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@@ -1,35 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales of Mean Streets, by Arthur Morrison - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Tales of Mean Streets - -Author: Arthur Morrison - -Release Date: August 23, 2012 [EBook #40569] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MEAN STREETS *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40569 *** TALES OF MEAN STREETS @@ -2546,7 +2515,7 @@ how it ran:-- make over all my property to my belov^d wife stock bisness and furnitur so help me god all detts i keep to pay myself and my wife is not ansrable for them and certiffy that I O U Minchin and co 9 - pound 4/71/2 Jones and son 6 pound 13/2 and settrer all other detts + pound 4/7½ Jones and son 6 pound 13/2 and settrer all other detts me and not my wife I O U ED. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Tales of Mean Streets - -Author: Arthur Morrison - -Release Date: August 23, 2012 [EBook #40569] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MEAN STREETS *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -TALES OF MEAN STREETS - - -LIZERUNT - -SQUIRE NAPPER - -WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS - -THREE ROUNDS - -And Others - -BY -ARTHUR MORRISON - - -BOSTON -ROBERTS BROTHERS -1895 - - -_Copyright, 1895,_ -BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. - -_All rights reserved._ - -University Press: -JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - -TO - -WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY - - -NOTE.--_The greater number of these stories and studies were first -printed in_ The National Observer; _the introduction, in a slightly -different form, in_ Macmillan's Magazine; _"That Brute Simmons" and "A -Conversion" have been published in_ The Pall Mall Budget; _and "The Red -Cow Group" is new._ - - - - -CONTENTS. - - PAGE -INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 9 - -INTRODUCTION 15 - -LIZERUNT:-- - - I. LIZER'S WOOING 29 - - II. LIZER'S FIRST 38 - - III. A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES 46 - -WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS 57 - -TO BOW BRIDGE 73 - -THAT BRUTE SIMMONS 83 - -BEHIND THE SHADE 97 - -THREE ROUNDS 109 - -IN BUSINESS 127 - -THE RED COW GROUP 141 - -ON THE STAIRS 161 - -SQUIRE NAPPER 171 - -"A POOR STICK" 197 - -A CONVERSION 207 - -"ALL THAT MESSUAGE" 221 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. - - -It was considered an intrepid thing for Walter Besant to do when, twelve -or thirteen years ago, he invaded the great East End of London and drew -upon its unknown wealth of varied material to people that most charming -novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." Until then the West End knew -little of its contiguous neighbor in the East. Dickens's kaleidoscopic -views of low life in the South of London were manifestly caricatures of -the slum specimens of human nature which he purposely sought and often -distorted to suit his bizarre humor. Mr. Besant may be fairly considered -as the pioneer of those who have since descended to the great -unchartered region of East London, about which, so far as our knowledge -of the existing conditions of human life in that community are -concerned, we remained until, as it were yesterday, almost as ignorant -as of the undiscovered territories in Central Africa. Contemporaneous -with Mr. Besant's "discovery" of East London began the eastward march of -the Salvation Army, which has since honeycombed this quarter of the -metropolis with its militant camps. Gradually the barriers were thrown -down, and the East has become accessible to literature and to -civilization as it never had been to the various Charity and Church -missionary organizations. - -It was as the secretary of an old Charity Trust that Mr. Arthur Morrison -first made his acquaintance with East London, and by dint of several -years' residence and attentive study acquired his knowledge of the East -End and its myriad denizens. Right in the midst of the great square -bounded by the Thames, the Lea, the City, Kingsland, and the Hackney -open spaces lie the dreary "Mean Streets" which Mr. Morrison has -described with uncommon power and vigor, and among which the operations -of his secretaryship engaged him laboriously for years. The possibility -of presenting his observations of East London in narrative form began to -grow upon him while casting around for literary pabulum to convert into -magazine articles, and in October, 1891, appeared his first sketch, -entitled "A Street," in "Macmillan's Magazine." This, in a remodelled -form, now serves as an introductory chapter to the present collection. -The article in "Macmillan's" attracted a good deal of attention, and won -for its author the good fellowship of Mr. W. E. Henley, who encouraged -him in his idea of writing a series of short stories and studies which -should describe East End life with austerity, restraint, and frankness. -A large number of the "Tales" appeared in the "National Observer" and -several followed in the "Pall Mall Budget." The dedication to Mr. Henley -of "Tales of Mean Streets" is a grateful acknowledgment by the author of -the kindly and frank counsel of his friendly critic; whose criticism, it -may be added, has been mainly directed towards the author's -craftsmanship--his conceptions of the life he was portraying the critic -was wise enough to let alone. Mr. Morrison has also been indebted on the -side of art in fiction to Mr. Walter Besant, whom he met in the East -End. - -Mr. Morrison has been fortunate in his literary experience. He is -another witness to the fact that merit makes its way from the outside, -without necessarily receiving aid or having influence brought to bear -on editors or publishers. It is curious to note that a manuscript of his -which happened to be rejected once was accepted on the day following, -and now has a place in this book. Some cycling verses contributed as a -lad to a cycling magazine began his literary career, and for some years -he continued to write on what was then a novel sport. He drifted into -broader channels and became a frequent contributor to popular papers and -magazines. During this period he was working on the Charity Commission, -and wrote only by way of relaxation. About five years ago he resigned -his office on the Trust, and, occupying chambers near the Strand, joined -the editorial staff of an old-established evening paper, where for some -months he continued to write leaderettes and miscellaneous articles and -notes until, becoming convinced that he could not do justice to such -ability for better work which he might possess amidst the grinding -routine of newspaper scribbling, he gave up his post and applied himself -to more serious writing, contributing to the "Strand," and other -magazines and reviews. About this time he began the series which is now -gathered under the common title "Tales of Mean Streets." On its recent -publication in England it was received with instant recognition as a -book of extraordinary merit, and it has met with signal success. Some -idea of the strong impression which it has made in England may be -gathered from Mr. Arthur Waugh's warm tribute to the author's -distinction in a recent letter to the "Critic." "He deals exclusively," -writes Mr. Waugh, "with life in the East End of London, and he does so -with a fearlessness and originality which are of more value than many -sermons. I do not know whether his book is published in America; but if -so, I strongly advise every reader of this letter to secure it. Those -who do so will learn from its pages more of the degradation and misery -of a certain side of London life than they could in many weeks of -philanthropic 'slumming.' Mr. Morrison's will be a name to conjure with -in another season." - -Mr. Arthur Morrison is but thirty-one, and has just stepped on to the -threshold of literary fame as a writer of decided promise and strength. -He has only broken ground as yet in the field which has brought him his -spurs, and is at present contemplating a longer story of East End life. -The number of those who have attempted to write familiarly of the seamy -side of our great cities from close observation and laborious study of -its life in a first-hand fashion is so small that it is easy to believe -that the author of "Tales of Mean Streets," possessing as he does the -prime qualities of a novelist, has a future before him in an -unprecedented form of literature. - -JAMES MACARTHUR. - -NEW YORK, March 2, 1895. - - - - -INTRODUCTION. - -A STREET. - - -This street is in the East End. There is no need to say in the East End -of what. The East End is a vast city, as famous in its way as any the -hand of man has made. But who knows the East End? It is down through -Cornhill and out beyond Leadenhall Street and Aldgate Pump, one will -say: a shocking place, where he once went with a curate; an evil plexus -of slums that hide human creeping things, where filthy men and women -live on penn'orths of gin, where collars and clean shirts are decencies -unknown, where every citizen wears a black eye, and none ever combs his -hair. The East End is a place, says another, which is given over to the -Unemployed. And the Unemployed is a race whose token is a clay pipe, and -whose enemy is soap: now and again it migrates bodily to Hyde Park with -banners, and furnishes adjacent police courts with disorderly drunks. -Still another knows the East End only as the place whence begging -letters come; there are coal and blanket funds there, all perennially -insolvent, and everybody always wants a day in the country. Many and -misty are people's notions of the East End; and each is commonly but the -distorted shadow of a minor feature. Foul slums there are in the East -End, of course, as there are in the West; want and misery there are, as -wherever a host is gathered together to fight for food. But they are not -often spectacular in kind. - -Of this street there are about one hundred and fifty yards--on the same -pattern all. It is not pretty to look at. A dingy little brick house -twenty feet high, with three square holes to carry the windows, and an -oblong hole to carry the door, is not a pleasing object; and each side -of this street is formed by two or three score of such houses in a row, -with one front wall in common. And the effect is as of stables. - -Round the corner there are a baker's, a chandler's, and a beer-shop. -They are not included in the view from any of the rectangular holes; but -they are well known to every denizen, and the chandler goes to church on -Sunday and pays for his seat. At the opposite end, turnings lead to -streets less rigidly respectable: some where "Mangling done here" -stares from windows, and where doors are left carelessly open; others -where squalid women sit on doorsteps, and girls go to factories in white -aprons. Many such turnings, of as many grades of decency, are set -between this and the nearest slum. - -They are not a very noisy or obtrusive lot in this street. They do not -go to Hyde Park with banners, and they seldom fight. It is just possible -that one or two among them, at some point in a life of ups and downs, -may have been indebted to a coal and blanket fund; but whosoever these -may be, they would rather die than publish the disgrace, and it is -probable that they very nearly did so ere submitting to it. - -Some who inhabit this street are in the docks, some in the gasworks, -some in one or other of the few shipbuilding yards that yet survive on -the Thames. Two families in a house is the general rule, for there are -six rooms behind each set of holes: this, unless "young men lodgers" are -taken in, or there are grown sons paying for bed and board. As for the -grown daughters, they marry as soon as may be. Domestic service is a -social descent, and little under millinery and dressmaking is compatible -with self-respect. The general servant may be caught young among the -turnings at the end where mangling is done; and the factory girls live -still further off, in places skirting slums. - -Every morning at half-past five there is a curious demonstration. The -street resounds with thunderous knockings, repeated upon door after -door, and acknowledged ever by a muffled shout from within. These -signals are the work of the night-watchman or the early policeman, or -both, and they summon the sleepers to go forth to the docks, the -gasworks, and the ship-yards. To be awakened in this wise costs -fourpence a week, and for this fourpence a fierce rivalry rages between -night-watchmen and policemen. The night-watchman--a sort of by-blow of -the ancient "Charley," and himself a fast vanishing quantity--is the -real professional performer; but he goes to the wall, because a large -connection must be worked if the pursuit is to pay at fourpence a -knocker. Now, it is not easy to bang at two knockers three-quarters of a -mile apart, and a hundred others lying between, all punctually at -half-past five. Wherefore the policeman, to whom the fourpence is but a -perquisite, and who is content with a smaller round, is rapidly -supplanting the night-watchman, whose cry of "Past nine o'clock," as he -collects orders in the evening, is now seldom heard. - -The knocking and the shouting pass, and there comes the noise of -opening and shutting of doors, and a clattering away to the docks, the -gasworks and the ship-yards. Later more door-shutting is heard, and then -the trotting of sorrow-laden little feet along the grim street to the -grim Board School three grim streets off. Then silence, save for a -subdued sound of scrubbing here and there, and the puny squall of croupy -infants. After this, a new trotting of little feet to docks, gasworks, -and ship-yards with father's dinner in a basin and a red handkerchief, -and so to the Board School again. More muffled scrubbing and more -squalling, and perhaps a feeble attempt or two at decorating the -blankness of a square hole here and there by pouring water into a grimy -flower-pot full of dirt. Then comes the trot of little feet toward the -oblong holes, heralding the slower tread of sooty artisans; a smell of -bloater up and down; nightfall; the fighting of boys in the street, -perhaps of men at the corner near the beer-shop; sleep. And this is the -record of a day in this street; and every day is hopelessly the same. - -Every day, that is, but Sunday. On Sunday morning a smell of