispenser appealed to Billys mother. For
Gods sake, make her lie down. Shell kill herself.
Ill go. Perhaps the doctor had better Come. And he went:
leaving the coast clear for Billy Chope to return and avenge his
kicking.
III.
Lizer 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 charing. Odd jobs
of charing have a shade 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. More over, 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 ninepence, or a shilling, or eighteenpence.
Once or twice, to his knowledge, it had been half a crown, from a
chance job at a doctors or a parsons, and once it was
three shillings. That it might be half a crown or three shilling
again, and that some of it was being kept back, was ever the
suspicion evoked by Lizers evening homing. Plainly, with these
fluctuating and uncertain revenues, more bashing than ever was needed
to insure the extraction of the last copper; empty-handedness called
for bashing on its own account; so that it was often Lizers hap
to be refused a job because of a black eye.
Lizers 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,
pulling and foul. Whenever she was near it, there was the mangle to
be turned; for lately Billys mother had exhibited a 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
twopence, 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.
Lizers youngest, being seven or 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 bethought 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.
Erewots 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; theres nothing there.
Ill get anything you want, Billy. And she made a nervous
catch at the screw of paper. But Billy fended her off, and tore the
package open. It was money, arranged in little columns of farthings,
halfpence, and three penny pieces, with a few sixpences, a shilling
or two, and a single half-sovereign. Oh, said Billy,
this is the game, is it?idin money in the mangle!
Got any more? And he hastily turned the brickbats.
No, Billy, dont take thatdont! implored
his mother. Therell be some money for them things when
they go omeave that. Im savin it, Billy,
for something particler; selp me Gawd, I am,
Billy!
Yus, replied Billy, raking diligently among the
clinkers, savin it for a good ol booze. An
now you wont ave one. Bleedin nice thing,
idin money away from yer own son!
It aint for that, Billyselp me, it aint;
its case anything appens to me. Ony to put me away
decent, Billy, thats all. We never know, an youll
be glad of it telp bury me if I should go any time
Ill be glad of it now, answered Billy, who had
it in his pocket; an Ive got it. You aint a
dyin sort, you aint; an if you was, the
parish ud soon tuck you up. Praps
youll be straighter about money after this.
Let me ave some, thenyou cant want it
all. Give me some, an then ave the money for the things.
Theres ten dozen and seven, and you can take em yerself
if ye like.
Wot-in this ere rain? Not me! I bet Id ave
the money if I wanted it without that. Erechange these
ere fardens at the drapers wen you go out: theres
two bobs worth an a pennorth; I dont want to
bust my pockets wi them.
While they spoke, Lizer had come in from the back room. But she
said nothing: she rather busied herself with a child she had in her
arms. When Billys mother, despondent and tearful, had tramped
out into the rain with a pile of clothes in an oilcloth wrapper, she
said sulkily, without looking up: You might a
leter kept that; you git 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 shutcher ead, he said,
I got this anyow. She can make it up out o my rent
if she likes. This last remark was a joke, and he chuckled as
he made it. For Billys rent was a simple fiction,
devised, on the suggestion of a smart canvasser, to give him a
parliamentary vote.
That night Billy and Lizer slept, as usual, in the bed in the back
room, where the two younger children also were. Billys 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 Lizer 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.
Wring is blasted neck! his father grunted,
sleepily. Wots the kid owlin for?
Is faid o gannyIs
faid o ganny! was all the child could
say; and when he had said it, he fell to screaming once more.
Lizer rose and went to the next room; and straightway came a
scream from her also. Oh, oh, Billy! Billy! Oh, my Gawd! Billy
come ere!
And Billy, fully startled, followed in Lizers wake. He
blundered 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 grate beyond. But the muddy old skin was white, and looked
cleaner than its wont, and many of the wrinkles were gone.
Billy Chope, half-way across the floor, recoiled from the corpse,
and glared at it pallidly from the door-way.
Good Gawd! he croaked, faintly, is she
dead?
Seized by a fit of shuddering breaths, Lizer sunk 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 coroners
officer carried away the body two days later. When he came for his
meals, he sat doubtful and querulous in the matter of the front room
doors being shut. The dead once clear 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 Lizer did
there would be no more charing jobsa 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 Lizer. Indeed, it was
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 Lizer might turn her hand: an injustice
whereon Billy meditated with bitterness.
The inquest was formal and unremarked, the medical officer having
no difficulty in certifying a natural death from heart disease. The
bright idea of a collection among the jury, which Billy communicated,
with pitiful representations, to the coroners officer, was
brutally swept aside by that functionary, made cunning by much
experience. So the inquest brought him naught 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 Lizer 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: Ere,
he said, one night, Ive ad enough o this. You
go and get some money; go on.
Go an git it? replied Lizer. Oh, yus.
Thats easy, aint it? Go an git it, says
you. Ow?
Anyow! dont care. Go on.
Wy, replied Lizer, looking up with wide eyes,
dye think I can go an pick it up in the
street?
Course you can. Plenty others does, dont
they?
Gawd, Billy! wot dye mean?
Wot I say; plenty others does it. Go on; you aint so
bleedn innocent as all that. Go an see Sam Cardew.
Go onook it.
Lizer, who had been kneeling at the childs floor-bed, rose
to her feet, pale-faced and bright of eye.
Stow kiddin, Billy, she said. You
dont mean that. Ill go round to the factry in the
mornin; praps theyll take me on
tempry.
Damn the factry!
He pushed her into the passage. Go onyou git me some
money, if ye dont want yer bleedn ead knocked
auf.
There was a scuffle in the dark passage, with certain blows, a few
broken words, and a sob. Then the door slammed, and Lizer Chope was
in the windy street.
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
strikeand struck. Other smaller armies of men, with no preparation,
were ordered to strike to express sympathyand struck. Other armies
still were ordered to strike because it was the fashionand struck.
Then many hands were discharged because the strikes in other trades
left them no work. Many others came from other parts in regiments to
work, but remained to loaf in gangstaught by the example of earlier
regiments, which, the situation being explained (an expression
devised to include mobbings and kickings and flingings 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 with 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. At the tail of one such gang, which
gathered in the Burdett 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 straggled over the footpath and the road, few of
its members speaking, most of them keeping to their places and
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 jury coming from a local inquest. As the
streets got broken and detached, with patches of field 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, and had even brought an 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 abstractedly into his pocket, suddenly stared and stopped.
He drew out the hand, and saw in it three shillings.
Selp me! he said, the missis is done
thatshoved it in unbeknown when I come away. An shes
ony got a bob for erself an the kids. He
broke into a sweat of uneasiness. Ill ave to send
it back at the next post-office, thats all.
Send it back? Not you! Thus with deep scorn the
voluble young man at his side. Shell be all right,
you lay your life. A woman allus knows ow to look after
erself. Youll bleedn soon want it, an
bad. You do as I tell you, Joey; stick to it. Thats right,
Dave, aint it?
Matter o fancy, replied the stolid man. My
missis cleared my pockets out fore I got away. Shouldnt
wonder at bein sent after for leavin er chargeable
if I dont soon send some more. Womens
different.
The march continued, and grew dustier. The cheerful pilgrim in
front produced his accordion. At Palmers 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
Potters Bar.
After a long silence: Which11 be nearest, Dave,
asked little Joey Clayton, Newcastle or
Middlesborough?
Middlesborough, said Dave; I done it
afore.
Trampin aint so rough on a man, is it, after
all? asked Joey, wistfully. You done all right,
didnt you?
Got through. All depends, though its rough enough.
Matter o luck. I ad the bad weather.
If I dont get a good easy job where were
goin, remarked the voluble young man, Ill
ave a strike there too.
Ave a strike there? exclaimed Joey.
Ow? Whod call em out?
Wy, I would. I think Im equal to doin it,
aint I? An when workin-men stand idle an
ungry in the midst o the wealth an the lukshry
an the igstravagance theyve produced with the sweat of
their brow, why, then, feller-workmen, its time to act.
Its time to bring the nigger-drivin bloated capitalists
to their knees.
Ear, ear! applauded Joey Clayton; tamely,
perhaps, for the words were not new. Good on yer, Newman!
Newman had a habit of practicing this sort of thing in snatches
whenever he saw the chance. He had learned the trick in a debating
society; and Joey Clayton was always an applausive audience. There
was a pause, the accordion started another tune, and Newman tried a
different passage of his harangue.
In the shop they call me Skulky Newman. Why? Cos I
skulk, o course (Ear, ear!
dreamilyfrom Dave this time). I aint ashamed of it, my
friends. Im a miker out an out, an I ope I
shall always remain a miker. The less a worker does the more as
to be imployed, dont they? An the more the toilers wrings
out o the capitalists, dont they? Very well then, I mike,
an I do it as a sacred dooty.
Youll ave all the mikin you want for a
week or two, said Dave Burge, placidly. Stow
it.
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. Skulky 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 slyly at Joey Clayton: If
Id got a bob or two Id stand you two blokes a pint
apiece.
Joey looked troubled. Well, as you aint, I suppose I
ought to, he said, uneasily, turning toward the little inn hard
by. Dave, he cried to Burge, who was walking on,
wont you ave a drink? And, Well, if you
are goin to do the toff, I aint proud, was the slow
reply.
Afterward, Joey was inclined to stop at the post-office to send
away at least two shillings. But Newman wouldnt. 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 womans knack of
keeping alive in spite of all things, and Joey determined not to
sendfor 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 struck up from
time to time, but ceased toward 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 cough was aggravated by the
dust, was especially tortured, after every fit, to hear the thing
drawling and whooping the tune it had drawled and whooped a dozen
times before; but he said nothing, scarce knowing what annoyed
him.
At HatfieId Station two of the foremost picked up a few coppers
by helping with a heavy trap-load of luggage. Up Digswell Hill the
party tailed out lengthily, and Newman, who had been letting off a
set speech, was fain to save his wind. The night came, clear to see
and sweet to smell. Between Welwyn and Codicote the company broke up
to roost in such barns as they might possess; all but the master of
the accordion, who had stayed at a little public-house at Welwyn,
with the notion of earning a pot of beer and a stable-corner (or
better) by a tune in the tap-room. Dave Burge lighted on a lone shed
of thatched hurdles with loose hay in it, and Newman straightway
curled in the snuggest 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 Codicote; 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 eightpence. 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 twopence at Henlow 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 cough 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 Biggleswade. 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.
No use lookin, said Dave; es
done it.
Eh?
Skulkys opped the twig an sneaked your
tools. Gawd knows where e is by now.
No! the little man gasped, sitting up in a
pale,sweat.... Not sneaked em ... is e? ...
Selp me! theres a set o callipers worth fifteen bob
in that bag.
... E aint gawn ...?
Dave Burge nodded inexorably.
Best feel in your pockets, he said,
praps es bin there.
He had. The little man broke down. I was a-goin to
send ome that two bobselp me, I was! ... An what
can I do without my tools? If Id got no job I could a
pawned eman then Id a sent ome the
moneyselp me, I would...!
Oh, its crool!
The walking, with the long sleep after it, had left him sore and
stiff, and Dave had 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 tussock by the wayside.
Why wont nobody let me live? he sniveled.
Im a armless bloke enough. I worked at
Rittersons, man and boy, very nigh twenty year. When they come
an ordered us out, I come out with the others, peaceful enough;
I didnt want to chuck it up, Gawd knows, but I come out
promp when they told me. And when I found another job on the
Island, four big blokes set about me an arf killed me.
I didnt know the place was blocked. And when two o
the blokes was took up, they said Id get strike-pay again if I
didnt identify em; so I didnt. But they never give
me no strike-paythey laughed an chucked me out. An now
Im a-starvin on the igh road. An Skulky ...
blimy ... es done me too!
There were days wherein Joey learned to cat 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, and worse, holding to posts and gates, and often spitting
blood. He had little to say, but trudged mechanically, taking note of
nothing.
Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he asked:
Wasnt there some others?
Others? said Dave, for a moment taken aback. Oh,
yes, there was some others. Theyre gone on ahead,
yknow.
Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then he said:
Expect theyre avin a rough time
too.
Ah, very like, said Dave.
For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough. Then he went on:
Comes o not bringing cordions with em. Every
one ought to take a cordion what goes trampin. I knew a
man once that went trampin, an e took a
cordion. He done all right. It aint.so rough for
them as plays on the cordion. And Dave Burge rubbed his
cap about his head and stared, but answered 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. Joey, now unimpressionable, endured more
placidly than even Dave Burge. Late in the afternoon, No,
he said, it aint so rough for them as plays the
cordion. They as the best of it.... Selp me,
he added, suddenly. were all cordions!
He sniggered thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that left him
panting. Were nothin but a bloomin lot
o cordions ourselves, he went on, having got his
breath, an they play any toon they like on us; and
thats ow they make their livin. Selp me,
Dave, were all cordions. And he laughed.
Umyus, 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 aloud, now to himself. All cordions;
playin any toon as its ordered, blimy.... Are we
cordions? I dont blieve were as much
as thatno, selp me! Were ony the footlin
little keys; shoved about to soot the toon. Little tin keys,
blimyfootlin little keys. Ive bin played on plenty,
I ave.
Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to talk of other things.
But Joey rarely heard him. Ive bin played on plenty,
I ave, he persisted. I was played on once by
a pal, and my spring broke.
At nightfall there was mote bad luck. They were driven from a
likely barn by a leather-gaitered 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.
Its you, Dave, aint it? Clayton was
saying. Good Gawd! I thought Id lawst you. Whats
all this erenot the water, is it?not the dock? Im
soppin 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
cordions woke me, he explained when it was over.
So the night put on the shuddering gray of the fore-dawn. 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.
Its my spring broke, he would say after such an
attack. Bloomin little tin key put out o
toon. And once he added, Im up to one toon, though,
now: this ere bloomin 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, eres a bob, he
said, a lady give it you. You come an git a drop o
beer.
They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap-room of a small tavern,
and Dave had mild ale himself, but saw that Joey was served with
stout with a pennorth of gin in it. Soon the gin and
stout reached Joeys 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 twopenny loaf into his
pocket. He took a piece of chalk from the bagatelle board in the
corner, and wrote this on the table: dr. sir. for god sake take
him to the work House.
Then he gathered up the coppers where they lay, and stepped
quietly into the street.
To Bow
Bridge
The eleven-five tram-car from Stratford started for Bow 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 till there were no more revelers left
to swarm the cars. For it was Saturday night, and many a weeks
wages were a-knocking down; and the publicans this side of Bow Bridge
shut their doors at eleven 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 eleven
every Saturday, there is a great rush westward, a vast migration over
Lea, from all the length of High Street. From the nearer parts they
walk, or do their best to walk; but from further Stratford, by the
town hall, the church, and the Martyrs Memorial, they crowd the
cars. For one thing, it is a long half mile, and the weeks work
is over. Also, the car being swamped, it is odds that a man shall
save his fare, since no conductor may fight his way a quarter through
his passengers before Bow Bridge, where the vehicle is emptied at a
rush. And that means yet another halfpint.
So the eleven-five car started sooner than it might have done. As
it was spattering with rain, I boarded it, sharing the
conductors forlorn hope, but taking care to sit at the extreme
fore-end inside. In the broad street the market clamored and flared,
its lights and shadows flickering and fading about the long
church-yard and the steeple in the midst thereof; and toward the
distant lights, the shining road sparkled in long reaches, like a
blackguard river.
A gap fell here and there among the lights where a publican put
his gas out; and at these points the crowds 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 hinder end 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 bell-strap, whereunto 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 fain to waylay the next car.
This one moved off slowly, with shrieks and howls that were
racking to the wits. From divers quarters of the roof came a bumping
thunder as of cellar-flapping clogs. Profanity was sluiced down, as
it were, by pailfuls from above, and was swilled back, as it were, in
pailfuls from below. Blowsers in feathered bonnets bawled hilarious
obscenity at the jiggers. A little maid with a market-basket hustled
and jostled and 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 hat, tried to
look pleased. My own knees were saved from capture by the near
neighborhood of an enormous female, seated partly on the seat and
partly on myself, snorting and gulping with sleep, her head upon the
next mans shoulder. (To offer your seat to a standing woman
would, as beseems a foreign antic, have been visited by the ribaldry
of the whole crowd.) In the midst of the riot the decent woman sat
silent and indifferent, her children on and about her knees. Further
along, two women eat fish with their fingers and discoursed
personalities in voices which ran strident through the uproar, as the
odor of their snack asserted itself in the general fetor. And
opposite the decent woman there sat a bonnetless drab, who said
nothing but looked at the decent womans children as a shoeless
brat looks at the dolls in a toyshop window.
So I ses to er, I sesthis from the
snackstersIm a respectable married woman, I ses.
Moren you can say you barefaced hussy, I ses. 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 footboard and a passengers
toes. A scuffle and a fight, and both had rolled off into the mire,
and got left behind. Aint they fond o each
other? cried a girl. Theyre a-goin for a walk
together. And there was a guffaw. The silly bleeders
ll be too late for the pubs, said a male voice; and there
was another, for the general understanding was touched.
Thenan effect of sympathy, perhapsa 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, asked
now or not, seemed likely to pay at the journeys end. The
snacking women resumed their talk; the choristers their singing; the
rumble of the wheels lost in a babel of vacant ribaldry; the enormous
woman choked and gasped and snuggled lower down upon her
neighbors shoulder; and the shabby strumpet looked at the
children.
A man by the door vomited his liquor; whereat was more hilarity,
and his neighbors, with many yaups, 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 leered 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 child had fallen asleep in the
streetwalkers arms. Jinny! cried the mother,
reaching forth and shaking her. Jinny! wake up nowyou
mustnt 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 can set on my knee,
mm if she likes, she said; shes
tired.
The mother busied herself with a jerky adjustment of the
childs hat and shawl. She mustnt go to sleep,
was all she said, sharply, and without looking up.
The hoarse woman bent further forward, with a propitiatory grin.
Ow old is she? ... Id like togive er 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 fore windows.
The hoarse woman 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
womans neighbor 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, clamant and bedeviled, was caught
between the two pellmells, and, demanding fares and gripping his
satchel, was carried over the footboard in the rush. The stramash
overhead came tangled and swearing down the stairs, gaining volume
and force in random punches as it came; and the crowd on the pavement
streamed vocally toward a brightness at the bridge footthe 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 marketings
attached about her by indeterminate means), she set the two
youngsters on the pavement, leaving the third 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 serge 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; and the tram-car, quiet and vacant, bumped on
westward.
That Brute
Simmons
Simmonss 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 and slaved 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 berth as donkeyman on a tramp steamer, and that
steamer had gone down with all hands off the capea 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 to be 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 ingrafted on him divers
exotic virtues. He went solemnly to chapel every Sunday, under a tall
hat, and put a pennyone returned to him for the purpose out of his
weeks wagesin the plate. Then, Mrs. Simmons overseeing, he
took off his best clothes and brushed them with solicitude and pains.
