Chapter Four.Waiting for ’Arry.Well, sir, yes; perhaps it was his own fault, a good deal of it, and yet I thinks sometimes as those big folks above us might do something for us to make things better. But that’s neither here nor there; we was hungry, both on us, and he took it and got nabbed, and he’s a taking it out in here; and I allus takes a walk round every morning before going out for the day with my basket. Seems like to do me good, though I can’t see him; for I know he’s there. And then I count up the days as well as I can so as to know when he’ll come out, and ’tain’t surprising as sometimes they seems so long, that I get my cheek up again the wall and has a good cry.But that don’t do no good, you know—only makes one feel a bit lighter; and then I’m up and off, so as to save all I can again my chap comes out; and then, good luck to us, I hope times ’ll mend.Down the Dials we live. Not in the main street, you know, but just off in a court, and right up atop in the garret. You see, ’Arry gets his living by birds, and we can keep ’em alive up there better. Poor little things! they dies fast enough now; but when we lived on the ground-floor back it was awful. I s’pose it was the closeness and bad smells, for the little things would turn rough all over, and wouldn’t eat, and then next morning there they’d be with their pretty little bright eyes half closed, and looking so pitiful that I used to cry about it, and then ’Arry used to call me a fool; but I know he didn’t mind, for he allus put his arm round me and give me a kiss.Pore little soft, downy things; it used to be sad enough to have ’em shut up behind them bars, beating their little soft breasts, and seeming to say, “Let me out! let me out!” but when they died it was ever so much worse. Sometimes of a night I’ve woke up to hear a little scratching noise and a rustling in one of the cages; and then I’ve known what it meant, for it’s one of the pore thing’s little spirits flown away from this weary life.’Arry used to be soft over it too, for he’s werry fond of his birds, and when one went away from us like that, he used to roll the little body up in a bit of stiff paper, and take it down in the country with him and bury it.“Seems hard to ketch the poor things,” he used to say; “but we must get a living somehow.”When we got up atop of the house there was more light, and a bit of sun sometimes, so that the birds lived better, and used to sing more, and we sold a-many.You see ’Arry had his nets, and traps, and call-birds, and in the fine weather we used to go down in the country together ketching linnets, and goldfinches, and redpoles. Sometimes we’d bring home a lark’s or a nightingale’s nest, and I used to help him all I could—cutting turves, and getting chickweed, and groundsel, and plantain, moss and wool for canary nests, and mosses and sprays for the bird-stuffers to ornament with, besides grasses of all kinds. There’s allus sale for them sorter things, you know, and it’s a honest living.Why, it was like getting into heaven to run down with ’Arry into the bright country—away from the dirt, and noise, and smoke; and I used to make him laugh to hear me shout and sing, and to see me running along a bank here to pick flowers, or stopping there to listen to the larks, and even running arter the butterflies; but he used to like it, I think, and allus took me with him when he could, for his mother lives with us and feeds the birds when we’re out. Spring, and summer, and autumn, it was allus beautiful: flowers and fruit, and bright sunshine, and soft, gentle rain, and the sweet, sweet scent of the earth after. Oh, sir, shut yourself up for a month in a dirty room in a close court, where you can hardly breathe—live from hand to mouth, and p’raps not have enough—and then go out into the bright sunshine and on the breezy hills, with the green, shady woods there, and the sparkling stream there—the bees humming about on the heath bells, and all pure, and bright, and golden with the furze and broom—and then feel how it all comes over you, choking like, as if you were so happy you must cry, for it’s all too sweet and beautiful to bear!’Arry allus laughed at me, but I know him and his ways, and what it means when his eyes look so bright, and there’s a twitching about the corners of his mouth: and the more wild and happy I seemed, the quieter he’d grow, poor boy, and then he’d take my basket away and carry it hisself atop of his cages and sticks and nets, and “Go along, my gal,” he’d say, so that I should be free and light. For he’s a good fellow is ’Arry, and never lifted his hand again me once in all the six years we’ve been married, not even when he came home a bit on.He used to like me to be fond of the country, and we’d go hopping in the autumn time down there in Surrey amongst the lovely hills, where the place is all sandy; and there’s the big fir woods where you go walking between the tall, straight trunks, with the sweet scent meeting you at every step, as you walk over a thick bed of spines. Then out again, where the heath is all purple, and the whortleberries grow; while every hedge is loaded with the great ripe blackberries—miles and miles away from the smoke, but we never thought of the distance till we were going home. Ah! it was enough to make one grudge the people as had money, allus out there in the clear, bright air; and yet I don’t know as they was happier than we when we made our bit o’ fire under a sandy bank, and sat there and had our bit of bread and cheese or a drop o’ tea.Hopping used to set us up well for some time; and how I used to love it! but the worst of it was when we went back again into the court—so dull and dark, when somehow or other, it allus seemed to come in wet and miserable when we went back home, though the old woman was allus glad to see us, and did all she could to cheer us up; for she never goes out because of her rheumatics. But it was of no use to be low, and we soon settled down again.All sorts we had in our place: finches, and canaries, and larks, and squirrels sometimes. In the spring-time we used to put pairs of canaries in a big cage, and give ’em stuff to build their pretty little nests; and there was one pair one year as I used to watch, and seem to pity so, for there was the nest and the beautiful eggs, and the little soft, downy, yellow-breasted thing sitting week after week, and no little ones came; and then again and again the same. And I couldn’t help it, you know; but it allus hurt me, and made me have a good cry; for it made me think of three times when, after begging very hard, ’Arry’s mother had let me see a tiny, soft little babe, so delicate and beautiful, with its little hands and lovely pink nails; so pale, and still; there were the little blue veins in the white forehead, and the dimples in the cheeks, while the head was covered with soft golden hair; and the eyes—ah! the eyes were allus the same, closed—closed, and they never looked in mine; while when I put my cheek up against it ’twas allus the same too—cold, cold, cold. Three times; and I shall never have two little lips say “Mother” to me.’Arry used to say it was just as well, for poor people like us was best without ’em; but it did seem so hard for the little, tiny, soft things never to look upon the daylight, though it was only in a garret up a court.He’ll be out in another month, ’Arry will, and we’ve kep’ all together as well as we could. You see, I’ve done a great deal in creases of a morning, for they allus sells somehow; then, too, I’ve had a turn at flowers, for people will allus buy them too; young chaps to stick in their button-holes, and gals going to work to put in a jug of water, so as to get the sweet scent of the pretty bright things, that it seems almost as cruel to bring into the City as it does birds. Moss roses, and pinks, and carnations sells best, and I don’t know who loves ’em most, your work-gal from the country or the poor London-bred one. At times I’ve had a fruit-basket, and done pretty well that way; for, you see, I’ve been a bit lucky; and allus had a bit more than we wanted to keep us; though more’n once I thought we must sell the things outer the room.Poor boy! he’ll be surprised when he comes out, for it was along of hard times that he got his six months. He’d been down on his luck for some weeks, and, though he tried hard, things went again him. I tried to cheer him up, but he got a bit wild and savage, and there’s allus plenty to get a chap like him to join in a plant—robbery, you know, sir; and what with not havin’ enough to eat, and the drink they give him, he got worse and worse; and not being used to it, the other fellows got off, and poor ’Arry was taken.He wouldn’t peach, bless you; though some of his mates in the job was afraid, and got outer the way. One way and another we got money enough to get him a lawyer, and his case came on; and while I was a-sitting there, trying to keep all the trouble down, I heard the magistrate talk to him, and give him six months’ hard labour, poor lad, when he’d only done it to get food.He saw me there, and give me a good long look, trying to smile all the time; but I know’d that bright look in his eyes, and the working at the corners of his mouth, and what he was feeling; but I never flinched a bit, but met his look true and steady, for I knew he wanted all the comfort I could give him.I couldn’t get near him to touch his hand, or I would; and while I was looking hard at the spot where he stood, he was gone; and then the place seemed to be swimming round, and I felt as though I wanted to cry out, and then I came to and found myself sitting on the stones outside, with ’Arry’s mother, and we got away as fast as we could.Yes; up early, and round here every morning, wet or dry, for I shouldn’t seem to get on well if I didn’t; and long tramps I has: now it’s Farringdon Market for creases; now Common Garding for flowers; or Spitalfields or the Boro’ for fruit—’cept oranges, and them we gets o’ the Jews; and you may say what you like, but I never finds them worse to deal with than some as calls theirselves Christians.Then it’s off with your load, and get rid of it as fast as you can; for its heavy carrying miles after miles through the long streets; and it’s a-many faces you look into before there’s one to buy. And last of all, when I get back I can sit and think about ’Arry, and how pleased he’ll be to find as the nets, and cages, and calls, ain’t none of ’em sold. Yes, you can’t help thinking about him, for outside the window there’s the pigeon trap as he was a-making with laths and nails; inside there’s his birds, and the one he was trying to stuff; for he says that’s a good living for a chap, if he’s at all clever; and he used to think that after seeing so many birds alive he could do it right off. So at odd times he used to practise; and there was his scissors and wires, and tow, and files and nippers, and two or three little finches he’d done, perched up on sprigs of wood, with their feathers wound over and over with cotton, and pins stuck in ’em to keep the wings in their places.But he allus was clever, was ’Arry; and if he’d had a chance, would have got on.When the sun’s a-going down I gets to the open window, if I’m home time enough; and while the birds are all twittering about me, I get looking right out far away over roofs and chimneys—right out towards where there’s the beautiful country, and then I even seem to see it all bright and clear: trees waving, and grass golden green; and through the noise and roar of the streets I seem to hear the cows lowing as they go slowly through the meadows, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell; while all the clouds are golden, orange, and red. Then, too, the bright stars seem to come peeping out one at a time; and the sky pales, while there’s a soft mist over the brook, and a sweet, cool, freshness after the hot, close, burning day; now, from where I seem to be on a hill-side, there can be seen a bright light here and there from the cottages, and then about me the bats go darting and fluttering silently along; there’s the beautiful white ghost-moths flitting about the bushes, and flapping along, high up, a great owl; and, again, round and round, and hawking about along the wood-side, there’s a large night-jar after the moths; for ’Arry taught me all their names. And at last, in the deep silence, tears seem to come up in my eyes, as I hear the beautiful gushing song of the nightingales, answering one another from grove to grove—pure, bright, and sparkling song that goes through one, and sends one’s thoughts far away from the present.And those tears coming into one’s eyes seem to shut out all the bright scene, and it goes again; and though there’s the twinkling stars overhead, and the birds nestling around me, yet, instead of the peace and silence, there’s the roar of the court and the streets, the chimneys and tiles all round, the light shining up from the gas, and I know I’m only in the Dials; but it’s sweet to fancy it all, and get away from the life about you for a few minutes; and when ’Arry’s mother sees me like that, she never disturbs me to complain of her aches and pains.No; never in the country since my boy was taken; but the bright days are coming soon.
Well, sir, yes; perhaps it was his own fault, a good deal of it, and yet I thinks sometimes as those big folks above us might do something for us to make things better. But that’s neither here nor there; we was hungry, both on us, and he took it and got nabbed, and he’s a taking it out in here; and I allus takes a walk round every morning before going out for the day with my basket. Seems like to do me good, though I can’t see him; for I know he’s there. And then I count up the days as well as I can so as to know when he’ll come out, and ’tain’t surprising as sometimes they seems so long, that I get my cheek up again the wall and has a good cry.
But that don’t do no good, you know—only makes one feel a bit lighter; and then I’m up and off, so as to save all I can again my chap comes out; and then, good luck to us, I hope times ’ll mend.