cooking -floats round the corner from the half-shut baker's, and the little feet -trot down the street under steaming burdens of beef, potatoes, and -batter pudding--the lucky little feet these, with Sunday boots on them, -when father is in good work and has brought home all his money; not the -poor little feet in worn shoes, carrying little bodies in the threadbare -clothes of all the week, when father is out of work, or ill, or drunk, -and the Sunday cooking may very easily be done at home,--if any there be -to do. - -On Sunday morning one or two heads of families appear in wonderful black -suits, with unnumbered creases and wrinklings at the seams. At their -sides and about their heels trot the unresting little feet, and from -under painful little velvet caps and straw hats stare solemn little -faces towelled to a polish. Thus disposed and arrayed, they fare gravely -through the grim little streets to a grim Little Bethel where are -gathered together others in like garb and attendance; and for two hours -they endure the frantic menace of hell-fire. - -Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and trousers on their beds and -read the Sunday paper; while some are driven forth--for they hinder the -housework--to loaf, and await the opening of the beer-shop round the -corner. Thus goes Sunday in this street, and every Sunday is the same as -every other Sunday, so that one monotony is broken with another. For the -women, however, Sunday is much as other days, except that there is -rather more work for them. The break in their round of the week is -washing day. - -No event in the outer world makes any impression in this street. Nations -may rise, or may totter in ruin; but here the colorless day will work -through its twenty-four hours just as it did yesterday, and just as it -will to-morrow. Without there may be party strife, wars and rumors of -wars, public rejoicings; but the trotting of the little feet will be -neither quickened nor stayed. Those quaint little women, the -girl-children of this street, who use a motherly management toward all -girl-things younger than themselves, and toward all boys as old or -older, with "Bless the child!" or "Drat the children!"--those quaint -little women will still go marketing with big baskets, and will regard -the price of bacon as chief among human considerations. Nothing disturbs -this street--nothing but a strike. - -Nobody laughs here--life is too serious a thing; nobody sings. There was -once a woman who sang--a young wife from the country. But she bore -children, and her voice cracked. Then her man died, and she sang no -more. They took away her home, and with her children about her skirts -she left this street forever. The other women did not think much of her. -She was "helpless." - -One of the square holes in this street--one of the single, ground-floor -holes--is found, on individual examination, to differ from the others. -There has been an attempt to make it into a shop-window. Half a dozen -candles, a few sickly sugar-sticks, certain shrivelled bloaters, some -bootlaces, and a bundle or two of firewood compose a stock which at -night is sometimes lighted by a little paraffine lamp in a tin sconce, -and sometimes by a candle. A widow lives here--a gaunt, bony widow, with -sunken, red eyes. She has other sources of income than the candles and -the bootlaces: she washes and chars all day, and she sews cheap shirts -at night. Two "young men lodgers," moreover, sleep upstairs, and the -children sleep in the back room; she herself is supposed not to sleep at -all. The policeman does not knock here in the morning--the widow wakes -the lodgers herself; and nobody in the street behind ever looks out of -window before going to bed, no matter how late, without seeing a light -in the widow's room where she plies her needle. She is a quiet woman, -who speaks little with her neighbors, having other things to do: a woman -of pronounced character, to whom it would be unadvisable--even -dangerous--to offer coals or blankets. Hers was the strongest contempt -for the helpless woman who sang: a contempt whose added bitterness -might be traced to its source. For when the singing woman was marketing, -from which door of the pawnshop had she twice met the widow coming -forth? - -This is not a dirty street, taken as a whole. The widow's house is one -of the cleanest, and the widow's children match the house. The one house -cleaner than the widow's is ruled by a despotic Scotchwoman, who drives -every hawker off her whitened step, and rubs her door handle if a hand -have rested on it. The Scotchwoman has made several attempts to -accommodate "young men lodgers," but they have ended in shrill rows. - -There is no house without children in this street, and the number of -them grows ever and ever greater. Nine-tenths of the doctor's visits are -on this account alone, and his appearances are the chief matter of such -conversation as the women make across the fences. One after another the -little strangers come, to live through lives as flat and colorless as -the day's life in this street. Existence dawns, and the -doctor-watchman's door knock resounds along the row of rectangular -holes. Then a muffled cry announces that a small new being has come to -trudge and sweat its way in the appointed groove. Later, the trotting of -little feet and the school; the midday play hour, when love peeps even -into this street; after that more trotting of little feet--strange -little feet, new little feet--and the scrubbing, and the squalling, and -the barren flower-pot; the end of the sooty day's work; the last -home-coming; nightfall; sleep. - -When love's light falls into some corner of the street, it falls at an -early hour of this mean life, and is itself but a dusty ray. It falls -early, because it is the sole bright thing which the street sees, and is -watched for and counted on. Lads and lasses, awkwardly arm in arm, go -pacing up and down this street, before the natural interest in marbles -and doll's houses would have left them in a brighter place. They are -"keeping company"; the manner of which proceeding is indigenous--is a -custom native to the place. The young people first "walk out" in pairs. -There is no exchange of promises, no troth-plight, no engagement, no -love-talk. They patrol the street side by side, usually in silence, -sometimes with fatuous chatter. There are no dances, no tennis, no -water-parties, no picnics to bring them together: so they must walk out, -or be unacquainted. If two of them grow dissatisfied with each other's -company, nothing is easier than to separate and walk out with somebody -else. When by these means each has found a fit mate (or thinks so), a -ring is bought, and the odd association becomes a regular engagement; -but this is not until the walking out has endured for many months. The -two stages of courtship are spoken of indiscriminately as "keeping -company," but a very careful distinction is drawn between them by the -parties concerned. Nevertheless, in the walking out period it would be -almost as great a breach of faith for either to walk out with more than -one, as it would be if the full engagement had been made. And -love-making in this street is a dreary thing, when one thinks of -love-making in other places. It begins--and it ends--too soon. - -Nobody from this street goes to the theatre. That would mean a long -journey, and it would cost money which might buy bread and beer and -boots. For those, too, who wear black Sunday suits it would be sinful. -Nobody reads poetry or romance. The very words are foreign. A Sunday -paper in some few houses provides such reading as this street is -disposed to achieve. Now and again a penny novel has been found among -the private treasures of a growing daughter, and has been wrathfully -confiscated. For the air of this street is unfavorable to the ideal. - -Yet there are aspirations. There has lately come into the street a young -man lodger who belongs to a Mutual Improvement Society. Membership in -this society is regarded as a sort of learned degree, and at its -meetings debates are held and papers smugly read by lamentably -self-satisfied young men lodgers, whose only preparation for debating -and writing is a fathomless ignorance. For ignorance is the inevitable -portion of dwellers here: seeing nothing, reading nothing, and -considering nothing. - -Where in the East End lies this street? Everywhere. The hundred and -fifty yards is only a link in a long and a mightily tangled chain--is -only a turn in a tortuous maze. This street of the square holes is -hundreds of miles long. That it is planned in short lengths is true, but -there is no other way in the world that can more properly be called a -single street, because of its dismal lack of accent, its sordid -uniformity, its utter remoteness from delight. - - - - -LIZERUNT. - - - - -I. - -LIZER'S WOOING. - - -Somewhere in the register was written the name Elizabeth Hunt; but -seventeen years after the entry the spoken name was Lizerunt. Lizerunt -worked at a pickle factory, and appeared abroad in an elaborate and -shabby costume, usually supplemented by a white apron. Withal she was -something of a beauty. That is to say, her cheeks were very red, her -teeth were very large and white, her nose was small and snub, and her -fringe was long and shiny; while her face, new-washed, was susceptible -of a high polish. Many such girls are married at sixteen, but Lizerunt -was belated, and had never a bloke at all. - -Billy Chope was a year older than Lizerunt. He wore a billycock with a -thin brim and a permanent dent in the crown; he had a bobtail coat, with -the collar turned up at one side and down at the other, as an expression -of independence; between his meals he carried his hands in his breeches -pockets; and he lived with his mother, who mangled. His conversation -with Lizerunt consisted long of perfunctory nods; but great things -happened this especial Thursday evening, as Lizerunt, making for home, -followed the fading red beyond the furthermost end of Commercial Road. -For Billy Chope, slouching in the opposite direction, lurched across the -pavement as they met, and, taking the nearer hand from his pocket, -caught and twisted her arm, bumping her against the wall. - -"Garn," said Lizerunt, greatly pleased: "le' go!" For she knew that this -was love. - -"Where yer auf to, Lizer?" - -"'Ome, o' course, cheeky. Le' go;" and she snatched--in vain--at Billy's -hat. - -Billy let go, and capered in front of her. She feigned to dodge by him, -careful not to be too quick, because affairs were developing. - -"I say, Lizer," said Billy, stopping his dance and becoming -business-like, "goin' anywhere Monday?" - -"Not along o' you, cheeky; you go 'long o' Beller Dawson, like wot you -did Easter." - -"Blow Beller Dawson; _she_ ain't no good. I'm goin' on the Flats. Come?" - -Lizerunt, delighted but derisive, ended with a promise to "see." The -bloke had come at last, and she walked home with the feeling of having -taken her degree. She had half assured herself of it two days before, -when Sam Cardew threw an orange peel at her, but went away after a -little prancing on the pavement. Sam was a smarter fellow than Billy, -and earned his own living; probably his attentions were serious; but one -must prefer the bird in hand. As for Billy Chope, he went his way, -resolved himself to take home what mangling he should find his mother -had finished, and stick to the money; also, to get all he could from her -by blandishing and bullying, that the jaunt to Wanstead Flats might be -adequately done. - - -There is no other fair like Whit Monday's on Wanstead Flats. Here is a -square mile and more of open land where you may howl at large; here is -no danger of losing yourself, as in Epping Forest; the public houses are -always with you; shows, shies, swings, merry-go-rounds, fried fish -stalls, donkeys, are packed closer than on Hampstead Heath; the ladies' -tormentors are larger, and their contents smell worse, than at any other -fair. Also, you may be drunk and disorderly without being locked -up,--for the stations won't hold everybody,--and when all else has -palled, you may set fire to the turf. Hereinto Billy and Lizerunt -projected themselves from the doors of the Holly Tree on Whit Monday -morning. But through hours on hours of fried fish and half-pints both -were conscious of a deficiency. For the hat of Lizerunt was brown and -old; plush it was not, and its feather was a mere foot long, and of a -very rusty black. Now, it is not decent for a factory girl from -Limehouse to go bank-holidaying under any but a hat of plush, very high -in the crown, of a wild blue or a wilder green, and carrying withal an -ostrich feather, pink or scarlet or what not; a feather that springs -from the fore part, climbs the crown, and drops as far down the -shoulders as may be. Lizerunt knew this, and, had she had no bloke, -would have stayed at home. But a chance is a chance. As it was, only -another such hapless girl could measure her bitter envy of the feathers -about her, or would so joyfully have given an ear for the proper -splendor. Billy, too, had a vague impression, muddled by but not drowned -in half-pints, that some degree of plush was condign to the occasion and -to his own expenditure. Still, there was no quarrel; and the pair walked -and ran with arms about each other's necks; and Lizerunt thumped her -bloke on the back at proper intervals; so that the affair went regularly -on the whole: although, in view of Lizerunt's shortcomings, Billy did -not insist on the customary exchange of hats. Everything, I say, went -well and well enough until Billy bought a ladies' tormentor and began to -squirt it at Lizerunt. For then Lizerunt went scampering madly, with -piercing shrieks, until her bloke was left some little way behind, and -Sam Cardew, turning up at that moment and seeing her running alone in -the crowd, threw his arms about her waist and swung her round him again -and again, as he floundered gallantly this way and that, among the shies -and the hokey-pokey barrows. - -"'Ulloo, Lizer! Where _are_ y' a-comin' to? If I 'adn't laid 'old o' -ye--!" But here Billy Chope arrived to demand what the 'ell Sam Cardew -was doing with his gal. Now Sam was ever readier for a fight than Billy -was; but the sum of Billy's half-pints was large: wherefore the fight -began. On the skirt of an hilarious ring Lizerunt, after some small -outcry, triumphed