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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11480 ***
+
+DEEP WATERS
+
+By W.W. JACOBS
+
+
+
+
+STRIKING HARD
+
+"You've what?" demanded Mrs. Porter, placing the hot iron carefully on
+its stand and turning a heated face on the head of the family.
+
+"Struck," repeated Mr. Porter; "and the only wonder to me is we've stood
+it so long as we have.  If I was to tell you all we've 'ad to put up with
+I don't suppose you'd believe me."
+
+"Very likely," was the reply.  "You can keep your fairy-tales for them
+that like 'em.  They're no good to me."
+
+"We stood it till flesh and blood could stand it no longer," declared her
+husband, "and at last we came out, shoulder to shoulder, singing.  The
+people cheered us, and one of our leaders made 'em a speech."
+
+"I should have liked to 'ave heard the singing," remarked his wife.  "If
+they all sang like you, it must ha' been as good as a pantermime!  Do you
+remember the last time you went on strike?"
+
+"This is different," said Mr. Porter, with dignity.
+
+"All our things went, bit by bit," pursued his wife, "all the money we
+had put by for a rainy day, and we 'ad to begin all over again.  What are
+we going to live on?  O' course, you might earn something by singing in
+the street; people who like funny faces might give you something!  Why
+not go upstairs and put your 'ead under the bed-clothes and practise a
+bit?"
+
+Mr. Porter coughed.  "It'll be all right," he said, confidently.  "Our
+committee knows what it's about; Bert Robinson is one of the best
+speakers I've ever 'eard.  If we don't all get five bob a week more I'll
+eat my 'ead."
+
+"It's the best thing you could do with it," snapped his wife.  She took
+up her iron again, and turning an obstinate back to his remarks resumed
+her work.
+
+Mr. Porter lay long next morning, and, dressing with comfortable
+slowness, noticed with pleasure that the sun was shining.  Visions of a
+good breakfast and a digestive pipe, followed by a walk in the fresh air,
+passed before his eyes as he laced his boots.  Whistling cheerfully he
+went briskly downstairs.
+
+It was an October morning, but despite the invigorating chill in the air
+the kitchen-grate was cold and dull.  Herring-bones and a disorderly
+collection of dirty cups and platters graced the table.  Perplexed and
+angry, he looked around for his wife, and then, opening the back-door,
+stood gaping with astonishment.  The wife of his bosom, who should have
+had a bright fire and a good breakfast waiting for him, was sitting on a
+box in the sunshine, elbows on knees and puffing laboriously at a
+cigarette.
+
+"Susan!" he exclaimed.
+
+Mrs. Porter turned, and, puffing out her lips, blew an immense volume of
+smoke.  "Halloa!" she said, carelessly.
+
+"Wot--wot does this mean?" demanded her husband.
+
+Mrs. Porter smiled with conscious pride.  "I made it come out of my nose
+just now," she replied.  "At least, some of it did, and I swallowed the
+rest.  Will it hurt me?"
+
+"Where's my breakfast?" inquired the other, hotly.  "Why ain't the
+kitchen-fire alight?  Wot do you think you're doing of?"
+
+"I'm not doing anything," said his wife, with an aggrieved air.  "I'm on
+strike."
+
+Mr. Porter reeled against the door-post.  "Wot!" he stammered.  "On
+strike?  Nonsense!  You can't be."
+
+"O, yes, I can," retorted Mrs. Porter, closing one eye and ministering to
+it hastily with the corner of her apron.  "Not 'aving no Bert Robinson to
+do it for me, I made a little speech all to myself, and here I am."
+
+She dropped her apron, replaced the cigarette, and, with her hands on her
+plump knees, eyes him steadily.
+
+"But--but this ain't a factory," objected the dismayed man; "and, besides
+--I won't 'ave it!"
+
+Mrs. Porter laughed--a fat, comfortable laugh, but with a touch of
+hardness in it.