On Saturday afternoons 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. Simmonss own virtues were native and numerous. She was
a wonderful manager. Every penny of Tommys 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 in housewifery was distracting to behold. She met Simmons
at the front door 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 turn about with the wife of the down-stairs
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, a
spot remained to tell the tale, she was at pains to impress the fact
on Simmonss 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 clothesfor the reason that man 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 straightway she conceived the idea of making
Simmonss 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 feat, was indued in it,
and pushed off to chapel ere 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 as Mr. Simmons
elaborated successive suits, each one modeled 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
hintas hint he didthat he shouldnt like her to overwork
herself, tailoring being bad for the eyes, and there was a new
tailors in the Mile End Road, very cheap, where ... Ho
yus, she retorted, youre very considrit I
dessay sittin there actin a livin lie before your
own wife Thomas Simmons as though I couldnt see through you
like a book a lot you care about overworkin me as long as
your turns served throwin away money like dirt in
the street on a lot o swindling tailors an me
workin an slavin ere to save a apenny
an this is my return for it any one ud think you could
pick up money in the orseroad an I blieve Id
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 parlor 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 clamored 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 could
not be kept from hinting at the new crop of workshop gibes that would
spring at Tommys first public appearance in such things.
Pitch em in the dust-bin! said the small devil,
at last; its all theyre 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 was standing open, probably by the fault of the
child down-stairs. 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 hands 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 Jack ashore about the docks. He lurched a step nearer to the door,
and: Mrs. Ford aint in, is she? he said.
Simmons stared at him for a matter of five seconds, and then said:
Eh?
Mrs. Ford as was, thenSimmons now, aint
it?
He said this with a furtive leer that Simmons neither liked nor
understood.
No, said Simmons, she aint in
now.
You aint her usband, are ye?
Yus.
The man took his pipe from his mouth, and grinned silently and
long. Blimy, he said, at length, you look the sort
o bloke shed 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. Dont be in a
urry, matey, he said; I come ere tave a
little talk with you, man to man, dye see? And he frowned
fiercely.
Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable, but the door would not shut, so
he parleyed. Wotjer want? he asked. I dunno
you.
Then if youll excuse the liberty, Ill interdooce
meself, in a manner of speaking. He touched his cap with a bob
of mock humility. Im Bob Ford, he said, come
back out o kingdom-come, so to say. Me as went down with the
Mooltansafe dead five years gone. I come to see my
wife.
During this speech Thomas Simmonss jaw 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 fanlight, 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 overas man to man.
Simmons slowly shut his mouth, and led the way upstairs
mechanically, his fingers still in his hair. A sense of the state of
affairs sunk gradually into his brain, and the small devil woke
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 window; and he thought of them in the way of a
backslider.
On the landing Ford clutched at his arm, and asked, in a hoarse
whisper: Ow long fore shes back?
Bout a hour, 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, youve
bin pretty comftable. Them chairs an
thingsjerking his pipe toward themwas hersmine,
that is to say, speaking straight, and man to man. He sat down,
puffing meditatively at his pipe, and presently: Well, he
continued, ere I am agin, ol Bob Ford dead an
done forgawn down in the Mooltan. Ony I
aint done for, see?and he pointed the stem of
his pipe at Simmonss waistcoatI aint done for,
cause why? Conskence o bein picked up by a
ol German sailin-utch an took to Frisco
fore the mast. Ive ad a few years o
knockin about since then, an nowlooking hard at
SimmonsIve come back to see my wife.
Sheshe dont like smoke in ere, said
Simmons, as it were, at random.
No, I bet she dont, Ford answered, taking his
pipe from his mouth, and holding it low in his hand. I know
Anner. Ow dyou find er? Do she make ye clean
the winders?
Well, Simmons admitted, uneasily, II do elp
er sometimes, o course.
Ah! An the knives too, I bet, an the
bloomin kittles. I know. Wyhe rose and bent to look
behind Simmonss headselp me, I blieve she
cuts yer air! Well, Im damned! Jes wot she would
do, too.
He inspected the blushing Simmons from divers points of vantage.
Then he lifted a leg of the trousers hanging behind the door.
Id bet a trifle, he said, she made these
ere trucks. Nobody else ud do em like that.
Dammetheyre wussn wot youre got on.
The small devil began to have the argument all its own way. If
this man took his wife back, perhaps hed have to wear those
trousers.
Ah! Ford pursued, she aint got no milder.
An my davy, wot a jore!
Simmons began to feel that this was no longer his business.
Plainly, Anner was this other mans 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, times short,
an this aint business. I wont be ard on you,
matey. I ought proply to stand on my rights, but seein as
youre a well-meanin young man, so to speak, an all
settled an a-livin ere quiet an matrimonual,
Illthis with a burst of generositydamme, yus,
Ill compound the felony, an take me ook. Come,
Ill name a figure, as man to man, fust an last, no less
an no more. Five pound does it.
Simmons hadnt five poundshe hadnt even five
penceand he said so. An I wouldnt think for to
come between a man an is wife, he added, not
on no account. It may be rough on me, but its a dooty.
Ill ook it.
No, said Ford, hastily, clutching Simmons by the arm,
dont do that. Ill make it a bit cheaper. Say three
quidcome, thats reasonable, aint it? Three quid
aint much compensation for me goin away
foreverwhere the stormy winds do blow, so to sayan never as
much as seein me own wife agin for better nor wuss. Between man
an man nowthree quid; an Ill shunt. Thats
fair, aint it?
Of course its fair, Simmons replied, effusively.
Its moren fair; its nobledownright noble,
I call it. But I aint goin to take a mean
advantage o your good-artedness, Mr. Ford. Shes
your wife, an I oughtnt to a come between
you. I apologize. You stop an ave yer proper rights.
Its me as ought to shunt, an I will. And he made a
step toward the door.
Old on, quoth Ford, and got between Simmons and
the door; dont do things rash. Look wot a loss itll
be to you with no ome to go to, an nobody to look after
ye, an all that. Itll be dreadful. Say a couplethere,
we wont quarrel, jest a single quid, between man an man,
an Ill stand a pot o the money.
You can easy raise a quid-the clock ud pretty nigh do it. A
quid does it; an Ill
There was a loud double-knock at the front door. In the East End a
double-knock is always for the upstairs lodgers.
Oos that? asked Bob Ford, apprehensively.
Ill 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 borne to him from within the door there fell upon his
ear the sound of a well-remembered female voice.
Where ye goin now with no at? asked the
voice, sharply.
Awright, Annertherestheres 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
back-yard, scrambled desperately,over the fence, and disappeared into
the gloom. He was seen by no living soul. And that is why
Simmonss base desertionunder his wifes very eyes,
toois still an astonishment to the neighbors.
Behind the
Shade
The street was the common East End streettwo parallels of brick
pierced with windows and doors. But at the end of one, where the
builder had found a remnant of land too small for another six-roomer,
there stood an odd box of a cottage, with three rooms and a
wash-house. It had a green door with a well-blacked knocker round the
corner; and in the lower window in front stood a shade of
fruita cone of waxen grapes and apples under a glass
cover.
Although the house was smaller than the others, and was built upon
a remnant, it was always a house of some consideration. In a street
like this, mere independence of pattern gives distinction. And a
house inhabited by one sole family makes a figure among houses
inhabited by two or more, even though it be the smallest of all. And
here the seal of respectability was set by the shade of fruita sign
accepted in those parts. Now, when people keep a house to themselves,
and keep it clean; when they neither stand at the doors nor gossip
across back-fences; when, moreover, they have a well-dusted shade of
fruit in the front window; and, especially, when they are two women
who tell nobody their businessthey are known at once for
well-to-do, and are regarded with the admixture of spite and respect
that is proper to the circumstances. They are also watched.
Still, the neighbors knew the history of the Perkinses, mother and
daughter, in its main features, with little disagreement, having told
it to one another, filling in the details when occasion seemed to
serve. Perkins, ere he died, had been a shipwright; and this was when
shipwrights were the artistocracy of the work-shops, and he that
worked more than three or four days a week was counted a mean slave;
it was long (in fact) before depression, strikes, iron plates, and
collective blindness had driven shipbuilding to the Clyde. Perkins
had labored no harder than his fellows, had married a
tradesmans daughter, and had spent his money with freedom; and
some while after his death his widow and daughter came to live in the
small house, and kept a school for tradesmens little girls in a
back room over the wash-house. But as the school board waxed in
power, and the tradesmens pride in regard thereunto waned, the
attendance, never large, came down to twos and threes. Then Mrs.
Perkins met with her accident. A dweller in Stidders Rents
overtook her one night, and, having vigorously punched her in the
face and breast, kicked her and jumped on her for five minutes as she
lay on the pavement. (In the dark, it afterward appeared, he had
mistaken her for his mother.) The one distinct opinion the adventure
bred in the street was Mrs. Websters, the Little Bethelite, who
considered it a judgment for sinful pridefor Mrs. Perkins had been
a church-goer. But the neighbors never saw Mrs. Perkins again. The
doctor left his patient as well as she ever would be, but
bed-ridden and helpless. Her daughter was a scraggy, sharp-faced
woman of thirty or so, whose black dress hung from her hips as from a
wooden frame; and some people got into the way of calling her Mrs.
Perkins, seeing no other thus to honor. And, meantime, the school had
ceased, although Miss Perkins essayed a revival, and joined a
Dissenting chapel to that end.
Then, one day, a card appeared in the window, over the shade of
fruit, with the legend Pianoforte Lessons. It was not
approved by the street. It was a standing advertisement of the fact
that the Perkinses had a piano, which others had not. It also
revealed a grasping spirit on the part of people able to keep a house
to themselves, with red curtains and a shade of fruit in the parlor
window; who, moreover, had been able to give up keeping a school
because of ill-health. The pianoforte lessons were eight-and-sixpence
a quarter, two a week. Nobody was ever known to take them but the
relieving officers daughter, and she paid sixpence a lesson, to
see how she got on, and left off in three weeks. The card stayed in
the window a fortnight longer, and none of the neighbors saw the cart
that came in the night and took away the old cabinet piano with the
channeled keys, that had been fourth-hand when Perkins bought it
twenty years ago. Mrs. Clark, the widow who sewed far into the night,
may possibly have heard a noise and looked; but she said nothing if
she did. There was no card in the window next morning, but the shade
of fruit stood primly respectable as ever. The curtains were drawn a
little closer across, for some of the children playing in the street
were used to flatten their faces against the lower panes, and to
discuss the piano, the stuff-bottomed chairs, the antimacassars, the
mantel-piece ornaments, and the low table with the family Bible and
the album on it.
It was soon after this that the Perkinses altogether ceased from
shoppingceased, at any rate, in that neighborhood. Trade with them
had already been dwindling, and it was said that Miss Perkins was
getting stingier than her motherwho had been stingy enough herself.
Indeed, the Perkins demeanor began to change for the worse, to be
significant of a miserly retirement and an offensive alienation from
the rest of the street. One day the deacon called, as was his
practice now and then; but, being invited no further than the
doorstep, he went away in dudgeon, and did not return. Nor, indeed,
was Miss Perkins seen again at chapel.
Then there was a discovery. The spare figure of Miss Perkins was
seldom seen in the streets, and then almost always at night; but on
these occasions she was observed to carry parcels of varying
wrappings and shapes. Once, in broad daylight, with a package in
newspaper, she made such haste past a shop-window where stood Mrs.
Webster and Mrs. Jones, that she tripped on the broken sole of one
shoe, and fell headlong. The newspaper broken away from its pins,
and although the woman reached and recovered her parcel before she
rose, it was plain to see that it was made up of cheap shirts, cut
out ready for the stitching. The street had the news the same hour,
and it was generally held that such a taking of the bread out of the
mouths of them that wanted it by them that had plenty was a scandal
and a shame, and ought to be put a stop to. And Mrs. Webster,
foremost in the setting right of things, undertook to find out whence
the work came, and to say a few plain words in the right quarter.
All this while nobody watched closely enough to note that the
parcels brought in were fewer than the parcels taken out. Even a
hand-truck, late one evening, went unremarked, the door being round
the corner, and most people within. One morning, though, Miss
Perkins, her best foot foremost, was venturing along a near street
with an outgoing parcellarge and triangular and wrapped in white
druggetwhen the relieving officer turned the corner across the
way.
The relieving officer was a man in whose system of etiquette the
Perkinses had caused some little disturbance. His ordinary female
acquaintances (not, of course, professional) he was in the habit of
recognizing by a gracious nod. When he met the ministers wife
he lifted his hat, instantly assuming an intense frown, in the event
of irreverent observation. Now he quite felt that the Perkinses were
entitled to some advance upon the nod, although it would be absurd to
raise them to a level with the ministers wife. So he had long
since established a compromise. He closed his finger and thumb upon
the brim of his hat, and let his hand fall forthwith. Preparing now
to accomplish this salute, he was astounded to see that Miss Perkins,
as soon as she was aware of his approach, turned her face, which was
rather flushed, away from him, and went hurrying onward, looking at
the wall on her side of the street. The relieving officer, checking
his hand on its way to his hat, stopped and looked after her as she
turned the corner, hugging her parcel on the side next the wall. Then
he shouldered his umbrella and pursued his way, holding his head
high, and staring fiercely straight before him; for a relieving
officer is not used to being cut.
It was a little after this that Mr. Crouch, the landlord, called.
He had not been calling regularly, because of late Miss Perkins had
left her five shillings of rent with Mrs. Crouch every Saturday
evening. He noted with satisfaction the whitened sills and the shade
of fruit, behind which the curtains were now drawn close and pinned
together. He turned the corner and lifted the bright knocker. Miss
Perkins half opened the door, stood in the opening, and began to
speak.
His jaw dropped. Beg pardonforgot something. Wont
waitcall next weekdo just as well. And he hurried round the
corner and down the street, puffing and blowing and staring.
Why, the woman frightened me, he afterward explained to
Mrs. Crouch. Theres something wrong with her eyes, and
she looked like a corpse. The rent wasnt readyI could see
that before she spoke; so I cleared out.
Praps somethings happened to the old
lady, suggested Mrs. Crouch. Anyhow, I should thing the
rent ud be all right. And he thought it would.
Nobody saw the Perkinses that week. The shade of fruit stood in
its old place, but was thought not to have been dusted after Tuesday.
Certainly the sills and the doorstep were neglected. Friday, Saturday
and Sunday were swallowed up in a choking brown fog, wherein men lost
their bearings, and fell into docks, and stepped over Embankment
edges. It was as though a great blot had fallen, and had obliterated
three days from the calendar. It cleared on Monday morning, and, just
as the women in the street were sweeping their steps, Mr. Crouch was
seen at the green door. He lifted the knocker, dull and sticky now
with the foul vapor, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There was no
answer. He knocked again, a little louder, and waited, listening. But
there was neither voice nor movement within. He gave three heavy
knocks, and then came round to the front window. There was a shade of
fruit, the glass a little duller on the top, the curtains pinned
close about it, and nothing to see beyond them. He tapped at the
window with his knuckles, and backed into the road-way to look at the
one above. This was a window with a striped holland blind and a short
net curtain; but never a face was there. The sweepers stopped to
look, and one from opposite came and reported that she had seen
nothing of Miss Perkins for a week, and that certainly nobody had
left the house that morning. And Mr. Crouch grew excited, and
bellowed through the keyhole.
In the end they opened the sash-fastening with a knife, moved the
shade of fruit, and got in. The room was bare and empty, and their
steps and voices resounded as those of people in an unfurnished
house. The wash-house was vacant, but it was clean, and there was a
little net curtain in the window. The short passage and the stairs
were bare boards. In the back room by the stair-head was a drawn
window-blind, and that was all. In the front room, with the striped
blind and the short curtain, there was a bed of rags and old
newspapers, also a wooden box, and on each of these was a dead
woman.
Both deaths, the doctor found, were from syncope, the result of
inanition; and the better-nourished womanshe on the bedhad died
the sooner; perhaps by a day or two. The other case was rather
curious; it exhibited a degree of shrinkage in the digestive organs
unprecedented in his experience. After the inquest the street had an
evenings fame; for the papers printed coarse drawings of the
house, and in leaderettes demanded the abolition of something. Then
it became its wonted self. And it was doubted if the waxen apples and
the curtains fetched enough to pay Mr. Crouch his fortnights
rent.
Three
Rounds
At six oclock the back streets were dank and black; but once
in the Bethnal Green Road, blots and flares of gas and naphtha shook
and flickered till every slimy cobble in the cart-way was
silver-tipped. Neddy Milton was not quite fighting-fit. A days
questing for an odd job had left him weary in the feet; and a lad of
eighteen can not comfortably go unfed from breakfast to nightfall.
But box he must, for the shilling was irrecoverable, and so costly a
chance must not be thrown away. It was by a bout with the gloves that
he looked to mend his fortunes. That was his only avenue of
advancement. He could read and write quite decently, and in the
beginning might even have been an office-boy, if only the widow, his
mother, had been able to give him a good send-off in the matter of
clothes. Also, he had had one chance of picking up a trade, but the
firm already employed as many boys as the union was disposed to
allow. So Neddy had to go, and pick up such stray jobs as he
might.
It had been a bad day, without a doubt. Things were bad generally.
It was nearly a fortnight since Ned had lost his last job, and there
seemed to be no other in the world. His mother had had no
slop-waistcoat finishing to do for three or four days, and he
distinctly remembered that rather less than half a loaf was left
after breakfast; so that it would never do to go home, for at such a
time the old woman had a trick of pretending not to be hungry, and of
starving herself. He almost wished that shilling of entrance-money
back in his pocket. There is a deal of stuff to be bought for a
shilling: fried fish, for instance, whereof the aromas, warm and
rank, met him thrice in a hundred yards, and the frizzle, loud or
faint, sung in his cars all along the Bethnal Green Road.
His shilling had been paid over but two days before the last job
gave out, and it would be useful now. Still, the investment might
turn out a gold mine. Luck must change. Meanwhile, as to being
hungrywell, there was always another hole in the belt!
The landlord of the Prince Regent public-house had a large room
behind his premises, which, being moved by considerations of sport
and profit in doubtful proportions, he devoted two nights a week to
the uses of the Regent Boxing Club. Here Neddy Milton, through a long
baptism of pummelings, had learned the trick of a straight lead, a
quick counter, and a timely duck; and here, in the nine-stone
competition to open this very night, he might perchance punch wide
the gates of Fortune. For some sporting publican, or discriminating
bookmaker from Bow, might see and approve his sparring, and start him
fairly, with money behind hima professional. That would mean a
match in six or eight weeks time, with good living in the
meanwhile; a match that would have to be won, of course. And after
that ...!