aloud. Four days before, she had no bloke; and here -she stood with two, and those two fighting for her! Here in the public -gaze, on the Flats! For almost five minutes she was Helen of Troy. - -And in much less time Billy tasted repentance. The haze of half-pints -was dispelled, and some teeth went with it. Presently, whimpering and -with a bloody muzzle, he rose and made a running kick at the other. -Then, being thwarted in a bolt, he flung himself down; and it was like -to go hard with him at the hands of the crowd. Punch you may on Wanstead -Flats, but execration and worse is your portion if you kick anybody -except your wife. But, as the ring closed, the helmets of two policemen -were seen to be working in over the surrounding heads, and Sam Cardew, -quickly assuming his coat, turned away with such an air of blamelessness -as is practicable with a damaged eye; while Billy went off unheeded in -an opposite direction. - -Lizerunt and her new bloke went the routine of half-pints and -merry-go-rounds, and were soon on right thumping terms; and Lizerunt was -as well satisfied with the issue as she was proud of the adventure. -Billy was all very well; but Sam was better. She resolved to draw him -for a feathered hat before next bank holiday. So the sun went down on -her and her bloke hanging on each other's necks and straggling toward -the Romford Road with shouts and choruses. The rest was tram-car, Bow -Music Hall, half-pints, and darkness. - - -Billy took home his wounds, and his mother, having moved his wrath by -asking their origin, sought refuge with a neighbor. He accomplished his -revenge in two instalments. Two nights later Lizerunt was going with a -jug of beer; when somebody sprang from a dark corner, landed her under -the ear, knocked her sprawling, and made off to the sound of her -lamentations. She did not see who it was, but she knew; and next day Sam -Cardew was swearing he'd break Billy's back. He did not, however, for -that same evening a gang of seven or eight fell on him with sticks and -belts. (They were Causeway chaps, while Sam was a Brady's Laner, which -would have been reason enough by itself, even if Billy Chope had not -been one of them.) Sam did his best for a burst through and a run, but -they pulled and battered him down; and they kicked him about the head, -and they kicked him about the belly; and they took to their heels when -he was speechless and still. - -He lay at home for near four weeks, and when he stood up again it was in -many bandages. Lizerunt came often to his bedside, and twice she brought -an orange. On these occasions there was much talk of vengeance. But the -weeks went on. It was a month since Sam had left his bed; and Lizerunt -was getting a little tired of bandages. Also, she had begun to doubt and -to consider bank holiday--scarce a fortnight off. For Sam was -stone-broke, and a plush hat was further away than ever. And all -through the later of these weeks Billy Chope was harder than ever on his -mother, and she, well knowing that if he helped her by taking home he -would pocket the money at the other end, had taken to finishing and -delivering in his absence, and, threats failing to get at the money, -Billy Chope was impelled to punch her head and gripe her by the throat. - - -There was a milliner's window, with a show of nothing but fashionable -plush-and-feather hats, and Lizerunt was lingering hereabouts one -evening, when some one took her by the waist, and some one said, "Which -d'yer like, Lizer?--The yuller un?" - -Lizerunt turned and saw that it was Billy. She pulled herself away, and -backed off, sullen and distrustful. "Garn," she said. - -"Straight," said Billy, "I'll sport yer one.--No kid, I will." - -"Garn," said Lizerunt once more. "Wot yer gittin' at now?" - -But presently, being convinced that bashing wasn't in it, she approached -less guardedly; and she went away with a paper bag and the reddest of -all the plushes and the bluest of all the feathers; a hat that -challenged all the Flats the next bank holiday, a hat for which no girl -need have hesitated to sell her soul. As for Billy, why, he was as good -as another; and you can't have everything; and Sam Cardew, with his -bandages and his grunts and groans, was no great catch after all. - -This was the wooing of Lizerunt: for in a few months she and Billy -married under the blessing of a benignant rector, who periodically set -aside a day for free weddings, and, on principle, encouraged early -matrimony. And they lived with Billy's mother. - - - - -II. - -LIZER'S FIRST. - - -When Billy Chope married Lizerunt there was a small rejoicing. There was -no wedding-party; because it was considered that what there might be to -drink would be better in the family. Lizerunt's father was not, and her -mother felt no interest in the affair; not having seen her daughter for -a year, and happening, at the time, to have a month's engagement in -respect of a drunk and disorderly. So that there were but three of them; -and Billy Chope got exceedingly tipsy early in the day; and in the -evening his bride bawled a continual chorus, while his mother, -influenced by that unwonted quartern of gin the occasion sanctioned, -wept dismally over her boy, who was much too far gone to resent it. - -His was the chief reason for rejoicing. For Lizerunt had always been -able to extract ten shillings a week from the pickle factory, and it was -to be presumed that as Lizer Chope her earning capacity would not -diminish; and the wages would make a very respectable addition to the -precarious revenue, depending on the mangle, that Billy extorted from -his mother. As for Lizer, she was married. That was the considerable -thing; for she was but a few months short of eighteen, and that, as you -know, is a little late. - -Of course there were quarrels very soon; for the new Mrs. Chope, less -submissive at first than her mother-in-law, took a little breaking in, -and a liberal renewal of the manual treatment once applied in her -courting days. But the quarrels between the women were comforting to -Billy: a diversion and a source of better service. - -As soon as might be, Lizer took the way of womankind. This circumstance -brought an unexpected half-crown from the evangelical rector who had -married the couple gratis; for recognizing Billy in the street by -accident, and being told of Mrs. Chope's prospects, as well as that -Billy was out of work (a fact undeniable), he reflected that his -principles did on occasion lead to discomfort of a material sort. And -Billy, to whose comprehension the half-crown opened a new field of -receipt, would doubtless have long remained a client of the rector, had -not that zealot hastened to discover a vacancy for a warehouse porter, -the offer of presentation whereunto alienated Billy Chope forever. But -there were meetings and demonstrations of the Unemployed; and it was -said that shillings had been given away; and, as being at a meeting in a -street was at least as amusing as being in a street where there was no -meeting, Billy often went, on the off chance. But his lot was chiefly -disappointment: wherefore he became more especially careful to furnish -himself ere he left home. - -For certain weeks cash came less freely than ever from the two women. -Lizer spoke of providing for the necessities of the expected child: a -manifestly absurd procedure, as Billy pointed out, since, if they were -unable to clothe or feed it, the duty would fall on its grandmother. -That was law, and nobody could get over it. But even with this argument, -a shilling cost him many more demands and threats than it had used, and -a deal more general trouble. - -At last Lizer ceased from going to the pickle factory, and could not -even help Billy's mother at the mangle for long. This lasted for near a -week, when Billy, rising at ten with a bad mouth, resolved to stand no -nonsense, and demanded two shillings. - -"Two bob? Wot for?" Lizer asked. - -"'Cos I want it. None o' yer lip." - -"Ain't got it," said Lizer sulkily. - -"That's a bleed'n' lie." - -"Lie yerself." - -"I'll break y' in 'arves, ye blasted 'eifer!" He ran at her throat and -forced her back over a chair. "I'll pull yer face auf! If y' don't give -me the money, gawblimy, I'll do for ye!" - -Lizer strained and squalled. "Le' go! You'll kill me an' the kid too!" -she grunted hoarsely. Billy's mother ran in and threw her arms about -him, dragging him away. "Don't, Billy," she said, in terror. "Don't, -Billy--not now! You'll get in trouble. Come away! She might go auf, an' -you'd get in trouble!" - -Billy Chope flung his wife over and turned to his mother. "Take yer -'ands auf me," he said: "go on, or I'll gi' ye somethin' for yerself." -And he punched her in the breast by way of illustration. - -"You shall 'ave what I've got, Billy, if it's money," the mother said. -"But don't go an' git yerself in trouble, don't. Will a shillin' do?" - -"No, it won't. Think I'm a bloomin' kid? I mean 'avin' two bob this -mornin'." - -"I was a-keepin' it for the rent, Billy, but--" - -"Yus; think o' the bleed'n' lan'lord 'fore me, doncher?" And he pocketed -the two shillings. "I ain't settled with you yut, my gal," he added to -Lizer; "mikin' about at 'ome an' 'idin' money. You wait a bit." - -Lizer had climbed into an erect position, and, gravid and slow, had got -as far as the passage. Mistaking this for a safe distance, she replied -with defiant railings. Billy made for her with a kick that laid her on -the lower stairs, and, swinging his legs round his mother as she -obstructed him, entreating him not to get in trouble, he attempted to -kick again in a more telling spot. But a movement among the family -upstairs and a tap at the door hinted of interference, and he took -himself off. - -Lizer lay doubled upon the stairs, howling: but her only articulate cry -was, "Gawd 'elp me, it's comin'!" - -Billy went to the meeting of the Unemployed, and cheered a proposal to -storm the Tower of London. But he did not join the procession following -a man with a handkerchief on a stick, who promised destruction to every -policeman in his path: for he knew the fate of such processions. With a -few others, he hung about the nearest tavern for a while, on the chance -of the advent of a flush sailor from St. Katharine's, disposed to treat -out-o'-workers. Then he went alone to a quieter beer-house and took a -pint or two at his own expense. A glance down the music-hall bills -hanging in the bar having given him a notion for the evening, he -bethought himself of dinner, and made for home. - -The front door was open, and in the first room, where the mangle stood, -there were no signs of dinner. And this was at three o'clock! Billy -pushed into the room behind, demanding why. - -"Billy," Lizer said faintly from her bed, "look at the baby!" - -Something was moving feebly under a flannel petticoat. Billy pulled the -petticoat aside, and said, "That? Well, it _is_ a measly snipe." It was -a blind, hairless homunculus, short of a foot long, with a skinny face -set in a great skull. There was a black bruise on one side from hip to -armpit. Billy dropped the petticoat and said, "Where's my dinner?" - -"I dunno," Lizer responded hazily. "Wot's the time?" - -"Time? Don't try to kid me. You git up; go on. I want my dinner." - -"Mother's gittin' it, I think," said Lizer. "Doctor had to slap 'im like -anythink 'fore 'e'd cry. 'E don't cry now much. 'E--" - -"Go on; out ye git. I do' want no more damn jaw. Git my dinner." - -"I'm a-gittin' of it, Billy," his mother said, at the door. She had -begun when he first entered. "It won't be a minute." - -"You come 'ere; y' ain't alwis s' ready to do 'er work, are ye? She -ain't no call to stop there no longer, an' I owe 'er one for this -mornin'. Will ye git out, or shall I kick ye?" - -"She can't, Billy," his mother said. And Lizer snivelled and said, -"You're a damn brute. Y' ought to be bleedin' well booted." - -But Billy had her by the shoulders and began to haul; and again his -mother besought him to remember what he might bring upon himself. At -this moment the doctor's dispenser, a fourth-year London Hospital -student of many inches, who had been washing his hands in the kitchen, -came in. For a moment he failed to comprehend the scene. Then he took -Billy Chope by the collar, hauled him pell-mell along the passage, -kicked him (hard) into the gutter, and shut the door. - -When he returned to the room, Lizer, sitting up and holding on by the -bed-frame, gasped hysterically: "Ye bleedin' makeshift, I'd 'ave yer -liver out if I could reach ye! You touch my 'usband, ye long pisenin' -'ound you! Ow!" And, infirm of aim, she flung a cracked teacup at his -head. Billy's mother said, "Y' ought to be ashamed of yourself, you low -blaggard. If 'is father was alive 'e'd knock yer 'ead auf. Call yourself -a doctor--a passel o' boys!