Down the Dials we live. Not in the main street, you know, but just off in a court, and right up atop in the garret. You see, ’Arry gets his living by birds, and we can keep ’em alive up there better. Poor little things! they dies fast enough now; but when we lived on the ground-floor back it was awful. I s’pose it was the closeness and bad smells, for the little things would turn rough all over, and wouldn’t eat, and then next morning there they’d be with their pretty little bright eyes half closed, and looking so pitiful that I used to cry about it, and then ’Arry used to call me a fool; but I know he didn’t mind, for he allus put his arm round me and give me a kiss.
Pore little soft, downy things; it used to be sad enough to have ’em shut up behind them bars, beating their little soft breasts, and seeming to say, “Let me out! let me out!” but when they died it was ever so much worse. Sometimes of a night I’ve woke up to hear a little scratching noise and a rustling in one of the cages; and then I’ve known what it meant, for it’s one of the pore thing’s little spirits flown away from this weary life.
’Arry used to be soft over it too, for he’s werry fond of his birds, and when one went away from us like that, he used to roll the little body up in a bit of stiff paper, and take it down in the country with him and bury it.
“Seems hard to ketch the poor things,” he used to say; “but we must get a living somehow.”
When we got up atop of the house there was more light, and a bit of sun sometimes, so that the birds lived better, and used to sing more, and we sold a-many.
You see ’Arry had his nets, and traps, and call-birds, and in the fine weather we used to go down in the country together ketching linnets, and goldfinches, and redpoles. Sometimes we’d bring home a lark’s or a nightingale’s nest, and I used to help him all I could—cutting turves, and getting chickweed, and groundsel, and plantain, moss and wool for canary nests, and mosses and sprays for the bird-stuffers to ornament with, besides grasses of all kinds. There’s allus sale for them sorter things, you know, and it’s a honest living.
Why, it was like getting into heaven to run down with ’Arry into the bright country—away from the dirt, and noise, and smoke; and I used to make him laugh to hear me shout and sing, and to see me running along a bank here to pick flowers, or stopping there to listen to the larks, and even running arter the butterflies; but he used to like it, I think, and allus took me with him when he could, for his mother lives with us and feeds the birds when we’re out. Spring, and summer, and autumn, it was allus beautiful: flowers and fruit, and bright sunshine, and soft, gentle rain, and the sweet, sweet scent of the earth after. Oh, sir, shut yourself up for a month in a dirty room in a close court, where you can hardly breathe—live from hand to mouth, and p’raps not have enough—and then go out into the bright sunshine and on the breezy hills, with the green, shady woods there, and the sparkling stream there—the bees humming about on the heath bells, and all pure, and bright, and golden with the furze and broom—and then feel how it all comes over you, choking like, as if you were so happy you must cry, for it’s all too sweet and beautiful to bear!
’Arry allus laughed at me, but I know him and his ways, and what it means when his eyes look so bright, and there’s a twitching about the corners of his mouth: and the more wild and happy I seemed, the quieter he’d grow, poor boy, and then he’d take my basket away and carry it hisself atop of his cages and sticks and nets, and “Go along, my gal,” he’d say, so that I should be free and light. For he’s a good fellow is ’Arry, and never lifted his hand again me once in all the six years we’ve been married, not even when he came home a bit on.
He used to like me to be fond of the country, and we’d go hopping in the autumn time down there in Surrey amongst the lovely hills, where the place is all sandy; and there’s the big fir woods where you go walking between the tall, straight trunks, with the sweet scent meeting you at every step, as you walk over a thick bed of spines. Then out again, where the heath is all purple, and the whortleberries grow; while every hedge is loaded with the great ripe blackberries—miles and miles away from the smoke, but we never thought of the distance till we were going home. Ah! it was enough to make one grudge the people as had money, allus out there in the clear, bright air; and yet I don’t know as they was happier than we when we made our bit o’ fire under a sandy bank, and sat there and had our bit of bread and cheese or a drop o’ tea.
Hopping used to set us up well for some time; and how I used to love it! but the worst of it was when we went back again into the court—so dull and dark, when somehow or other, it allus seemed to come in wet and miserable when we went back home, though the old woman was allus glad to see us, and did all she could to cheer us up; for she never goes out because of her rheumatics. But it was of no use to be low, and we soon settled down again.
All sorts we had in our place: finches, and canaries, and larks, and squirrels sometimes. In the spring-time we used to put pairs of canaries in a big cage, and give ’em stuff to build their pretty little nests; and there was one pair one year as I used to watch, and seem to pity so, for there was the nest and the beautiful eggs, and the little soft, downy, yellow-breasted thing sitting week after week, and no little ones came; and then again and again the same. And I couldn’t help it, you know; but it allus hurt me, and made me have a good cry; for it made me think of three times when, after begging very hard, ’Arry’s mother had let me see a tiny, soft little babe, so delicate and beautiful, with its little hands and lovely pink nails; so pale, and still; there were the little blue veins in the white forehead, and the dimples in the cheeks, while the head was covered with soft golden hair; and the eyes—ah! the eyes were allus the same, closed—closed, and they never looked in mine; while when I put my cheek up against it ’twas allus the same too—cold, cold, cold. Three times; and I shall never have two little lips say “Mother” to me.
’Arry used to say it was just as well, for poor people like us was best without ’em; but it did seem so hard for the little, tiny, soft things never to look upon the daylight, though it was only in a garret up a court.
He’ll be out in another month, ’Arry will, and we’ve kep’ all together as well as we could. You see, I’ve done a great deal in creases of a morning, for they allus sells somehow; then, too, I’ve had a turn at flowers, for people will allus buy them too; young chaps to stick in their button-holes, and gals going to work to put in a jug of water, so as to get the sweet scent of the pretty bright things, that it seems almost as cruel to bring into the City as it does birds. Moss roses, and pinks, and carnations sells best, and I don’t know who loves ’em most, your work-gal from the country or the poor London-bred one. At times I’ve had a fruit-basket, and done pretty well that way; for, you see, I’ve been a bit lucky; and allus had a bit more than we wanted to keep us; though more’n once I thought we must sell the things outer the room.
Poor boy! he’ll be surprised when he comes out, for it was along of hard times that he got his six months. He’d been down on his luck for some weeks, and, though he tried hard, things went again him. I tried to cheer him up, but he got a bit wild and savage, and there’s allus plenty to get a chap like him to join in a plant—robbery, you know, sir; and what with not havin’ enough to eat, and the drink they give him, he got worse and worse; and not being used to it, the other fellows got off, and poor ’Arry was taken.
He wouldn’t peach, bless you; though some of his mates in the job was afraid, and got outer the way. One way and another we got money enough to get him a lawyer, and his case came on; and while I was a-sitting there, trying to keep all the trouble down, I heard the magistrate talk to him, and give him six months’ hard labour, poor lad, when he’d only done it to get food.
He saw me there, and give me a good long look, trying to smile all the time; but I know’d that bright look in his eyes, and the working at the corners of his mouth, and what he was feeling; but I never flinched a bit, but met his look true and steady, for I knew he wanted all the comfort I could give him.
I couldn’t get near him to touch his hand, or I would; and while I was looking hard at the spot where he stood, he was gone; and then the place seemed to be swimming round, and I felt as though I wanted to cry out, and then I came to and found myself sitting on the stones outside, with ’Arry’s mother, and we got away as fast as we could.
Yes; up early, and round here every morning, wet or dry, for I shouldn’t seem to get on well if I didn’t; and long tramps I has: now it’s Farringdon Market for creases; now Common Garding for flowers; or Spitalfields or the Boro’ for fruit—’cept oranges, and them we gets o’ the Jews; and you may say what you like, but I never finds them worse to deal with than some as calls theirselves Christians.
Then it’s off with your load, and get rid of it as fast as you can; for its heavy carrying miles after miles through the long streets; and it’s a-many faces you look into before there’s one to buy. And last of all, when I get back I can sit and think about ’Arry, and how pleased he’ll be to find as the nets, and cages, and calls, ain’t none of ’em sold. Yes, you can’t help thinking about him, for outside the window there’s the pigeon trap as he was a-making with laths and nails; inside there’s his birds, and the one he was trying to stuff; for he says that’s a good living for a chap, if he’s at all clever; and he used to think that after seeing so many birds alive he could do it right off. So at odd times he used to practise; and there was his scissors and wires, and tow, and files and nippers, and two or three little finches he’d done, perched up on sprigs of wood, with their feathers wound over and over with cotton, and pins stuck in ’em to keep the wings in their places.
But he allus was clever, was ’Arry; and if he’d had a chance, would have got on.
When the sun’s a-going down I gets to the open window, if I’m home time enough; and while the birds are all twittering about me, I get looking right out far away over roofs and chimneys—right out towards where there’s the beautiful country, and then I even seem to see it all bright and clear: trees waving, and grass golden green; and through the noise and roar of the streets I seem to hear the cows lowing as they go slowly through the meadows, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell; while all the clouds are golden, orange, and red. Then, too, the bright stars seem to come peeping out one at a time; and the sky pales, while there’s a soft mist over the brook, and a sweet, cool, freshness after the hot, close, burning day; now, from where I seem to be on a hill-side, there can be seen a bright light here and there from the cottages, and then about me the bats go darting and fluttering silently along; there’s the beautiful white ghost-moths flitting about the bushes, and flapping along, high up, a great owl; and, again, round and round, and hawking about along the wood-side, there’s a large night-jar after the moths; for ’Arry taught me all their names. And at last, in the deep silence, tears seem to come up in my eyes, as I hear the beautiful gushing song of the nightingales, answering one another from grove to grove—pure, bright, and sparkling song that goes through one, and sends one’s thoughts far away from the present.
And those tears coming into one’s eyes seem to shut out all the bright scene, and it goes again; and though there’s the twinkling stars overhead, and the birds nestling around me, yet, instead of the peace and silence, there’s the roar of the court and the streets, the chimneys and tiles all round, the light shining up from the gas, and I know I’m only in the Dials; but it’s sweet to fancy it all, and get away from the life about you for a few minutes; and when ’Arry’s mother sees me like that, she never disturbs me to complain of her aches and pains.
No; never in the country since my boy was taken; but the bright days are coming soon.