+
+"All right, mate," she said, comfortably.  "What are you out on strike
+for?"
+
+"Shorter hours and more money," said Mr. Porter, glaring at her.
+
+His wife nodded.  "So am I," she said.  "I wonder who gets it first?"
+
+She smiled agreeably at the bewildered Mr. Porter, and, extracting a
+paper packet of cigarettes from her pocket, lit a fresh one at the stub
+of the first.
+
+"That's the worst of a woman," said her husband, avoiding her eye and
+addressing a sanitary dustbin of severe aspect; "they do things without
+thinking first.  That's why men are superior; before they do a thing they
+look at it all round, and upside down, and--and--make sure it can be
+done.  Now, you get up in a temper this morning, and the first thing you
+do--not even waiting to get my breakfast ready first--is to go on strike.
+If you'd thought for two minutes you'd see as 'ow it's impossible for you
+to go on strike for more than a couple of hours or so."
+
+"Why?" inquired Mrs. Porter.
+
+"Kids," replied her husband, triumphantly.  "They'll be coming 'ome from
+school soon, won't they?  And they'll be wanting their dinner, won't
+they?"
+
+"That's all right," murmured the other, vaguely.
+
+"After which, when night comes," pursued Mr. Porter, "they'll 'ave to be
+put to bed.  In the morning they'll 'ave to be got up and washed and
+dressed and given their breakfast and sent off to school.  Then there's
+shopping wot must be done, and beds wot must be made."
+
+"I'll make ours," said his wife, decidedly.  "For my own sake."
+
+"And wot about the others?"  inquired Mr. Porter.
+
+"The others'll be made by the same party as washes the children, and
+cooks their dinner for 'em, and puts 'em to bed, and cleans the 'ouse,"
+was the reply.
+
+"I'm not going to have your mother 'ere," exclaimed Mr. Porter, with
+sudden heat.  "Mind that!"
+
+"I don't want her," said Mrs. Porter.  "It's a job for a strong, healthy
+man, not a pore old thing with swelled legs and short in the breath."
+
+"Strong--'ealthy--man!"  repeated her husband, in a dazed voice.
+"Strong--'eal----  Wot are you talking about?"
+
+Mrs. Porter beamed on him.  "You," she said, sweetly.
+
+There was a long silence, broken at last by a firework display of
+expletives.  Mrs. Porter, still smiling, sat unmoved.
+
+"You may smile!"  raved the indignant Mr. Porter.  "You may sit there
+smiling and smoking like a--like a man, but if you think that I'm going
+to get the meals ready, and soil my 'ands with making beds and washing-up,
+you're mistook.  There's some 'usbands I know as would set about you!"
+
+Mrs. Porter rose.  "Well, I can't sit here gossiping with you all day,"
+she said, entering the house.
+
+"Wot are you going to do?"  demanded her husband, following her.
+
+"Going to see Aunt Jane and 'ave a bit o' dinner with her," was the
+reply.  "And after that I think I shall go to the 'pictures.' If you 'ave
+bloaters for dinner be very careful with little Jemmy and the bones."
+
+"I forbid you to leave this 'ouse !" said Mr. Porter, in a thrilling
+voice.  "If you do you won't find nothing done when you come home, and
+all the kids dirty and starving."
+
+"Cheerio!" said Mrs. Porter.
+
+Arrayed in her Sunday best she left the house half an hour later.  A
+glance over her shoulder revealed her husband huddled up in a chair in
+the dirty kitchen, gazing straight before him at the empty grate.
+
+He made a hearty breakfast at a neighbouring coffee-shop, and, returning
+home, lit the fire and sat before it, smoking.  The return of the four
+children from school, soon after midday, found him still wrestling with
+the difficulties of the situation.  His announcement that their mother
+was out and that there would be no dinner was received at first in
+stupefied silence.  Then Jemmy, opening his mouth to its widest extent,
+acted as conductor to an all-too-willing chorus.