--Git out! Go out o' my 'ouse, or I'll give -y' in charge!" - -"But--why, hang it, he'd have killed her." Then to Lizer, "Lie down." - -"Sha'n't lay down. Keep auf! if you come near me I'll corpse ye. You go -while ye're safe!" - -The dispenser appealed to Billy's mother. "For God's sake make her lie -down. She'll kill herself. I'll go. Perhaps the doctor had better come." -And he went: leaving the coast clear for Billy Chope to return and -avenge his kicking. - - - - -III. - -A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. - - -Lizer was some months short of twenty-one when her third child was born. -The pickle factory had discarded her some time before, and since that -her trade had consisted in odd jobs of charing. Odd jobs of charing have -a shade the better of a pickle factory in the matter of respectability, -but they are precarious, and they are worse paid at that. In the East -End they are sporadic and few. Moreover, it is in the household where -paid help is a rarity that the bitterness of servitude is felt. Also, -the uncertainty and irregularity of the returns were a trouble to Billy -Chope. He was never sure of having got them all. It might be ninepence, -or a shilling, or eighteenpence. Once or twice, to his knowledge, it had -been half-a-crown, from a chance job at a doctor's or a parson's, and -once it was three shillings. That it might be half-a-crown or three -shillings again, and that some of it was being kept back, was ever the -suspicion evoked by Lizer's evening homing. Plainly, with these -fluctuating and uncertain revenues, more bashing than ever was needed to -insure the extraction of the last copper; empty-handedness called for -bashing on its own account; so that it was often Lizer's hap to be -refused a job because of a black eye. - -Lizer's self was scarcely what it had been. The red of her cheeks, once -bounded only by the eyes and the mouth, had shrunk to a spot in the -depth of each hollow; gaps had been driven in her big white teeth; even -the snub nose had run to a point, and the fringe hung dry and ragged, -while the bodily outline was as a sack's. At home, the children lay in -her arms or tumbled at her heels, puling and foul. Whenever she was near -it, there was the mangle to be turned; for lately Billy's mother had -exhibited a strange weakness, sometimes collapsing with a gasp in the -act of brisk or prolonged exertion, and often leaning on whatever stood -hard by and grasping at her side. This ailment she treated, when she had -twopence, in such terms as made her smell of gin and peppermint; and -more than once this circumstance had inflamed the breast of Billy her -son, who was morally angered by this boozing away of money that was -really his. - -Lizer's youngest, being seven or eight months old, was mostly taking -care of itself, when Billy made a welcome discovery after a hard and -pinching day. The night was full of blinding wet, and the rain beat on -the window as on a drum. Billy sat over a small fire in the front room -smoking his pipe, while his mother folded clothes for delivery. He -stamped twice on the hearth, and then, drawing off his boot, he felt -inside it. It was a nail. The poker-head made a good anvil, and, looking -about for a hammer, Billy bethought him of a brick from the mangle. He -rose, and, lifting the lid of the weight-box, groped about among the -clinkers and the other ballast till he came upon a small but rather -heavy paper parcel. "'Ere--wot's this?" he said, and pulled it out. - -His mother, whose back had been turned, hastened across the room, hand -to breast (it had got to be her habit). "What is it, Billy?" she said. -"Not that: there's nothing there. I'll get anything you want, Billy." -And she made a nervous catch at the screw of paper. But Billy fended her -off, and tore the package open. It was money, arranged in little columns -of farthings, halfpence, and threepenny pieces, with a few sixpences, a -shilling or two, and a single half-sovereign. "O," said Billy, "this is -the game, is it?--'idin' money in the mangle! Got any more?" And he -hastily turned the brickbats. - -"No, Billy, don't take that--don't!" implored his mother. "There'll be -some money for them things when they go 'ome--'ave that. I'm savin' it, -Billy, for something partic'ler: s'elp me Gawd, I am, Billy." - -"Yus," replied Billy, raking diligently among the clinkers, "savin' it -for a good ol' booze. An' now you won't 'ave one. Bleedin' nice thing, -'idin' money away from yer own son!" - -"It ain't for that, Billy--s'elp me, it ain't; it's case anythink -'appens to me. On'y to put me away decent, Billy, that's all. We never -know, an' you'll be glad of it t'elp bury me if I should go any time--" - -"I'll be glad of it now," answered Billy, who had it in his pocket; "an' -I've got it. You ain't a dyin' sort, _you_ ain't; an' if you was, the -parish 'ud soon tuck _you_ up. P'raps you'll be straighter about money -after this." - -"Let me 'ave _some_, then,--you can't want it all. Give me some, an' -then 'ave the money for the things. There's ten dozen and seven, and you -can take 'em yerself if ye like." - -"Wot--in this 'ere rain? Not me! I bet I'd 'ave the money if I wanted it -without that. 'Ere--change these 'ere fardens at the draper's wen you go -out: there's two bob's worth an' a penn'orth; I don't want to bust my -pockets wi' them." - -While they spoke Lizer had come in from the back room. But she said -nothing: she rather busied herself with a child she had in her arms. -When Billy's mother, despondent and tearful, had tramped out into the -rain with a pile of clothes in an oilcloth wrapper, she said sulkily, -without looking up, "You might 'a' let 'er kep' that; you git all you -want." - -At another time this remonstrance would have provoked active -hostilities; but now, with the money about him, Billy was complacently -disposed. "You shutcher 'ead," he said, "I got this, any'ow. She can -make it up out o' my rent if she likes." This last remark was a joke, -and he chuckled as he made it. For Billy's rent was a simple fiction, -devised, on the suggestion of a smart canvasser, to give him a -parliamentary vote. - -That night Billy and Lizer slept, as usual, in the bed in the back room, -where the two younger children also were. Billy's mother made a bedstead -nightly with three chairs and an old trunk in the front room by the -mangle, and the eldest child lay in a floor-bed near her. Early in the -morning Lizer awoke at a sudden outcry of the little creature. He clawed -at the handle till he opened the door, and came staggering and tumbling -into the room with screams of terror. "Wring 'is blasted neck," his -father grunted sleepily. "Wot's the kid 'owlin' for?" - -"I's 'f'aid o' g'anny--I's 'f'aid o' g'anny!" was all the child could -say; and when he had said it, he fell to screaming once more. - -Lizer rose and went to the next room; and straightway came a scream from -her also. "O--O--Billy! Billy! O my Gawd! Billy, come 'ere!" - -And Billy, fully startled, followed in Lizer's wake. He blundered in, -rubbing his eyes, and saw. - -Stark on her back in the huddled bed of old wrappers and shawls lay his -mother. The outline of her poor face--strained in an upward stare of -painful surprise--stood sharp and meagre against the black of the grate -beyond. But the muddy old skin was white, and looked cleaner than its -wont, and many of the wrinkles were gone. - -Billy Chope, half-way across the floor, recoiled from the corpse, and -glared at it pallidly from the doorway. - -"Good Gawd!" he croaked faintly, "is she dead?" - -Seized by a fit of shuddering breaths, Lizer sank on the floor, and, -with her head across the body, presently broke into a storm of -hysterical blubbering, while Billy, white and dazed, dressed hurriedly -and got out of the house. He was at home as little as might be until the -coroner's officer carried away the body two days later. When he came -for his meals, he sat doubtful and querulous in the matter of the front -room door's being shut. The dead once clear away, however, he resumed -his faculties, and clearly saw that here was a bad change for the worse. -There was the mangle, but who was to work it? If Lizer did, there would -be no more charing jobs--a clear loss of one-third of his income. And it -was not at all certain that the people who had given their mangling to -his mother would give it to Lizer. Indeed, it was pretty sure that many -would not, because mangling is a thing given by preference to widows, -and many widows of the neighborhood were perpetually competing for it. -Widows, moreover, had the first call in most odd jobs whereunto Lizer -might turn her hand: an injustice whereon Billy meditated with -bitterness. - -The inquest was formal and unremarked, the medical officer having no -difficulty in certifying a natural death from heart disease. The bright -idea of a collection among the jury, which Billy communicated, with -pitiful representations, to the coroner's officer, was brutally swept -aside by that functionary, made cunning by much experience. So the -inquest brought him nought save disappointment and a sense of injury.... - -The mangling orders fell away as suddenly and completely as he had -feared: they were duly absorbed among the local widows. Neglect the -children as Lizer might, she could no longer leave them as she had done. -Things, then, were bad with Billy, and neither threats nor thumps could -evoke a shilling now. - -It was more than Billy could bear: so that, "'Ere," he said one night, -"I've 'ad enough o' this. You go and get some money; go on." - -"Go an' git it?" replied Lizer. "O yus. That's easy, ain't it? 'Go an' -git it,' says you. 'Ow?" - -"Any'ow--I don't care. Go on." - -"Wy," replied Lizer, looking up with wide eyes, "d'ye think I can go an' -pick it up in the street?" - -"Course you can. Plenty others does, don't they?" - -"Gawd, Billy ... wot d'ye mean?" - -"Wot I say; plenty others does it. Go on--you ain't so bleed'n' innocent -as all that. Go an' see Sam Cardew. Go on--'ook it." - -Lizer, who had been kneeling at the child's floor-bed, rose to her feet, -pale-faced and bright of eye. - -"Stow kiddin', Billy," she said. "You don't mean that. I'll go round to -the fact'ry in the mornin': p'raps they'll take me on temp'ry." - -"Damn the fact'ry." - -He pushed her into the passage. "Go on--you git me some money, if ye -don't want yer bleed'n' 'ead knocked auf." - -There was a scuffle in the dark passage, with certain blows, a few -broken words, and a sob. Then the door slammed, and Lizer Chope was in -the windy street. - - - - -WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS. - - -All East London idled, or walked in a procession, or waylaid and bashed, -or cried in an empty kitchen: for it was the autumn of the Great -Strikes. One army of men, having been prepared, was ordered to -strike--and struck. Other smaller armies of men, with no preparation, -were ordered to strike to express sympathy--and struck. Other armies -still were ordered to strike because it was the fashion--and struck. -Then many hands were discharged because the strikes in other trades left -them no work. Many others came from other parts in regiments to work, -but remained to loaf in gangs: taught by the example of earlier -regiments, which, the situation being explained (an expression devised -to include mobbings and kickings and flingings into docks), had returned -whence they came. So that East London was very noisy and largely hungry; -and the rest of the world looked on with intense interest, making -earnest suggestions, and comprehending nothing. Lots of strikers, having -no strike pay and finding little nourishment in processions, started -off to walk to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, or Newcastle, where -work might be got. Along the Great North Road such men might be seen in -silent companies of a dozen or twenty, now and again singly or in -couples. At the tail of one such gang, which gathered in the Burdett -Road and found its way into the Enfield Road by way of Victoria Park, -Clapton, and Stamford Hill, walked a little group of three: a voluble -young man of thirty, a stolid workman rather older, and a pale, anxious -little fellow, with a nasty spasmic cough and a canvas bag of tools. - -The little crowd straggled over the footpath and the road, few of its -members speaking, most of them keeping to their places and themselves. -As yet there was nothing of the tramp in the aspect of these mechanics. -With their washed faces and well-mended clothes they might have been -taken for a jury coming from a local inquest. As the streets got broken -and detached, with patches of field between, they began to look about -them. One young fellow in front (with no family to think of), who looked -upon the enterprise as an amusing sort of tour, and had even brought an -accordion, began to rebel against the general depression, and attempted -a joke about going to the Alexandra Palace. But in the rear, the little -man with the canvas bag, putting his hand abstractedly into his pocket, -suddenly stared and stopped. He drew out the hand, and saw in it three -shillings. - -"S'elp me," he said, "the missis is done that--shoved it in unbeknown -when I come away! An' she's on'y got a bob for 'erself an' the kids." He -broke into a sweat of uneasiness. "I'll 'ave to send it back at the next -post-office, that's all." - -"Send it back? not you!" Thus with deep scorn the voluble young man at -his side. "_She'll_ be all right, you lay your life. A woman allus knows -'ow to look after 'erself. You'll bleed'n' soon want it, an' bad. You do -as I tell you, Joey: stick to it. That's right, Dave, ain't it?" - -"Matter o' fancy," replied the stolid man. "My missis cleared my pockets -out 'fore I got away. Shouldn't wonder at bein' sent after for leavin' -'er chargeable if I don't soon send some more. Women's different." - -The march continued, and grew dustier. The cheerful pilgrim in front -produced his accordion. At Palmer's Green four went straight ahead to -try for work at the Enfield Arms Factory. The others, knowing the thing -hopeless, turned off to the left for Potter's Bar. - -After a long silence, "Which'll be nearest, Dave," asked little Joey -Clayton, "Newcastle or Middlesborough?" - -"Middlesborough," said Dave; "I done it afore." - -"Trampin' ain't so rough on a man, is it, after all?" asked Joey -wistfully. "_You_ done all right, didn't you?" - -"Got through. All depends, though it's rough enough. Matter o' luck. -_I_'ad the bad weather." - -"If I don't get a good easy job where we're goin'," remarked the voluble -young man, "I'll 'ave a strike there too." - -"'Ave a strike there?" exclaimed Joey. "'Ow? Who'd call 'em out?" - -"Wy, _I_ would. I think I'm equal to doin' it, ain't I? An' when workin' -men stand idle an' 'ungry in the midst o' the wealth an' the lukshry an' -the igstravagance they've produced with the sweat of their brow, why, -then, feller-workmen, it's time to act. It's time to bring the -nigger-drivin' bloated capitalists to their knees." - -"'Ear, 'ear," applauded Joey Clayton; tamely, perhaps, for the words -were not new. "Good on yer, Newman!" Newman had a habit of practising -this sort of thing in snatches whenever he saw the chance. He had learnt -the trick in a debating society; and Joey Clayton was always an -applausive audience. There was a pause, the accordion started another -tune, and Newman tried a different passage of his harangue. - -"In the shop they call me Skulky Newman. Why? 