Chapter Five.A Rogue in Grain.“Oh, no; ain’t nothing like such tools as I’ve been used to,” he says. “At my last shop everything was first class, and the place beautifully fitted-up—gas on, new benches, fine joiners’ chest o’ tools, full of beading and moulding planes, and stocks, and bits, and everything first class.”“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I don’t want to be unreasonable: anything really necessary for the job you shall have; but of course I can’t help my workshop not being equal to your last; but I ’spose it won’t make much difference if you get your wages reg’lar?”“Oh, no;” he says; it didn’t matter to him; he could work with any tools, he could; ony he did like to see things a bit to rights, and so on to that tune; and then my gentleman gets to work.“Pity you didn’t stop where you was so jolly well off,” I thinks to myself; and then I goes on whistling, and priming some shutters as the guv’nor had made for a new shop front as he had to put in. You see, ’tain’t many years since our guv’nor was ony a working man like me, ony he managed to scrape a few pounds together, and then very pluckily started for hisself out in one of the new outskirts, where there was a deal of new building going on by the big London contractors, and a deal of altering and patching, which used to be done by the little jobbing men same as our guv’nor. Often and often he’s talked to me about it when working aside me pleasant and sociable as could be; how at times he’d be all of a shake and tremble for fear of going wrong, not knowing how to pay his man or two on Saturday, and obliged to be civil as could be to them, for fear they’d go off and leave him in the lurch over some job or other. Then people didn’t pay up, and he’d have to wait; and then there was the ironmonger and the timber merchant wouldn’t give him credit, being only a small beginner; and one way and another he led such a life of it for the first three years as made him wish again and again as he’d been content to be journeyman and stopped on the reg’lar. But there; he warn’t meant for a journeyman, he was too good a scholar, and had too much in his brains, and, besides, had got such a stock of that “will do it” in his head as made him get on. He knowed well enough that you can’t drive a nail up to the head at one blow, or cover a piece of flatting with one touch of the brush; and so he acted accordingly, tapping gently at first till he’d got his nail a little way in, and then letting go at it till it was chock up to the head, reg’lar fixture; and so on, nail after nail, till he got his house up firm and strong. He didn’t turn master for the sake of walking about with his hands in his pockets; for, as he said to me often, “In my small way, Sam,” he says, “master’s a harder job than journeyman’s.” And so it was; for, come tea-time and the men knocked off, I’ve seen him keep on hard at it, hour after hour, right up to twelve o’clock; while the chaps as left the shop would wink at one another, for some men ain’t got any respect for a hard-toiling master: they’ll a deal sooner slave for some foul-mouthed bully who gives them no peace of their lives.Sometimes, when he’s been hard pushed with a job, I’ve known him ask ’em to stay and work a bit of overtime, same as he did my gentleman as had been at such fine shops; but “Oh, no,” he says, “couldn’t do it, thanky,” and away he goes.Well, now, that ain’t the sort of thing, you know; for one good turn deserves another; and my gentleman wouldn’t have much liked it if he’d been refused a day when he wanted it. But, there, he was a poor sort; and one of those fellows as must have everything exact to pattern, and can’t be put out in the least—chaps what runs in one groove all their lifetime and can’t do anything out of it; and then, when they’re outer work, why, they’re like so many big babies and quite as helpless. But he didn’t stay long; he was too fine, and talked too much. The guv’nor soon saw through him, and paid him off; and, according to my experience in such things, those men as have so much to say, and are so very particular to let the guv’nor know how particular they are not to waste a bit of time, generally turn out the most given to miking—skulking, you know.I ain’t much of a workman, you know; being only a sort of odd man on the place, doing anything—painting or what not; but me and the guv’nor gets on well together, for I make a point of helping him when he’s hard pushed; and I will say that of him, he’s always been as liberal after as a man could be. Say a job’s wanted quick, what’s the good of niggling about one’s hours exactly, and running off for fear of doing a stroke too much. Go at it, I says, and work with the master as if you take an interest in the job and feel a bit of pride in it. Why, bless your heart, ’tain’t only the three or six-and-thirty shillings a week a man ought to work for, but the sense of doing things well, so as he can stand up aside his fellow-man, and look at his work and say, “I did that, and I ain’t ashamed of it.” Why, I’ve known fellows that bowky about their jobs that they wouldn’t own to ’em afterwards. Sashes all knock-kneed, panelling out of the square, or painters with their paint all blistering and peeling off. No; ’tain’t only for the week’s wage a man ought to work, but for a sense of duty, and so on,Guv’nor and me gets on very well together, for I was with him in his worst times, when he used to work in his shirt-sleeves aside me; and many’s the time I’ve gone into little contract jobs with him, to calculate the expense, when from being over-anxious to get work he’d take the jobs a deal too low, and so I used to tell him. But we always got on together, and I’ll tell you how it was I got along with him.I always could carpenter a bit, but most of my time’s been spent as a painter—’prenticed to it, you know, and spent seven years with a drunken master to learn ’most nothing, ’cept what I picked up myself. Well, I couldn’t get a job in town, so I was on the look-out round the outside, when I came to our guv’nor’s place, where he was at work with two men, and him doing about as much as both of ’em. No use to try on for carpentering, I thinks, so I sets up the painting sign and goes in.“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I can give you a job if you can grain.”Now that was a rum ’un, for I was only a plain painter, and no grainer; but after three weeks’ hard lines, wife and family at home, and work awful, it did seem tantalising to a willing man to have a week’s wages shown him if he could only do one particular thing. Of course I had dodged it a bit before, but I wasn’t a grainer, and I knowed it well enough; but I thinks to myself, “Well, this is outside London, where people ain’t so very artis-like in their ideas, and perhaps I can manage it—so here goes. I can but try, and if I misses, why, it ain’t a hanging matter.” So I says, “Well; I wouldn’t undertake none of your superfine walnuts, and bird’s-eye maples, and marbles; but if it’s a bit of plain oak I’m your man.”“Well,” he says, “that’ll do; it’s only plain oak; and, if you like, you can begin priming and going on at once. There’s paints and brushes, but you must find your own graining tools.”At it I goes like a savage, and then I found as there was a week’s work for me before I need touch the graining; for there was priming, and first and second coats; and so I went on, but thinking precious hard about the bit of graining I should have to do. “Nothing venture, nothing gain,” I says; and that night I was hard at it after work—ah! and right up to four o’clock in the morning—trying to put a bit of oak grain on to a piece of smooth deal. I’d got a brush or two, and some colour, and a couple of them comb-like things we uses; and there I was, with the missus trying to keep her eyes open and pretending to sew, while I painted and streaked, and then smudged it about with a bit of rag; and I’m blest if I didn’t put some grain on that piece of wood as would have made Mother Nature stare—knots, and twists, and coarse grain, and shadings as I could have laughed at if I hadn’t been so anxious. You see, the nuisance of it was, it looked so easy when another man did it: touches over with his colour, streaks it down with his comb, and then with a rag gives a smudge here and there, and all so lightly, and there it is done. But I couldn’t, though I tried till the missus nodded, so I was obliged to send her to bed for fear she’d set her cap afire; and then I goes to the pump and has a reg’lar good sloosh, and touches my face over with the cold water, when after a good rub I goes at it again quite fresh.I can’t think now how many times I rubbed the paint off with the dirty rag, but a good many I know, and the clock had gone three when I was still at it, with every try seeming to be worse than the last; but still I kept on till I seemed to hear it strike four in a muffled sort of way, and then the next thing I heard was the wife calling me, for it was five o’clock, and I had a long way to walk to get to my work.As soon as I could get my head off the table, and pull myself together, the first thing I did was to look at my graining; and some how or other it didn’t look so very much amiss; but still it warn’t anything like what it ought to be, as I knowed well enough. All that day I was thinking it over, and best part of that dinner-hour I stopped in the shop trying it on again.Just as I was going to smudge a piece over, and finish my bit of bread and meat, not feeling at all satisfied, I gives a jump, for some one behind me says,—“Very neat, indeed. Bit of old oak, I suppose. You’d better do them shutters that style of grain.”Well, do you know, if I didn’t look at the guv’nor—for him it was—to see whether he warn’t a joking me; but, bless you, no; he was as serious as a judge: so feeling all the while like a great humbug, as I was, I says, “Werry well, sir,” finished my dinner, and then got to work again.It turned out as I expected, just a whole week before I had to begin graining; and what with about an hour a day, and four more every night, I got on pretty well, especially after giving a chap two pots of ale to put me up to a wrinkle or two; and now I sometimes pass by that very bit of graining, and though of course I could do it a deal better now, I don’t feel so very much ashamed of it.But along of my guv’nor. What a fight that man did have surely; and how well I used to know when he was running short on Saturdays: he’d look ten years older those times; and over and over again I’ve felt ashamed to take the money; but one couldn’t do without it, you know, on account of the little ones and wife. Last of all, though, we got to understand one another—the guv’nor and me; and this was how it was: he’d been worse nor usual, and was terribly hard-up, for he’d been buying wood and paying for it; for though he could have plenty of credit now as he don’t want it, in those days not a bit of stuff could he get without putting the money down. Well, having next to no capital, this bothered him terribly; and after paying two men on Saturday, I felt pretty sure as he was run close, and stood hanging about in the shop, not knowing whether to go in to the house or be off home; and at last I did go home and told the wife about it, and she said we could hold out two or three weeks very well, if I thought the guv’nor would pay by-and-by. But I soon settled that, for I knew my man, and so I set down quietly to my tea, and was sticking a bit of bread-and-butter in one little open beak and a bit in another, when there comes a knock at the door, and I turned red all over, for I felt it was the guv’nor; and so it was, and he’d brought my wages, when, as he stood in my bit of a kitchen holding out the three-and-thirty shillings, I couldn’t for the life of me help looking at where his watch-chain hung, and it warn’t there.I meant to do it neatly, and without hurting his feelings, for him and his wife had been very kind to us when we had the sickness in the house; but, you see, it warn’t a bit of graining, and I regularly muffed the job when I told him to let it stand for two or three weeks, as we could do till then. Next moment he had hold of my hand, shaking it heartily, and then next after that he broke down in a humbled, mortified sort of a way; and when the wife hurried the children up the staircase, out of sight, poor chap! he sat down, laid his head on his hand, and groaned.“Cheer up,” I says, “it’ll be all right soon.”“Right! yes,” he says, jumping up. “But it ain’t that,” he says; “it’s meeting a friend where I didn’t expect one;” and then he was gone.I was sitting at breakfast next morning (Sunday) when the garden gate rattles, and there was the guv’nor coming in such a hurry. Never stops to knock, but in he comes and shakes hands hearty; and then, without speaking, stuffs a letter into my hand. “Head it,” he says, “last post, last night,” and I did; but what I took most notice of was a long strip of paper with “197 pounds 10 shillings 6 pence” written on it, just under the name of one of the London bankers.Yes, we had a pleasant dinner, a comfortable cup of tea, and a cosy supper with the guv’nor that day; and uncommon good friends we’ve been ever since. I do all sorts at the shop, so that there’s always a job, and though people say “Jack of all trades—master of none,” I think a man might follow French suit and know two trades and master them both, so as when work falls one way he has a chance the other. Poor folks often get hunted by the wolf Poverty, and it would not be amiss to take a lesson from the burrowing animals, and have two holes—to get out of one when t’other happened to be stopped.
“Oh, no; ain’t nothing like such tools as I’ve been used to,” he says. “At my last shop everything was first class, and the place beautifully fitted-up—gas on, new benches, fine joiners’ chest o’ tools, full of beading and moulding planes, and stocks, and bits, and everything first class.”
“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I don’t want to be unreasonable: anything really necessary for the job you shall have; but of course I can’t help my workshop not being equal to your last; but I ’spose it won’t make much difference if you get your wages reg’lar?”
“Oh, no;” he says; it didn’t matter to him; he could work with any tools, he could; ony he did like to see things a bit to rights, and so on to that tune; and then my gentleman gets to work.
“Pity you didn’t stop where you was so jolly well off,” I thinks to myself; and then I goes on whistling, and priming some shutters as the guv’nor had made for a new shop front as he had to put in. You see, ’tain’t many years since our guv’nor was ony a working man like me, ony he managed to scrape a few pounds together, and then very pluckily started for hisself out in one of the new outskirts, where there was a deal of new building going on by the big London contractors, and a deal of altering and patching, which used to be done by the little jobbing men same as our guv’nor. Often and often he’s talked to me about it when working aside me pleasant and sociable as could be; how at times he’d be all of a shake and tremble for fear of going wrong, not knowing how to pay his man or two on Saturday, and obliged to be civil as could be to them, for fear they’d go off and leave him in the lurch over some job or other. Then people didn’t pay up, and he’d have to wait; and then there was the ironmonger and the timber merchant wouldn’t give him credit, being only a small beginner; and one way and another he led such a life of it for the first three years as made him wish again and again as he’d been content to be journeyman and stopped on the reg’lar. But there; he warn’t meant for a journeyman, he was too good a scholar, and had too much in his brains, and, besides, had got such a stock of that “will do it” in his head as made him get on. He knowed well enough that you can’t drive a nail up to the head at one blow, or cover a piece of flatting with one touch of the brush; and so he acted accordingly, tapping gently at first till he’d got his nail a little way in, and then letting go at it till it was chock up to the head, reg’lar fixture; and so on, nail after nail, till he got his house up firm and strong. He didn’t turn master for the sake of walking about with his hands in his pockets; for, as he said to me often, “In my small way, Sam,” he says, “master’s a harder job than journeyman’s.” And so it was; for, come tea-time and the men knocked off, I’ve seen him keep on hard at it, hour after hour, right up to twelve o’clock; while the chaps as left the shop would wink at one another, for some men ain’t got any respect for a hard-toiling master: they’ll a deal sooner slave for some foul-mouthed bully who gives them no peace of their lives.