+
+The noise was unbearable, and Mr. Porter said so.  Pleased with the
+tribute, the choir re-doubled its efforts, and Mr. Porter, vociferating
+orders for silence, saw only too clearly the base advantage his wife had
+taken of his affection for his children.  He took some money from his
+pocket and sent the leading treble out marketing, after which, with the
+assistance of a soprano aged eight, he washed up the breakfast things and
+placed one of them in the dustbin.
+
+The entire family stood at his elbow as he cooked the dinner, and
+watched, with bated breath, his frantic efforts to recover a sausage
+which had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire.  A fourfold sigh of
+relief heralded its return to the pan.
+
+"Mother always--" began the eldest boy.
+
+Mr. Porter took his scorched fingers out of his mouth and smacked the
+critic's head.
+
+The dinner was not a success.  Portions of half-cooked sausages returned
+to the pan, and coming back in the guise of cinders failed to find their
+rightful owners.
+
+"Last time we had sausages," said the eight-year-old Muriel, "they melted
+in your mouth."  Mr. Porter glowered at her.
+
+"Instead of in the fire," said the eldest boy, with a mournful snigger.
+
+"If I get up to you, my lad," said the harassed Mr. Porter, "you'll know
+it!  Pity you don't keep your sharpness for your lessons!  Wot country is
+Africa in?"
+
+"Why, Africa's a continent!"  said the startled youth.
+
+"Jes so," said his father; "but wot I'm asking you is: wot country is it
+in?"
+
+"Asia," said the reckless one, with a side-glance at Muriel.
+
+"And why couldn't you say so before?" demanded Mr. Porter, sternly.
+"Now, you go to the sink and give yourself a thorough good wash.  And
+mind you come straight home from school.  There's work to be done."
+
+He did some of it himself after the children had gone, and finished up
+the afternoon with a little shopping, in the course of which he twice
+changed his grocer and was threatened with an action for slander by his
+fishmonger.  He returned home with his clothes bulging, although a couple
+of eggs in the left-hand coat-pocket had done their best to accommodate
+themselves to his figure.
+
+He went to bed at eleven o'clock, and at a quarter past, clad all too
+lightly for the job, sped rapidly downstairs to admit his wife.
+
+"Some 'usbands would 'ave let you sleep on the doorstep all night," he
+said, crisply.
+
+"I know they would," returned his wife, cheerfully.  "That's why I
+married you.  I remember the first time I let you come 'ome with me,
+mother ses: 'There ain't much of 'im, Susan,' she ses; 'still, arf a loaf
+is better than--'"
+
+The bedroom-door slammed behind the indignant Mr. Porter, and the three
+lumps and a depression which had once been a bed received his quivering
+frame again.  With the sheet obstinately drawn over his head he turned a
+deaf ear to his wife's panegyrics on striking and her heartfelt tribute
+to the end of a perfect day.  Even when standing on the cold floor while
+she remade the bed he maintained an attitude of unbending dignity, only
+relaxing when she smote him light-heartedly with the bolster.  In a few
+ill-chosen words he expressed his opinion of her mother and her
+deplorable methods of bringing up her daughters.
+
+He rose early next morning, and, after getting his own breakfast, put on
+his cap and went out, closing the street-door with a bang that awoke the
+entire family and caused the somnolent Mrs. Porter to open one eye for
+the purpose of winking with it.  Slowly, as became a man of leisure, he
+strolled down to the works, and, moving from knot to knot of his
+colleagues, discussed the prospects of victory.  Later on, with a little
+natural diffidence, he drew Mr. Bert Robinson apart and asked his advice
+upon a situation which was growing more and more difficult.
+
+"I've got my hands pretty full as it is, you know," said Mr. Robinson,
+hastily.
+
+"I know you 'ave, Bert," murmured the other.  "But, you see, she told me
+last night she's going to try and get some of the other chaps' wives to
+join 'er, so I thought I ought to tell you."