'Cos I skulk, o' course" -("'Ear, 'ear," dreamily--from Dave this time). "I ain't ashamed of it, -my friends. I'm a miker out an' out, an' I 'ope I shall always remain a -miker. The less a worker does the more 'as to be imployed, don't they? -An' the more the toilers wrings out o' the capitalists, don't they? Very -well then, I mike, an' I do it as a sacred dooty." - -"You'll 'ave all the mikin' you want for a week or two," said Dave Burge -placidly. "Stow it." - -At Potter's Bar the party halted and sat under a hedge to eat hunks of -bread and cheese (or hunks of bread and nothing else) and to drink cold -tea out of cans. Skulky Newman, who had brought nothing, stood in with -his two friends. As they started anew and turned into the Great North -Road he said, stretching himself and looking slyly at Joey Clayton, "If -_I'd_ got a bob or two I'd stand you two blokes a pint apiece." - -Joey looked troubled. "Well, as you ain't, I suppose I ought to," he -said uneasily, turning toward the little inn hard by. "Dave," he cried -to Burge, who was walking on, "won't you 'ave a drink?" And, "Well, if -you _are_ goin' to do the toff, I ain't proud," was the slow reply. - -Afterward Joey was inclined to stop at the post-office to send away at -least two shillings. But Newman wouldn't. He enlarged on the -improvidence of putting out of reach that which might be required on an -emergency, he repeated his axiom as to a woman's knack of keeping alive -in spite of all things: and Joey determined not to send--for a day or so -at any rate. - -The road got looser and dustier; the symptoms of the tramp came out -stronger and stronger on the gang. The accordion struck up from time to -time, but ceased toward the end of the afternoon. The player wearied, -and some of the older men, soon tired of walking, were worried by the -noise. Joey Clayton, whose cough was aggravated by the dust, was -especially tortured, after every fit, to hear the thing drawling and -whooping the tune it had drawled and whooped a dozen times before; but -he said nothing, scarce knowing what annoyed him. - -At Hatfield Station two of the foremost picked up a few coppers by -helping with a heavy trap-load of luggage. Up Digswell Hill the party -tailed out lengthily, and Newman, who had been letting off a set speech, -was fain to save his wind. The night came, clear to see and sweet to -smell. Between Welwyn and Codicote the company broke up to roost in -such barns as they might possess: all but the master of the accordion, -who had stayed at a little public-house at Welwyn, with the notion of -earning a pot of beer and a stable-corner (or better) by a tune in the -tap-room. Dave Burge lighted on a lone shed of thatched hurdles with -loose hay in it, and Newman straightway curled in the snuggest corner on -most of the hay. Dave Burge pulled some from under him, and, having -helped Joey Clayton to build a nest in the best place left, was soon -snoring. But Joey lay awake all night, and sat up and coughed and turned -restlessly, being unused to the circumstances and apprehensive of those -months in jail which (it is well known) are rancorously dealt forth -among all them that sleep in barns. - -Luck provided a breakfast next morning at Codicote: for three -bicyclists, going north, stood cold beef and bread round at The Anchor. -The man with the accordion caught up. He had made his lodging and -breakfast and eightpence: this had determined him to stay at Hitchin, -and work it for at least a day, and then to diverge into the towns and -let the rest go their way. So beyond Hitchin there was no music. - -Joey Clayton soon fell slow. Newman had his idea; and the three were -left behind, and Joey staggered after his mates with difficulty. He -lacked sleep, and he lacked stamina. Dave Burge took the canvas bag, and -there were many rests: when Newman, expressing a resolve to stick by his -fellow-man through thick and thin, hinted at drinks. Dave Burge made -twopence at Henlow level crossing by holding an unsteady horse while a -train passed. Joey saw little of the rest of the day; the road was -yellow and dazzling, his cough tore him, and things were red sometimes -and sometimes blue. He walked without knowing it, now helped, now -lurching on alone. The others of the party were far ahead and forgotten. -There was talk of a windmill ahead, where there would be rest; and the -three men camped in an old boathouse by the river just outside -Biggleswade. Joey, sleeping as he tottered, fell in a heap and lay -without moving from sunset to broad morning. - -When he woke Dave Burge was sitting at the door, but Newman was gone. -Also, there was no sign of the canvas bag. - -"No use lookin'," said Dave; "'e's done it." - -"Eh?" - -"Skulky's 'opped the twig an' sneaked your tools. Gawd knows where 'e is -by now." - -"No--" the little man gasped, sitting up in a pale sweat.... "Not -sneaked 'em ... is 'e?... S'elp me, there's a set o' callipers worth -fifteen bob in that bag ... 'e ain't gawn ...?" - -Dave Burge nodded inexorably. - -"Best feel in your pockets," he said, "p'raps 'e's bin there." - -He had. The little man broke down. "I was a-goin' to send 'ome that two -bob--s'elp me, I was.... An' what can I do without my tools? If I'd got -no job I could 'a pawned 'em--an' then I'd 'a sent 'ome the money--s'elp -me I would.... O, it's crool!" - - -The walking, with the long sleep after it, had left him sore and stiff, -and Dave had work to put him on the road again. He had forgotten -yesterday afternoon, and asked, at first, for the others. They tramped -in silence for a few miles: when Joey suddenly flung himself upon a -tussock by the wayside. - -"Why won't nobody let me live?" he snivelled. "_I'm_ a 'armless bloke -enough. I worked at Ritterson's, man and boy, very nigh twenty year. -When they come an' ordered us out, I come out with the others, peaceful -enough; I didn't want to chuck it up, Gawd knows, but I come out promp' -when they told me. And when I found another job on the Island, four big -blokes set about me an' 'arf killed me. _I_ didn't know the place was -blocked. And when two o' the blokes was took up, they said I'd get -strike-pay again if I didn't identify 'em; so I didn't. But they never -give me no strike-pay--they laughed an' chucked me out. An' now I'm -a-starvin' on the 'igh road. An' Skulky ... blimy ... _'e's_ done me -too!" - - -There were days wherein Joey learned to eat a swede pulled from behind a -wagon, and to feel thankful for an early turnip; might have learned, -too, just what tramping means in many ways to a man unskilled both in -begging and in theft, but was never equal to it. He coughed--and worse: -holding to posts and gates, and often spitting blood. He had little to -say, but trudged mechanically, taking note of nothing. - -Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he asked, "Wasn't there some -others?" - -"Others?" said Dave, for a moment taken aback. "O, yes, there was some -others. They're gone on ahead, y'know." - -Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then he said, "Expect they're -'avin' a rough time too." - -"Ah--very like," said Dave. - -For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough. Then he went on: "Comes -o' not bringing 'cordions with 'em. Every one ought to take a 'cordion -what goes trampin'. I knew a man once that went trampin', an' 'e took a -'cordion. _He_ done all right. It ain't so rough for them as plays on -the 'cordion." And Dave Burge rubbed his cap about his head and stared; -but answered nothing. - -It was a bad day. Crusts were begged at cottages. Every rise and every -turn, the eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them, -flouting their unrest. Joey, now unimpressionable, endured more placidly -than even Dave Burge. Late in the afternoon, "No," he said, "it ain't so -rough for them as plays the 'cordion. They 'as the best of it.... S'elp -me," he added suddenly, "_we're_ all 'cordions!" He sniggered -thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that left him panting. "We're -nothin' but a bloomin' lot o' 'cordions ourselves," he went on, having -got his breath, "an' they play any toon they like on us; an' that's 'ow -they make their livin'. S'elp me, Dave, we're all 'cordions." And he -laughed. - -"Um--yus," the other man grunted. And he looked curiously at his mate; -for he had never heard that sort of laugh before. - -But Joey fondled the conceit, and returned to it from time to time; now -aloud, now to himself. "All 'cordions: playin' any toon as is ordered, -blimy.... _Are_ we 'cordions? _I_ don't b'lieve we're as much as that -... no, s'elp me. We're on'y the footlin' little keys; shoved about to -soot the toon.... Little tin keys, blimy ... footlin' little keys.... -I've bin played on plenty, _I_ 'ave...." - -Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to talk of other things. But -Joey rarely heard him. "I've bin played on plenty, _I_ 'ave," he -persisted. "I was played on once by a pal: an' my spring broke." - -At nightfall there was more bad luck. They were driven from a likely -barn by a leather-gaitered man with a dog, and for some distance no -dormitory could be found. Then it was a cut haystack, with a nest near -the top and steps to reach it. - -In the night Burge was wakened by a clammy hand upon his face. There was -a thick mist. - -"It's you, Dave, ain't it?" Clayton was saying. "Good Gawd, I thought -I'd lawst you. What's all this 'ere--not the water is it?--not the dock? -I'm soppin' wet." - -Burge himself was wet to the skin. He made Joey lie down, and told him -to sleep; but a coughing fit prevented that. "It was them 'cordions woke -me," he explained when it was over. - -So the night put on the shuddering gray of the fore-dawn. And the two -tramps left their perch, and betook them, shivering and stamping, to the -road. - -That morning Joey had short fits of dizziness and faintness. "It's my -spring broke," he would say after such an attack. "Bloomin' little tin -key put out o' toon." And once he added, "I'm up to one toon, though, -now: this 'ere bloomin' Dead March." - -Just at the outskirts of a town, where he stopped to cough over a gate, -a stout old lady, walking out with a shaggy little dog, gave him a -shilling. Dave Burge picked it up as it dropped from his incapable hand, -and "Joey, 'ere's a bob," he said; "a lady give it you. You come an' git -a drop o' beer." - -They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap-room of a small tavern, and -Dave had mild ale himself, but saw that Joey was served with stout with -a penn'orth of gin in it. Soon the gin and stout reached Joey's head, -and drew it to the table. And he slept, leaving the rest of the shilling -where it lay. - -Dave arose, and stuffed the last of the twopenny loaf into his pocket. -He took a piece of chalk from the bagatelle board in the corner, and -wrote this on the table:--"_dr. sir. for god sake take him to the work -House_." - -Then he gathered up the coppers where they lay, and stepped quietly into -the street. - - - - -TO BOW BRIDGE. - - -The eleven-five tram-car from Stratford started for Bow a trifle before -its time. The conductor knew what he might escape by stealing a march on -the closing public-houses; as also what was in store for all the -conductors in his wake, till there were no more revellers left to swarm -the cars. For it was Saturday night, and many a week's wages were -a-knocking down; and the publicans this side of Bow Bridge shut their -doors at eleven under Act of Parliament, whereas beyond the Bridge, -which is the county of London, the law gives them another hour, and a -man may drink many pots therein. And for this, at eleven every Saturday, -there is a great rush westward, a vast migration over Lea, from all the -length of High Street. From the nearer parts they walk, or do their best -to walk; but from further Stratford, by the Town Hall, the Church, and -the Martyrs' Memorial, they crowd the cars. For one thing, it is a long -half-mile, and the week's work is over. Also, the car being swamped, it -is odds that a man shall save his fare, since no conductor may fight -his way a quarter through his passengers before Bow Bridge, where the -vehicle is emptied at a rush. And that means yet another half-pint. - -So the eleven-five car started sooner than it might have done. As it was -spattering with rain, I boarded it, sharing the conductor's forlorn -hope, but taking care to sit at the extreme fore-end inside. In the -broad street the market clamored and flared, its lights and shadows -flickering and fading about the long churchyard and the steeple in the -midst thereof; and toward the distant lights, the shining road sparkled -in long reaches, like a blackguard river. - -A gap fell here and there among the lights where a publican put his gas -out; and at these points the crowds thickened. A quiet mechanic came in, -and sat near a decent woman with children, a bundle, a basket, and a -cabbage. Thirty yards on the car rumbled, and suddenly its hinder end -was taken in a mass of people--howling, struggling, and blaspheming--who -stormed and wrangled in at the door and up the stairs. There were lads -and men whooping and flushed, there were girls and women screaming -choruses; and in a moment the seats were packed, knees were taken, and -there was not an inch of standing room. The conductor cried, "All -full!" and tugged at his bell-strap, whereunto many were hanging by the -hand; but he was swept from his feet, and made to push hard for his own -place. And there was no more foothold on the back platform nor the -front, nor any vacant step upon the stairway; and the roof was thronged; -and the rest of the crowd was fain to waylay the next car. - -This one moved off slowly, with shrieks and howls that were racking to -the wits. From divers quarters of the roof came a bumping thunder as of -cellar-flapping clogs. Profanity was sluiced down, as it were by -pailfuls, from above, and was swilled back as it were in pailfuls from -below. Blowses in feathered bonnets bawled hilarious obscenity at the -jiggers. A little maid with a market-basket, hustled and jostled and -elbowed at the far end, listened eagerly and laughed when she could -understand; and the quiet mechanic, whose knees had been invaded by an -unsteady young woman in a crushed hat, tried to look pleased. My own -knees were saved from capture by the near neighborhood of an enormous -female, seated partly on the seat and partly on myself, snorting and -gulping with sleep, her head upon the next man's shoulder. (To offer -your seat to a standing woman would, as beseems a foreign antic, have -been visited by the ribaldry of the whole crowd.) In the midst of the -riot the decent woman sat silent and indifferent, her children on and -about her knees. Further along, two women ate fish with their fingers -and discoursed personalities in voices which ran strident through the -uproar, as the odor of their snack asserted itself in the general fetor. -And opposite the decent woman there sat a bonnetless drab, who