Sometimes, when he’s been hard pushed with a job, I’ve known him ask ’em to stay and work a bit of overtime, same as he did my gentleman as had been at such fine shops; but “Oh, no,” he says, “couldn’t do it, thanky,” and away he goes.
Well, now, that ain’t the sort of thing, you know; for one good turn deserves another; and my gentleman wouldn’t have much liked it if he’d been refused a day when he wanted it. But, there, he was a poor sort; and one of those fellows as must have everything exact to pattern, and can’t be put out in the least—chaps what runs in one groove all their lifetime and can’t do anything out of it; and then, when they’re outer work, why, they’re like so many big babies and quite as helpless. But he didn’t stay long; he was too fine, and talked too much. The guv’nor soon saw through him, and paid him off; and, according to my experience in such things, those men as have so much to say, and are so very particular to let the guv’nor know how particular they are not to waste a bit of time, generally turn out the most given to miking—skulking, you know.
I ain’t much of a workman, you know; being only a sort of odd man on the place, doing anything—painting or what not; but me and the guv’nor gets on well together, for I make a point of helping him when he’s hard pushed; and I will say that of him, he’s always been as liberal after as a man could be. Say a job’s wanted quick, what’s the good of niggling about one’s hours exactly, and running off for fear of doing a stroke too much. Go at it, I says, and work with the master as if you take an interest in the job and feel a bit of pride in it. Why, bless your heart, ’tain’t only the three or six-and-thirty shillings a week a man ought to work for, but the sense of doing things well, so as he can stand up aside his fellow-man, and look at his work and say, “I did that, and I ain’t ashamed of it.” Why, I’ve known fellows that bowky about their jobs that they wouldn’t own to ’em afterwards. Sashes all knock-kneed, panelling out of the square, or painters with their paint all blistering and peeling off. No; ’tain’t only for the week’s wage a man ought to work, but for a sense of duty, and so on,
Guv’nor and me gets on very well together, for I was with him in his worst times, when he used to work in his shirt-sleeves aside me; and many’s the time I’ve gone into little contract jobs with him, to calculate the expense, when from being over-anxious to get work he’d take the jobs a deal too low, and so I used to tell him. But we always got on together, and I’ll tell you how it was I got along with him.
I always could carpenter a bit, but most of my time’s been spent as a painter—’prenticed to it, you know, and spent seven years with a drunken master to learn ’most nothing, ’cept what I picked up myself. Well, I couldn’t get a job in town, so I was on the look-out round the outside, when I came to our guv’nor’s place, where he was at work with two men, and him doing about as much as both of ’em. No use to try on for carpentering, I thinks, so I sets up the painting sign and goes in.
“Well,” says the guv’nor, “I can give you a job if you can grain.”
Now that was a rum ’un, for I was only a plain painter, and no grainer; but after three weeks’ hard lines, wife and family at home, and work awful, it did seem tantalising to a willing man to have a week’s wages shown him if he could only do one particular thing. Of course I had dodged it a bit before, but I wasn’t a grainer, and I knowed it well enough; but I thinks to myself, “Well, this is outside London, where people ain’t so very artis-like in their ideas, and perhaps I can manage it—so here goes. I can but try, and if I misses, why, it ain’t a hanging matter.” So I says, “Well; I wouldn’t undertake none of your superfine walnuts, and bird’s-eye maples, and marbles; but if it’s a bit of plain oak I’m your man.”
“Well,” he says, “that’ll do; it’s only plain oak; and, if you like, you can begin priming and going on at once. There’s paints and brushes, but you must find your own graining tools.”
At it I goes like a savage, and then I found as there was a week’s work for me before I need touch the graining; for there was priming, and first and second coats; and so I went on, but thinking precious hard about the bit of graining I should have to do. “Nothing venture, nothing gain,” I says; and that night I was hard at it after work—ah! and right up to four o’clock in the morning—trying to put a bit of oak grain on to a piece of smooth deal. I’d got a brush or two, and some colour, and a couple of them comb-like things we uses; and there I was, with the missus trying to keep her eyes open and pretending to sew, while I painted and streaked, and then smudged it about with a bit of rag; and I’m blest if I didn’t put some grain on that piece of wood as would have made Mother Nature stare—knots, and twists, and coarse grain, and shadings as I could have laughed at if I hadn’t been so anxious. You see, the nuisance of it was, it looked so easy when another man did it: touches over with his colour, streaks it down with his comb, and then with a rag gives a smudge here and there, and all so lightly, and there it is done. But I couldn’t, though I tried till the missus nodded, so I was obliged to send her to bed for fear she’d set her cap afire; and then I goes to the pump and has a reg’lar good sloosh, and touches my face over with the cold water, when after a good rub I goes at it again quite fresh.
I can’t think now how many times I rubbed the paint off with the dirty rag, but a good many I know, and the clock had gone three when I was still at it, with every try seeming to be worse than the last; but still I kept on till I seemed to hear it strike four in a muffled sort of way, and then the next thing I heard was the wife calling me, for it was five o’clock, and I had a long way to walk to get to my work.
As soon as I could get my head off the table, and pull myself together, the first thing I did was to look at my graining; and some how or other it didn’t look so very much amiss; but still it warn’t anything like what it ought to be, as I knowed well enough. All that day I was thinking it over, and best part of that dinner-hour I stopped in the shop trying it on again.
Just as I was going to smudge a piece over, and finish my bit of bread and meat, not feeling at all satisfied, I gives a jump, for some one behind me says,—
“Very neat, indeed. Bit of old oak, I suppose. You’d better do them shutters that style of grain.”
Well, do you know, if I didn’t look at the guv’nor—for him it was—to see whether he warn’t a joking me; but, bless you, no; he was as serious as a judge: so feeling all the while like a great humbug, as I was, I says, “Werry well, sir,” finished my dinner, and then got to work again.
It turned out as I expected, just a whole week before I had to begin graining; and what with about an hour a day, and four more every night, I got on pretty well, especially after giving a chap two pots of ale to put me up to a wrinkle or two; and now I sometimes pass by that very bit of graining, and though of course I could do it a deal better now, I don’t feel so very much ashamed of it.
But along of my guv’nor. What a fight that man did have surely; and how well I used to know when he was running short on Saturdays: he’d look ten years older those times; and over and over again I’ve felt ashamed to take the money; but one couldn’t do without it, you know, on account of the little ones and wife. Last of all, though, we got to understand one another—the guv’nor and me; and this was how it was: he’d been worse nor usual, and was terribly hard-up, for he’d been buying wood and paying for it; for though he could have plenty of credit now as he don’t want it, in those days not a bit of stuff could he get without putting the money down. Well, having next to no capital, this bothered him terribly; and after paying two men on Saturday, I felt pretty sure as he was run close, and stood hanging about in the shop, not knowing whether to go in to the house or be off home; and at last I did go home and told the wife about it, and she said we could hold out two or three weeks very well, if I thought the guv’nor would pay by-and-by. But I soon settled that, for I knew my man, and so I set down quietly to my tea, and was sticking a bit of bread-and-butter in one little open beak and a bit in another, when there comes a knock at the door, and I turned red all over, for I felt it was the guv’nor; and so it was, and he’d brought my wages, when, as he stood in my bit of a kitchen holding out the three-and-thirty shillings, I couldn’t for the life of me help looking at where his watch-chain hung, and it warn’t there.
I meant to do it neatly, and without hurting his feelings, for him and his wife had been very kind to us when we had the sickness in the house; but, you see, it warn’t a bit of graining, and I regularly muffed the job when I told him to let it stand for two or three weeks, as we could do till then. Next moment he had hold of my hand, shaking it heartily, and then next after that he broke down in a humbled, mortified sort of a way; and when the wife hurried the children up the staircase, out of sight, poor chap! he sat down, laid his head on his hand, and groaned.
“Cheer up,” I says, “it’ll be all right soon.”
“Right! yes,” he says, jumping up. “But it ain’t that,” he says; “it’s meeting a friend where I didn’t expect one;” and then he was gone.
I was sitting at breakfast next morning (Sunday) when the garden gate rattles, and there was the guv’nor coming in such a hurry. Never stops to knock, but in he comes and shakes hands hearty; and then, without speaking, stuffs a letter into my hand. “Head it,” he says, “last post, last night,” and I did; but what I took most notice of was a long strip of paper with “197 pounds 10 shillings 6 pence” written on it, just under the name of one of the London bankers.
Yes, we had a pleasant dinner, a comfortable cup of tea, and a cosy supper with the guv’nor that day; and uncommon good friends we’ve been ever since. I do all sorts at the shop, so that there’s always a job, and though people say “Jack of all trades—master of none,” I think a man might follow French suit and know two trades and master them both, so as when work falls one way he has a chance the other. Poor folks often get hunted by the wolf Poverty, and it would not be amiss to take a lesson from the burrowing animals, and have two holes—to get out of one when t’other happened to be stopped.