Twice before he had boxed in competition. Once he won his bout in
the first round, and was beaten in the second; and once he was beaten
in the first, but that was by the final winner, Tab Rosser, who was
now matched for a hundred a side, sparred exhibition bouts up west,
wore a light Newmarket coat, and could stand whisky and soda with
anybody. To be taken up on the strength of these early
performances was more than he could reasonably expect. There might be
luck in the third trial; but he would like to feel a little fitter.
Breakfast (what there was of it) had been ten hours ago, and since,
there had been but a half-pint of four-ale. It was the treat of a
well-meaning friend, but it lay cold on the stomach for want of solid
company.
Turning into Cambridge Road, he crossed, and went on among the
by-streets leading toward Globe Road. Now and again a slight
aspersion of fine rain come down the gusts, and further damped his
cap and shoulders and the ragged hair that hung over his collar. Also
a cold spot under one foot gave him fears of a hole in his boot-sole
as he tramped in the chilly mud.
In the Prince Regent there were many at the bar, and the most of
them knew Neddy.
Wayo, Ned, said one lad with a pitted face, you
dont look much of a bleedn champion. Ave a
drop o beer.
Ned took a sparing pull at the pot, and wiped his mouth on his
sleeve. A large man behind him guffawed, and Neddy reddened high. He
had heard the joke. The man himself was one of the very backers that
might make ones fortune, and the mans companion thought
it would be unsafe to back Neddy to fight anything but a
beefsteak.
Youre drawed with Patsy Beard, one of Neds
friends informed him. Youll ave to buck
up.
This was bad. Patsy Beard, on known form, stood best chance of
winning the competition, and to have to meet him at first set-off was
ill luck, and no mistake. He was a thickset little butcher, and there
was just the ghost of a hope that he might be found to be a bit over
the weight.
A lad by the bar looked inquiringly in Neds face and then
came toward him, shouldering him quietly out of the group. It was
Sam, Young, whom Neddy had beaten in an earlier competition.
ungry, Neddy? he asked, in a corner.
It was with a shamed face that Neddy confessed; for among those in
peril of hunger it is disgraceful to be hungry. Sam unpocketed a
greasy paper enveloping a pallid sausage-roll. Ave
alf o this, he said. It was a heavy and a clammy
thing, but Ned took it, furtively swallowed a large piece, and
returned the rest with sheepish thanks. He did not turn again toward
the others, but went through to the room where the ring was
pitched.
The proceedings began. First there were exhibition bouts, to play
in the company. Neddy fidgeted. Why couldnt they begin the
competition at once? When they did, his bout would be number five.
That would mean at least an hour of waiting; and the longer he waited
the less fit he would feel.
In time the exhibition sparring was ended, and, the real business
began. He watched the early bouts feverishly, feeling unaccountably
anxious. The lads looked strong and healthy. Patsy Beard was as
strong as any of them, and heavy. Could he stand it? This excited
nervousness was new and difficult to understand. He had never felt
like it before. He was almost trembling; and that lump of
sausage-ball had struck half-way, and made breathing painful work.
Patsy Beard was at the opposite corner, surrounded by admirers. He
was red-faced, well-fed, fleshy, and confident. His short hair clung
shinily about his bullet head. Neddy noted a small piece of
court-plaster at the side of his nose. Plainly there was a tender
spot, and it must be gone for, be it cut, or scratch, or only pimple.
On the left side, too, quite handy. Come, there was some comfort in
that.
He felt to watching the bout. It was a hard fight, and both the
lads were swinging the right again and again for a knock-out. But the
pace was too hot, and they were soon breathing like men about to
sneeze, wearily pawing at each other while their heads hung forward.
Somebody jogged him in the back, and he found he must get ready. His
dressing was simple. An ill-conditioned old pair of rubber gymnasium
shoes replaced his equally ill-conditioned bluchers, and a cotton
singlet his shirt; but his baggy corduroys, ragged at the ankles and
doubtful at the seat, remained.
Presently the last pair of boxers was brought into the
dressing-room, and one of the seconds, a battered old pug with one
eye, at once seized Neddy. Come along, young un, he
said. Im your bloke. Got no flannels? Awright. jump on
the scales.
There was no doubt as to the weight. He had scaled at eight stone
thirteen; now it was eight stone bare. Patsy Beard, on the other
hand, weighed the full nine, without an ounce to spare.
Youre givin im a stone, said the old
pug; all the more credit idin of im.
Ere, lets shove em on. Feel em. He
grinned and blinked his solitary eye as he pulled on Neddys
hand one of a very black and long-worn pair of boxing-gloves. They
were soft and flaccid; Neddys heart warmed toward the one-eyed
man, for well he knew from many knocks that the softer the glove the
harder the fist feels through it. Sawftest pair in the place,
selp me, grunted the second, with one glove hanging from
his teeth. My lad ad em last time. Come
on.
He snatched a towel and a bottle of water, and hurried Neddy from
the dressing-room to the ring. Neddy sat in his chair in the
ring-corner, and spread his arms on the ropes; while his second, arms
uplifted, stood before him and ducked solemnly forward and back with
the towel flicking overhead. While he was fanning, Neddy was still
conscious of the lump of sausage-roll in his chest. Also he fell to
wondering idly why they called Beard Patsy, when his first name was
Joe. The same reflection applied to Tab Rosser, and Hocko Jones, and
Tiggy Magson. But certainly he felt hollow and sick in the belly.
Could he stand punching? It would never do to chuck it half through.
Still
Ready! sung the timekeeper.
The old pug threw the towel over his arm. Ave a
moistener, he said, presenting the water-bottle to Neddys
mouth. Dont swallow any, he added, as his principal
took a large gulp. Spit it out.
Seconds out of the ring!
The old prize-fighter took his bottle and climbed through the
ropes. Dont go in-fightin, he whispered from
behind. Mark im on the stickin-plaster; an if
you dont give im a idin, bli me, Ill
give you one!
Time!
The seconds seized the chairs and dragged them out of the ring, as
the lads advanced and shook hands. Patsy Beard flung back his right
foot, and made a flashy prance with his left knee as they began to
spar for an opening; it was Patsys way. All Neddys
anxiety was gone. The moment his right foot dropped behind his left,
and his left hand rocked, knuckles UP, before him, he was a competent
workman, with all his tools in order. Even the lump of dough on his
chest he felt no more.
Buy, buy! bawled a wag in the crowd, as a delicate
allusion to Beards more ordinary occupation. Patsy grinned at
the compliment, but Neddy confined his attention to business. He
feinted with his left, and got back; but Patsy was not to be drawn.
Then Neddy stepped in and led quickly, ducking the counter and
repeating before getting away. Patsy came with a rush and fought for
the body, but Neddy slipped him, and got in one for nothing on the
ear. The company howled.
They sparred in the middle. Patsy led perfunctorily with the left
now and again, while his right elbow undulated nervously. That
foretold an attempt to knock out with the right: precautious, a
straight and persistent left and a wary eye. So Neddy kept poking out
his left, and never lost sight of the court-plaster, never of the
shifty right. Give and take was the order of the round, and they
fought all over the ring, Patsy Beard making for close quarters, and
Neddy keeping off, and stopping him with the left. Neddy met a
straight punch on the nose that made his eyes water, but through the
tears he saw the plaster displaced, and a tiny stream of blood
trickling toward the corner of Patsys mouth. Plainly it was a
cut. He broke ground, stopped half-way, and banged in left and right.
He got a sharp drive on the neck for his pains, and took the right on
his elbow; but he had landed on the spot, and the tiny streak of
blood was smeared out wide across Patsys face. The company
roared and whistled with enthusiasm. It was a capital rally.
But now Neddys left grew slower, and was heavy to lift. From
time to time .Patsy got in one for nothing, and soon began to drive
him about the ring. Neddy fought on, weak and gasping, and longed for
the call of time. His arms felt as if they were hung with lead, and
he could do little more than push feebly. He heard the yell of many
voices: Now then, Patsy, hout him I Ave im out I
Thats it, Patsy, another like that! Keep on, Patsy!
Patsy kept on. Right and left, above and below, Neddy could see
the blows coming. But he was powerless to guard or to return. He
could but stagger about, and now and again swing an ineffectual arm
as it hung from the shoulder. Presently a flush hit on the nose drove
him against the ropes, another in the ribs almost through them. But a
desperate wide whirl of his right brought it heavily on Patsys
tender spot, and tore open the cut. Patsy winced, and
Time!
Neddy was grabbed at the waist and put in his chair. Good
lad! said the one-eyed pug in his ear as he sponged his face.
Nothink like pluck. But you mustnt go to pieces alf
through the round. Was it a awkard poke upsetcher?
Neddy, lying back and panting wildly, shook his head as he gazed
at the ceiling.
Awright; try an save yourself a bit. Keep yer left
goinyou roasted im good with that; ell want
a yard o plaster tonight. An when e gits
leadin loose, take it auf an give him the right straight
from the guardif you know the trick. Point o the jaw
thats for, mind. Ave a cooler. He took a mouthful
of water and blew it in a fine spray in Neddys face, wiped it
down, and began another overhead fanning.
Seconds out of the ring! called the timekeeper.
Go, it, my ladthus a whisper from behindyou
can walk over im! And Neddy felt the wet sponge squeezed
against the back of his neck, and the cool water tickling down his
spine.
Time!
Neddy was better, though there was a worn feeling in his
arm-muscles. Patsys cut had been well sponged, but it still
bled, and Patsy meant giving Neddy no rest. He rushed at once, but
was met by a clean right-hander, slap on the sore spot. Bravo,
Neddy! came a voice, and the company howled as before. Patsy
was steadied. He sparred with some caution, twitching the cheek next
the cut. Neddy would not lead (for he must save himself), and so the
two sparred for a few seconds. Then Patsy rushed again, and Neddy got
busy with both hands. Once he managed to get the right in from the
guard as his second had advised, but not heavily. He could feel his
strength goingearlier than in the last roundand Patsy was as
strong and determined as ever. Another rush carried Neddy against the
ropes, where he got two heavy body blows and a bad jaw-rattler. He
floundered to the right in an attempt to slip, and fell on his face.
He rolled on his side, however, and was up again, breathless and
unsteady. There was a sickening throbbing in the crown of his head,
and he could scarce lift his arms. But there was no respite; the
other lad was at him again, and he was driven across the ring and
back, blindly pushing his aching arms before him, while punch
followed punch on nose, ears, jaws, and body, till something began to
beat inside his head, louder and harder than all beside, stunning and
sickening him. He could hear the crowd roaring still, but it seemed
further off; and the yells of Thats it, Patsy! Now
youre got im! Keep at im! Hout im this
time!came from some other building close by where somebody
was getting a bad licking. Somebody with no control of his legs, and
no breath to spit away the blood from his nose as it ran and stuck
over his lips. Somebody praying for the end of the three minutes that
seemed three hours, and groaning inwardly because of a lump of cold
lead in his belly that had once been sausage-roll. Somebody to whom a
few calledstill in the other buildingChuck it, Neddy;
its no good. Why doncher chuck it? while others
said, Take im away, tyke im away! Then
something hit him between the eyes, and some other thing behind the
head; that was one of the posts. He swung an arm, but it met nothing;
then the other, and it struck somewhere; and then there was a bang
that twisted his head, and hard boards were against his face. Oh, it
was bad, but it was a rest.
Cold water was on his face, and somebody spoke. He was in his
chair again, and the one-eyed man was sponging him.
It was the call o time as saved ye then, he
said; youd never a got up in the ten seconds.
Yaint up to another round, are ye? Better chuck it.
Its no disgrace, after the way youve stood -up. But
Neddy shook his head. He had got through two of the three rounds, and
didnt mean throwing away a chance of saving the bout.
Awright, if you wont, his mentor said.
Nothink like pluck. But youre no good on pointsa
knock-outs the only chance. Nurse yer right, an give it
im good on the point. Es none so fresh
isself; es blowed with the work, an you
pasted im fine when you did it. Last thing, just before
e sent ye down, ye dropped a ot un on is
beak. Didnt see it, didyer? The old bruiser rubbed
vigorously at his arms, and gave him a small, but welcome, drink of
water.
Seconds out of the ring!
The one-eyed man was gone once more, but again his voice came from
behind. Mindgive it im ard and give it
im soon, an if you feel groggy, chuck it drectly.
If ye dont, Ill drag ye out by the slack o
yer trousis an disgrace ye.
Time!
Neddy knew there was little more than half a minutes boxing
left in himperhaps not so much. He must do his best at once. Patsy
was showing signs of hard wear, and still blew a little; his nose was
encouragingly crimson at the nostrils, and the cut was open and raw.
He rushed in with a lead which Neddy ducked and cross-countered,
though ineffectually. There were a few vigorous exchanges, and then
Neddy staggered back from a straight drive on the mouth. There was a
shout of Patsy! and Patsy sprung in, right elbow all
a-jerk, and flung in the left. Neddy guarded wildly, and banged in
the right from the guard. Had he hit? He had felt no shock, but there
was Patsy lying on his face.
The crowd roared and roared again. The old pug stuffed his chair
hastily through the ropes, and Neddy sunk into it, panting, with
bloodshot eyes. Patsy lay still. The timekeeper watched the
seconds-hand pass its ten points, and gave the word, but Patsy only
moved a leg. Neddy Milton had won.
Brayvo, young un! said the old fighter, as he
threw his arm about Neddys waist, and helped him to the
dressing-room. Cleanest knock-out I ever seesmack on the
point o the jaw. Never thought youd a done
it. I said there was nothink like pluck, didnt? Ave a
wash now, an youll be all the better for the exercise. Give us
them gloves Im off for the next bout. And he seized
another lad, and marched him out.
Ave a drop o beer, said one of
Neddys new-won friends, extending a tankard. He took it, though
he scarcely felt awake. He was listless and weak, and would not have
moved for an hour had he been left alone. But Patsy was brought to,
and sneezed loudly, and Neddy was hauled over to shake hands with
him.
You give me a ell of a doin, said Neddy.
I never thought Id beat you.
Beat me? Well, you aint, ave you?
Ow?
Knock-out, answered several at once. Well,
Im damned said Patsy Beard.
In the bar, after the evenings business, Neddy sat and
looked wistfully at the stout red-faced men who smoked fourpenny
cigars and drank special Scotch; but not one noticed him. His luck
had not come after all. But there was the second round of bouts, and
the final, in a weeks timeperhaps it would come then. If he
could only win the finalthen it must come. Meanwhile, he was
sick and faint, and felt doubtful about getting home. Outside it was,
raining hard. He laid his head on the bar table at which he was
sitting, and at closing time there they found him asleep.
In
Business
There was a great effervescence of rumor in Cubitt Town when Ted
Munsey, came into money. Ted Munsey, commonly alluded to as Mrs.
Munseys usband, Was a molder with a regular job at
Moffatts; a large, quiet man of forty-five, the uncomplaining
appurtenance of his wife. This was fitting, for she had married
beneath her, her father having been a dock timekeeper.
To come into money is an unusual feat in Cubitt Town; a feat,
nevertheless, continually contemplated among possibilities by all
Cubitt Towners, who find nothing else in the Sunday paper so
refreshing as the paragraphs headed Windfall for a Cabman
and A Fortune for a Pauper, and who cut them out to pin
over the mantel-piece. The handsome coloring of such paragraphs was
responsible for many bold flights of fancy in regard to Ted
Munseys fortune, Cubitt Town, left to itself, being sterile
soil for the imagination. Some said that the Munseys had come in for
chests packed with bank-notes, on the decease of one of Mrs.
Munseys relations, of whom she was wont to hint. Others put it
at a street full of houses, as being the higher ideal of wealth. A
few, more romantically given, imagined vaguely of ancestral lands and
halls, which Mrs. Munsey and her forebears had been done out
of for many years by the lawyers. All which Mrs. Munsey, in her
hour of triumph, was at little pains to discount, although, in simple
fact, the fortune was no more than a legacy of a hundred pounds from
Teds uncle, who had kept a public-house In Deptford.
Of the hundred pounds Mrs. Munsey took immediate custody. There
was no guessing what would have become of it in Teds hands;
probably it would have been, in chief part, irrecoverably lent;
certainly it would have gone and left Ted a molder at Moffats,
as before. With Mrs. Munsey there was neither hesitation nor
difficulty. The obvious use of a hundred pounds was to put its
possessors into businesswhich meant a shop; to elevate them
socially at a single bound beyond the many grades lying between the
molder and the small tradesman. Wherefore the Munseys straightway
went into business. Being equally ignorant of every sort of
shopkeeping, they were free to choose the sort they pleased; and thus
it was that Mrs. Munsey decided upon drapery and haberdashery,
Teds contribution to the discussion being limited to a mild
hint of green-grocery and coals, instantly suppressed as low. Nothing
could be more genteel than drapery, and it would suit the girls.
General chandlery, sweetstuff, oil and firewoodall these were low,
comparatively. Drapery it was, and quickly; for Mrs. Munsey was not
wont to shilly-shally. An empty shop was found in Bromley, was
rented, and was stocked as far as possible. Tickets were hung upon
everything, bearing a very large main figure with a very small three
farthings beside it, and the thing was done. The stain of molding was
washed from the scutcheon; the descent thereunto from dock
timekeeping was redeemed fivefold; the dock timekeeping itself was
left far below, with carpentering, shipwrighting, and engine-fitting.
The Munseys were in business.
Ted Munsey stood about helplessly and stared, irksomely striving
not to put his hands in his pockets, which were low; any lapse being
instantly detected by Mrs. Munsey, who rushed from all sorts of
unexpected places and corrected the fault vigorously.
I didnt go for to do it, Marier, he explained,
penitently. Its abit. Ill get out of it soon.
It dont look well, I know, in a business, but it do seem a
comfort, somehow.
Oh, you an your comfort! A lot you study my
comfort, Hedward!for he was Ted no morea-toilin
an a-moilin with everything to think of myself, while you
look on with your ands in your pockets. Do try an not
look like a stuck ninny, do I And Hedward, whose every attempt
at help or suggestion had been severely repulsed, slouched uneasily
at the door, and strove to look as businesslike as possible.
There you go again, stickin in the door-way and
starin up an down the street, as though there was no
business doin. There was none, but that might not be
confessed. Dy expect people to come in with you
a-fillin up the door? Do come in, do! Youd be better out
o the shop altogether.
Hedward thought so too, but said nothing. He had been invested
with his Sunday clothes of lustrous black, and brought into the shop
to give such impression of a shop-walker as he might. He stood
uneasily on alternate feet, and stared at the ceiling, the floor, or
the space before him, with an unhappy sense of being on show and not
knowing what was expected of him. He moved his hands purposelessly,
and knocked things down with his elbows; he rubbed his hair all up
behind, and furtively wiped the resulting oil from his hand on his
trousers, never looking in the least degree like a shop-walker.