said -nothing, but looked at the decent woman's children as a shoeless brat -looks at the dolls in a toyshop window. - -"So I ses to 'er, I ses"--this from the snacksters--"I'm a respectable -married woman, I ses. More'n you can say, you barefaced hussey, I ses--" -Then a shower of curses, a shout, and a roar of laughter; and the -conductor, making slow and laborious progress with the fares nearest -him, turned his head. A man had jumped upon the footboard and a -passenger's toes. A scuffle and a fight, and both had rolled off into -the mire, and got left behind. "Ain't they fond o' one another?" cried a -girl. "They're a-goin' for a walk together;" and there was a guffaw. -"The silly bleeders'll be too late for the pubs," said a male voice; and -there was another, for the general understanding was touched. - -Then--an effect of sympathy, perhaps--a scuffle broke out on the roof. -But this disturbed not the insides. The conductor went on his plaguy -task: to save time, he passed over the one or two that, asked now or -not, seemed likely to pay at the journey's end. The snacking women -resumed their talk, the choristers their singing; the rumble of the -wheels was lost in a babel of vacant ribaldry; the enormous woman choked -and gasped and snuggled lower down upon her neighbor's shoulder; and the -shabby strumpet looked at the children. - -A man by the door vomited his liquor: whereat was more hilarity, and his -neighbors, with many yaups, shoved further up the middle. But one of the -little ones, standing before her mother, was pushed almost to falling; -and the harlot, seeing her chance, snatched the child upon her knee. The -child looked up, something in wonder, and smiled; and the woman leered -as honestly as she might, saying a hoarse word or two. - -Presently the conflict overhead, waxing and waning to an accompaniment -of angry shouts, afforded another brief diversion to those within, and -something persuaded the standing passengers to shove toward the door. -The child had fallen asleep in the street-walker's arms. "Jinny!" cried -the mother, reaching forth and shaking her. "Jinny! wake up now--you -mustn't go to sleep." And she pulled the little thing from her perch to -where she had been standing. - -The bonnetless creature bent forward, and, in her curious voice (like -that of one sick with shouting), "She can set on my knee, m'm, if she -likes," she said; "she's tired." - -The mother busied herself with a jerky adjustment of the child's hat and -shawl. "She mustn't go to sleep," was all she said, sharply, and without -looking up. - -The hoarse woman bent further forward, with a propitiatory grin. "'Ow -old is she?... I'd like to--give 'er a penny." - -The mother answered nothing; but drew the child close by the side of her -knee, where a younger one was sitting, and looked steadily through the -fore windows. - -The hoarse woman sat back, unquestioning and unresentful, and turned her -eyes upon them that were crowding over the conductor; for the car was -rising over Bow Bridge. Front and back they surged down from the roof, -and the insides made for the door as one man. The big woman's neighbor -rose, and let her fall over on the seat, whence, awaking with a loud -grunt and an incoherent curse, she rolled after the rest. The conductor, -clamant and bedevilled, was caught between the two pell-mells, and, -demanding fares and gripping his satchel, was carried over the -footboard in the rush. The stramash overhead came tangled and swearing -down the stairs, gaining volume and force in random punches as it came; -and the crowd on the pavement streamed vocally toward a brightness at -the bridge foot--the lights of the Bombay Grab. - -The woman with the children waited till the footboard was clear, and -then, carrying one child and leading another (her marketings attached -about her by indeterminate means), she set the two youngsters on the -pavement, leaving the third on the step of the car. The harlot, -lingering, lifted the child again--lifted her rather high--and set her -on the path with the others. Then she walked away toward the Bombay -Grab. A man in a blue serge suit was footing it down the turning between -the public-house and the bridge with drunken swiftness and an -intermittent stagger; and, tightening her shawl, she went in chase. - -The quiet mechanic stood and stretched himself, and took a corner seat -near the door; and the tram-car, quiet and vacant, bumped on westward. - - - - -THAT BRUTE SIMMONS. - - -Simmons's infamous behavior toward his wife is still matter for profound -wonderment among the neighbors. The other women had all along regarded -him as a model husband, and certainly Mrs. Simmons was a most -conscientious wife. She toiled and slaved for that man, as any woman in -the whole street would have maintained, far more than any husband had a -right to expect. And now this was what she got for it. Perhaps he had -suddenly gone mad. - -Before she married Simmons, Mrs. Simmons had been the widowed Mrs. Ford. -Ford had got a berth as donkeyman on a tramp steamer, and that steamer -had gone down with all hands off the Cape: a judgment, the widow woman -feared, for long years of contumacy which had culminated in the -wickedness of taking to the sea, and taking to it as a donkeyman--an -immeasurable fall for a capable engine-fitter. Twelve years as Mrs. Ford -had left her still childless, and childless she remained as Mrs. -Simmons. - -As for Simmons, he, it was held, was fortunate in that capable wife. He -was a moderately good carpenter and joiner, but no man of the world, and -he wanted one. Nobody could tell what might not have happened to Tommy -Simmons if there had been no Mrs. Simmons to take care of him. He was a -meek and quiet man, with a boyish face and sparse, limp whiskers. He had -no vices (even his pipe departed him after his marriage), and Mrs. -Simmons had engrafted on him divers exotic virtues. He went solemnly to -chapel every Sunday, under a tall hat, and put a penny--one returned to -him for the purpose out of his week's wages--in the plate. Then, Mrs. -Simmons overseeing, he took off his best clothes and brushed them with -solicitude and pains. On Saturday afternoons he cleaned the knives, the -forks, the boots, the kettles, and the windows, patiently and -conscientiously. On Tuesday evenings he took the clothes to the -mangling. And on Saturday nights he attended Mrs. Simmons in her -marketing, to carry the parcels. - -Mrs. Simmons's own virtues were native and numerous. She was a wonderful -manager. Every penny of Tommy's thirty-six or thirty-eight shillings a -week was bestowed to the greatest advantage, and Tommy never ventured to -guess how much of it she saved. Her cleanliness in housewifery was -distracting to behold. She met Simmons at the front door whenever he -came home, and then and there he changed his boots for slippers, -balancing himself painfully on alternate feet on the cold flags. This -was because she scrubbed the passage and doorstep turn about with the -wife of the downstairs family, and because the stair-carpet was her own. -She vigilantly supervised her husband all through the process of -"cleaning himself" after work, so as to come between her walls and the -possibility of random splashes; and if, in spite of her diligence, a -spot remained to tell the tale, she was at pains to impress the fact on -Simmons's memory, and to set forth at length all the circumstances of -his ungrateful selfishness. In the beginning she had always escorted him -to the ready-made clothes shop, and had selected and paid for his -clothes: for the reason that men are such perfect fools, and shopkeepers -do as they like with them. But she presently improved on that. She found -a man selling cheap remnants at a street corner, and straightway she -conceived the idea of making Simmons's clothes herself. Decision was one -of her virtues, and a suit of uproarious check tweeds was begun that -afternoon from the pattern furnished by an old one. More: it was -finished by Sunday; when Simmons, overcome by astonishment at the feat, -was indued in it, and pushed off to chapel ere he could recover his -senses. The things were not altogether comfortable, he found: the -trousers clung tight against his shins, but hung loose behind his heels; -and when he sat, it was on a wilderness of hard folds and seams. Also -his waistcoat collar tickled his nape, but his coat collar went -straining across from shoulder to shoulder; while the main garment -bagged generously below his waist. Use made a habit of his discomfort, -but it never reconciled him to the chaff of his shopmates; for as Mrs. -Simmons elaborated successive suits, each one modelled on the last, the -primal accidents of her design developed into principles, and grew even -bolder and more hideously pronounced. It was vain for Simmons to -hint--as hint he did--that he shouldn't like her to overwork herself, -tailoring being bad for the eyes, and there was a new tailor's in the -Mile End Road, very cheap, where.... "Ho yus," she retorted, "you're -very consid'rit I dessay sittin' there actin' a livin' lie before your -own wife Thomas Simmons as though I couldn't see through you like a -book. A lot you care about overworkin' me as long as _your_ turn's -served throwin' away money like dirt in the street on a lot o' swindlin' -tailors an' me workin' an' slavin' 'ere to save a 'apenny an' this is -my return for it any one 'ud think you could pick up money in the -'orseroad an' I b'lieve I'd be thought better of if I laid in bed all -day like some would that I do." So that Thomas Simmons avoided the -subject, nor even murmured when she resolved to cut his hair. - -So his placid fortune endured for years. Then there came a golden summer -evening when Mrs. Simmons betook herself with a basket to do some small -shopping, and Simmons was left at home. He washed and put away the -tea-things, and then he fell to meditating on a new pair of trousers, -finished that day and hanging behind the parlor door. There they hung, -in all their decent innocence of shape in the seat, and they were -shorter of leg, longer of waist, and wilder of pattern than he had ever -worn before. And as he looked on them the small devil of Original Sin -awoke and clamored in his breast. He was ashamed of it, of course, for -well he knew the gratitude he owed his wife for those same trousers, -among other blessings. Still, there the small devil was, and the small -devil was fertile in base suggestions, and could not be kept from -hinting at the new crop of workshop gibes that would spring at Tommy's -first public appearance in such things. - -"Pitch 'em in the dustbin!" said the small devil at last; "it's all -they're fit for." - -Simmons turned away in sheer horror of his wicked self, and for a -moment thought of washing the tea-things over again by way of -discipline. Then he made for the back room, but saw from the landing -that the front door was standing open, probably by the fault of the -child downstairs. Now a front door standing open was a thing that Mrs. -Simmons would _not_ abide: it looked low. So Simmons went down, that she -might not be wroth with him for the thing when she came back; and, as he -shut the door, he looked forth into the street. - -A man was loitering on the pavement, and prying curiously about the -door. His face was tanned, his hands were deep in the pockets of his -unbraced blue trousers, and well back on his head he wore the -high-crowned peaked cap topped with a knob of wool, which is affected by -Jack ashore about the docks. He lurched a step nearer to the door, and -"Mrs. Ford ain't in, is she?" he said. - -Simmons stared at him for a matter of five seconds, and then said, "Eh?" - -"Mrs. Ford as was, then--Simmons now, ain't it?" - -He said this with a furtive leer that Simmons neither liked nor -understood. - -"No," said Simmons, "she ain't in now." - -"You ain't her 'usband, are ye?" - -"Yus." - -The man took his pipe from his mouth, and grinned silently and long. -"Blimy," he said at length, "you look the sort o' bloke she'd -like,"--and with that he grinned again. Then, seeing that Simmons made -ready to shut the door, he put a foot on the sill and a hand against the -panel. "Don't be in a 'urry, matey," he said, "I come 'ere t'ave a -little talk with you, man to man, d'ye see?" And he frowned fiercely. - -Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable, but the door would not shut, so he -parleyed. "Wotjer want?" he asked. "I dunno you." - -"Then, if you'll excuse the liberty, I'll interdooce meself, in a manner -of speaking." He touched his cap with a bob of mock humility. "I'm Bob -Ford," he said, "come back out o' kingdom-come, so to say. Me as went -down with the _Mooltan_--safe dead five year gone. I come to see my -wife." - -During this speech Thomas Simmons's jaw was dropping lower and lower. At -the end of it he poked his fingers up through his hair, looked down at -the mat, then up at the fanlight, then out into the street, then hard at -his visitor. But he found nothing to say. - -"Come to see my wife," the man repeated. "So now we can talk it over--as -man to man." - -Simmons slowly shut his mouth, and led the way upstairs mechanically, -his fingers still in his hair. A sense of the state of affairs sank -gradually into his brain, and the small devil woke again. Suppose this -man _was_ Ford? Suppose he _did_ claim his wife? Would it be a -knock-down blow? Would it hit him out?--or not? He thought of the -trousers, the tea-things, the mangling, the knives, the kettles, and the -windows; and he thought of them in the way of a backslider. - -On the landing Ford clutched at his arm, and asked in a hoarse whisper: -"'Ow long 'fore she's back?" - -"'Bout a hour, I expect," Simmons replied, having first of all repeated -the question in his own mind. And then he opened the parlor door. - -"Ah," said Ford, looking about him, "you've bin pretty comf'table. Them -chairs an' things"--jerking his pipe toward them--"was hers--mine that -is to say, speaking straight, and man to man." He sat down, puffing -meditatively at his pipe, and presently: "Well," he continued, "'ere I -am agin, ol' Bob Ford dead an' done for--gawn down in the _Mooltan_. -On'y I _ain't_ done for, see?"