Chapter Six.A Cabman’s Story.“Hope I see you well, sir. Thanky, sir, I ain’t had such a cigar since as you give me that day. You’ll often find me on this stand, sir, and happy to drive yer at any time, either on the box or inside. But I say, you know, sir, how about putting a feller in print? Fine game some of our chaps made on it, because they said as they knew it all by heart. You see I don’t like to wherrit people with my old stories; but when I can get any one to listen I du like to talk a bit. You can’t form no idea of the things as we hears and sees; and I believe it would do any man good to drive a keb for a twelvemonth; it’s both wonderful what you’d pick up, and how you’d git picked up. Here’s your poets writing about green banks and flowers, and shepherds and shepherdesses, and love and stuff; why I’ve had no end of love-making in my keb here. Young ladies and young swells, whose pars and mars ain’t agreeable like, makes assignations and hires a keb by the hour, to be drove up and down, and the driver often looking as innocent as you please. I don’t dislike them sorter jobs, for you see, when he says ‘How much, kebby?’ one can lay it on a bit, for he won’t look shabby by disputing the fare before the young lady. But, Lor’ bless you, they’d pay anything just at them times, for money seems no object—everythink’s sweet, and when it rains I think they fancies as it’s all sugar and water.“There was one old chap as I drove regular; he used to come to my stand twice a week, and after the first time I always knew what to do. Ah! he was a fine old chap, and had been a orficer or somethin’ of that sort. Big mustarsh, yer know, and whiskers white as snow, and a hye! Ah, his was a hye, his were! Talk about tellin’ soldiers to charge! why, they couldn’t do no other with him a lookin’ at ’em; though if he hadn’t been a good sort I don’t think as I could have done much in charging my fashion, you know. It was a pleasure to see him walk—as upright as his old gold-headed cane. Seven bob a week he was to me reg’lar, and I used to look out for his old white head a-coming round the corner about three o’clock in the arternoon, and then I used to drive him right off to Kensal-green Cemetery, where he’d get down, and I always waited for him half an hour, when out he’d come, looking as fierce and stiff as ever, get into the keb, ‘Home,’ he’d say, giving his stick a bit of a flourish, just as if it were a sword; and home it was.“About the seccun time we went, I walks permiscus up to the gatekeeper—stiff-looking chap, too, with only one eye, and a touch o’ the k’mishionaire about him, only he hadn’t got no empty sleeve hanging to his button and didn’t wear no mustarchers; but all the same, I sets him down as having handled the musket some time, and so he had. Well, I walks up to him slowly and ’spectfully, showin’ him all the time as I know’d as I was only a kebman, and had learned to order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters, you know; and this iled him a bit, so as he went easy, and we got into conversation. I draws him on by degrees; for these gatekeepers is werry great swells in their way, as any one may see for hisself by getting a haporth o’ curds and whey at one of the parks, and studying the inflooence of a gold band round a man’s hat. ’Taint everybody as notices it, but it’s wonderful how that ere yaller metal stiffens a feller’s neck. Look at flunkeys, for instance—decent chaps enough, some on ’em, till they gets a bit o’ lace on their hats, and then they’re as proud on it as a fresh-moulted cockatoo. Never wore no lace on my hat; but shouldn’t mind wearing a little more nap.“Let’s see where had I got to? Ah, I know. Most extinguished myself with them gold-band hats. You see, I was a saying as them gatekeepers is big swells, and wants careful handling. They’re the sort of chaps that wun would like to buy at wun’s own wallyation and sell at theirs. Payin’ spec that to anybody; only I’m ’fraid as the market would soon get choked. Well, fust thing I does is to fall werry much in love with the flowers in his windy, and quite ’spectfully arsts the name of ’em; when, bein’ a bit of a gardener, he comes out with some thunderin’ great furrin word, as I knows jolly well he didn’t know the meanin’ on; and I says, ‘Oh!’ as if I was werry much obliged, and takes hold o’ one werry gently, and has a smell, and then thinks a great deal o’ the size of the blossoms, and so on; till, as if it was takin’ a great liberty, I arsts if he couldn’t cut me just one. Jest what he wanted, yer know; and making a terrible fuss over it, and explaining the wally of the plant, he snips me off a bit, and I sticks it in my button-hole, while he looked as pleased as some o’ those old buffers in white weskets as puts shillings in plates when there’s a k’lection, and then thinks as they’ve been patrons: for some folks do love to be arskt favours, and then comes the grandee as they grants ’em.“So then I goes on a fishin’ and a fishin’, and calls him ‘sir,’ and arsts his opinion of Common Garden, and so on, till at last I hooks him, and—“Coo-o-ome orn! What are yer up to, Nosey? Never was such a ’oss as you for lookin’ arter the main chance. That wasn’t a sixpence, stoopid, and if it was I’d a got off and picked it up without yer going down on yer knees. Never was such a ’oss as this here, sir. He’s a Paddy—come out of a Roman Catholic country, yer know; and blest if he ain’t allus a tryin’ to go down on his knees. Fancies every crossin’-sweeper he sees is a holy father, and wants to confess, I suppose. It’s a natteral weakness of his, and it’s taken all the hair off his knees. I paints ’em up a bit so as to hide the worst of it, but he’s allus a tryin’ it on. Get along, do.“Well, I hooks him, you know—the gatekeeper, I means—and arter playin’ him a bit he was as civil as you please; gets down off his stilts, and was ready to tell me anything. So then I gets to know as my gentleman was an old colonel as had buried a daughter there two months afore, and had allus come twice a week ever since to have a look at the place. ‘An’,’ says Mr Crusp—that was the gatekeeper’s name—‘an’, as you may find out yourself if you go, I’ve got geranums an’ stocks, an’ werbenas, quite a show on ’em, for the old gentleman said he should like to see some flowers there.’ And just then out comes the old orficer, and I drives off.“Well, sir, things goes on like this here for a matter o’ months, and—“Just look at that, now. Coome orn, stoopid. Blest if ever there was sich a ’oss. It’s pounds outer my pocket; but the guv’nor don’t care, bless yer, as long as I take in my reg’lar dose every day. Jest look at that, now; pulling up short right in the middle of the road, cos them Jarmans was blowin’ up a row. Likes music, I spose; so do I, when I can get it good, and so does everybody, it seems to me. I was a talking to a gentleman only t’other day, jest as I may be to you, and he says, says he, ‘It’s my opinion that if you give the working classes good music, joined to good words, they wouldn’t notice them rubbishing music-hall things, as only goes down because they’re tacked on to a pretty tune.’ And he’s right, yer know, and he’s a man as has done a good deal towards improving the working people. Why, only see if a pretty tune comes up if it isn’t whistled and sung all over the town—ah, and the country too—in no time; and what’s more, it ain’t forgotten neither. Yer see, to like yer fine books and poetry a man wants eddication; but it comes nateral to him to love a pretty tune. I ain’t up to much, yer know, but I can’t stand the rubbish as folks goes and wags their heads to—and what for? only because they can’t get anything better. Who says common folks don’t love music! Just take ’em and show ’em the crowds arter the soldiers’ and volunteer bands, and in the parks, and then, perhaps, they’ll alter their tune; and—look at that, now, if I ain’t gone right away from the story. Shouldn’t do for a speaker, I shouldn’t, for it seems to me as I’m like my old ’oss, Nosey—allus wants to turn down the fust turning as comes. There he goes. Coo-o-me orn.“Well, things goes on for a matter o’ months, and twiste a week I pockets my three-and-six; but I keeps thinking as it couldn’t last much longer. ‘So the old gentleman got tired,’ says you. Right you are! He did get tired at last, but not as you might think. He allus came same time, and stopped same time, and then I drove him back to his own door. Summer went by. The gals had cried the lavendy up and down the streets, and the swells had all gone outer town to the sea-side and the furrin waterin’ places; and for long enough, whenever a decent job had come, it had been luggage on the roof, and a bundle of sticks and umbrellys inside, and then off to some railway station or another. Kensington Gardings was a rainin’ yaller leaves all day long, while the robins was tunin’ up their melancholy little pipes, just as if there was no one else left to sing, and they was werry miserable becos the cold weather was a-comin’; while there was no sing left in me, for my asthmy was a beginning to tickle me up a bit, as it allus does in autumn time; but still my old gentleman comes as reg’lar as clockwork.“One afternoon, as I was sitting on my box, rather cold and chilly, for the fog was a-comin’ creepin’ on earlier nor usual, I was amusin’ myself a pickin’ ov a few walnuts—eight a penny, you know, without the port wine and salt. It was a dull sort of time, when you could hear the muffin bell a-going down the side streets; and the fires shining through the window-blinds looked warm and cosy. I was a pickin’ and growlin’ away at my nuts—for they didn’t skin easy, besides being werry dry, when who should I see a-comin’ but my reg’lar fare. Up he comes along the street, straight and stiff as a drill-sergeant, and though half a dozen whips runs up touting for the job, he never takes no notice of ’em, and I draws up to the kerb, jumps down to let him in, and opens the door, when he stops with one leg in the keb.“Yer see, this wasn’t a reg’lar thing, for arter the first time I allus knew what he wanted, and we understood one another, so that it was all done this way: jump in—set down—take up agin—set down agin—pay up—touch yer ’at—jump on the box—and nary word spoken. Sooted him, yer know; and it sooted me; so what more did you want? But now on this day it was diffurnt, for, as I said afore, he stops with one leg in the keb, and begins to speak, quite pleasant, and quiet, and civil, as a gentleman could speak, and he says, ‘Kebman, I thank you for your attention. Here’s a suffrin for you. Drive on.’“In course, I thanked him; but he didn’t seem to want to be talked to, and I drives on, thinking it was a rum start paying aforehand. Not as I’d got anything to grumble about, for a suffrin warn’t to be sneezed at, as the sayin’ is. So I drives up to the cemetery gates; sets him down; puts the nose-bag on the mare I drove then; an’ lights my pipe.“One pipe allus used to do for me while he went in and came out; so I used to smoke it, and then put it away. But this time he didn’t come back so soon as usual, or else, being a bit outer sorts in stummick and pocket, I’d smoked faster; so I pulls it out and lights up agen, and a good deal o’ bother I had, I remember, for the matches was damp, and there was I a-rubbin’ one arter the other again the pipe bowl for long enough, inside my hat.“Well, I finished that pipe, and then another, for it seemed to me as he was having a long stay on the strength of the suffrin. ‘And welcome,’ I says; for, of course, being a good sort, I wasn’t going to grudge him an hour. But it got to be more than an hour, and dusky, and foggy, and damp; and that blessed rheumatic shoulder o’ mine began a-going it orful. It was just for all the world as though some one had made a hole right through the blade-bone, and then, shovin’ a piece of clothes-line through, was a sawin’ of it backards and furards. Then it began to rain a little—mizzly, yer know—and the mare havin’ tossed her old nose-bag about till she couldn’t get not anuther taste o’ chaff, let alone a hoat or a bean, stands hanging all together like, same as those fiery steeds as they used to send up under a balloon, Cremorne way, years ago, and lookin’ for all the world like a hannimal cut out for the knackers.“Last of all out comes Mr Crusp, all hot tea and buttered toast, shining beautiful, and looking as though he’d been going on to the tune o’ four cups and three rounds. Then he begins to fasten up; and ‘Ulloa!’ says he, ‘what are you a-waitin’ for?’ ‘Colonel,’ says I. ‘Out long ago,’ says he. ‘No,’ says I; ‘he’s been in more’n two hours.’ Well, he looks gallus hard at me, and then he says, ‘He must ha’ gone out without you seein’ of him. He’s give you the slip.’ ‘Then he must ha’ come away inside that there black omblibus with plumes on it, then,’ I says, for I knowed as I must ha’ seen him if he had come out; and then I tells him about the suffrin.“‘Why didn’t you say that afore,’ says Crusp. ‘You see if he ain’t been and committed hisself, or fell a wictim to his sorrow.’ And then he turns short round, and goes puffin’ along one o’ the side walks; while, knowin’ as my old mare wouldn’t run away to save her life, I follered.“First we goes down a long gravel path where the ’santhemums was a hanging their heads, and seeming as if they was a crying; but then all the trees I could see in the dim light was covered with tears. Then Crusp leads off across a flower garding like, all covered with graves and stones; and somehow, stumbling along in a big old box coat, I manages to fall right over one of ’em; but when I pulled myself together agen, and gets up to the gatekeeper, I finds him standing aside my reg’lar fare, who was lying down there in the wet grass with his cheek agin a grave, and one arm stretched right over it: while in t’other was a long lock of dark hair. His hat had rolled off, and his own long white hair lay loose among the dead flowers and damp grass; and turning all of a tremble, I stoops down beside him, and Crusp whispers, so quiet and solemn, ‘He’s gone to her!’“For a moment or two I couldn’t believe it, for there in the dusk it seemed as though he was only crying over the restin’-place of his poor child. I didn’t like to speak, for it all seemed so strange and solemn: there was the ‘drip—drip—drip’ from the trees, and now and then a sad mournful sort of sigh as the wind swept by; and I don’t know how it was, but sad times seemed to come up again and take hold of a fellow’s heart; so that dim as it all was before, it turned worse, till one could hardly see at all, and though the rain came slowly down, it seemed right and nateral to take off one’s hat; and we both did, and then stole away on tiptoe to fetch more help.“That allus comes back in the autumn time, when the leaves are falling, and the rain drips slowly down; and then, feeling quite melancholy-like, I can see again as plain as can be that fine old man restin’ his head upon the grave, with his silver hair all spread out upon the grass, and him taking his rest from his troubles.“Here we are, sir,—’Tannic Gardings; and, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just give that old ’oss a feed and a rub down, while you and the ladies look through the green’ouses. Eases his jints a bit, yer see, and they runs werry stiff sometimes.”
“Hope I see you well, sir. Thanky, sir, I ain’t had such a cigar since as you give me that day. You’ll often find me on this stand, sir, and happy to drive yer at any time, either on the box or inside. But I say, you know, sir, how about putting a feller in print? Fine game some of our chaps made on it, because they said as they knew it all by heart. You see I don’t like to wherrit people with my old stories; but when I can get any one to listen I du like to talk a bit. You can’t form no idea of the things as we hears and sees; and I believe it would do any man good to drive a keb for a twelvemonth; it’s both wonderful what you’d pick up, and how you’d git picked up. Here’s your poets writing about green banks and flowers, and shepherds and shepherdesses, and love and stuff; why I’ve had no end of love-making in my keb here. Young ladies and young swells, whose pars and mars ain’t agreeable like, makes assignations and hires a keb by the hour, to be drove up and down, and the driver often looking as innocent as you please. I don’t dislike them sorter jobs, for you see, when he says ‘How much, kebby?’ one can lay it on a bit, for he won’t look shabby by disputing the fare before the young lady. But, Lor’ bless you, they’d pay anything just at them times, for money seems no object—everythink’s sweet, and when it rains I think they fancies as it’s all sugar and water.