The first customer was a very small child who came for a
haporth of pins, and on whom Hedward gazed with much interest
and respect, while Mrs. Munsey handed over the purchase, abating not
a jot of his appreciation when the child returned, later, to explain
that what she really wanted was sewing cotton. Other customers were
disappointingly few. Several old neighbors came in from curiosity, to
talk and buy nothing. One woman, who looked at many things without
buying, was discovered after her departure to have stolen a pair of
stockings, and Hedward was duly abused for not keeping a sharp
lookout while his wifes back was turned. Finally, the shutters
went up on a days takings of three and sevenpence farthing,
including a most dubious threepenny bit. But then, as Mrs. Munsey
said, when you are in business you must expect trade to vary; and of
course there would be more customers when the shop got known,
although Hedward certainly might have taken the trouble to find one
in a busier thoroughfare. Hedward (whose opinion in that matter, as
in others, had never been asked, retired to the back-yard to smoke a
pipea thing he had been pining for all day; but was quickly
recalled (the pipe being a clay) upon Mrs. Munseys discovery
that the act could be observed from a neighbors window. He was
continually bringing the family into disgrace, and Mrs. Munsey
despaired aloud over him far into the night.
The days came and went, and trade varied, as a fact, very little
indeed. Between three and sevenpence farthing and nothing the scope
for fluctuation is small, and for some time the first days
record was never exceeded. But on the fifth day a customer bought
nearly seven shillings worth all at once. Her husband had that
day returned from sea with money, and she, after months of stint,
indulged in an orgy of haberdashery at the nearest shop. Mrs. Munsey
was reassured. Trade was increasing; perhaps an assistant would be
needed soon, in addition to the two girls.
Only the younger of the girls, by the bye, had as yet taken any
active interest in the business, Emma, the elder, spending much of
her time in a bedroom, making herself unpresentable by inordinate
blubbering. This was because of Mrs. Munseys prohibition of
more company-keeping with Jack Page. Jack was a plumber, just out of
his timerather a catch for a molders daughter, but
impossible, of course, for the daughter of people in business, as
Emma should have had the proper feeling to see for herself. This Emma
had not; she wallowed in a luxury of woe, exacerbated on occasions to
poignancy by the scoldings and sometimes by the thumpings of her mar,
and neglected even the select weekly quadrille class, membership
whereof was part of the novel splendor.
But there was never again a seven-shilling customer. The state of
trade perplexed Mrs. Munsey beyond telling. Being in business, one
must, by the circumstance, have a genteel competence; this was an
elementary axiom in Cubitt Town. But where was the money? What was
the difference between this and other shops? Was a screw loose
anywhere? In that case it certainly could not be her fault; wherefore
she nagged Hedward.
One day a polite young man called in a large pony-trap and
explained the whole mystery. Nobody could reasonably expect to
succeed in a business of this sort who did not keep a good stock of
the fancy aprons and lace bows made by the firm he was charged to
represent. Of course, he knew what business was, and that cash was
not always free, but that need never hinder transactions with
him.
Three months credit was the regular thing with any
respectable, well-established business concern, and in three months
one would certainly sell all the fancy aprons and lace bows of this
especial kind and price that one had room for. And he need scarcely
remind a lady of Mrs. Munseys business experience that fancy
aprons and lace bowsof the right sortwere by far the most
profitable goods known to the trade. Everybody knew that.
Should they say a gross of each, just to go on with? No? Well, then
half a gross. These prices were cut so near that it really did not
pay to split the gross, but this time, to secure a good customer, he
would stretch a point. Mrs. Munsey was enlightened. Plainly the
secret of success in business was to buy advantageously, in the way
the polite young man suggested, sell at a good price, and live on the
profits, merely paying over the remainder at the end of three months.
Nothing could be simpler. So she began the system forthwith. Other
polite young men called, and further certain profits were arranged
for on similar terms.
The weak spot in the plan was the absence of any binding
arrangement with the general public; and this was not long in
discovering itself. Nobody came to buy the fancy aprons and the lace
bows, tempting as they might seem. Moreover, after they had hung a
week or more, Alice reported that a large shop in the Commercial Road
was offering, by retail, aprons and bows of precisely the same sort
at a less price than the polite young man had charged for a wholesale
purchase. Mrs. Munsey grew desperate, and Hedwards life became
a horror unto him. He was set to stand at the door with a fancy apron
in one hand and a lace bow in the other, and capture customers as
they passeda function wherein he achieved detestable failure,
alarming passing women (who considered him dangerously drunk) as
greatly as his situation distressed himself.
Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate, and drove Hedward to the rear of
the house with bitter reviling. Money must be got out of the stock
somehow. That a shop could in any circumstances be unremunerative
puzzled as much as it dismayed her. The goods were marked down to low
pricesoften lower than cost. Still Mrs. Munsey had the abiding
conviction that the affair must pay, as others did, if only she might
hold out long enough. Hedwards suggestion that he should return
to the molding, coming and going as little in sight as possible, she
repelled savagely. A nice notion youve got o
keepin up a proper position. You aint content with
disgracin me and yourself too, playin the fool in the
shop till trades ruined an nobody wont come near
the placean I dont wonder at it. ...
Youre a nice sort of usband, I must say. What are you
goin to do now, with the business in this pretty mess, an
your wife an children ready to starve? What are you goin
to do? Where are you goin to turn? Thats what I want to
know.
Well, Im a-thinkin it out, Marier, in a legal
point. Praps, you know, my dear
Oh, dont dear me. I ate a fool.
Marked as low as they might be, none of the aprons nor the bows
nor the towels nor the stockings nor any other of the goods were
boughtnever a thing beyond a haporth of thread or a farthing
bodkin. Rent had to be paid, and even food cost money. There was a
flavor of blank disappointment about Saturdaythe pay day of less
anxious times, and quarter-day, when all these polite young men would
demand the money that was notthat day was coming, black and soon.
Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate than ever, sharp of feature, and
aged. Alone, she would probably have wept. Having Hedward at hand,
she poured forth her bitterness of spirit upon him, till at last he
was nagged out of his normal stolidity, and there came upon his face
the look of a bullock that is harried on all hands through unfamiliar
streets.
On a night when, from sheer weariness of soul, she fell from
clatter toward sleep, of a sudden Hedward spoke. Marier
he said.
Well
You aint give me a kiss lately. Kiss me now.
Dont be a fool. Im sick an tired. Go to
sleep, if you can sleep, with everything
Kiss me, I tell you! He had never commanded like that
before. She marveled, feared a little, and obeyed.
In the morning, when she awoke, he had already gone downstairs.
This was as usual. When she followed, however, he was not to be found
in the house. The shop shutters had been taken down, and the windows
carefully cleaned, although it was not the regular window-cleaning
day; but the door was shut. On the sitting-room table were two
papers, one within the other. The first was written with many faults
and smudges, and this was how it ran:
the deed and testiment of Ed. Munsey this is to cirtiffy
that i make over all my propperty to my beloved wife stock bisness
and furnitur so help me god all detts i keep to pay myself and my
wife is not ansrable for them and certiffy that IOU Minchin and co 9
pounds 4s. 7 1/2d. Jones and son 6 pound 13s.
2d. and settrer all other detts me and not my wife IOU
Ed Munsey
The other was a letter:
my dear wife i have done this legle dockerment after
thinking it out it will make you alrite having all made over and me
still oawe the detts not you as you can pull round the bisness as you
said with time and if you do not see me again will you pay the detts
when it is pull round as we have been allways honnest and straght i
should wish for Emma to keep co with John Page if can be mannaged he
might be shop walker and you will soon all be rich swels i know so no
more from yours affec husband Ed Munsey
love to Emma and Alice this one must be burnt keep the
other
Near the papers lay Ted Munseys large silver watch and
chain, the silver ring that he used to fasten his best tie, three
keys, and a few coppers. Upstairs the girls began to move about. Mrs.
Munsey sat with her frightened face on the table.
The Red Cow
Group
The Red Cow Anarchist Group no longer exists. Its leading spirit
appears no more among his devoted comrades, and without him they are
ineffectual.
He was but a young man, this leading spirit (his name, by the bye,
was Sotcher) but of his commanding influence among the older but
unlettered men about him, read and judge. For themselves, they had
long been plunged in a beery apathy, neither regarding nor caring for
the fearful iniquities of the social system that oppressed them. A
Red Cow group they had always been, before the coming of Sotcher to
make anarchists of them, foregathering in a remote compartment of the
Red Cow bar reached by a side door in an alley; a compartment
uninvaded and almost undiscovered by any but themselves, where night
after night they drank their beer and smoked their pipes, sunk in a
stagnant ignorance of their manifold wrongs. During the day Old Baker
remained to garrison the stronghold. He was a long-bankrupt
tradesman, with invisible resources and no occupation but this, and
no known lodging but the Red Cow snuggery. There he remained all day
and every day, holding the fort, as he put it, with his
nose, a fiery signal of possession, never two feet from the rim of
his pot; while Jerry Shand was carrying heavy loads in Columbia
Market; while Gunno Polson was running for a bookmaker in Fleet
Street; while Snorkey was wherever his instinct took him, doing
whatever paid best, and keeping out of trouble as long as he could;
and while the rest of the grouptwo or threepicked a living out of
the London heap in ways and places unspecified. But at evening, they
joined Old Baker, and they filled their snuggery.
Their talk was rarely of politics, and never of social
problems; present and immediate facts filled their whole field
of contemplation. Their accounts were kept, and their references to
pecuniary matters were always stated, in terms of liquid measure.
Thus, fourpence was never spoken of in the common way; it was a
quart, and a quart was the monetary standard of the community. Even
as twopence was a pint, and eightpence was half a gallon.
It was Snorkey who discovered Sotcher, and it was with Snorkey
that that revolutionary appeared before the Red Cow group with his
message of enlightenment. Snorkey (who was christened something else
that nobody knew or cared about) had a trick of getting into
extraordinary and unheard of places in his daily quest of quarts, and
he had met Sotcher in a loft at the top of a house in Berners Street,
Shadwell. It was a loft where the elect of anarchism congregated
nightly, and where everybody lectured all the others. Sotcher was a
very young anarchist, restless by reason of not being sufficiently
listened to, and glad to find outsiders to instruct and to impress
with a full sense of his somber, mystic dare-devilry. Therefore he
came to the Red Cow with Snorkey, to spread (as he said) the
light.
He was not received with enthusiasm, perhaps because of a certain
unlaundered aspect of person remarkable even to them of the Red Cow
group. Grease was his chief exterior characteristic, and his thick
hair, turning up over his collar, seemed to have lain for long
unharried of brush or comb. His face was a sebaceous trickle of long
features, and on his hands there was a murky deposit that looked like
scales. He wore, in all weathers, a long black coat with a
rectangular rent in the skirt, and his throat he clipped in a brown
neckerchief that on a time had been of the right anarchist red. But
no want of welcome could abash him. Here, indeed, he had an audience,
an audience that did not lecture on its own account, a crude audience
that might taken him at his own valuation. So he gave it to that
crude audience hot and strong. They (and he) were the salt of the
earth, bullied, plundered and abused. Down with everything that
wasnt down already. And so forth and so on.
His lectures were continued. Every night it was the same as every
other, and each several chapter of his discourse was a repetition of
the one before. Slowly the Red Cow group came round. Plainly other
people were better off than they; and certainly each man found it
hard to believe that anybody else was more deserving than
himself.
Wy are we pore? asked Sotcher, leaning forward and
jerking his extended palm from one to another, as though attempting a
hasty collection. I ask you straight, wy are we pore? Why is
it, my friens, that awften and awften you find you aint
got a penny in yer pocket, not for to git a crust o bread or
alf a pint o reasonable refreshment? Ow is it that
appens? Agin I ask, ow?
Snorkey, with a feeling that an answer was expected from somebody,
presently murmured, No mugs, which encouraged Gunno
Polson to suggest Backers all stonybroke. Jerry Shand
said nothing, but reflected on the occasional result of a day on the
loose. Old Baker neither spoke nor thought.
Ill tell you, me friens. Its cos
o the rotten state o sciety. Wy dyou allow
the lazy, idle, dirty, do-nothing upper classes, as they call
emselves, to reap all the benefits o your toil wile you
slave an slave to keep em in lukshry an starve
yerselves? Wy dont you go an take your shares o the
wealth lyin round you?
There was another pause. Gunno Polson looked at his friends one
after another, spat emphatically, and said Coppers.
Becos o the bruite force as the privileged classes is
edged theirselves in with, thats all. Becos o the
paid myrmidons armed an kep to make slaves o the
people. Becos o the magistrates an plice. Then wy
not git rid o the magistrates an plice?
Theyre no good, are they? Oo wants em, I ask?
Oo?
They are a noosance, admitted Snorkey, who had
done a little time himself. He was a mere groundling, and persisted
in regarding the proceedings as simple conversation, instead of as an
oration with pauses at the proper places.
Nobody wants emnobody as is any good. Then
dont ave em, me friensdont ave
em! It all rests with you. Dont ave no magistrates,
nor plice, nor goverment, nor parliament, nor monarchy,
nor county council, nor nothink. Make a clean sweep of em. Blow
em up. Then youll ave yer rights. The times
comin, I tell you. Its comin, take my word for it.
Now you toil an slave; then everybodyll ave to
work, wether e likes it or not, and two hours work a
dayll be all youll ave to do.
Old Baker looked a little alarmed, and for a moment paused in his
smoking.
Two hours a day at most, thats all; an all yer
wants provided for, free an liberal. Some of the group
gave a lickerish look across the bar. No athority, no
goverment, no privilege, an nothink to interfere. Free
contrack between-man an man, subjict to free revision an
change.
Wots that? demanded Jerry Shand, who was the
slowest convert.
Wy, that, Sotcher explained, means that
everybody can make wot arrangements with is feller-men e
likes for to carry on the business of life, but nothink cant
bind you. You chuck over the arrangement if it suits best.
Ah, said Gunno Polson musingly, rotating his pot
horizontally before him to stir the beer; that ud be
andy sometimes. They call it welshin now.
The light spread fast and free, and in a few nights the Red Cow
group was a very promising little bed of anarchy. Sotcher was at
pains to have it reported at two places west of Tottenham Court Road
and at another in Dean Street, Soho, that at last a comrade had
secured an excellent footing with a party of the proletariat of East
London, hitherto looked on as hopeless material. More: that an early
manifestation of activity might be expected in that quarter. Such
activity had been held advisable of late, in view of certain
extraditions.
And Sotchers discourse at the Red Cow turned, lightly and
easily, toward the question of explosives. Anybody could make them,
he explained; nothing simpler, with care. And here he posed at large
in the character of mysterious desperado, the wonder and admiration
of all the Red Cow group. They should buy nitric acid, he said, of
the strongest sort, and twice as much sulphuric acid. The shops where
they sold photographic materials were best and cheapest for these
things, and no questions were asked. They should mix the acids, and
then add gently, drop by drop, the best glycerine, taking care to
keep everything cool. After which the whole lot must be poured into
water, to stand for an hour. Then a thick, yellowish, oily stuff
would be found to have sunk to the bottom, which must be passed
through several pails of water to be cleaned; and there it was, a
terrible explosive. You handled it with care, and poured it on
brick-dust or dry sand, or anything of that sort that would soak it
up, and then it could be used with safety to the operator.
The group listened with rapt attention, more than one pot stopping
half-way on its passage mouthward. Then Jerry Shand wanted to know if
Sotcher had ever blown up anything or anybody himself.
The missionary admitted that that glory had not been his.
Im one o the teachers, me friensone o
the pioneers that goes to show the way for the active workers like
you. I ony come to explain the principles an set you in
the right road to the social revolution, so as you may get yer rights
at last. Its for you to act.
Then he explained that action might be taken in two ways; either
individually or by mutual aid in the group. Individual work was much
to be preferred, being safer; but a particular undertaking often
necessitated cooperation. But that was for the workers to settle as
the occasion arose. However, one thing must be remembered. If the
group operated, each man must be watchful of the rest; there must be
no half measures, no timorousness; any comrade wavering, temporizing,
or behaving in any way suspiciously, must be straightway
suppressed. There must be no mistake about that. It was
desperate and glorious work, and there must be desperate and rapid
methods both of striking and guarding. These things he made clear in
his best conspirators manner, with nods and scowls and a shaken
forefinger, as of one accustomed to oversetting empires.
The men of the Red Cow group looked at each other, and spat
thoughtfully. Then a comrade asked what had better be blown up first.
Sotchers opinion was that there was most glory in blowing up
people, in a crowd or at a theater. But a building was safer, as
there was more chance of getting away. Of buildings, a public office
was probably to be preferredsomething in Whitehall, say. Or a
banknobody seemed to have tried a bank; he offered the suggestion
now. Of course there were not many public buildings in the East End,
but possibly the group would like to act in their own neighborhood:
it would be a novelty, and would attract notice; the question was one
for their own decision, independent freedom of judgment being the
right thing in these matters. There were churches, of course, and the
factories of the bloated capitalist. Particularly, he might suggest
the gas-works close by. There was a large gas meter abutting on the
street, and probably an explosion there would prove tremendously
effective, putting the lights out everywhere, and attracting great
attention in the papers. That was glory.
Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the lives of the men in the
gas-works; but Satcher explained that that was a trivial matter.
Revolutions were never accomplished without bloodshed, and a few
casual lives were not to be weighed in the balance against the
glorious consummation of the social upheaval. He repeated his
contention, when some weaker comrade spoke of the chance of danger to
the operator, and repeated it with a proper scorn of the soft-handed
pusillanimity that shrunk from danger to life and limb in the cause.
Look at the glory, and consider the hundred-fold vengeance on the
enemy in the day to come! The martyrs crown was his who should
die at the post of duty.
His eloquence prevailed; there were murmurs no more.
Ere, tell us the name of the stuff agin, broke out
Gunno Polson, resolutely, feeling for a pencil and paper.
Blimy, Ill make some tomorrer.
He wrote down the name of the ingredients with much spelling.
Thick, yuller, oily stuff, aint it, wot you make?
he asked.
Yusan keep it cool.
The group broke up, stern and resolute, and Sotcher strode to his
home exultant, a man of power.
For the next night or two the enthusiasm at the Red Cow was
unbounded. There was no longer any questioning of principles or
actionevery man was an eager anarchiststrong and devoted in the
cause. The little chemical experiment was going on well, Gunno Polson
reported, with confident nods and winks. Sotcher repeated his
discourse, as a matter of routine, to maintain the general ardor,
which had, however, to endure a temporary checks as the result of a
delicate inquiry of Snorkeys, as to what funds might be
expected from headquarters. For there were no funds, said Sotcher,
somewhat surprised at the question.
Wot? demanded Jerry Shand, opening his mouth and
putting down his pipe; taint we goin to get nothink
for all this?