+
+Mr. Robinson started.  "Have you tried giving her a hiding?" he inquired.
+
+Mr. Porter shook his head.  "I daren't trust myself," he replied.  "I
+might go too far, once I started."
+
+"What about appealing to her better nature?" inquired the other.
+
+"She ain't got one," said the unfortunate.  "Well, I'm sorry for you,"
+said Mr. Robinson, "but I'm busy.  I've got to see a Labour-leader this
+afternoon, and two reporters, and this evening there's the meeting.  Try
+kindness first, and if that don't do, lock her up in her bedroom and keep
+her on bread and water."
+
+He moved off to confer with his supporters, and Mr. Porter, after
+wandering aimlessly about for an hour or two, returned home at mid-day
+with a faint hope that his wife might have seen the error of her ways and
+provided dinner for him.  He found the house empty and the beds unmade.
+The remains of breakfast stood on the kitchen-table, and a puddle of cold
+tea decorated the floor.  The arrival of the children from school, hungry
+and eager, completed his discomfiture.
+
+For several days he wrestled grimly with the situation, while Mrs.
+Porter, who had planned out her week into four days of charing, two of
+amusement, and Sunday in bed, looked on with smiling approval.  She even
+offered to give him a little instruction--verbal--in scrubbing the
+kitchen-floor.
+
+Mr. Porter, who was on his knees at the time, rose slowly to his full
+height, and, with a superb gesture, emptied the bucket, which also
+contained a scrubbing-brush and lump of soap, into the back-yard.  Then
+he set off down the street in quest of a staff.
+
+He found it in the person of Maudie Stevens, aged fourteen, who lived a
+few doors lower down.  Fresh from school the week before, she cheerfully
+undertook to do the housework and cooking, and to act as nursemaid in her
+spare time.  Her father, on his part, cheerfully under-took to take care
+of her wages for her, the first week's, payable in advance, being banked
+the same evening at the Lord Nelson.
+
+It was another mouth to feed, but the strike-pay was coming in very well,
+and Mr. Porter, relieved from his unmanly tasks, walked the streets a
+free man.  Beds were made without his interference, meals were ready
+(roughly) at the appointed hour, and for the first time since the strike
+he experienced satisfaction in finding fault with the cook.  The
+children's content was not so great, Maudie possessing a faith in the
+virtues of soap and water that they made no attempt to share.  They were
+greatly relieved when their mother returned home after spending a couple
+of days with Aunt Jane.
+
+"What's all this?" she demanded, as she entered the kitchen, followed by
+a lady-friend.
+
+"What's all what?" inquired Mr. Porter, who was sitting at dinner with
+the family.
+
+"That," said his wife, pointing at the cook-general.
+
+Mr. Porter put down his knife and fork.  "Got 'er in to help," he
+replied, uneasily.
+
+"Do you hear that?" demanded his wife, turning to her friend, Mrs.
+Gorman.  "Oh, these masters!"
+
+"Ah!"  said her friend, vaguely.
+
+"A strike-breaker!" said Mrs. Porter, rolling her eyes.
+
+"Shame!" said Mrs. Gorman, beginning to understand.
+
+"Coming after my job, and taking the bread out of my mouth," continued
+Mrs. Porter, fluently.  "Underselling me too, I'll be bound.  That's what
+comes of not having pickets."
+
+"Unskilled labour," said Mrs. Gorman, tightening her lips and shaking her
+head.
+
+"A scab!" cried Mrs. Porter, wildly.  "A scab!"
+
+"Put her out," counselled her friend.
+
+"Put her out!" repeated Mrs. Porter, in a terrible voice.  "Put her out!
+I'll tear her limb from limb!  I'll put her in the copper and boil her!"