“There was one old chap as I drove regular; he used to come to my stand twice a week, and after the first time I always knew what to do. Ah! he was a fine old chap, and had been a orficer or somethin’ of that sort. Big mustarsh, yer know, and whiskers white as snow, and a hye! Ah, his was a hye, his were! Talk about tellin’ soldiers to charge! why, they couldn’t do no other with him a lookin’ at ’em; though if he hadn’t been a good sort I don’t think as I could have done much in charging my fashion, you know. It was a pleasure to see him walk—as upright as his old gold-headed cane. Seven bob a week he was to me reg’lar, and I used to look out for his old white head a-coming round the corner about three o’clock in the arternoon, and then I used to drive him right off to Kensal-green Cemetery, where he’d get down, and I always waited for him half an hour, when out he’d come, looking as fierce and stiff as ever, get into the keb, ‘Home,’ he’d say, giving his stick a bit of a flourish, just as if it were a sword; and home it was.
“About the seccun time we went, I walks permiscus up to the gatekeeper—stiff-looking chap, too, with only one eye, and a touch o’ the k’mishionaire about him, only he hadn’t got no empty sleeve hanging to his button and didn’t wear no mustarchers; but all the same, I sets him down as having handled the musket some time, and so he had. Well, I walks up to him slowly and ’spectfully, showin’ him all the time as I know’d as I was only a kebman, and had learned to order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters, you know; and this iled him a bit, so as he went easy, and we got into conversation. I draws him on by degrees; for these gatekeepers is werry great swells in their way, as any one may see for hisself by getting a haporth o’ curds and whey at one of the parks, and studying the inflooence of a gold band round a man’s hat. ’Taint everybody as notices it, but it’s wonderful how that ere yaller metal stiffens a feller’s neck. Look at flunkeys, for instance—decent chaps enough, some on ’em, till they gets a bit o’ lace on their hats, and then they’re as proud on it as a fresh-moulted cockatoo. Never wore no lace on my hat; but shouldn’t mind wearing a little more nap.
“Let’s see where had I got to? Ah, I know. Most extinguished myself with them gold-band hats. You see, I was a saying as them gatekeepers is big swells, and wants careful handling. They’re the sort of chaps that wun would like to buy at wun’s own wallyation and sell at theirs. Payin’ spec that to anybody; only I’m ’fraid as the market would soon get choked. Well, fust thing I does is to fall werry much in love with the flowers in his windy, and quite ’spectfully arsts the name of ’em; when, bein’ a bit of a gardener, he comes out with some thunderin’ great furrin word, as I knows jolly well he didn’t know the meanin’ on; and I says, ‘Oh!’ as if I was werry much obliged, and takes hold o’ one werry gently, and has a smell, and then thinks a great deal o’ the size of the blossoms, and so on; till, as if it was takin’ a great liberty, I arsts if he couldn’t cut me just one. Jest what he wanted, yer know; and making a terrible fuss over it, and explaining the wally of the plant, he snips me off a bit, and I sticks it in my button-hole, while he looked as pleased as some o’ those old buffers in white weskets as puts shillings in plates when there’s a k’lection, and then thinks as they’ve been patrons: for some folks do love to be arskt favours, and then comes the grandee as they grants ’em.
“So then I goes on a fishin’ and a fishin’, and calls him ‘sir,’ and arsts his opinion of Common Garden, and so on, till at last I hooks him, and—
“Coo-o-ome orn! What are yer up to, Nosey? Never was such a ’oss as you for lookin’ arter the main chance. That wasn’t a sixpence, stoopid, and if it was I’d a got off and picked it up without yer going down on yer knees. Never was such a ’oss as this here, sir. He’s a Paddy—come out of a Roman Catholic country, yer know; and blest if he ain’t allus a tryin’ to go down on his knees. Fancies every crossin’-sweeper he sees is a holy father, and wants to confess, I suppose. It’s a natteral weakness of his, and it’s taken all the hair off his knees. I paints ’em up a bit so as to hide the worst of it, but he’s allus a tryin’ it on. Get along, do.
“Well, I hooks him, you know—the gatekeeper, I means—and arter playin’ him a bit he was as civil as you please; gets down off his stilts, and was ready to tell me anything. So then I gets to know as my gentleman was an old colonel as had buried a daughter there two months afore, and had allus come twice a week ever since to have a look at the place. ‘An’,’ says Mr Crusp—that was the gatekeeper’s name—‘an’, as you may find out yourself if you go, I’ve got geranums an’ stocks, an’ werbenas, quite a show on ’em, for the old gentleman said he should like to see some flowers there.’ And just then out comes the old orficer, and I drives off.
“Well, sir, things goes on like this here for a matter o’ months, and—
“Just look at that, now. Coome orn, stoopid. Blest if ever there was sich a ’oss. It’s pounds outer my pocket; but the guv’nor don’t care, bless yer, as long as I take in my reg’lar dose every day. Jest look at that, now; pulling up short right in the middle of the road, cos them Jarmans was blowin’ up a row. Likes music, I spose; so do I, when I can get it good, and so does everybody, it seems to me. I was a talking to a gentleman only t’other day, jest as I may be to you, and he says, says he, ‘It’s my opinion that if you give the working classes good music, joined to good words, they wouldn’t notice them rubbishing music-hall things, as only goes down because they’re tacked on to a pretty tune.’ And he’s right, yer know, and he’s a man as has done a good deal towards improving the working people. Why, only see if a pretty tune comes up if it isn’t whistled and sung all over the town—ah, and the country too—in no time; and what’s more, it ain’t forgotten neither. Yer see, to like yer fine books and poetry a man wants eddication; but it comes nateral to him to love a pretty tune. I ain’t up to much, yer know, but I can’t stand the rubbish as folks goes and wags their heads to—and what for? only because they can’t get anything better. Who says common folks don’t love music! Just take ’em and show ’em the crowds arter the soldiers’ and volunteer bands, and in the parks, and then, perhaps, they’ll alter their tune; and—look at that, now, if I ain’t gone right away from the story. Shouldn’t do for a speaker, I shouldn’t, for it seems to me as I’m like my old ’oss, Nosey—allus wants to turn down the fust turning as comes. There he goes. Coo-o-me orn.
“Well, things goes on for a matter o’ months, and twiste a week I pockets my three-and-six; but I keeps thinking as it couldn’t last much longer. ‘So the old gentleman got tired,’ says you. Right you are! He did get tired at last, but not as you might think. He allus came same time, and stopped same time, and then I drove him back to his own door. Summer went by. The gals had cried the lavendy up and down the streets, and the swells had all gone outer town to the sea-side and the furrin waterin’ places; and for long enough, whenever a decent job had come, it had been luggage on the roof, and a bundle of sticks and umbrellys inside, and then off to some railway station or another. Kensington Gardings was a rainin’ yaller leaves all day long, while the robins was tunin’ up their melancholy little pipes, just as if there was no one else left to sing, and they was werry miserable becos the cold weather was a-comin’; while there was no sing left in me, for my asthmy was a beginning to tickle me up a bit, as it allus does in autumn time; but still my old gentleman comes as reg’lar as clockwork.
“One afternoon, as I was sitting on my box, rather cold and chilly, for the fog was a-comin’ creepin’ on earlier nor usual, I was amusin’ myself a pickin’ ov a few walnuts—eight a penny, you know, without the port wine and salt. It was a dull sort of time, when you could hear the muffin bell a-going down the side streets; and the fires shining through the window-blinds looked warm and cosy. I was a pickin’ and growlin’ away at my nuts—for they didn’t skin easy, besides being werry dry, when who should I see a-comin’ but my reg’lar fare. Up he comes along the street, straight and stiff as a drill-sergeant, and though half a dozen whips runs up touting for the job, he never takes no notice of ’em, and I draws up to the kerb, jumps down to let him in, and opens the door, when he stops with one leg in the keb.
“Yer see, this wasn’t a reg’lar thing, for arter the first time I allus knew what he wanted, and we understood one another, so that it was all done this way: jump in—set down—take up agin—set down agin—pay up—touch yer ’at—jump on the box—and nary word spoken. Sooted him, yer know; and it sooted me; so what more did you want? But now on this day it was diffurnt, for, as I said afore, he stops with one leg in the keb, and begins to speak, quite pleasant, and quiet, and civil, as a gentleman could speak, and he says, ‘Kebman, I thank you for your attention. Here’s a suffrin for you. Drive on.’
“In course, I thanked him; but he didn’t seem to want to be talked to, and I drives on, thinking it was a rum start paying aforehand. Not as I’d got anything to grumble about, for a suffrin warn’t to be sneezed at, as the sayin’ is. So I drives up to the cemetery gates; sets him down; puts the nose-bag on the mare I drove then; an’ lights my pipe.
“One pipe allus used to do for me while he went in and came out; so I used to smoke it, and then put it away. But this time he didn’t come back so soon as usual, or else, being a bit outer sorts in stummick and pocket, I’d smoked faster; so I pulls it out and lights up agen, and a good deal o’ bother I had, I remember, for the matches was damp, and there was I a-rubbin’ one arter the other again the pipe bowl for long enough, inside my hat.
“Well, I finished that pipe, and then another, for it seemed to me as he was having a long stay on the strength of the suffrin. ‘And welcome,’ I says; for, of course, being a good sort, I wasn’t going to grudge him an hour. But it got to be more than an hour, and dusky, and foggy, and damp; and that blessed rheumatic shoulder o’ mine began a-going it orful. It was just for all the world as though some one had made a hole right through the blade-bone, and then, shovin’ a piece of clothes-line through, was a sawin’ of it backards and furards. Then it began to rain a little—mizzly, yer know—and the mare havin’ tossed her old nose-bag about till she couldn’t get not anuther taste o’ chaff, let alone a hoat or a bean, stands hanging all together like, same as those fiery steeds as they used to send up under a balloon, Cremorne way, years ago, and lookin’ for all the world like a hannimal cut out for the knackers.
“Last of all out comes Mr Crusp, all hot tea and buttered toast, shining beautiful, and looking as though he’d been going on to the tune o’ four cups and three rounds. Then he begins to fasten up; and ‘Ulloa!’ says he, ‘what are you a-waitin’ for?’ ‘Colonel,’ says I. ‘Out long ago,’ says he. ‘No,’ says I; ‘he’s been in more’n two hours.’ Well, he looks gallus hard at me, and then he says, ‘He must ha’ gone out without you seein’ of him. He’s give you the slip.’ ‘Then he must ha’ come away inside that there black omblibus with plumes on it, then,’ I says, for I knowed as I must ha’ seen him if he had come out; and then I tells him about the suffrin.
“‘Why didn’t you say that afore,’ says Crusp. ‘You see if he ain’t been and committed hisself, or fell a wictim to his sorrow.’ And then he turns short round, and goes puffin’ along one o’ the side walks; while, knowin’ as my old mare wouldn’t run away to save her life, I follered.
“First we goes down a long gravel path where the ’santhemums was a hanging their heads, and seeming as if they was a crying; but then all the trees I could see in the dim light was covered with tears. Then Crusp leads off across a flower garding like, all covered with graves and stones; and somehow, stumbling along in a big old box coat, I manages to fall right over one of ’em; but when I pulled myself together agen, and gets up to the gatekeeper, I finds him standing aside my reg’lar fare, who was lying down there in the wet grass with his cheek agin a grave, and one arm stretched right over it: while in t’other was a long lock of dark hair. His hat had rolled off, and his own long white hair lay loose among the dead flowers and damp grass; and turning all of a tremble, I stoops down beside him, and Crusp whispers, so quiet and solemn, ‘He’s gone to her!’