They would get the glory, Sotcher assured him, and the
consciousness of striking a mighty blow at this, and that, and the
other; but that was all. And instantly the faces of the group grew
long.
But, said Old Baker, I thought all you blokes
always got somethink from thethe committee?
There was no committee, and no funds; there was nothing but glory,
and victory, and triumph, and the social revolution, and things of
that kind. For a little, the comrades looked at one another
awkwardly, but they soon regained their cheerfulness, with zeal no
whit abated. The sitting closed with promises of an early gathering
for the next night.
But when the next night came Sotcher was later than usual.
Ullo, shouted Gunno Polson, as he entered,
ere you are at last. Weve ad to do important
business without you. See, he added in a lower tone,
eres the stuff! And he produced an old
physic-bottle nearly full of a thick, yellowish fluid.
Sotcher started back half a pace, and slightly paled.
Dont shake it, he whispered hoarsely.
Dont shake it, for Gawds sake! ... Wotwotjer
bring it ere for, like that? Itsits awful stuff,
blimy. He looked uneasily about the group, and wiped his
forehead with the back of his hand. II thought youd git
the job over soon as the stuff was ready. ... Ere, my
Gawd! he squeaked under his breath, dont put it
down ard on the table like that. Its sichsich awful
stuff. He wiped his forehead again, and, still standing,
glanced once more apprehensively round the circle of impassive faces.
Then after a pause, he asked, with an effort: Wotwotjer
goin to do now?
Blow up the bleedn gas-works, o course,
answered Gunno Polson, complacently. Eres a
penorth o silver sand, an a bacca canister,
an some wire, an a big cracker with a long touch-paper,
so as to stick out o the canister-lid. That ought to set it
auf, oughtnt it? Ere, you pour the stuff over the sand,
doncher? And he pulled out the cork and made ready to mix.
Old onold ondont! Wait a bit, for
Gawds sake! cried Sotcher, in a sweat of terror.
Youyou dunno wot awful stuff it isselp me, you
dont. Youyoull blow us all up if you dont keep it
still. Yyoull want someother things. Ill go
an
But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the door. This
ere conspiracyll ave to be gawn through
proper, he said. We cant ave no waverers nor
blokes wot want to clear out in the middle of it, and
praps to go an tell the plice. Them sort we
as to suppress, see? Theres all the stuff there,
me lad, an you know it. Wots more, its you as is
got to put it up agin the gas-works an set it auf.
The hapless Sotcher turned a yellower pallor and asked faintly:
Me? Wy me?
All done reglar and proper, Jerry replied,
fore you come. We voted itby ballot, all square. If
youd a come earlier youd a
ad a vote yerself.
Sotcher pushed at Jerrys shoulder desperately. I
wont, I wont! he gasped. Lemme goit
aint fairI wasnt erelemme go!
None o yer shovin, young man, said Jerry,
severely. None o yer shovin, else Ill
ave to punch you on the jore. Youre a bleedn
nice conspirator, you are. Its pretty plain we cant
depend on you, an you know wot that meanseh? Doncher?
Youre one o the sort as to be suppressed, thats wot
it means. Ere, ave a drink o this ere beer,
an see if that cant put a little art in ye. You got
to do it, so you may as well do it cheerful. Snorkey, give im a
drink.
But the wretched revolutionary would not drink. He sunk in a
cornerthe furthest from the table where Gunno Polson was packing
his dreadful canistera picture of stupefied affright.
Presently he thought of the bara mere yard of counter in an
angle of the room, with a screen standing above itand conceived a
wild notion of escape by scrambling over. But scarce had he risen ere
the watchful Jerry divined his purpose.
Old im, Snorkey, he said. Keep
im in the corner. An if e wont drink that
beer, pour it over is ead.
Snorkey obeyed gravely and conscientiously, and the bedraggled
Sotcher, cowed from protest, whined and sobbed desolately.
When all was ready, Jerry Shand said: I spose
its no good askin you to do it willin, like a
man?
Oh, let me go. II aint wellselp Me, I
aint. II might do it
wrongananIm aa
teachera speaker; not the active branch, selp me. Put it
auffor to-nightwait till to-morrer. I aint well
anan youre very ard on me!
Desprit work, desprit ways, Jerry replied,
laconically. Youre beavin very suspicious,
an youre rebellin agin the orders o the
group. Theres only one physic for that, aint there, in
the rules? Youre got to be suppressed. Question is ow.
Well ave to kill im quiet somehow, he
proceeded, turning to the group. Quiet an quick.
Its my belief es spyin for the plice,
an want to git out to split on us. Question is ow to do
for im?
Sotcher rose, a staring specter. He opened his mouth to call, but
there came forth from it only a dry murmur. Hands were across his
mouth at once, and he was forced back into the corner. One suggested
a clasp-knife at the throat, another a stick in his neckerchief,
twisted to throttling-point. But in the end it was settled that it
would be simpler, and would better destroy all traces, to dispatch
him in the explosionto tie him to the canister, in fact.
A convulsive moment under the mens hands decided them to
throw more beer on Sotchers face, for he seemed to he fainting.
Then his pockets were invaded by Gunno Polson, who turned out each in
succession. You wont ave no use for money where
youre goin, he observed, callously; besides,
it ud be blowed to bits an no use to nobody. Look at the
bloke at Greenwich, ow is things was blowed away.
Ullo! eres two arfcrowns an some
tanners. Seven anthrippence altogether, with the browns. This
is the bloke wot adnt got no funds. Thisll be
divided on free an equal principles to elp pay for that
beer youre wasted. Old up, ol man! Think o
the glory. Praps youre all right, but its
best to be on the safe side, an dead blokes cant split to
the coppers. An you mustnt forget the glory. You
ave to shed blood in a revolution, an a few odd lives
more or less dont matternot a single damn. Keep your eye on
the bleedn glory! Theyll ave photos of you in
the papers, all the broken bits in a eap, fac-similar as found
on the spot. Wot a comfort thatll be!
But the doomed creature was obliviousProstratea swooning heap.
They ran a piece of clothes-lines under his elbows, and pulled them
together tight. They then hobbled his ankles, and took him among them
through the alley down the quiet street, singing and shouting their
loudest as they went, in case he might sufficiently recover his
powers to call for help. But he did not, and there in the shadow, at
the foot of the great gasometer, they flung him down with a parting
kick and a barbarous knock on the head, to keep him quiet for those
few necessary moments. Then the murderous canister, bound with wire,
was put in place; the extruding touch-paper was set going with a
match; and the Red Cow Anarchists disappeared at a run, leaving their
victim to his fate. Presently the policeman on that beat heard a
sudden report from the neighborhood of the gasworks, and ran to see
what it might mean.
The next morning Alfred Sotcher was charged at the Thames Police
Court as a drunk and incapable. He had been found in a helpless state
near the gas-works, and appeared to have been tied at the elbows and
ankles by mischievous boys, who had also, it seemed, ignited a
cracker nearby where he lay. The divisional surgeon stated that he
was called to the prisoner, and found him tearful and incoherent, and
smelling strongly of drink. He complained of having been assaulted in
a public-house, but could give no intelligible account of himself. A
canister found by his side appeared to contain a mixture of sand and
castor oil, but prisoner could not explain how it came there. The
magistrate fined him five shillings, with the alternative of seven
days, and as he had no money he was removed to the cells.
On the
Stairs
The house had been genteel. When trade was prospering
in the East End, and the shipfitter or block-maker thought it a shame
to live in the parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived
here. Now, it was a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and
paintless in the journey, cracked and patched in the windows; where
the front door stood open all day long, and the womankind sat on the
steps, talking of sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and
treacherous holes lurked in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and
in the passage. For when eight families live in a house, nobody buys
a door-mat, and the secret was one of those streets that are always
muddy. It smelled, too, of many things, none of them pleasant (one
was fried fish); but for all that it was not a slum.
Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her
way to listen at a door which, opened, let out a warm, fetid waft
from a close sick-room. A bent and tottering old woman stood on the
threshold, holding the door behind her.
An is e no better now, Mrs. Curtis? the
gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the opening.
The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw
waggled loosely in her withered chaps: Nor wont be, till
es gone. Then after a certain pause:
Es goin, she said.
Dont doctor give no ope?
Lor bless ye, I dont want to ast no
doctors, Mrs. Curtis replied, with something not unlike a
chuckle. Ive seed too many on em. The boys
a-goin fast; I can see that. An thenshe gave the
handle another tug, and whisperedhes been called.
She nodded again. Three seprit knocks at the bed-head lasnight;
an I know what that means!
The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. Ah, well,
she said, we all on us comes to it some day, sooner or
later. An its often a appy release.
The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod
and a croak. Presently the other pursued: Es been a
very good son, aint he?
Ay, aywell enough son to me, responded the old
woman, a little peevishly; an Ill ave
im put away decent, though theres ony the Union for
me after. I can do that, thank Gawd! she added, meditatively,
as, chin on fist, she stared into the thickening dark over the
stairs.
When I lost my pore usband, said the gaunt
woman, with a certain brightening, I give im a
andsome funeral. E was a Odd Feller, an I got
twelve pound. I ad a oak caufin an a open earse.
There was kerridge for the famly an one for is
matestwo orses each, an feathers, an mutes;
an it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. Wotever
appens, Mrs. Manders, says the undertaker,
youll feel as youre treated im proper; nobody
cant reproach you over that. An they couldnt.
E was a good usband to me, an I buried im
respectable.
The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Manders
funeral fell upon the other ones ears with a freshened
interest, and she mumbled her gums ruminantly. Bobll
ave a ansome buryin too, she said. I
can make it up, with the insurance money, an this, an
that. Ony I dunno about mutes. Its a expense.
In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing
much desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing
is an expense, or a great expense. It means
the same thing, but it sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her
resources, and found that mutes would be an expense. At a
cheap funeral mutes cost half a sovereign and their liquor. Mrs.
Manders said as much.
Yus, yus, arf a sovereign, the old woman
assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat the floor with a stick.
Im a-comin, she cried, shrilly; yus,
arf a sovereign, but its a lot, an I dont see
ow Im to do itnot at present. She reached for the
door-handle again, but stopped and added, by after-thought:
Unless I dont ave no plooms.
It ud be a pity not to ave plooms. I
ad
There were footsteps on the stairs; then a stumble and a testy
word. Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. Is it
the doctor, sir? she asked. It was the doctors assistant;
and Mrs. Manders tramped up to the next landing as the door of the
sick-room took him in.
For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the
assistant, a very young man, came out again, followed by the old
woman with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark.
Hes sinking fast, said the assistant. He
must have a stimulant. Doctor Mansell ordered port wine. Where
is it? Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. I tell you he
must have it, he averred with unprofessional emphasis
(his qualification was only a month old). The man cant
take solid food, and his strength must be kept up somehow. Another
day may make all the difference. It is because you cant afford
it?
Its a expensesich a expense, doctor, the old
woman pleaded. An wot with arf-pints o milk
an She grew inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.
But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if its your last
shilling; its the only way. If you mean you absolutely
havent the money And he paused a little awkwardly. He
was not a wealthy young manwealthy young men do not devil for East
End doctorsbut he was conscious of a certain haul of sixpences at
nap the night before; and, being inexperienced, he did not foresee
the career of persecution whereon he was entering at his own expense
and of his own motion. He produced five shillings: If you
absolutely havent the money, whytake this and get a
bottlegood. Not at a public-house. But mind, at once. He
should have had it before.
It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know
that his principal had been guilty of the self-same
indiscretioneven the amount was identicalon that landing the day
before. But, as Mrs. Curtis said nothing of this, he floundered down
the stair and out into the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the
beloved son of a Congregational minister might take full credit for a
deed of charity on the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis
puffed her wrinkles, and shook her head sagaciously as she carried in
her candle. From the room came a clink as of money falling into a
teapot. And Mrs. Manders went about her business.
The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a
lodger passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men
and women walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in
again. From the street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the
pit. On the pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the
bottom passage there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented
old clock buzzed divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty
minutes by the regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally,
somebody shut the street-door with a great bang, and the street was
muffled. A key turned inside the door on the landing, but that was
all. A feeble light shone for hours along the crack below, and then
went out. The crazy old clock went buzzing on, but nothing left that
room all night. Nothing that opened the door. ...
When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manderss knock, in
the full morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing
together, Mrs. Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. Ah,
es a lovely corpse, said Mrs. Manders. Like
wax. so was my usband.
I must be stirrin, croaked the old woman,
an go about the insurance an the measurin
an that. Theres lot to do.
Ah, there is. Oo are you goin to
aveWilkins? I ad Wilkins. Better than Kedge, I
think; Kedges mutes dresses rusty, an their trousis is
frayed. If you was thinkin of avin
mutes
Yus, yuswith a palsied noddingIm
a-goin to ave mutes; I can do it respectable, thank
Gawd!
And the plooms?
Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They aint sich a great
expense, after all.
Squire
Napper
I.
Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and
forty. His moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he
wore his coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his
chest. The casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper
punctiliously made it known that he was in the paving;
which meant that he was a paver. He lived in Canning Town, and was on
a foot-path job at West Ham (Allen was the contractor) when he won
and began to wear the nickname Squire.
Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighboring church, Bill
Nappers mates let drop rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and
turned toward a row of basins, tied in blue-and-red handkerchiefs,
and accompanied of divers tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself
looked toward the street corner for the punctual Polly bearing his
own dinner fresh and hot; for home was not far, and Polly, being
thirteen, had no school now.
One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first
impatient, grew savage, and thought wrathfully on the strap on its
nail by the kitchen dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly
came, bringing a letter as well as the basin-load of beef and
cabbage. A young man had left it, she said, after asking many
ill-mannered questions. The letter was addressed W. Napper,
Esq., with a flourish; the words, By hand, stood in
the corner of the envelope, and on the flap at the back were the
embossed characters T. & N. These things Bill Napper
noted several times over, as he turned the letter about in his
hand.
Seems to me youll ave to open it after
all, said one of Bills mates; and he opened it, setting
back his hat as a preparation to serious study. The letter was dated
from Old jewry, and ran thus:
_re B. Napper, deceased.
Dear Sir,We have a communication in this matter from our
correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to testamentary
dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be obliged if you can
make it convenient to call at this office any day except Saturday
between two and four.
Your obedient servants,
Tims & Norton.
The dinner hour had gone by before the full inner meaning had been
wrested from this letter. B. Napper, deceased, Bill
accepted, with a little assistance, as an announcement of the death of
his brother Ben, who had gone to Australia nearly twenty years ago,
and had been forgotten. Testamentary dispositions nobody
would tackle with confidence, although its distinct suggestion of
biblical study was duly remarked. Benefit was right
enough, and led one of the younger men; after some thought, to the
opinion that Bill Nappers brother might have left him
something; a theory instantly accepted as the most probable, although
some thought it foolish of him not to leave it direct instead of
authorizing the interference of a lawyer, who would want to do Bill
out of it.
Bill Napper put up his tools, and went home. There the missis put
an end to doubt by repeating what the lawyers clerk said, which
was nothing more definite than that Bill had been left a
bit; and the clerk only acknowledged so much when he had
satisfied himself, by sinuous questionings, that he had found the
real legatee. He further advised the bringing of certain evidence on
the visit to the office. Thus it was plain that the Napper fortunes
were in good case, for, as a bit means money all the
world over, the thing was clearly no worthless keepsake.
II.
ON the afternoon of the next day, Bill Napper, in clean moleskins
and black coat, made for Old Jewry. On mature consideration he had
decided to go through it alone. There was not merely one lawyer,
which would be bad enough, but two of them in a partnership; and to
take the missis, whose intellects, being somewhat flighty, were
quickly divertible by the palaver of which a lawyer was master, would
be to distract and impede his own faculties. A male friend might not
have been so bad, but Bill could not call to mind one quite cute
enough to be of any use, and in any case such a friend would have to
be paid for the loss of his days work. Moreover, he might
imagine himself to hold a sort of interest in the proceeds. So Bill
Napper went alone.
Having waited the proper time without the bar in the clerks
office, he was shown into a room where a middle-aged man sat at a
writing-table. There was no other lawyer to be seen. This was a
stratagem for which Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked
suspiciously about the room, but without discovering anything that
looked like a hiding-place. Plainly there were two lawyers, because
their names were on the door and on the letter itself; and the letter
said we. Why one should hide it was hard to guess, unless it were to
bear witness to some unguarded expression. Bill Napper resolved to
speak little, and not loud.
The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting him to sit. Then he
asked to see the papers that Bill had brought. These were an old
testimonial reciting that Bill had been employed with his
brother Benjamin as a boy in a brick-field, and had given
satisfaction; a letter from a parish guardian, the son of an old
employer of Bills father, certifying that Bill was his
fathers son and his brothers brother; copies of the birth
registry of both Bill and his brother procured that morning; and a
letter from Australia, the last word from Benjamin, dated eighteen
years back. These Bill produced in succession, keeping a firm grip on
each as he placed it beneath the lawyers nose. The lawyer
behaved somewhat testily under this restraint, but Bill knew better
than to let the papers out of his possession, and would not be
done.
When he had seen allWell, Mr. Napper, said the
lawyer, rather snappishly (obviously he was balked), these
things seem all right, and with the inquiries I have already made, I
suppose I may proceed to pay you the money. It is a legacy of three
hundred pounds. Your brother was married, and I believe his business
and other property goes to his wife and children. The money is
intact, the estate paying legacy duty and expenses. In cases of this
sort there is sometimes an arrangement for the amount to be paid a
little at a time as required; that, however, I judge, would not be an
arrangement to please you. I hope, at any rate, you will be able to
invest the money in a profitable way. I will draw a check.
Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill Nappers wildest dreams.
But he would not be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the lawyer
tore the check from the book and pushed It across the table with
another paper. He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other hand at
the bottom of the second paper, and saying: This is the
receipt. Sign just there, please.
Bill took up the check, but made no movement toward the pen.
Receipt? he grunted, softly; receipt wot for? I
aint ad no money.
Theres the check in your handthe same thing.
Its an order to the bank to hand you the amountthe usual way
of paying money in business affairs. If you would rather have the
money paid here, I can send a clerk to the bank to get it. Give me
the check.
But again Bill was not to be done. The lawyer, finding him sharper
than he expected, now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper back.
So Bill only grinned at him, keeping a good hold of the check. The
lawyer lost his temper. Why, damn it, he said,
youre a curious person to deal with. Dye want the
money and the check too?
He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. Mr. Dixon,
said the lawyer, I have given this person a check for three
hundred pounds. Just take him round to the bank, and get it cashed.
Let him sign the receipt at the bank. I suppose, he added,
turning to Bill, that you wont object to giving a receipt
when you get the money, eh?
Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, expressed his
willingness to do the proper thing at the proper time, and went out
with the clerk. At the bank there was little difficulty, except at
the clerks advice to take the money chiefly in notes, which
instantly confirmed Bill in a determination to accept nothing but
gold. When all was done, and three hundred sovereigns, carefully
counted over for the third and fourth time, were stowed in small bags
about his person, Bill, much relieved after his spell of
watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk a drink.
Ah, he said, all you city lawyers an
clurks are pretty bleedn sharp, I know, but you
aint done me, an I dont bear no malice.
Ave wot you likeave wine or a six o IrishI
aint goin to be stingy. Im goin to do it open
an free, I am, an set a example to men o
property.
III.
Bill Napper went home in a hansom, ordering a barrel of beer on
the way. One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have
beer in by the barrel; for then Sundays and closing times vex not,
and you have but to reach the length of your arm for another pot
whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in Canning Town had beer by the
barrel except the tradesmen, and for that Bill had long envied the
man who kept shop. And now, at his first opportunity, he bought a
barrel of thirty-six gallons.
Once home with the news, and Canning Town was ablaze. Bill Napper
had came in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred
thousandany number of thousands that were within the compass of the
gossips command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called W.
Napper, Esq.he was to be knightedhe was a long-lost
baronetanything. Bill Napper came home in a hansoma
brougham-state coach.
Mrs. Napper went that very evening to the Grove at Stratford to
buy silk and satin, green, red and yellowcutting her neighbors
dead, right and left. And by the next morning tradesmen had sent
circulars and samples of goods. Mrs. Napper was for taking a proper
position in society, and a house in a fashionable partBarking Road,
for instance, or even East India Road, Poplar; but Bill would have
none of such foolishness. He wasnt proud, and Canning Town was
quite good enough for him. This much, though, he conceded: that the
family should take a whole house of five rooms in the next street,
instead of the two rooms and a cellule upstairs now rented.
That morning Bill lighted his pipe, stuck his hands in his
pockets, and strolled as far as his job. Wayo, squire,
shouted one of the men as he approached. Ere comes the
bleedn toff, remarked another.
Tcheer, tcheer, mates, Bill responded,
calmly complacent. Im a-goin to wet it. And all the
fourteen men left their paving for the beer-house close by. The
foreman made some demur, but was helpless, and ended by coming
himself. Now then, gaffer, said Bill, none o
your sulks. No one aint a-goin to stand out of a drink
o mineunless e wants to fight. As for the jobdamn the
job! Id buy up fifty jobs like that ere and not stop for
the change. You send the guvnor to me if e says
anythink; unnerstand? You send im to me. And he
laid hands on the foreman, who was not a big man, and hauled him
after the others.
They wetted it for two or three hours, from many part pots. Then
there appeared between the swing doors the wrathful face of the
guvnor.
The govnors position was difficult. He was only a
small master, and but a few years back had been a working mason. This
deserted job was his first for the parish, and by contract he was
bound to end it quickly under penalty. Moreover, he much desired
something on account that week, and must stand well with the vestry.
On the other hand, this was a time of strikes, and the air was
electrical. Several large and successful movements had quickened a
spirit of restlessness in the neighborhood, and no master was sure of
his men. Some slight was fancied, something was not done as it should
have been done from the point of view of the workshop, and there was
a strike, picketing, and bashing. Now, the worst thing that could
have happened to the guvnor at this moment was one of those
tiny unrecorded strikes that were bursting out weekly and daily about
him, with the picketing of his two or three jobs. Furious, therefore,
as he was, he dared not discharge every man on the spot. So he stood
in the door, and said: Look here, I wont stand this sort
of thingits a damn robbery. Ill
Thats all right, ol cock, roared Bill
Napper, reaching toward the guvnor. You come an
ave a tiddley. Im a bleedn millionaire meself
now, but I aint proud. What, you wont?for the
guvnor, unenthusiastic, remained at the door. Youre
a sulky old bleeder. These ere friends o mine are
avin arf a day auf at my expense; unnerstand? My
expense. Im a-payin for their time, if you dock em;
an I can give you a bob, me fine feller, if your
ard up. See?
The guvnor addressed himself to the foreman.
Whats the meaning o this, Walker? he said.
What game dye call it?
Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots had made uproarious,
slapped the foreman violently on the shoulder. This
eres the gaffer, he shouted. Es
all right. E come ere cos e couldnt
elp isself. I made im come, forcible. Dont you bear
no spite agin the gaffer, dyear? Es my mate,
is the gaffer; an I could buy you up, forty times, selp
mebut I aint proud. An youre a bleedn
gaw-blimy slackbacked...!
Well, said the guvnor to the assembled company,
but still ignoring Bill, dont you think theres been
about enough of this?
A few of the men glanced at one another, and one or two rose.
Awright, guvnor, said one, were auf,
and two more echoed, Awright, guvnor, and
began to move away.
Ah! said Bill Napper, with disgust, as he turned to
finish his pot, youre a blasted nigger-driver, you are.
An a sulky beast, he added as he set the pot down.
Never mind, he pursued, Im awright,
an I aint a arf-paid kerbwacker no more, under
you!
You was a damn sight better kerbwhacker than you are a
millionaire, the guvnor retorted, feeling safer now that
his men were getting back to work.
None o your lip, replied Bill, rising and
reaching for a pipe-spill; none o your lip, you
workus stone-breaker. Then, turning with a sudden access
of fury, Ill knock yer face off, blimy! he shouted,
and raised his fist.
Now, then, none o that here, please, cried the
landlord from behind the bar; unto whom Bill Napper, with all his
wonted obedience in that quarter, answered only, All right,
guvnor, and subsided.
Left alone, he soon followed the master-paver and his men through
the swing doors, and so went home. In his own street, observing two
small boys in the prelusory stages of a fight, he put up sixpence by
way of stakes, and supervised the battle from the seat afforded by a
convenient window-sill. After that he bought a morning paper, and lay
upon his bed to read it, with a pipe and a jug; for he was beginning
a life of leisure and comfort, wherein every day should be a superior
Sunday.
IV.
Thus far the outward and visible signs of Napper wealth were
these: the separate house; the barrel of beer; a pianonot bought as
a musical instrument, but as one of the visible signs; a daily paper,
also primarily a sign; the bonnets and dresses of the missis; and the
perpetual possession of Bill Napper by a varying degree of
fuddlement. An inward and dissembled sign was a regiment, continually
re-enforced, of mostly empty bottles, in a cupboard kept sacred by
the missis. And the faculties of that good lady herself experienced a
fluctuating confusion from causes not always made plain to Bill; for
the money was kept in the bedroom chest of drawers, and it was easy
to lay hands on a half sovereign as required without unnecessary
disturbance.
Now and again Bill Napper would discuss the abstract question of
entering upon some investment or business pursuit. Land had its
advantagesgreat advantages; and he had been told that it was very
cheap just now, in some places. Houses were good, too, and a suitable
possession for a man of consideration. Not so desirable on the whole,
however, as land. You bought your land andwell, there it was, and
you could take things easily. But with houses there was rent to
collect, and repairs to see to and so forth. It was a vastly paying
thing for any man with capital to be a merchant; but there was work
even in that, and you had to be perpetually on guard against sharp
chaps in the city. A public-house, suggested by one of his old mates
on the occasion of wetting it, was out of the question. There was
tick, and long hours, and a sharp lookout, and all kinds of troubles,
which a man with money would be a fool to encounter. Altogether,
perhaps, land seemed to be the thing; although there was no need to
bother now, and plenty of time to turn things over, even if the
matter were worth pondering at all, when it was so easy for a man to
live on his means. After all, to take your boots off, and lie on the
bed with a pipe and a pot and paper was very comfortable, and you
could always stroll out and meet a mate, or bring him in when so
disposed.
Of a evening the Albert Music Hall was close at hand, and the
Queens not very far away. And on Sundays and Saturday
afternoons Bill would often take a turn down by the dock gates, or
even in Victoria Park, or Mile End Waste, where there were speakers
of all sorts. At the dock gates it was mostly labor and anarchy, but
at the other places there was a fine variety; you could always be
sure of a few minutes of teetotalism, evangelism, atheism,
republicanism, salvationism, socialism, anti-vaccinationism, and
social purity, with now and again some Mormonism or another curious
exotic. Most of the speakers denounced something, and if the
denunciations of one speaker were not sufficiently picturesque and
lively, you passed on to the next. Indeed you might always judge afar
off where the best denouncing was going on, by the size of the
crowds, at least until the hat went round.
It was at Mile End Waste that a good notion occurred to Bill
Napper. He had always vastly admired the denunciations of one
speakera little man, shabbier, if anything, than most of the
others, and surpassingly tempestuous of antic. He was an unattached
orator, not confining himself to any particular creed, but denouncing
whatever seemed advisable, considering the audience and
circumstances. He was always denouncing something somewhere, and was
ever in a crisis that demanded the circulation of a hat. Bill
esteemed this speaker for his versatility as well as for the
freshness of his abuse, and Bills sudden notion was to engage
him for private addresss.
The orator did not take kindly to the proposal at first, strongly
suspecting something in the nature of guy or
kid; but a serious assurance of a shilling for an
occasional hour and the payment of one in advance brought him over.
After this Squire Napper never troubled to go to Mile End Waste. He
sat at ease in his parlor, with his pot on the piano, while the
orator, with another pot on the mantel-piece, stood up and denounced
to order. Tip us the Teetotal an
Down-with-the-Public-Ouse, Bill would request, and the
orator (his name was Minns) would oblige in that line till most of
the strong phrases had run out, and had begun to recur. Then Bill
would say, Now come the Rights o Labor caper.
Whereupon Minns would take a pull at the pot, and proceed to denounce
capital, Bill Napper applauding or groaning at the pauses provided
for those purposes. And so on with whatever subjects appealed to the
patrons fancy. It was a fancy that sometimes put the
orators invention to grievous straits; but for Bill the whole
performance was peculiarly privileged and dignified. For to have an
orator gesticulating and speechifying all to ones self, on
ones own order and choice of subject, is a thing not given to
all men.
One day Minns turned up (not having been invited) with a friend.
Bill did not take to the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a
shifty eye, who smiled as he spoke, and showed a top row of irregular
and dirty teeth. This friend, Minns explained, was a journalista
writer of newspapers; and between them they had an idea, which idea
the friend set forth. Everybody, he said, who knew the history of Mr.
Napper admired his sturdy independence and democratic simplicity. He
was of the people and not ashamed of it. (Well, no, I
aint proud, Bill interjected, wondering what was coming.)
With all the advantages of wealth, he preferred to remain one of the
people, living among them plainly, conforming to their simple habits,
and sympathizing with their sorrows. (This chap, thought
Bill,wants to be took on to hold forth turn about with the
other, and hes showing his capers; but I aint on
it.) It was the knowledge of these things, so greatly to Mr.
Nappers honor, that had induced Minns and Minnss friend
to place before him a means by which he might do the cause of toiling
humanity a very great service. A new weekly paper was wantedwanted
very badly; a paper that should rear its head on behalf of the
down-trodden toilers, and make its mighty voice heard with dread by
the bloated circles of class and privilege. That paper would prove a
marvelously paying investment to its proprietor, bringing him
enormous profits every week. He would have a vast fortune in that
paper alone, besides the glory and satisfaction of striking the great
blow that should pave the way to the emancipation of the masses and
the destruction of the vile system of society whose whole and sole
effect was the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the grasping
few. Being professionally disengaged at present, he (the speaker), in
conjunction with his friend Minns, had decided to give Mr. Napper the
opportunity of becoming its proprietor.
Bill was more than surprised; he was also a little bewildered.
What, he said, after two draws of his pipe,
dye mean you want me to go in the printin
line?
That was not at all necessary. The printing would be done by
contract. Mr. Napper would only have to find the money. The paper,
with a couple of thousand pounds behind itor even one thousand
(Minnss friend read a difficulty in Bills face)would be
established forever. Even five hundred would do, and many successful
papers had been floated with no more than a couple of hundred or so.
Suppose they said just a couple of hundred to go on with, till the
paper found its legs and began to pay? How would that do?
Bill Napper smoked a dozen whiffs. Then he said: An
what should I ave to do with the two undred pound? Buy
anythink?
Not directly that, the promoters explained. It would finance the
thing-just finance it.
Ood ave the money, then?
That was perfectly simple. It would simply be handed over to Minns
and his friend, and they would attend to all the details.
Bill Napper continued to smoke. Then, beginning with a slight
chuckle at the back of his throat, he said: Wen I got my
money, I went to a lawyers for it. There was two lawyersone
layin low. There was two fust-rate lawyers an a lot
o clurkscity clurksan a bank anall. An
they couldnt ave me, not for a single farden-not a
farden, try an fiddle as they would. ... Well, arter that, it
aint much good you a-tryin it on, is it? And he
chuckled again, louder.
Minns was indignant, and Minnss friend was deeply hurt. Both
protested. Bill Napper laughed aloud. Awright, youll
do, he said; youll do. My abits may be simple,
but they aint as simple as all that. Ha! ha! Ere,
ave a drinkyou aint done no arm, an I
aint spiteful. Ha, ha!
It was on an evening a fortnight after this that, as Bill Napper
lay, very full of beer and rather sleepy, on the bedthe rest of his
household being out-of-doorsa ladder was quietly planted against
the outer wall from the back-yard. Bill heard nothing until the
window, already a little open, was slowly pushed up, and from the
twilight outside a head and an arm plunged into the thicker darkness
of the room, and a hand went feeling along the edge of the chest of
drawers by the window. Bill rolled over on the bed, and reached from
the floor one of a pair of heavy iron-set boots. Taking the toe in
his right hand, and grasping the footrail of the bedstead with his
left, he raised himself on his knees, and brought the boot-heel down
heavily on the intruding head. There was a gasp, and the first breath
of a yell, and head, arm, shoulders, and body vanished with a bump
and a rattle. Bill Napper let the boot fall, dropped back on the bed,
and took no further heed.
Neither Minns nor his friend ever came back again, but for some
time after, at Victoria Park, Minns, inciting an outraged populace to
rise and sweep police and army from the earth, was able to point to
an honorable scar on his own forehead, the proof and sign of a police
bludgeoning at Tower Hillor Trafalgar Square.
V.
Things went placidly on for near ten months. Many barrels of beer
had come in full and been sent empty away. Also the missis had got a
gold watch and divers new bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill,
some by applying privily to the drawer. Her private collection of
bottles, too, had been cleared out twice, and was respectable for the
third time. Everybody was not friendly with her, and one bonnet had
been torn off her head by a neighbor who disliked her airs.
So it stood when, on a certain morning, Bill, being, minded to go
out, found but two shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to the
missis, as was his custom in such a pass, asking her to fetch a
sovereign or two when she came down; and, as she was long in coming,
he went up himself. The missis left the room hurriedly, and Bill,
after raking out every corner of the drawer (which he himself had not
opened for some time) saw not a single coin. The missis had no better
explanation than that there must have been thieves in the house some
time latelya suggestion deprived of some value by the subsequent
protest that Bill couldnt expect money to last forever, and
that he had had the last three days ago. In the end there was a
vehement row, and the missis was severely thumped.
The thumping over, Bill Napper conceived a great idea. Perhaps
after all the lawyers had done him by understating the amount his
brother had left. It might well have been five hundred poundsa
thousand poundsanything. Probably it was, and the lawyers had had
the difference. Plainly, three hundred pounds was a suspiciously
small sum to inherit from a well-to-do-brother. He would go to the
lawyers and demand the rest of his money. He would not reveal his
purpose till he saw the lawyers face to face, and then he would make
his demand suddenly, so that surprise and consternation should
overwhelm and betray them. He would give them to understand that he
had complete evidence of the whole swindle. In any case, he could
lose nothing. He went, after carefully preparing his part, and was
turned out by a policeman.
After that, mused Squire Napper, going home, I
suppose Id better see about getting a job at Allens
again. He cant but make me gaffer, considering Ive been
a man of property.
A Poor
Stick
Mrs. Jennings (or Jinnins, as the neighbors would have it) ruled
absolutely at home, when she took so much trouble as to do anything
at all therewhich was less often than might have been. As for
Robert, her husband, he was a poor stick, said the neighbors. And yet
he was a man with enough of hardihood to remain a non-unionist in the
erectors shop at Maidments all the years of his service;
no mean test of a mans fortitude and resolution, as many
suffered for independent opinion might testify. The truth was that
Bob never grew out of his courtship-blindness. Mrs. Jennings governed
as she pleased, stayed out or came home as she chose, and cooked a
dinner or didnt, as her inclination stood. Thus it was for ten
years, during which time there were no children, and Bob bore all
things uncomplaining; cooking his own dinner when he found none
cooked, and sewing on his own buttons. Then of a sudden came
children, till in three years there were three; and Bob Jennings had
to nurse and to wash them as often as not.
Mrs. Jennings at this time was what is called rather a fine woman;
a woman of large scale and full development, whose slatternly habit
left her coarse black hair to tumble in snakelocks about her face and
shoulders half the day; who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore
herself notoriously and unabashed in her fullness; and of whom ill
things were said regarding the lodger. The gossips had their excuse.
The lodger was an irregular young cabinet-maker, who lost quarters
and halves and whole days; who had been seen abroad with his
landlady, what time Bob Jennings was putting the children to bed at
home; who on his frequent holidays brought in much beer, which he and
the woman shared, while Bob was at work.
To carry the tale to Bob would have been a thankless errand, for
he would have none of anybodys sympathy, even in regard to
miseries plain to his eye. But the thing got about in the workshop,
and there his days were made bitter.
At home things grew worse. To return home at half past five, and
find the children still undressed, screaming, hungry and dirty, was a
matter of habit; to get them food, to wash them, to tend the cuts and
bumps sustained through the day of neglect, before lighting a fire
and getting tea for himself, were matters of daily duty.
Ah, he said to his sister, who came at intervals to say
plain things about Mrs. Jennings, you shouldnt go for to
set a man agin is wife, jin. Melier don like work,
I know, but thats nachral to er. She ought to
married a swell stead o me; she might a done
easy if she liked, bein sich a fine gal; but shes
good-arted, is Melier; an she cant elp
bein a bit thoughtless. Whereat his sister called him a
fool (it was her customary good-by at such times), and took herself
off.
Bob Jenningss intelligence was sufficient for his common
needs, but it was never a vast intelligence. Now, under a daily
burden of dull misery, it clouded and stooped. The base wit of the
workshop he comprehended less, and realized more slowly, than before;
and the gaffer cursed him a sleepy dolt.
Mrs. Jennings ceased from any pretense of housewifery, and would
sometimes sitperchance not quite soberwhile Bob washed the
children in the evening, opening her mouth only to express her
contempt for him and his establishment, and to make him understand
that she was sick of both. Once, exasperated by his quietness, she
struck at him, and for a moment he was another man. Dont
do that, Melier, he said, else I might forget
myself. His manner surprised his wife; and it was such that she
never did do that again.