+
+Her voice was so loud and her appearance so alarming that the unfortunate
+Maudie, emitting three piercing shrieks, rose hastily from the table and
+looked around for a way of escape.  The road to the front-door was
+barred, and with a final yelp that set her employer's teeth on edge she
+dashed into the yard and went home via the back-fences.  Housewives busy
+in their kitchens looked up in amazement at the spectacle of a pair of
+thin black legs descending one fence, scudding across the yard to the
+accompaniment of a terrified moaning, and scrambling madly over the
+other.  At her own back-door Maudie collapsed on the step, and, to the
+intense discomfort and annoyance of her father, had her first fit of
+hysterics.
+
+"And the next scab that comes into my house won't get off so easy," said
+Mrs. Porter to her husband.  "D'you understand?"
+
+"If you 'ad some husbands--" began Mr. Porter, trembling with rage.
+
+"Yes, I know," said his wife, nodding.  "Don't cry, Jemmy," she added,
+taking the youngest on her knee.  "Mother's only having a little game.
+She and dad are both on strike for more pay and less work."
+
+Mr. Porter got up, and without going through the formality of saying
+good-bye to the hard-featured Mrs. Gorman, put on his cap and went out.
+Over a couple of half-pints taken as a sedative, he realized the growing
+seriousness of his position.
+
+In a dull resigned fashion he took up his household duties again, made
+harder now than before by the scandalous gossip of the aggrieved Mr.
+Stevens.  The anonymous present of a much-worn apron put the finishing
+touch to his discomfiture; and the well-meant offer of a fair neighbour
+to teach him how to shake a mat without choking himself met with a
+reception that took her breath away.
+
+It was a surprise to him one afternoon to find that his wife had so far
+unbent as to tidy up the parlour.  Ornaments had been dusted and polished
+and the carpet swept.  She had even altered the position of the
+furniture.  The table had been pushed against the wall, and the easy-
+chair, with its back to the window, stood stiffly confronting six or
+seven assorted chairs, two of which at least had been promoted from a
+lower sphere.
+
+"It's for the meeting," said Muriel, peeping in.
+
+"Meeting?" repeated her father, in a dazed voice.
+
+"Strike-meetings," was the reply.  "Mrs. Gorman and some other ladies are
+coming at four o'clock.  Didn't mother tell you?"
+
+Mr. Porter, staring helplessly at the row of chairs, shook his head.
+
+"Mrs. Evans is coming," continued Muriel, in a hushed voice--"the lady
+what punched Mr. Brown because he kept Bobbie Evans in one day.  He ain't
+been kept in since.  I wish you----"
+
+She stopped suddenly, and, held by her father's gaze, backed slowly out
+of the room.  Mr. Porter, left with the chairs, stood regarding them
+thoughtfully.  Their emptiness made an appeal that no right-minded man
+could ignore.  He put his hand over his mouth and his eyes watered.
+
+He spent the next half-hour in issuing invitations, and at half-past
+three every chair was filled by fellow-strikers.  Three cans of beer,
+clay pipes, and a paper of shag stood on the table.  Mr. Benjamin Todd,
+an obese, fresh-coloured gentleman of middle age, took the easy-chair.
+Glasses and teacups were filled.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Mr. Todd, lighting his pipe, "afore we get on to the
+business of this meeting I want to remind you that there is another
+meeting, of ladies, at four o'clock; so we've got to hurry up.  O'
+course, if it should happen that we ain't finished----"
+
+"Go on, Bennie!"  said a delighted admirer.  "I see a female 'ead peeping
+in at the winder already," said a voice.
+
+"Let 'em peep," said Mr. Todd, benignly.  "Then p'r'aps they'll be able
+to see how to run a meeting."
+
+"There's two more 'eads," said the other.  "Oh, Lord, I know I sha'n't be
+able to keep a straight face!"
+
+"H'sh!"  commanded Mr. Todd, sternly, as the street-door was heard to
+open.  "Be'ave yourself.  As I was saying, the thing we've got to
+consider about this strike----"
+
+The door opened, and six ladies, headed by Mrs. Porter, entered the room
+in single file and ranged themselves silently along the wall.