“For a moment or two I couldn’t believe it, for there in the dusk it seemed as though he was only crying over the restin’-place of his poor child. I didn’t like to speak, for it all seemed so strange and solemn: there was the ‘drip—drip—drip’ from the trees, and now and then a sad mournful sort of sigh as the wind swept by; and I don’t know how it was, but sad times seemed to come up again and take hold of a fellow’s heart; so that dim as it all was before, it turned worse, till one could hardly see at all, and though the rain came slowly down, it seemed right and nateral to take off one’s hat; and we both did, and then stole away on tiptoe to fetch more help.
“That allus comes back in the autumn time, when the leaves are falling, and the rain drips slowly down; and then, feeling quite melancholy-like, I can see again as plain as can be that fine old man restin’ his head upon the grave, with his silver hair all spread out upon the grass, and him taking his rest from his troubles.
“Here we are, sir,—’Tannic Gardings; and, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just give that old ’oss a feed and a rub down, while you and the ladies look through the green’ouses. Eases his jints a bit, yer see, and they runs werry stiff sometimes.”
Chapter Seven.J. Weltus.Reformations, and improvements, and setrer, are all very well; but, mind yer, if your drink’s been four ale all your life you won’t take kindly to porter, “threepence a pot in your own jugs,” if some one tells you all at once as it’s better for you, and your ale’s pison. Rome warn’t built in a day, you know, and arter sitting for five-and-twenty year on my bench and using the lapstone and sterrup-leather, you ain’t a-going to make me take nat’rally to a hupright bench.Here I am, yer see; allus at home—airy spot; good light, and never no sun; pleasant prospect o’ four foot in front, none to the right, and chock down into Fleet-street on the left. What more would you have? Every convenience for carrying on a large and lucrative trade without moving from yer seat. Here’s one’s stool, and, altogether, close to one’s hand, everything as a artis’ in leather work could want. Now see here: paste? there you are; stuffin’? there you are; tub for soakin’? there you are; and so on with every think—whether it’s lapstone, foot, hemp, ball, wax, bristles, dubbin, grease, or ink. There’s one’s knives and stone all in a row; there’s one’s divisions with all one’s nails and pegs—brass, iron, and wood; there’s one’s hammers; and—there, what more would you have for soleing and heeling a boot or a shoe right off without leaving yer seat? And all done in a regular business way, yer know; none o’ yer new-fangled rivet and clinch and sewing-machine rubbish; but straightforward laid-in stitches, put in with a sharp awl and a fine pair of ends, laid into and drawn tight with plenty of elbow grease, and the sole stoned and hammered as solid as a board, and more too.Rivets indeed! Why, how can a boot be decent as is nailed together just as a chip would make a box? ’Tain’t natural, no more nor gutta-percha was, nor india-rubber was. Course I had to take to gutta-percha soles, as it was the fashun, else yer lose yer trade; but there you were, sticking the things on with a lot o’ grease tar stuff, and then as soon as they got warm, off they comes again, and serve ’em right too for not being sewed, and then touched round the wearing Darts with a few rows o’ sprigs neatly put in, or a facing o’ sparrables.And here’s yer everlasting soles and yer machinery and clat! Don’t tell me: why, they can’t answer any more than indy-rubber goloshes can, as raises your corns, an’ draws yer feet, an’ makes a man miserable, as of course every one is as ain’t got a decent shoe to his foot. It’s all very fine having yer new fangles, and one introdoosing cork, and another iron, and another copper and copper toes. You may have yer grand warerusses over Southwark way; but my ’pinion is as it must come down to us at last, as only stands to reason.Now here you are; you’ve bought yer pair o’ ready-mades and worn ’em a bit, and then where are you? why, a-looking out for “J. Weltus, shoemaker, repairs neatly executed”—as it says on the board over the stall, as cost me a soleing and heeling for a painter chap outer work as did it for me, and put no dryers in his colour, so as the boys give it that pitted-with-the-small-pox look by aimin’ at it with their popguns. Well, you looks for J. Weltus, and finds him sittin’ in his stall in the court, and shows him what’s up, and very naterally he laughs at yer, as he does at all as runs away from your fine old conservative wax-end and leather, for your improved, reform, upright bench, and machine-made understandings.But J. Weltus takes pity on you, and soon has yer boots in hand; and, as the swell says, he “analyses” ’em. And then where are yer? Here’s your sole good for nought—the welt gone, heel sunk, and a whole regiment of pegs sticking up inside fit to rasp every bit o’ skin off yer foot.Well, of course he grins; but you wants ’em to-morrow? Werry good; and he grins again to find that with all yer machine-making and sewing, yer obliged to come back to the old mender after all; so he takes off his glasses, gets Kidney Joe to cast a hye on his stall, and runs round to the grindery shop in Drury Lane, and comes back in ten minutes with a few real Archangel bristles, a ball of hemp, a set of first-class leather, some stuffin’; and of course, just as if to insult him, the counter’s chock full o’ ready-closed uppers, with all sorts o’ jigamaree, fiddle-faddle stitching about ’em, as ain’t no good only to let the water in. Then off he sets again—only he has to go back for his wax, which is, as one may say, the mainspring of a boot—the mortar of the edifice, as holds all together and as it should be.Nex’ day you comes for the boots, and there they are. Well, they ain’t done; but J.W.’s a-ripping into ’em. One’s been touched over with a bit o’ glass, as has smoothed the new half-sole wonderful, and another’s being sprigged; then the edges’ll be waxed up a bit with the dubbin’, and then there’s yer boots—a tighter and a better pair than they was afore, and all for three shillings, or three-and-six, according to your customer.I never puts any toe-pieces on, punched full o’ holes to make ’em look ’ansum; but does my work in the good old style, and if I was in Parliament every man as didn’t wear Wellingtons should be taxed.But along o’ them cards in the winders. Well, a chap come to me one day, and wanted me to be agent, and I stares up at him at first to see as he wasn’t joking, “Loans of from 5 pounds to 100 pounds upon personal security,” says the card he showed me, just as you can see ’em in hundreds o’ back courts and slums—places where you may be sure people wants heaps o’ money.“Do a wonderful stroke o’ business,” I says, looking at my chap. “Find plenty o’ customers down here; but p’raps they might object to the smell o’ the leather, and so keep away.”“Bless yer, no,” says the chap—“not at all. Many of our agents is marine-store dealers and groshers. Good commission for you if you like to take it.”But I wouldn’t; and there hung the card in the little red herring and sweet shop till last week, when they had to turn out because the place is all coming down to make way for the new law courts, and setrer.Do! of course it’s a do; same as those ’wertisements in the papers is from distressed tradesmen who’ll give five pound for the loan of ten for a week, and deposit fifty pounds wally of stuff for security—pawn tickets, yer know—cards got from folks’ uncle when they’ve been on a wisit—“Frock-coat and satin wesket, fifteen and nine, John Smith, 999, Snooks-street”—and all on to that tune. Traps—traps—traps, every one on ’em, as the poor fellows know as has had any dealings with the moneylenders.Now, just look here; about the only honest one there is, is your uncle. Fixed interest, certain time, and he wants security. Saturday night and a hard week, and rent due, and the chap as the boots was made for not come to fetch ’em; the pair as was mended not paid for—and all the stuff required cost money, you see—so off you goes to your uncle with two flat irons and the missus’s ring. Then you does your bit of negotiation, and the job’s done; and out you come from the little court where the door flaps to, and all’s right and square, and no odds to nobody; but just try same as Jinks did to get a loan from the Cosmypolitan and Jint-Stock Adwance and Discount Company, and see how you like it. So many stamps for application; so much for inquiry fee; so much for this, and so much for that, and so on.Jinks comes in, as maybe you, and he says, “I shall be wantin’ a pair o’ boots nex’ week,” he says, “and you may as well take the measure now,” he says; “save time when I gives the order.”“All right,” I says, getting hold o’ my rule and a strip o’ paper.“But I dunno yet what sort I’ll have,” he says. “I’ve a sorter leaning towards ’lasticks; but I dunno,” he says, “but what I’d best stick to the old sort—laceups.”“Say the word,” I says, and he said it—“’Lasticks!” and I took his measure, and brought out a pen, dips in my ink-bottle, and makes marks; and all the time he was precious busy rattling some printed paper about and pretending to be reading.“Oh, Weltus,” he says all at once, just as if it struck him all at the moment, “I’m a-going to have an advance from the ’ciety.”“Are you?” I says—“inches and a harf—’lasticks—kid tops.”“What?” he says.“Only my measuring,” I says, with the pen in my mouth.“Oh!” he says, “jusso.” And then he goes on—“’Bliged to get a couple of tradesmen—’spectable tradesmen—to sign their names to the papers—just to show, you know, as I’m some one decent. You’ll be one, won’t yer?”“One what?” I says—“bondsman?”“Oh, no,” he says, “nothing o’ the kind; only just sign yer name. It’s me as is bound; and if anything went wrong, why, they’d come upon me, and so on, yer know. Don’t yer see?”“No!” I says, taking off my glasses, and rubbin’ ’em on my leather apron—“No,” I says, “I can’t quite.”“Why,” he says, “it’s five pound as I’m going to borrow; and they lends it me on my own pussonal security; but just to show as I’m the right sort, I get two ’spectable tradesmen to put down their names. Don’t yer see? I could get plenty to do it, only I don’t want every one to know. You see now, don’t you?”“No,” I says, “I can’t somehow.”“Why,” he says, “it’s all right, man,” and he gives me a slap on the shoulder. “I’m going to pay it back by ’stalments, and I shall pay yer cash for them boots when I gets the money, and it’ll be doing us both a good turn. There’s the line—just along there—‘J. Weltus, Pull-Down Court.’ Don’t you be in a stew; there’s nothing to be ’feard on. It’s me as they’d come on, I tell you. Your signing yer name along that line is only a form, and it’s me they’d sell up. Now don’t you see? I shall give you the order for them boots o’ Monday.”But, do you know, I’m blest if I could see it then; and though he tried a bit more, he couldn’t make me see it. Long course o’ roughing it in the world’s made my eyes dull, yer know; and, last of all, Jinks doubles up his papers, and goes out quite huffy; while I gets ready a fresh pair of ends and goes on with a job I had in hand, when every time I pulls the threads home I gives a good hard grunt, and goes on analysing Bob Jinks, and wondering what it would all come to. “Holiday now and then’s all werry well,” I says, “but Rye House, ’Ampton Court, and Gravesend on Mondays won’t do even if a man does make six-and-thirty bob a week. Masters don’t like their hands to be allus going out, and besides, it don’t look well to take a soot o’ clothes out on Saturday night, and stuff ’em up the spout again on Toosdays or Wensdays;” and arter analysing a good deal, I couldn’t help finding as Bob Jinks was one of them chaps as helped pay for Mrs Shortnip’s satin dress at the Rising Sun. “Hal, a pint o’ beer’s good,” I says to myself, “and I don’t object to a pipe with it; but have the work done first. That’s my motter.”“Don’t begin them boots till I gives yer the order,” says Jinks, as he goes out.“No,” I says, “I shan’t;” nor I didn’t neither, for I couldn’t see the Jos Miller of it, and somehow or another Jinks never come inside my place again.I was on the look-out, though, and I suppose he did make some one see all about it, and got him to sign; for two months arter there was a snuffy-looking old foggy-eyed chap a-stopping in his lodgings, and a little while arter two o’ Levy Haman’s men was fetching the furnitur down, and I saw sev’ral things as must ha’ been his at the broker’s shop at the corner; for they do say as these loan ’cieties are precious hard on any one as gets behind with the payments, and ’ll eat you outer house and home. But, bless yer, it’s no ’ciety in most cases, but some precious hook-beaked knowing one as is company, directors, and sekketary all in himself and lives on the interest and sellings up of them as gets into his claws. ’Taint often as they do lend anything, but when they do they makes theirselves safe enough by getting about three names and a plugging rate of interest; and then, good luck to yer if yer don’t pay up. Gettin’ things on tick’s all werry well, but though they call it so, ’taint no credit to nobody; and that’s what I say; and if I ain’t right, my name ain’t J. Weltus.