--and he pointed the stem of his pipe at -Simmons's waistcoat,--"I ain't done for, 'cause why? Cons'kence o' bein' -picked up by a ol' German sailin'-'utch an' took to 'Frisco 'fore the -mast. I've 'ad a few years o' knockin' about since then, an' -now"--looking hard at Simmons--"I've come back to see my wife." - -"She--she don't like smoke in 'ere," said Simmons, as it were at random. - -"No, I bet she don't," Ford answered, taking his pipe from his mouth, -and holding it low in his hand. "I know 'Anner. 'Ow d'you find 'er? Do -she make ye clean the winders?" - -"Well," Simmons admitted uneasily, "I--I do 'elp 'er sometimes, o' -course." - -"Ah! An' the knives too, I bet, an' the bloomin' kittles. I know. -Wy"--he rose and bent to look behind Simmons's head--"s'elp me, I -b'lieve she cuts yer 'air! Well, I'm damned! Jes' wot she would do, -too." - -He inspected the blushing Simmons from divers points of vantage. Then he -lifted a leg of the trousers hanging behind the door. "I'd bet a -trifle," he said, "she made these 'ere trucks. Nobody else 'ud do 'em -like that. Damme--they're wuss'n wot you're got on." - -The small devil began to have the argument all its own way. If this man -took his wife back perhaps he'd have to wear those trousers. - -"Ah!" Ford pursued, "she ain't got no milder. An' my davy, wot a jore!" - -Simmons began to feel that this was no longer his business. Plainly, -'Anner was this other man's wife, and he was bound in honor to -acknowledge the fact. The small devil put it to him as a matter of duty. - -"Well," said Ford suddenly, "time's short an' this ain't business. I -won't be 'ard on you, matey. I ought prop'ly to stand on my rights, but -seein' as you're a well-meanin' young man, so to speak, an' all settled -an' a-livin' 'ere quiet an' matrimonual, I'll"--this with a burst of -generosity--"damme, yus, I'll compound the felony, an' take me 'ook. -Come, I'll name a figure, as man to man, fust an' last, no less an' no -more. Five pound does it." - -Simmons hadn't five pounds--he hadn't even five pence--and he said so. -"An' I wouldn't think for to come between a man an' 'is wife," he added, -"not on no account. It may be rough on me, but it 's a dooty. _I'll_ -'ook it." - -"No," said Ford hastily, clutching Simmons by the arm, "don't do that. -I'll make it a bit cheaper. Say three quid--come, that's reasonable, -ain't it? Three quid ain't much compensation for me goin' away -forever--where the stormy winds do blow, so to say--an' never as much as -seein' me own wife agin for better nor wuss. Between man an' man -now--three quid; an' I'll shunt. That's fair, ain't it?" - -"Of course it's fair," Simmons replied effusively. "It's more'n fair: -it's noble--downright noble, _I_ call it. But I ain't goin' to take a -mean advantage o' your good-'artedness, Mr. Ford. She's your wife, an' I -oughtn't to 'a' come between you. I apologize. You stop an' 'ave yer -proper rights. It's me as ought to shunt, an' I will." And he made a -step toward the door. - -"'Old on," quoth Ford, and got between Simmons and the door; "don't do -things rash. Look wot a loss it'll be to you with no 'ome to go to, an' -nobody to look after ye, an' all that. It'll be dreadful. Say a -couple--there, we won't quarrel, jest a single quid, between man an' -man, an' I'll stand a pot out o' the money. You can easy raise a -quid--the clock 'ud pretty nigh do it. A quid does it; an' I'll--" - -There was a loud double-knock at the front door. In the East End a -double-knock is always for the upstairs lodgers. - -"Oo's that?" asked Bob Ford apprehensively. - -"I'll see," said Thomas Simmons in reply, and he made a rush for the -staircase. - -Bob Ford heard him open the front door. Then he went to the window, and, -just below him, he saw the crown of a bonnet. It vanished, and borne to -him from within the door there fell upon his ear the sound of a -well-remembered female voice. - -"Where ye goin' now with no 'at?" asked the voice sharply. - -"Awright, 'Anner--there's--there's somebody upstairs to see you," -Simmons answered. And, as Bob Ford could see, a man went scuttling down -the street in the gathering dusk. And behold, it was Thomas Simmons. - -Ford reached the landing in three strides. His wife was still at the -front door, staring after Simmons. He flung into the back room, threw -open the window, dropped from the wash-house roof into the back-yard, -scrambled desperately over the fence, and disappeared into the gloom. He -was seen by no living soul. And that is why Simmons's base -desertion--under his wife's very eyes, too--is still an astonishment to -the neighbors. - - - - -BEHIND THE SHADE. - - -The street was the common East End street--two parallels of brick -pierced with windows and doors. But at the end of one, where the builder -had found a remnant of land too small for another six-roomer, there -stood an odd box of a cottage, with three rooms and a wash-house. It had -a green door with a well-blacked knocker round the corner; and in the -lower window in front stood a "shade of fruit"--a cone of waxen grapes -and apples under a glass cover. - -Although the house was smaller than the others, and was built upon a -remnant, it was always a house of some consideration. In a street like -this mere independence of pattern gives distinction. And a house -inhabited by one sole family makes a figure among houses inhabited by -two or more, even though it be the smallest of all. And here the seal of -respectability was set by the shade of fruit--a sign accepted in those -parts. Now, when people keep a house to themselves, and keep it clean; -when they neither stand at the doors nor gossip across back-fences; -when, moreover, they have a well-dusted shade of fruit in the front -window; and, especially, when they are two women who tell nobody their -business: they are known at once for well-to-do, and are regarded with -the admixture of spite and respect that is proper to the circumstances. -They are also watched. - -Still, the neighbors knew the history of the Perkinses, mother and -daughter, in its main features, with little disagreement: having told it -to each other, filling in the details when occasion seemed to serve. -Perkins, ere he died, had been a shipwright; and this was when the -shipwrights were the aristocracy of the workshops, and he that worked -more than three or four days a week was counted a mean slave: it was -long (in fact) before depression, strikes, iron plates, and collective -blindness had driven shipbuilding to the Clyde. Perkins had labored no -harder than his fellows, had married a tradesman's daughter, and had -spent his money with freedom; and some while after his death his widow -and daughter came to live in the small house, and kept a school for -tradesmen's little girls in a back room over the wash-house. But as the -School Board waxed in power, and the tradesmen's pride in regard -thereunto waned, the attendance, never large, came down to twos and -threes. Then Mrs. Perkins met with her accident. A dweller in Stidder's -Rents overtook her one night, and, having vigorously punched her in the -face and the breast, kicked her and jumped on her for five minutes as -she lay on the pavement. (In the dark, it afterwards appeared, he had -mistaken her for his mother.) The one distinct opinion the adventure -bred in the street was Mrs. Webster's, the Little Bethelite, who -considered it a judgment for sinful pride--for Mrs. Perkins had been a -Church-goer. But the neighbors never saw Mrs. Perkins again. The doctor -left his patient "as well as she ever would be," but bedridden and -helpless. Her daughter was a scraggy, sharp-faced woman of thirty or so, -whose black dress hung from her hips as from a wooden frame; and some -people got into the way of calling her Mrs. Perkins, seeing no other -thus to honor. And meantime the school had ceased, although Miss Perkins -essayed a revival, and joined a dissenting chapel to that end. - -Then, one day, a card appeared in the window, over the shade of fruit, -with the legend "Pianoforte Lessons." It was not approved by the street. -It was a standing advertisement of the fact that the Perkinses had a -piano, which others had not. It also revealed a grasping spirit on the -part of people able to keep a house to themselves, with red curtains -and a shade of fruit in the parlor window; who, moreover, had been able -to give up keeping a school because of ill-health. The pianoforte -lessons were eight-and-sixpence a quarter, two a week. Nobody was ever -known to take them but the relieving officer's daughter, and she paid -sixpence a lesson, to see how she got on, and left off in three weeks. -The card stayed in the window a fortnight longer, and none of the -neighbors saw the cart that came in the night and took away the old -cabinet piano with the channelled keys, that had been fourth-hand when -Perkins bought it twenty years ago. Mrs. Clark, the widow who sewed far -into the night, may possibly have heard a noise and looked; but she said -nothing if she did. There was no card in the window next morning, but -the shade of fruit stood primly respectable as ever. The curtains were -drawn a little closer across, for some of the children playing in the -street were used to flatten their faces against the lower panes, and to -discuss the piano, the stuff-bottomed chairs, the antimacassars, the -mantelpiece ornaments, and the loo table with the family Bible and the -album on it. - -It was soon after this that the Perkinses altogether ceased from -shopping--ceased, at any rate, in that neighborhood. Trade with them -had already been dwindling, and it was said that Miss Perkins was -getting stingier than her mother--who had been stingy enough herself. -Indeed, the Perkins demeanor began to change for the worse, to be -significant of a miserly retirement and an offensive alienation from the -rest of the street. One day the deacon called, as was his practice now -and then; but, being invited no further than the doorstep, he went away -in dudgeon, and did not return. Nor, indeed, was Miss Perkins seen again -at chapel. - -Then there was a discovery. The spare figure of Miss Perkins was seldom -seen in the streets, and then almost always at night; but on these -occasions she was observed to carry parcels, of varying wrappings and -shapes. Once, in broad daylight, with a package in newspaper, she made -such haste past a shop-window where stood Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Jones, -that she tripped on the broken sole of one shoe, and fell headlong. The -newspaper broke away from its pins, and although the woman reached and -recovered her parcel before she rose, it was plain to see that it was -made up of cheap shirts, cut out ready for the stitching. The street had -the news the same hour, and it was generally held that such a taking of -the bread out of the mouths of them that wanted it by them that had -plenty was a scandal and a shame, and ought to be put a stop to. And -Mrs. Webster, foremost in the setting right of things, undertook to find -out whence the work came, and to say a few plain words in the right -quarter. - -All this while nobody watched closely enough to note that the parcels -brought in were fewer than the parcels taken out. Even a hand-truck, -late one evening, went unremarked: the door being round the corner, and -most people within. One morning, though, Miss Perkins, her best foot -foremost, was venturing along a near street with an outgoing -parcel--large and triangular and wrapped in white drugget--when the -relieving officer turned the corner across the way. - -The relieving officer was a man in whose system of etiquette the -Perkinses had caused some little disturbance. His ordinary female -acquaintances (not, of course, professional) he was in the habit of -recognizing by a gracious nod. When he met the minister's wife he lifted -his hat, instantly assuming an intense frown, in the event of irreverent -observation. Now he quite felt that the Perkinses were entitled to some -advance upon the nod, although it would be absurd to raise them to a -level with the minister's wife. So he had long since established a -compromise: he closed his finger and thumb upon the brim of his hat, and -let his hand fall forthwith. Preparing now to accomplish this salute, -he was astounded to see that Miss Perkins, as soon as she was aware of -his approach, turned her face, which was rather flushed, away from him, -and went hurrying onward, looking at the wall on her side of the street. -The relieving officer, checking his hand on its way to his hat, stopped -and looked after her as she turned the corner, hugging her parcel on the -side next the wall. Then he shouldered his umbrella and pursued his way, -holding his head high, and staring fiercely straight before him; for a -relieving officer is not used to being cut. - -It was a little after this that Mr. Crouch, the landlord, called. He had -not been calling regularly, because of late Miss Perkins had left her -five shillings of rent with Mrs. Crouch every Saturday evening. He noted -with satisfaction the whitened sills and the shade of fruit, behind -which the curtains were now drawn close and pinned together. He turned -the corner and lifted the bright knocker. Miss Perkins half opened the -door, stood in the opening, and began to speak. - -His jaw dropped. "Beg pardon--forgot something. Won't wait--call next -week--do just as well;" and he hurried round the corner and down the -street, puffing and blowing and staring. "Why the woman frightened me," -he afterward explained to Mrs. Crouch. "There's something wrong with her -eyes, and she looked like a corpse. The rent wasn't ready--I could see -that before she spoke; so I cleared out." - -"P'r'aps something's happened to the old lady," suggested Mrs. Crouch. -"Anyhow, I should think the rent 'ud be all right." And he thought it -would. - -Nobody saw the Perkinses that week. The shade of fruit stood in its old -place, but was thought not to have been dusted after Tuesday. - -Certainly the sills and the doorstep were neglected. Friday, Saturday, -and Sunday were swallowed up in a choking brown fog, wherein men lost -their bearings, and fell into docks, and stepped over embankment edges. -It was as though a great blot had fallen, and had obliterated three days -from the calendar. It cleared on Monday morning, and, just as the women -in the street were sweeping their steps, Mr. Crouch was seen at the -green door. He lifted the knocker, dull and sticky now with the foul -vapor, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There was no answer. He knocked -again, a little louder, and waited, listening. But there was neither -voice nor movement