So was Bob Jennings, without a friend in the world, except his
sister, who chid him, and the children, who squalled at him, when his
wife vanished with the lodger, the clock, a shade of wax flowers,
Bobs best boots (which fitted the lodger), and his silver
watch. Bob had returned, as usual, to the dirt and the children, and
it was only when he struck a light that he found the clock was
gone.
Mummy tooked ve tock, said Milly, the eldest
child, who had followed him in from the door, and now gravely
observed his movements. She tooked ve tock an went
ta-ta. An she tooked ve fyowers.
Bob lighted the paraffine lamp with the green glass reservoir, and
carried it and its evil smell about the house. Some things had been
turned over and others had gone, plainly. All Meliers clothes
were gone. The lodger was not in, and under his bedroom window, where
his box had stood, there was naught but an oblong patch of
conspicuously clean wallpaper. In a muddle of doubt and perplexity,
Bob found himself at the front door, staring up and down the street.
Divers women neighbors stood at their doors, and eyed him curiously;
for Mrs. Webster, moralist, opposite, had not watched the days
proceedings (nor those of many other days) for nothing, nor had she
kept her story to herself.
He turned back into the house, a vague notion of what had befallen
percolating feebly through his bewilderment. I dunnoI
dunno, he faltered, rubbing his ear. His mouth was dry, and he
moved his lips uneasily, as he gazed with aimless looks about the
walls and ceiling. Presently his eyes rested on the child, and
Milly, he said, decisively, come an ave yer
face washed.
He put the children to bed early, and went out. In the morning,
when his sister came, because she had heard the news in common with
everybody else, he had not returned. Bob Jennings had never lost more
than two quarters in his life, but he was not seen at the workshop
all this day. His sister stayed in the house, and in the evening, at
his regular homing-time, he appeared, haggard and dusty, and began
his preparations for washing the children. When he was made to
understand that they had been already attended to, he looked doubtful
and troubled for a moment. Presently he said: I aint
found er yet, Jin; I was in opes she might a
bin back by this. II dont expect shell be very long.
She was alwis a bit larky, was Melier, but very
goodarted.
His sister had prepared a strenuous lecture on the theme of
I told you so; but the man was so broken, so meek, and so
plainly unhinged in his faculties, that she suppressed it. Instead,
she gave him a comfortable talk, and made him promise in the end to
sleep that night, and take up his customary work in the morning.
He did these things, and could have worked placidly enough had he
but been alone; but the tale had reached the workshop, and there was
no lack of brutish chaff to disorder him. This the decenter men would
have no part in, and even protested against. But the ill-conditioned
kept their way, till, at the cry of Bell ohl when all
were starting for dinner, one of the worst shouted the cruelest gibe
of all. Bob Jennings turned on him and knocked him over a
scrap-heap.
A shout went up from the hurrying workmen, with a chorus of
Serve ye right, and the fallen joker found himself
awkwardly confronted by the shop bruiser. But Bob had turned to a
corner, and buried his eyes in the bend of his arm, while his
shoulders heaved and shook.
He slunk away home, and stayed there, walking restlessly to and
fro, and often peeping down the street from the window. When, at
twilight, his sister came again, he had become almost cheerful, and
said with some briskness: Im agoin to meet
er, Jin, at seven. I know where shell be
waitin.
He went upstairs, and after a little while came down again in his
best black coat, carefully smoothing a tall hat of obsolete shape
with his pocket-handkerchief. I aint wore it for
years, he said. I ought to a wore itit
might a pleased er. She used to say she
wouldnt walk with me in no otherwhen I used to meet er
in the evenin, at seven oclock. He brushed
assiduously, and put the hat on. Id better ave a
shave round the corner as I go along, he added, fingering his
stubbly chin.
He received as one not comprehending his sisters persuasion
to remain at home; but when he went she followed at a little
distance. After his penny shave he made for the main road, where
company-keeping couples walked up and down all evening. He stopped at
a church, and began pacing slowly to and fro before it, eagerly
looking out each way as he went.
His sister watched him for nearly half an hour, and then went
home. In two hours more she came back with her husband. Bob was still
there, walking to and fro.
Ullo, Bob, said his brother-in-law; come
along home an get to bed, theres a good chap. Youll
be awright in the mornin.
She aint turned up, Bob complained, or
else Ive missed er. This is the reglar placewhere
I alwis used to meet er. But shell come to-morrer. She
used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, bein nachrally
larky. But very good-arted, mindjer; very
good-arted.
She did not come the next evening, nor the next, nor the evening
after, nor the one after that. But Bob Jennings, howbeit depressed
and anxious, was always confident. Somethinks prevented
er tonight, he would say; but shell come
tomorrer. ... Ill buy a blue tie to-morrershe used to like me
in a blue tie. I wont miss er to-merrer. Ill come a
little earlier.
So it went. The black coat grew ragged in the service, and
hobbledehoys, find ing him safe sport, smashed the tall hat, over his
eyes time after time. He wept over the hat, and straightened it as
best he might. Was she coming? Night after night, and night and
night. But to-morrow. ...
A
Conversion
There are some poor criminals that never have a chance;
circumstances are against them from the first, as they protest, with
tears, to sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances had always been
against Scuddy Lond, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a
friendly synonym for thief.
His first name was properly James, but that had been long
forgotten. Scuddy meant nothing in particular, was
derived from nothing, and was not, apparently, the invention of any
distinct person. Still, it was commonly his only name, and most of
his acquaintances had also nicknames of similarly vague origin.
Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of a most creditable hour
of raptuous misery after hearing, perhaps at a singsong, Put Me
in my Little Bed, or any other ditty that was rank enough in
sentiment; wherefore the mission-readers never really despaired of
him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking younger;
with a runaway chin, a sharp, yellow face, and tremulously sly eyes;
with but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a great deal of it,
straight and ragged and dirty, on his head.
Scuddy Londs misfortunes began early. Temptation had
prevailed against him when he was at school; but that was nothing. He
became errand boy in a grocers shop, and complications with the
till brought him, a howling penitent, to the police court. Here,
while his mother hid her head in the waiting-room, he set forth the
villainy of older boys who had prompted him to sin, and got away with
no worse than a lecture on the evils of bad company. So that a
philanthropist found him a better situation at a distance, where the
evil influence could no longer move him. Here he stayed a good
whilelonger than some who had been there before him, but who had to
leave because of vanishing postal orders. Nevertheless, the postal
orders still went, and in the end he confessed to another magistrate,
and fervently promised to lead a better life if his false start were
only forgiven. Betting, he protested, was this time the author of his
fall; and as that pernicious institution was clearly to blame for the
unhappy young mans ruin, the lamenting magistrate let him off
with a simple month in consideration of his misfortune and the
intercession of his employer, who had never heard of the grocer and
his till.
After his month Scuddy went regularly into business as a
lob-crawler; that is to say, he returned to his first love, the
tillnot narrowly to any individual till, but broadmindedly to the
till as a general institution, to be approached in unattended shops
by stealthy groveling on the belly. This he did until he perceived
the greater security and comfort of waiting without while a small boy
did the actual work within. From this, and with this, he ventured on
peter-claiminglaying hands nonchalantly on unconsidered parcels and
bags at railway stations, until a day when, bearing a fat
portmanteau, he ran against its owner by the door of a refreshment
bar. This time the responsibility lay with drink. Strong drink, he
declared, with deep emotion, had been his ruin; he dated his downfall
from the day when a false friend persuaded him to take a social
glass; he would still have been an honest, upright, self-respecting
young man but for the cursed drink. From that moment he would never
touch it more. The case was met with three months with hard labor,
and for all that Scuddy Lond had so clearly pointed out the
culpability of drink, he had to do the drag himself. But the
mission-readers were comforted; for clearly there was hope for one
whose eyes were so fully opened to the causes of his degradation.
After the drag, Scuddy for long made a comfortable living, free
from injurious overwork, in the several branches of lob-crawling and
peter-claiming, with an occasional deviation into parlor-jumping. It
is true that this last did sometimes involve unpleasant
exertion when the window was high and the boy heavy to bunk up; and
it was necessary, at times, to run. But Scuddy was out of work, and
hunger drove him to anything, so long as it was light and not too
risky. And it is marvelous to reflect how much may be picked up in
the streets and at the side-doors of London and the suburbs without
danger or vulgar violence. And so Scuddys life went on, with
occasional misfortunes in the way of a moon, or another drag, or
perhaps a sixer. And the mission-readers never despaired, because the
real cause was always hunger or thirst, or betting, or a sudden
temptation, or something quite exceptionalnever anything like real,
hardened, unblushing wickedness; and the man himself was always truly
penitent. He made such touching references to his innocent childhood,
and was so grateful for good advice or anything else you might give
him.
One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize his desire for better
things. He resolved to depart from his evil ways and become a narka
coppers narkwhich is a police spy, or informer. The work was
not hard, there was no imprisonment, and he would make amends for the
past. But hardly had he begun his narking, when some of the Kate
Street mob dropped on him in Brick Lane, and bashed him full sore.
This would never do; so once more implacable circumstance drove him
to his old courses. And there was this added discomfort: that no boy
would parlor-jump nor dip the lob for him. Indeed, they bawled aloud,
Yah, Scuddy Lond the coppers nark!
So that the hand of all Flower and Dean Street was against him.
Scuddy grew very sad.
These and other matters were heavy upon his heart on an evening
when, with nothing in his pockets but a piece of coal that he carried
for luck, he turned aimlessly up Bakers Row. Things were very
bad; it was as though the whole world knew himand watched.
Shop-keepers stood frowningly at their doors. People sat defiantly on
piles of luggage at the railway stations, and there was never a peter
to touch for. All the areas were empty, and there were no side-doors
left unguarded, where, failing the more-desirable wedge, one might
claim a pair or two of daisies put out for cleaning. All the hundred
trifling things that commonly come freely to hand in a mile or two of
streets were somehow swept out of the worlds economy, and
Scuddy tramped into Bakers Row in melting mood. Why were things
so hard for some and so easy for others? It was not as though he were
to blamehe, a man of feeling and sentiment. Why were others living
comfortable lives unvexed of any dread of the police? And apart from
that, why did other gonophs get lucky touches for half a century of
quids at a time, while he! ... But there, the world was one brutal
oppression and he was its most pitiable victim; and he slunk along,
dank with the pathos of things.
At a corner a group was standing about a woman, whose voice was
uplifted to a mans accompaniment on a stand-accordion. Scuddy
listened. She sung, with a harsh tremble:
An sang a song of ome, sweet
ome,
The song that reached my art.
Ome, ome, sweet, sweet ome,
She sang the song of ome, sweet ome,
The song that reached my art.
Here, indeed, was something in tune with Scuddys fine
feelings. He looked up. From the darkening sky the evening star
winked through the smoke from a factory chimney. From a-near came an
exquisite scent of saveloys. Plaintive influences all. He tried to
think of ome himselfof ome strictly in the abstract, so
that it might reach his art. He stood for some minutes torpid
and mindless, oozing with sentiment, till the song ended, and he went
on. Fine feelingsfine!
He crossed the road, and took a turning. A lame old woman sat in a
recess selling trotters, where a dark passage led back to a
mission-hall. About the opening a man hoveredfervent, watchfuland
darted forth on passers-by. He laid his hand on Scuddys
shoulder, and said: My dear friend, will you come in an
ear the word of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Scuddy turned; the sound of a harmonium and many strenuous voices
came faintly down the passage. It was his mood. Why not give his fine
feelings another little run? He would; he would go in.
Trotters! quavered the lame old woman, looking up
wistfully. Two a penny! Two a penny! But no; he went up
the passage, and she turned patiently to her board.
Along the passage the singing grew louder, and burst on his ears
unchecked as he pushed open the door at the end:
0osoever will, oosoever will,
Send the proclamation over vale an ill;
Tis a lovin Father calls the wandrer
ome,
Oosoever will may come!
A man by the door knew him at once for a stranger, and found him a
seat. The hymn went quavering to an end, and the preacher in charge,
a small, bright-eyed man with rebellious hair and a surprisingly deep
voice, announced that Brother Spyers would offer a prayer.
The man prayed with his every faculty. He was a sturdy, red-necked
artisan, great of hand and wiry of bearda smith, perhaps, or a
bricklayer. He spread his arms wide, and his head thrown back,
brought forth, with passion and pain, his fervid, disordered
sentences. As he went on, his throat swelled and convulsed in
desperate knots, and the sweat hung thick on his face. He called for
grace, that every unsaved soul there might come to the fold and
believe that night. Or if not all, then someeven a few. That at
least one, only one, poor soul might be plucked as a brand from the
burning. And as he flung together, with clumsy travail, his endless,
formless, unconsidered vehemences of uttermost cockney, the man stood
transfigured, admirable.
From here and there came deep amens. Then more, with gasps, groans
and sobs. Scuddy Lond, carried away luxuriously on a tide of grievous
sensation, groaned with the others. The prayer ended in a chorus of
ejaculations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody stuffed an open
hymn-book into Scuddys hand, but he scarce saw it. Abandoning
himself to the mesmeric influence of the many who were singing about
him be plunged and reveled in a debauch of emotion. He heard, he even
joined in; but understood nothing, for his feelings filled him to
overflowing.
I ave a robe; tis resplendent in
witeness,
Awaitin in glory my wonderin view.
Oh, wen I receive it, all shinin in brightness,
Dear friend, could I see you receivin one too!
For you I am prayin! For you I am prayin!
For you I am prayin, Im prayin for you.
The hymn ceased; all sat down, and the preacher began his
discoursequietly at first, and then, though in a different way,
with all the choking fervor of the man who had prayed. For the
preacher was fluent as well as zealous, and his words, except when
emotion stayed them, poured in a torrent. He preached
faithsalvation in faithdeclaiming, beseeching, commanding.
Comecome! Now is the appointed time! Only believeonly come!
Onlyonly come! To impassioned, broken entreaty he added
sudden command and the menace of eternity, but broke away pitifully
again in urgent pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above, spreading
his arms abroad, stretching them forth imploringly. Come, only
come!
Sobs broke out in more than one place. A woman bowed her head and
rocked, while her shoulders shook again. Brother Spyers face
was alight with joy. A tremor, a throe of the senses, ran through the
assembly as through a single body.
The preacher, nearing his peroration, rose to a last frenzy of
adjuration. Then, ending in a steadier key, he summoned any stand
forth which had found grace that night.
His bright, strenuous eyes were on the sobbers, charging them,
drawing them. First rose the woman who had bowed her head. Her face
uncovered but distorted and twitching, still weeping, but rapt and
unashamed, she tottered out between the seats, and sunk at last on
the vacant form in front. Next a child, a little maid of ten,
lank-legged and outgrown of her short skirts, her eyes squeezed down
on a tight knot of pocket-handkerchief, crying wildly,
broken-heartedly, sobbed and blundered over seatcorners and toes, and
sat down forlorn and solitary at the other end of the form. And after
her came Scuddy Lond.
Why, he knew notnor cared. In the full enjoyment of a surfeit of
indefinite emotion, tearful, rapturous, he had accepted the command
put on him by the preacher, and he had come forth, walking on clouds,
regenerate, compact of fine feelings. There was a short prayer of
thanks, and then a final hymn:
Ring the bells of eaven, there is joy
today,
For a soul returnin from the wild!
Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of spiritsa serene
cheerfulness. His emotional organism was spent, and in its place was
a numb calm, pleasant enough.
Gloryl glory! ow the angels sing
Glory! glory ow the loud arps ring!
Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,
Pealin forth the anthem of the free!
The service ended. The congregation trooped forth into the
evening; but Scuddy sat where he was, for the preacher wanted a few
words with his converts ere he would let them go. He shook hands with
Scuddy Lond, and spoke with grave, smiling confidence about his soul.
Brother Spyers also shook hands with him and bespoke his return on
Sunday.
In the cool air of the empty passage, Scuddys ordinary
faculties began to assert themselves; still in an atmosphere of calm
cheer. Fine feelingsfine. And as he turned the piece of coal in his
pocket, he reflected that, after all, the day had not been altogether
unluckynot in every sense a blank. Emerging into the street, he saw
that the lame old woman, who was almost alone in view, had risen on
her crutch and turned her back to roll her white cloth over her
remaining trotters. On the ledge behind stood her little pile of
coppers, just reckoned. Scuddy Londs practiced eye took the
case in a flash. With two long tip-toed steps he reached the coppers,
lifted them silently, and hurried away up the street. He did not run,
for the woman was lame and had not heard him. No; decidedly the day
had not been blank. For here was a hot supper.
All That
Messuage
I.
ALL that messuage dwelling-house and premises now standing
on part of the said parcel of ground was the phrase in the
assignment of lease, although it only meant No. 27 Mulberry Street,
Old Ford, containing five rooms and a wash-house, and sharing a dirty
front wall with the rest of the street on the same side. The phrase
was a very fine one, and, with others more intricate, lent not a
little to the triumph and the perplexity the transaction filled old
Jack Randall withal. The business was a conjunction of purchase and
mortgage, whereby old Jack Randall, having thirty pounds of his own,
had, after half an hour of helpless stupefaction in a
solicitors office in Cornhill, bought a house for two hundred
and twenty pounds, and paid ten pounds for stamps and lawyers
fees. The remaining two hundred pounds had been furnished by the
Indubitable Perpetual Building Society, on the security of a
mortgage; and the loan, with its interest, was to be repaid in
monthly installments of two pounds and fourpence during twelve years.
Thus old Jack Randall designed to provide for the wants and
infirmities of age; and the outright purchase, he argued, was a thing
of mighty easy accomplishment. For the house let at nine shillings a
week, which was twenty-three pounds eight shillings a year; and the
mortgage installments, with the ground rent of three pounds a year,
only came to twenty-seven pounds four, leaving a difference of three
pounds sixteen, which would be more than covered by a saving of
eighteenpence a week; certainly not a difficult saving for a man with
a regular job and no young family, who had put by thirty pounds in
little more than three years. Thus on many evenings old Jack Randall
and his wife would figure out the thing, wholly forgetting rates and
taxes and repairs.
Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill, and stared at the
traffic. When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side, he
said: Well, mother, we done it; and his wife replied:
Yus, fa, youre a lanlord now. Hereat he
chuckled, and began to walk eastward. For to be a landlord is the
ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you
are a landlord; and there is no work. You just walk round on Monday
mornings (or maybe you even drive in a trap), and you collect your
rentseight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the
case may be. And there you are! It is better than shopkeeping,
because the money comes by itself; and it is infinitely more genteel.
Also, it is better than having money in a bank and drawing interest;
because the house can not run away as is the manner of directors, nor
dissolve into nothingness as is the way of banks. And here was he,
Jack Randall, walking down Leadenhall Street a landlord. He mounted a
tram-car at Aldgate, and all things were real.
II.