+
+"Strike," proceeded Mr. Todd, who found himself gazing uneasily into the
+eyes of Mrs. Gorman----"strike--er--strike----"
+
+"He said that before," said a stout lady, in a loud whisper; "I'm sure he
+did."
+
+"Is," continued Mr. Todd, "that we have got to keep this--this--er--"
+
+"Strike," prompted the same voice.
+
+Mr. Todd paused, and, wiping his mouth with a red pocket-handkerchief,
+sat staring straight before him.
+
+"I move," said Mrs. Evans, her sharp features twitching with excitement,
+"that Mrs. Gorman takes the chair."
+
+"'Ow can I take it when he's sitting in it?"  demanded that lady.
+
+"She's a lady that knows what she wants and how to get it," pursued Mrs.
+Evans, unheeding.  "She understands men--"
+
+"I've buried two 'usbands," murmured Mrs. Gorman, nodding.
+
+"And how to manage them," continued Mrs. Evans.  "I move that Mrs. Gorman
+takes the chair.  Those in favour--"
+
+Mr. Todd, leaning back in his chair and gripping the arms, gazed
+defiantly at a row of palms.
+
+"Carried unanimously!"  snapped Mrs. Evans.
+
+Mrs. Gorman, tall and bony, advanced and stood over Mr. Todd.  Strong men
+held their breath.
+
+"It's my chair," she said, gruffly.  "I've been moved into it."
+
+"Possession," said Mr. Todd, in as firm a voice as he could manage, "is
+nine points of the law.  I'm here and--"
+
+Mrs. Gorman turned, and, without the slightest warning, sat down suddenly
+and heavily in his lap.  A hum of admiration greeted the achievement.
+
+"Get up!"  shouted the horrified Mr. Todd.  "Get up!"
+
+Mrs. Gorman settled herself more firmly.
+
+"Let me get up," said Mr. Todd, panting.
+
+Mrs. Gorman rose, but remained in a hovering position, between which and
+the chair Mr. Todd, flushed and dishevelled, extricated himself in all
+haste.  A shrill titter of laughter and a clapping of hands greeted his
+appearance.  He turned furiously on the pallid Mr. Porter.
+
+"What d'you mean by it?"  he demanded.  "Are you the master, or ain't
+you?  A man what can't keep order in his own house ain't fit to be called
+a man.  If my wife was carrying on like this----"
+
+"I wish I was your wife," said Mrs. Gorman, moistening her lips.
+
+Mr. Todd turned slowly and surveyed her.
+
+"I don't," he said, simply, and, being by this time near the door, faded
+gently from the room.
+
+"Order!"  cried Mrs. Gorman, thumping the arm of her chair with a large,
+hard-working fist.  "Take your seats, ladies."
+
+A strange thrill passed through the bodies of her companions and
+communicated itself to the men in the chairs.  There was a moment's tense
+pause, and then the end man, muttering something about "going to see what
+had happened to poor old Ben Todd," rose slowly and went out.  His
+companions, with heads erect and a look of cold disdain upon their faces,
+followed him.
+
+It was Mr. Porter's last meeting, but his wife had several more.  They
+lasted, in fact, until the day, a fortnight later, when he came in with
+flushed face and sparkling eyes to announce that the strike was over and
+the men victorious.
+
+"Six bob a week more!"  he said, with enthusiasm.  "You see, I was right
+to strike, after all."
+
+Mrs. Porter eyed him.  "I am out for four bob a week more," she said,
+calmly.
+
+Her husband swallowed.  "You--you don't understand 'ow these things are
+done," he said, at last.  "It takes time.  We ought to ne--negotiate."
+
+"All right," said Mrs. Porter, readily.  "Seven shillings a week, then."
+
+"Let's say four and have done with it," exclaimed the other, hastily.
+
+And Mrs. Porter said it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Striking Hard, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11480 ***