Reformations, and improvements, and setrer, are all very well; but, mind yer, if your drink’s been four ale all your life you won’t take kindly to porter, “threepence a pot in your own jugs,” if some one tells you all at once as it’s better for you, and your ale’s pison. Rome warn’t built in a day, you know, and arter sitting for five-and-twenty year on my bench and using the lapstone and sterrup-leather, you ain’t a-going to make me take nat’rally to a hupright bench.
Here I am, yer see; allus at home—airy spot; good light, and never no sun; pleasant prospect o’ four foot in front, none to the right, and chock down into Fleet-street on the left. What more would you have? Every convenience for carrying on a large and lucrative trade without moving from yer seat. Here’s one’s stool, and, altogether, close to one’s hand, everything as a artis’ in leather work could want. Now see here: paste? there you are; stuffin’? there you are; tub for soakin’? there you are; and so on with every think—whether it’s lapstone, foot, hemp, ball, wax, bristles, dubbin, grease, or ink. There’s one’s knives and stone all in a row; there’s one’s divisions with all one’s nails and pegs—brass, iron, and wood; there’s one’s hammers; and—there, what more would you have for soleing and heeling a boot or a shoe right off without leaving yer seat? And all done in a regular business way, yer know; none o’ yer new-fangled rivet and clinch and sewing-machine rubbish; but straightforward laid-in stitches, put in with a sharp awl and a fine pair of ends, laid into and drawn tight with plenty of elbow grease, and the sole stoned and hammered as solid as a board, and more too.
Rivets indeed! Why, how can a boot be decent as is nailed together just as a chip would make a box? ’Tain’t natural, no more nor gutta-percha was, nor india-rubber was. Course I had to take to gutta-percha soles, as it was the fashun, else yer lose yer trade; but there you were, sticking the things on with a lot o’ grease tar stuff, and then as soon as they got warm, off they comes again, and serve ’em right too for not being sewed, and then touched round the wearing Darts with a few rows o’ sprigs neatly put in, or a facing o’ sparrables.
And here’s yer everlasting soles and yer machinery and clat! Don’t tell me: why, they can’t answer any more than indy-rubber goloshes can, as raises your corns, an’ draws yer feet, an’ makes a man miserable, as of course every one is as ain’t got a decent shoe to his foot. It’s all very fine having yer new fangles, and one introdoosing cork, and another iron, and another copper and copper toes. You may have yer grand warerusses over Southwark way; but my ’pinion is as it must come down to us at last, as only stands to reason.
Now here you are; you’ve bought yer pair o’ ready-mades and worn ’em a bit, and then where are you? why, a-looking out for “J. Weltus, shoemaker, repairs neatly executed”—as it says on the board over the stall, as cost me a soleing and heeling for a painter chap outer work as did it for me, and put no dryers in his colour, so as the boys give it that pitted-with-the-small-pox look by aimin’ at it with their popguns. Well, you looks for J. Weltus, and finds him sittin’ in his stall in the court, and shows him what’s up, and very naterally he laughs at yer, as he does at all as runs away from your fine old conservative wax-end and leather, for your improved, reform, upright bench, and machine-made understandings.
But J. Weltus takes pity on you, and soon has yer boots in hand; and, as the swell says, he “analyses” ’em. And then where are yer? Here’s your sole good for nought—the welt gone, heel sunk, and a whole regiment of pegs sticking up inside fit to rasp every bit o’ skin off yer foot.
Well, of course he grins; but you wants ’em to-morrow? Werry good; and he grins again to find that with all yer machine-making and sewing, yer obliged to come back to the old mender after all; so he takes off his glasses, gets Kidney Joe to cast a hye on his stall, and runs round to the grindery shop in Drury Lane, and comes back in ten minutes with a few real Archangel bristles, a ball of hemp, a set of first-class leather, some stuffin’; and of course, just as if to insult him, the counter’s chock full o’ ready-closed uppers, with all sorts o’ jigamaree, fiddle-faddle stitching about ’em, as ain’t no good only to let the water in. Then off he sets again—only he has to go back for his wax, which is, as one may say, the mainspring of a boot—the mortar of the edifice, as holds all together and as it should be.
Nex’ day you comes for the boots, and there they are. Well, they ain’t done; but J.W.’s a-ripping into ’em. One’s been touched over with a bit o’ glass, as has smoothed the new half-sole wonderful, and another’s being sprigged; then the edges’ll be waxed up a bit with the dubbin’, and then there’s yer boots—a tighter and a better pair than they was afore, and all for three shillings, or three-and-six, according to your customer.
I never puts any toe-pieces on, punched full o’ holes to make ’em look ’ansum; but does my work in the good old style, and if I was in Parliament every man as didn’t wear Wellingtons should be taxed.
But along o’ them cards in the winders. Well, a chap come to me one day, and wanted me to be agent, and I stares up at him at first to see as he wasn’t joking, “Loans of from 5 pounds to 100 pounds upon personal security,” says the card he showed me, just as you can see ’em in hundreds o’ back courts and slums—places where you may be sure people wants heaps o’ money.
“Do a wonderful stroke o’ business,” I says, looking at my chap. “Find plenty o’ customers down here; but p’raps they might object to the smell o’ the leather, and so keep away.”
“Bless yer, no,” says the chap—“not at all. Many of our agents is marine-store dealers and groshers. Good commission for you if you like to take it.”
But I wouldn’t; and there hung the card in the little red herring and sweet shop till last week, when they had to turn out because the place is all coming down to make way for the new law courts, and setrer.
Do! of course it’s a do; same as those ’wertisements in the papers is from distressed tradesmen who’ll give five pound for the loan of ten for a week, and deposit fifty pounds wally of stuff for security—pawn tickets, yer know—cards got from folks’ uncle when they’ve been on a wisit—“Frock-coat and satin wesket, fifteen and nine, John Smith, 999, Snooks-street”—and all on to that tune. Traps—traps—traps, every one on ’em, as the poor fellows know as has had any dealings with the moneylenders.
Now, just look here; about the only honest one there is, is your uncle. Fixed interest, certain time, and he wants security. Saturday night and a hard week, and rent due, and the chap as the boots was made for not come to fetch ’em; the pair as was mended not paid for—and all the stuff required cost money, you see—so off you goes to your uncle with two flat irons and the missus’s ring. Then you does your bit of negotiation, and the job’s done; and out you come from the little court where the door flaps to, and all’s right and square, and no odds to nobody; but just try same as Jinks did to get a loan from the Cosmypolitan and Jint-Stock Adwance and Discount Company, and see how you like it. So many stamps for application; so much for inquiry fee; so much for this, and so much for that, and so on.
Jinks comes in, as maybe you, and he says, “I shall be wantin’ a pair o’ boots nex’ week,” he says, “and you may as well take the measure now,” he says; “save time when I gives the order.”
“All right,” I says, getting hold o’ my rule and a strip o’ paper.
“But I dunno yet what sort I’ll have,” he says. “I’ve a sorter leaning towards ’lasticks; but I dunno,” he says, “but what I’d best stick to the old sort—laceups.”
“Say the word,” I says, and he said it—“’Lasticks!” and I took his measure, and brought out a pen, dips in my ink-bottle, and makes marks; and all the time he was precious busy rattling some printed paper about and pretending to be reading.
“Oh, Weltus,” he says all at once, just as if it struck him all at the moment, “I’m a-going to have an advance from the ’ciety.”
“Are you?” I says—“inches and a harf—’lasticks—kid tops.”
“What?” he says.
“Only my measuring,” I says, with the pen in my mouth.
“Oh!” he says, “jusso.” And then he goes on—“’Bliged to get a couple of tradesmen—’spectable tradesmen—to sign their names to the papers—just to show, you know, as I’m some one decent. You’ll be one, won’t yer?”
“One what?” I says—“bondsman?”
“Oh, no,” he says, “nothing o’ the kind; only just sign yer name. It’s me as is bound; and if anything went wrong, why, they’d come upon me, and so on, yer know. Don’t yer see?”
“No!” I says, taking off my glasses, and rubbin’ ’em on my leather apron—“No,” I says, “I can’t quite.”
“Why,” he says, “it’s five pound as I’m going to borrow; and they lends it me on my own pussonal security; but just to show as I’m the right sort, I get two ’spectable tradesmen to put down their names. Don’t yer see? I could get plenty to do it, only I don’t want every one to know. You see now, don’t you?”
“No,” I says, “I can’t somehow.”
“Why,” he says, “it’s all right, man,” and he gives me a slap on the shoulder. “I’m going to pay it back by ’stalments, and I shall pay yer cash for them boots when I gets the money, and it’ll be doing us both a good turn. There’s the line—just along there—‘J. Weltus, Pull-Down Court.’ Don’t you be in a stew; there’s nothing to be ’feard on. It’s me as they’d come on, I tell you. Your signing yer name along that line is only a form, and it’s me they’d sell up. Now don’t you see? I shall give you the order for them boots o’ Monday.”
But, do you know, I’m blest if I could see it then; and though he tried a bit more, he couldn’t make me see it. Long course o’ roughing it in the world’s made my eyes dull, yer know; and, last of all, Jinks doubles up his papers, and goes out quite huffy; while I gets ready a fresh pair of ends and goes on with a job I had in hand, when every time I pulls the threads home I gives a good hard grunt, and goes on analysing Bob Jinks, and wondering what it would all come to. “Holiday now and then’s all werry well,” I says, “but Rye House, ’Ampton Court, and Gravesend on Mondays won’t do even if a man does make six-and-thirty bob a week. Masters don’t like their hands to be allus going out, and besides, it don’t look well to take a soot o’ clothes out on Saturday night, and stuff ’em up the spout again on Toosdays or Wensdays;” and arter analysing a good deal, I couldn’t help finding as Bob Jinks was one of them chaps as helped pay for Mrs Shortnip’s satin dress at the Rising Sun. “Hal, a pint o’ beer’s good,” I says to myself, “and I don’t object to a pipe with it; but have the work done first. That’s my motter.”
“Don’t begin them boots till I gives yer the order,” says Jinks, as he goes out.
“No,” I says, “I shan’t;” nor I didn’t neither, for I couldn’t see the Jos Miller of it, and somehow or another Jinks never come inside my place again.
I was on the look-out, though, and I suppose he did make some one see all about it, and got him to sign; for two months arter there was a snuffy-looking old foggy-eyed chap a-stopping in his lodgings, and a little while arter two o’ Levy Haman’s men was fetching the furnitur down, and I saw sev’ral things as must ha’ been his at the broker’s shop at the corner; for they do say as these loan ’cieties are precious hard on any one as gets behind with the payments, and ’ll eat you outer house and home. But, bless yer, it’s no ’ciety in most cases, but some precious hook-beaked knowing one as is company, directors, and sekketary all in himself and lives on the interest and sellings up of them as gets into his claws. ’Taint often as they do lend anything, but when they do they makes theirselves safe enough by getting about three names and a plugging rate of interest; and then, good luck to yer if yer don’t pay up. Gettin’ things on tick’s all werry well, but though they call it so, ’taint no credit to nobody; and that’s what I say; and if I ain’t right, my name ain’t J. Weltus.