Old Jack had always been old Jack since at fourteen young Jack had
come prentice in the same engine-turners shop. Young Jack
was a married man himself now, at another shop; and old Jack was near
fifty, and had set himself toward thrift. All along Whitechapel Road,
Mile End Road, and Bow Road he considered the shops and houses from
the tramroof, madly estimating rents and values. Near Bow Road end he
and his wife alighted, and went inspecting No. 27 Mulberry Street
once more. Old Jack remarked that the scraper was of a different
shape from that he had carried in his mind since their last
examination; and he mentioned it to Mrs. Randall, who considered the
scraper of fact rather, better than the scraper of memory. They
walked to and fro several times, judging the door and three windows
from each side of the street, and in the end they knocked, with a
purpose of reporting the completed purchase. But the tenants
wife, peeping from behind a blind, and seeing only the people who had
already come spying about the house some two or three times, retired
to the back and went on with her weekly washing.
They waited a little, repeated the knock, and then went away. The
whole day was off, and a stroll in the Tower Hamlets
Cemetery was decided on. Victoria Park was as near, but was not in
the direction of home. Moreover, there was less interest for Mrs.
Randall in Victoria Park, because there were no funerals. In the
cemetery, Mrs. Randall solaced herself and old Jack with the more
sentimental among the inscriptions. In the poor part, whose
miscellaneous graves are marked by mounds alone, they stopped to look
at a very cheap funeral.
Lor, Jack, Mrs. Randall said under her breath
with a nudge, wot a common caufin! Why, the bodys very
nigh a-droppin through the bottom! The thin under-board
had, in fact, a bulge. Pore chap! aint it
shockin!
The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers was a thing accepted of
course, but the horror of a cheap coffin they had never realized till
now. They turned away. In the main path they met the turgid funeral
of a Bow Road bookmaker. After the dozen mourning coaches there were
cabs and pony traps, and behind these came a fag-end of carts and
donkeybarrows. Ahead of all was the glazed hearse, with attendants in
weepers, and by it, full of the pride of artistry, walked the
undertaker himself.
Now that, said old Jack, is somethin like
a caufin. (It was heavy and polished and beset with bright
fittings.)
Ah, sighed his missis, aint it
lovely!
The hearse drew up at the chapel door, where the undertaker turned
to the right-about and placidly surveyed the movements of his forces.
Mrs. Randall murmured again: Lovelylovely; and kept her
eyes on the coffin. Then she edged gently up to the undertaker, and
whispered: What would that kind o caufin be called,
mister?
The undertaker looked at her from the sides of his eyes and
answered briskly: Two-inch polished oak solid extry brass
fittins. Mrs. Randall returned to old Jacks side
and repeated the words. That must cost a lot, she said.
What a thing, though, to be certain you wont be buried in
a trumpery box like that other! Ah, its well to be
rich.
Old Jack gazed on the coffin, and thought. Surely a landlord, if
anybody, was entitled to indulge in an expensive coffin? All day he
had nursed a fancy that some small indulgence, something a little
heavier than usual in the matter of expense, would be proper to
celebrate the occasion. But he reflected that his savings were gone
and his pockets no fuller
than had always been their Wednesday wont; though, of course, in
that matter the future would be different. The bearers carried the
coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Randall turned away among the
graves. Old Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, looking at the
ground, said: That was a nobby caufin, mother, wasnt
it? Whereunto Mrs. Randall murmured: Lovely-lovely!
yet again.
Old Jack walked a little further and asked: Two-inch
polished oak, e said, didnt e?
Solid, an extry brass fittins;
beautiful!
Ill remember it. Thats what you shall ave
if it appens you go fust. There! And old Jack sat on the
guardchain of a flowery grave with the air of one giving a handsome
order.
Me? Git out! Look at the expense.
Matter o circumstances. Look at Jenkinss
gardens. Jenkins was a bench-and at the Limited; got is
ouses one under another through building sieties. That
there caufin ud be none too dear for im.
Were beginnin; an I promise you that same, if youd
like it.
Like iti the missis ejaculated. Course I should.
Wouldnt you?
Wy, yus. Any one ud prefer somethin a bit nobby,
an thick.
And the missis reciprocated old Jacks promise, in case he
died firstif a two-inch polished oak solid could be got for
everything she had to offer. And, tea-time approaching, they made,
well pleased, for home.
III.
In two days old Jack was known as a landlord all about. On the
third day, which was Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half a
sovereign, but succeeded only to the extent of five shillings; work
was slack with him, and three days of it was all he had had that
week. This had happened before, and he had got on as best he could;
but now, with a father buying house property, it was absurd to
economize for lack of half a sovereign. When he brought the five
shillings home, his wife asked why he had not thrown them at his
fathers head; a course of procedure which, young Jack
confessed, had never occurred to his mind. Stingy old
unks! she scolded. A-goin about buyin
ouses, an wont lend is own son ten
shillins! Much good may all is money do im with
is ateful mean ways! This was the beginning of old
Jacks estrangement from his relatives. For young Jacks
missis expressed her opinion in other places, and young Jack was soon
ready to share it, rigidly abstaining from another attempt at a loan,
though he never repaid the five shillings.
In the course of the succeeding week two of his shopmates took old
Jack aside at different times to explain that the loan of a pound or
two would make the greatest imaginable difference to the whole course
of their future lives, while the temporary absence of the money would
be imperceptible to a capitalist like himself. When he roundly
declared that he had as few loose sovereigns as themselves, he was
set down an uncommon liar as well as a wretched old miser. This was
the beginning of old Jacks unpopularity in the workshop.
IV.
He took a half day off to receive the first weeks rent in
state, and Mrs. Randall went with him. He showed his written
authority from the last landlord, and the tenants wife paid
over the sum of nine shillings, giving him at the same time the
rent-book to sign and a slip of written paper. This last was a
weeks notice to terminate the tenancy.
Were very well satisfied with the ouse,
the tenants wife said (she was a painfully clean, angular
woman, with a notable flavor of yellow soap and scrubbing-brush about
her), but my usband finds it too far to get to an
from Albert Docks mornin and night. So were goin to
West Am. And she politely ejected her visitors by opening
the door and crowding them through it.
The want of a tenant was a contingency that old Jack had never
contemplated. As long as it lasted it would necessitate the setting
by of ten and sixpense a week for the building society payments and
the ground-rent. This was serious; it meant knocking off some of the
butchers meat, all the beer and tobacco, and perhaps a little
firing. Old Jack resolved to waste no more half days in collecting,
but to send his missis. On the following Monday, therefore, while the
tenants wife kept a sharp eye on the man who was piling a
greengrocers van with chairs and tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a
To Let bill in the front window. In the leaves of the
rent-book she found another thing of chagrin; to wit, a notice
demanding payment of poor, highway, and general rates to the amount
of one pound eighteen and sevenpence. Now, no thought of rates and
taxes had ever vexed the soul of old Jack. Of course, he might have
known that his own landlord paid the rates for his house; but,
indeed, he had never once thought of the thing, being content with
faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no more about it. That
night was one of dismal wakefulness for old Jack and his missis. If
he had understood the transaction at the lawyers office, he
would have known that a large proportion of the sum due had been
allowed him in the firm adjustment of payment to the day; and if he
had known something of the ways of rate-collecting, he would have
understood that payment was not expected for at least a month. As it
was, the glories of lease-possession grew dim in his eyes, and a
landlord seemed a poor creature, spending his substance to keep roofs
over the heads of strangers.
V.
On Wednesday afternoon a man called about taking the house, and
returned in the evening, when old Jack was home. He was a
large-featured, quick-eyed man, with a loud, harsh voice and a
self-assertive manner. Quickly old Jack recognized him as a speaker
he had heard at certain street-corners; a man who was secretary, or
delegate, or that sort of thing, to something that old Jack had
forgotten.
He began with the announcement: I am Joe Parsons,
delivered with a stare for emphasis, and followed by a pause to
permit assimilation.
Old Jack had some recollection of the name, but it was indefinite.
He wondered whether or not he should address the man as sir,
considering the street speeches, and the evident importance of
the name. But then, after all, he was a landlord himself. So he only
said, Yus?
I am Joe Parsons, the man repeated; and Im
looking for a ouse.
There was another pause, which lasted till old Jack felt obliged
to say something. So he said , Yus? again.
Im looking for a ouse, the man repeated,
and if we can arrange things satisfactory, I might take
yours.
Mr. Joe Parsons was far above haggling about the rent, but he had
certain ideas as to painting and repairs that looked expensive. In
the end old Jack promised the paint a touchup, privily resolving to
do the work himself in his evenings. And on the whole, Mr. Joe
Parsons was wonderfully easy to come to terms with, considering his
eminent public character. And anything in the nature of a reference
in his case would have been absurd. As himself observed, his name was
enough for that.
VI.
Old Jack did the painting, and the new tenant took possession.
When Mrs. Randall called for the first week, a draggle-tailed little
woman with a black eye meekly informed her that Mr. Parsons was not
at home, and had left no money nor any message as to the rent. This
was awkward, because the first building society installment would be
due before next rent dayto say nothing of the rates. But it would
never do to offend Mr. Parsons. So the money was scraped together by
heroic means (the missis produced an unsuspected twelve and sixpence
from a gallipot on the kitchen dresser), and the first installment
was paid.
Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry Street next rent-day, but
nobody answered her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty notion,
born of use, that rent was constitutionally demandable only on Monday
morning, called no more for a week. But on Thursday evening a stout
little stranger, with a bald head which he wiped continually, came to
the Randalls to ask if the tenant of No. 27 Mulberry Street was Mr.
Joe Parsons. Assured that it was, he nodded, said Thanks!
thats all, wiped his head again, and started to go. Then
he paused, and Pay his rent regular? he asked. Old Jack
hesitated. Ah, thought so, said the little stranger.
Hes a wrong un. Ive got a bit o paper
for im. And he clapped on his hat with the handkerchief
in it and vanished.
VII.
Old Jack felt unhappy, for a landlord. He and the missis
reproached themselves for not asking the little stranger certain
questions; but he had gone. Next Monday morning old Jack took another
half day, and went to Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, he
assured himself that a belief, entertained by his missis, that the
upper part of his house was being sublet, was well-founded. He
watched awhile from a corner, until a dirty child kicked at the door,
and it was opened. Then he went across and found the draggle-tailed
woman who had answered Mrs. Randall before, in every respect the same
to look at, except that not one eye was black, but two. Old Jack,
with some abruptness, demanded his rent of her, addressing her as
Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the name, she pleaded with meek
uneasiness that Mr. Parsons really wasnt at home, and she
didnt know when to expect him. At last, finding this
ineffectual, she produced four and sixpence begging him with
increasing agitation to take that on account and call again.
Old Jack took the money, and called again at seven. Custom or law
or what not, he would wait for no Monday morning now. The door was
open, and a group of listening children stood about it. From within
came a noise of knocks and thuds and cursessometimes a gurgle. Old
Jack asked a small boy, whose position in the passage betokened
residence, what was going forward. Itsthe man
down-stairs, said the boy, a-givin of it to
is wife for payin away the lodgers rent.
At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared in the passage. The
children, who had once or twice commented in shouts, dispersed.
Ive come for my rent, said old Jack.
Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he said, Rent? Aint
you ad it? I dont bother about things in the ouse.
Come again when my wifes in.
She is in, rejoined old Jack, an
youve been a-landin of er for payin me what
little she as. Come,you pay me what you owe me, and take a
weeks notice now. I want my house kep
respectable.
Mr. Joe Parsons had no other shift. You be damned, he
said. Git out!
What? gasped old Jackfor to tell a landlord to get
out of his own house! ... What?
Why, git out. Yought to know better than comin
ere askin for money you aint earnt.
Aint earnt? What dye mean?
What I say. Yaint earnt it. Its you blasted
lanlords as sucks the blood o the workers. You go
an work for your money.
Old Jack was confounded. Whywhathow dye think I
can pay the rates, an everythink?
I dont care. Youll ave to pay
em, an I wish they was igher. They ought to be the
same as the rent, an that ud do away with fellers like
you. Go on; you do your damndest an get your rent best way you
can.
But what about upstairs? Youre lettin it out
an takin the rent there. I
Thats none o your business. Git out, will
ye? They had gradually worked over the doorstep, and Randall
was on the pavement. I shant pay, an I
shant go, an ye can do what ye like; so its
no good your stoppinunless you want to fight. Ehdo
ye? And Mr. Parsons put a foot over the threshold.
Old Jack had not fought for many years. It was low. For a landlord
outside his own house it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was quite
dark now, and there was scarcely a soul in the street. Perhaps nobody
would know, and this man deserved something for himself. He looked up
the street again, and then, Well, I aint so young as I
was, he said, but I wont disappoint ye. Come
on.
Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within and slammed the door.
VIII.
Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to
do. Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out
in the workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for
anything in the nature of sympathy or advice. Not only would he lend
no money, but he refused to stand treat on rent days. Also, there was
a collection on behalf of men on strike at another factory, to which
he gave nothing; and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an
extension of that strike, and his own intention to continue working
if it happened. For what would become of all his plans and his
savings if his wages ceased? Wherefore there was no other man in the
shop so unpopular as old Jack, and in a workshop unpopularity is a
bad thing.
He called on a professional rent-receiver and seller-up. This man
knew Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a
profitable distress might be levied. But if he took lodgers, and they
were quiet people, something might be got out of themif the job
were made worth while. But this was not at all what old Jack
wanted.
Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice of the secretary of
the building society. This was a superficial young man, and
auctioneers clerk until evening, who had no disposition to
trouble himself about matters outside his duties. Still, he went so
far as to assure old Jack that turning out a tenant who meant to stay
was not a simple job. If you didnt mind losing the rent it
might be done by watching until the house was left ungarrisoned,
getting in, putting the furniture into the street, and keeping the
tenant out. With this forlorn hope old Jack began to spend his
leisure about Mulberry Street; ineffectually, for Mrs. Parsons never
came out while he was there. Once he saw the man, and offered to
forgive him the rent if he would leave, a proposal which Mr. Parsons
received with ostentatious merriment. At this old Jacks
patience gave out, and he punched his tenant on the ear. Whereat the
latter, suddenly whitening in the face, said something about the
police, and walked away at a good pace.
IX.
The strike extended, as it was expected and designed to do. The
men at old Jacks factory were ordered out, and came, excepting
only old Jack himself. He was desperate. Since he had ventured on
that cursed investment everything had gone wrong; but he would not
lose his savings if mere personal risk would preserve them. Moreover,
a man of fifty is not readily re-employed, once out; and as the firm
was quite ready to
keep one hand on to oil and see that things were in order, old
Jack stayed, making his comings and going late to dodge the pickets,
and approaching subtly by a railway arch stable and a lane thereunto.
It was not as yet a very great strike, and with care these things
could be done. Still, he was sighted and chased twice, and he knew
that if the strike lasted, and feeling grew hotter, he would be
attacked in his own house. If only he could hold on through the
strike, and by hook or crook keep the outgoings paid, he would attend
to Mr. Parsons afterward.
X.
One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall was buying greens and
potatoes, old Jack, waiting without, strolled toward a crowd standing
about a speaker. A near approach discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe
Parsons, who was saying:
strike-pay is little enough at the time, of course, but
dont forget what it will lead to! An strike-pay does very
well, my friens, when the party knows ow to lay it out,
an dont go passin it on to the lanlord.
Dont give it away. When the lanlord comes o Monday
mornin, tell him (polite as you like) that theres nothink
for im till theres more for you. Let the lanlord
earn is money, like me an you. Let the lanlords pay
a bit toward this ere strike as well as the other blaggards,
the imployers. Lanlords git quite enough out o you, my
feller-workers, when
They dont git much out o you! shouted old
Jack in his wrath; and then felt sorry he had spoken. For everybody
looked at him, and he knew some of the faces.
Ho! rejoined the speaker mincingly. Theres
a gent there as seems to want to address this ere meetin.
Praps youll ave the kindness to step up
ere, my friend, an say wot you got to say plain.
And he looked full at old Jack, pointing with his finger.
Old Jack fidgeted, wishing himself out of it. You pay me
what you owe me, he growled, sulkily.
As this ere individual, after intruding isself
on this peaceful meetin, aint got anythink to say for
isself, pursued Mr. Joe Parsons, Ill explain
things for im. Thats my lanlord, that is; look at
im! E comes angin round my door waitin
for a chance to turn my pore wife an children out o
ouse and ome. E follers me in the street an
tries to intimidate me. E comes ere, my feller-workers,
as a spy, an to try an poison your minds agin me as
devotes my ole life to your intrests. Thats the
sort o man, thats the sort o lanlord
e is. But es somethink more than a greedy,
thievin, overfed lanlord, my friens, an
Ill tell you wot. Es a dirty, crawlin
blackleg; that wot else e is. Es the ony man
as wouldnt come out o Maidments; an
es workin there now, skulkin in and out in
the darka dirty rat! Now you all know very well I wont
ave nothink to do with any violence or intimidation. Its
agin my principles, although I know theres very often great
temptation, an its impossible to identify in a crowd,
an safe to be very little evidence. But this I will say, that
when a dirty low rat, not content with fattenin on
starvin tenants, goes an takes the bread out o
is fellermens mouths, like that bleedin
black-legblackleg!blackleg!
Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy boots were at work about his head
and belly. In from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her way,
shedding potatoes as she ran, and screaming, threw herself upon the
man on the ground, and shared the kicks. Over the shoulders of the
kickers whirled the buckle-end of a belt. One for the old
cow! said a voice.
XI.
When a man is lying helpless on his back, with nothing in hand, he
pays nothing off a building society mortgage, because, as his wife
pawns the goods of the house, the resulting money goes for
necessaries. To such a man the society shows no useless grace,
especially when the secretary has a friend always ready to take over
a forfeited house at forced sale price. So the lease of No. 27
vanished, and old Jacks savings with it.
And one day, some months later, old Jack, supported by the missis
and a stick, took his way across the work-house forecourt. There was
a door some twenty yards from that directly before them, and two men
came out of it, carrying a laden coffin of plain deal.
Look there, Jack, the missis said, as she checked her
step; what a common caufin! And indeed there was a
distinct bulge in the bottom.
THE END.
Changes to the printed text:
|
|
Without Visible Means
|
snooring | snoring | p. 41, l. 7. |
|
The Red Cow Group
| Red Crow
| Red Cow
| p. 130, l. 17.
|
|
Thre | There | p. 135, l. 17.
|
| you don!t You
| you don't. You
| p. 146, l. 6.
|
|
fond | found | p. 152, l. 1. |
|
On the Stairs
| amain.
| again.
| p. 155, l. 24.
|
|
Squire Napper
|
litle | little | p. 167, l.
18.
|
A Conversation
|
he went one. | he went
on. | p. 215, l. 2.
|
Arthur Morrison Home Page
|