within. He gave three heavy knocks, and then came -round to the front window. There was the shade of fruit, the glass a -little duller on the top, the curtains pinned close about it, and -nothing to see beyond them. He tapped at the window with his knuckles, -and backed into the roadway to look at the one above. This was a window -with a striped holland blind and a short net curtain; but never a face -was there. - -The sweepers stopped to look, and one from opposite came and reported -that she had seen nothing of Miss Perkins for a week, and that certainly -nobody had left the house that morning. And Mr. Crouch grew excited, and -bellowed through the keyhole. - -In the end they opened the sash-fastening with a knife, moved the shade -of fruit, and got in. The room was bare and empty, and their steps and -voices resounded as those of people in an unfurnished house. The -wash-house was vacant, but it was clean, and there was a little net -curtain in the window. The short passage and the stairs were bare -boards. In the back room by the stair-head was a drawn window-blind, and -that was all. In the front room with the striped blind and the short -curtain there was a bed of rags and old newspapers; also a wooden box; -and on each of these was a dead woman. - -Both deaths, the doctor found, were from syncope, the result of -inanition; and the better-nourished woman--she on the bed--had died the -sooner; perhaps by a day or two. The other case was rather curious; it -exhibited a degree of shrinkage in the digestive organs unprecedented in -his experience. After the inquest the street had an evening's fame: for -the papers printed coarse drawings of the house, and in leaderettes -demanded the abolition of something. Then it became its wonted self. And -it was doubted if the waxen apples and the curtains fetched enough to -pay Mr. Crouch his fortnight's rent. - - - - -THREE ROUNDS. - - -At six o'clock the back streets were dank and black; but once in the -Bethnal Green Road, blots and flares of gas and naphtha shook and -flickered till every slimy cobble in the cartway was silver-tipped. -Neddy Milton was not quite fighting-fit. A day's questing for an odd job -had left him weary in the feet; and a lad of eighteen cannot comfortably -go unfed from breakfast to night-fall. But box he must, for the shilling -was irrecoverable, and so costly a chance must not be thrown away. It -was by a bout with the gloves that he looked to mend his fortunes. That -was his only avenue of advancement. He could read and write quite -decently, and in the beginning might even have been an office-boy, if -only the widow, his mother, had been able to give him a good send-off in -the matter of clothes. Also, he had had one chance of picking up a -trade, but the firm already employed as many boys as the union was -disposed to allow. So Neddy had to go, and pick up such stray jobs as he -might. - -It had been a bad day, without a doubt. Things were bad generally. It -was nearly a fortnight since Ned had lost his last job, and there seemed -to be no other in the world. His mother had had no slop-waistcoat -finishing to do for three or four days, and he distinctly remembered -that rather less than half a loaf was left after breakfast; so that it -would never do to go home, for at such a time the old woman had a trick -of pretending not to be hungry, and of starving herself. He almost -wished that shilling of entrance-money back in his pocket. There is a -deal of stuff to be bought for a shilling: fried fish, for instance, -whereof the aromas, warm and rank, met him thrice in a hundred yards, -and the frizzle, loud or faint, sang in his ears all along the Bethnal -Green Road. His shilling had been paid over but two days before the last -job gave out, and it would be useful now. Still, the investment might -turn out a gold mine. Luck must change. Meanwhile, as to being -hungry--well, there was always another hole in the belt! - -The landlord of the Prince Regent public-house had a large room behind -his premises, which, being moved by considerations of sport and profit -in doubtful proportions, he devoted two nights a week to the uses of the -Regent Boxing Club. Here Neddy Milton, through a long baptism of -pummellings, had learned the trick of a straight lead, a quick counter, -and a timely duck; and here, in the nine-stone competition to open this -very night, he might perchance punch wide the gates of Fortune. For some -sporting publican, or discriminating book-maker from Bow, might see and -approve his sparring, and start him fairly, with money behind him--a -professional. That would mean a match in six or eight weeks' time, with -good living in the mean while: a match that would have to be won, of -course. And after that ...! - -Twice before he had boxed in a competition. Once he won his bout in the -first round, and was beaten in the second; and once he was beaten in the -first, but that was by the final winner, Tab Rosser, who was now matched -for a hundred a side, sparred exhibition bouts up west, wore a light -Newmarket coat, and could stand whiskey and soda with anybody. To be -"taken up" on the strength of these early performances was more than he -could reasonably expect. There might be luck in the third trial; but he -would like to feel a little fitter. Breakfast (what there was of it) had -been ten hours ago, and since there had been but a half-pint of -four-ale. It was the treat of a well-meaning friend, but it lay cold on -the stomach for want of solid company. - -Turning into Cambridge Road, he crossed, and went on among the -by-streets leading toward Globe Road. Now and again a slight aspersion -of fine rain came down the gusts, and further damped his cap and -shoulders and the ragged hair that hung over his collar. Also a cold -spot under one foot gave him fears of a hole in his boot-sole as he -tramped in the chilly mud. - - -In the Prince Regent there were many at the bar, and the most of them -knew Neddy. - -"Wayo, Ned," said one lad with a pitted face, "_you_ don't look much of -a bleed'n' champion. 'Ave a drop o' beer." - -Ned took a sparing pull at the pot, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. A -large man behind him guffawed, and Neddy reddened high. He had heard the -joke. The man himself was one of the very backers that might make one's -fortune, and the man's companion thought it would be unsafe to back -Neddy to fight anything but a beefsteak. - -"You're drawed with Patsy Beard," one of Ned's friends informed him. -"You'll 'ave to buck up." - -This was bad. Patsy Beard, on known form, stood best chance of winning -the competition, and to have to meet him at first set-off was ill luck, -and no mistake. He was a thickset little butcher, and there was just -the ghost of a hope that he might be found to be a bit over the weight. - -A lad by the bar looked inquiringly in Ned's face and then came toward -him, shouldering him quietly out of the group. It was Sam Young, whom -Neddy had beaten in an earlier competition. "'Ungry, Neddy?" he asked, -in a corner. - -It was with a shamed face that Neddy confessed; for among those in peril -of hunger it is disgraceful to be hungry. Sam unpocketed a greasy paper, -enveloping a pallid sausage-roll. "'Ave 'alf o' this," he said. It was a -heavy and a clammy thing, but Ned took it, furtively swallowed a large -piece, and returned the rest with sheepish thanks. He did not turn again -toward the others, but went through to the room where the ring was -pitched. - -The proceedings began. First there were exhibition bouts, to play in the -company. Neddy fidgeted. Why couldn't they begin the competition at -once? When they did, his bout would be number five. That would mean at -least an hour of waiting; and the longer he waited the less fit he would -feel. - -In time the exhibition sparring was ended, and the real business began. -He watched the early bouts feverishly, feeling unaccountably anxious. -The lads looked strong and healthy. Patsy Beard was as strong as any of -them, and heavy. Could he stand it? This excited nervousness was new and -difficult to understand. He had never felt like it before. He was almost -trembling; and that lump of sausage-roll had stuck half-way, and made -breathing painful work. Patsy Beard was at the opposite corner, -surrounded by admirers. He was red-faced, well-fed, fleshy, and -confident. His short hair clung shinily about his bullet head. Neddy -noted a small piece of court-plaster at the side of his nose. Plainly -there was a tender spot, and it must be gone for, be it cut, or scratch, -or only pimple. On the left side, too, quite handy. Come, there was some -comfort in that. - -He fell to watching the bout. It was a hard fight, and both the lads -were swinging the right again and again for a knock-out. But the pace -was too hot, and they were soon breathing like men about to sneeze, -wearily pawing at each other, while their heads hung forward. Somebody -jogged him in the back, and he found he must get ready. His dressing was -simple. An ill-conditioned old pair of rubber gymnasium shoes replaced -his equally ill-conditioned bluchers, and a cotton singlet his shirt; -but his baggy corduroys, ragged at the ankles and doubtful at the seat, -remained. - -Presently the last pair of boxers was brought into the dressing-room, -and one of the seconds, a battered old pug with one eye, at once seized -Neddy. "Come along, young 'un," he said. "I'm your bloke. Got no -flannels? Awright. Jump on the scales." - -There was no doubt as to the weight. He had scaled at eight stone -thirteen; now it was eight stone bare. Patsy Beard, on the other hand, -weighed the full nine, without an ounce to spare. - -"You're givin' 'im a stone," said the old pug; "all the more credit -'idin' of 'im. 'Ere, let's shove 'em on. Feel 'em." He grinned and -blinked his solitary eye as he pulled on Neddy's hand one of a very -black and long-worn pair of boxing-gloves. They were soft and flaccid; -Neddy's heart warmed toward the one-eyed man, for well he knew from many -knocks that the softer the glove the harder the fist feels through it. -"Sawftest pair in the place, s'elp me," grunted the second, with one -glove hanging from his teeth. "My lad 'ad 'em last time. Come on." - -He snatched a towel and a bottle of water, and hurried Neddy from the -dressing-room to the ring. Neddy sat in his chair in the ring-corner, -and spread his arms on the ropes: while his second, arms uplifted, stood -before him and ducked solemnly forward and back with the towel flicking -overhead. While he was fanning, Neddy was still conscious of the lump of -sausage-roll in his chest. Also he fell to wondering idly why they -called Beard Patsy, when his first name was Joe. The same reflection -applied to Tab Rosser, and Hocko Jones, and Tiggy Magson. But certainly -he felt hollow and sick in the belly. Could he stand punching? It would -never do to chuck it half through. Still-- - -"Ready!" sang the timekeeper. - -The old pug threw the towel over his arm. "'Ave a moistener," he said, -presenting the water-bottle to Neddy's mouth. "Don't swaller any," he -added, as his principal took a large gulp. "Spit it out." - -"Seconds out of the ring!" - -The old prize-fighter took his bottle and climbed through the ropes. -"Don't go in-fightin'," he whispered from behind. "Mark 'im on the -stickin'-plaster; an' if you don't give 'im a 'idin', bli' me, I'll give -you one!" - -"Time!" - -The seconds seized the chairs and dragged them out of the ring, as the -lads advanced and shook hands. Patsy Beard flung back his right foot, -and made a flashy prance with his left knee as they began to spar for an -opening: it was Patsy's way. All Neddy's anxiety was gone. The moment -his right foot dropped behind his left, and his left hand rocked, -knuckles up, before him, he was a competent workman, with all his tools -in order. Even the lump of dough on his chest he felt no more. - -"Buy, buy!" bawled a wag in the crowd, as a delicate allusion to Beard's -more ordinary occupation. Patsy grinned at the compliment, but Neddy -confined his attention to business. He feinted with his left, and got -back; but Patsy was not to be drawn. Then Neddy stepped in and led -quickly, ducking the counter and repeating before getting away. Patsy -came with a rush and fought for the body, but Neddy slipped him, and got -in one for nothing on the ear. The company howled. - -They sparred in the middle. Patsy led perfunctorily with the left now -and again, while his right elbow undulated nervously. That foretold an -attempt to knock out with the right: precautions, a straight and -persistent left, and a wary eye. So Neddy kept poking out his left, and -never lost sight of the court-plaster, never of the shifty right. Give -and take was the order of the round, and they fought all over the ring, -Patsy Beard making for close quarters, and Neddy keeping off, and -stopping him with the left. Neddy met a straight punch on the nose that -made his eyes water, but through the tears he saw the plaster displaced, -and a tiny stream of blood trickling toward the corner of Patsy's mouth. -Plainly it was a cut. He broke ground, stopped half-way and banged in -left and right. He got a sharp rive on the neck for his pains, and took -the right on his elbow; but he had landed on the spot, and the tiny -streak of blood was smeared out wide across Patsy's face. The company -roared and whistled with enthusiasm. It was a capital rally. - -But now Neddy's left grew slower, and was heavy to lift. From time to -time Patsy got in one for nothing, and soon began to drive him about the -ring. Neddy fought on, weak and gasping, and longed for the call of -time. His arms felt as if they were hung with lead, and he could do -little more than push feebly. He heard the yell of many voices, "Now -then, Patsy, hout him! 'Ave 'im out! That's it, Patsy, another like -that! Keep on, Patsy!" - -Patsy kept on. Right and left, above and below, Neddy could see the -blows coming. But he was powerless to guard or to return. He could but -stagger about, and now and again swing an ineffectual arm as it hung -from the shoulder. Presently a flush hit on the nose drove him against -the ropes, another in the ribs almost through them. But a desperate, -wide whirl of his right brought it heavily on Patsy's tender spot, and -tore open the cut. Patsy winced, and-- - -"Time!" - -Neddy was grabbed at the waist and put in his chair. "Good lad!" said -the one-eyed pug in his ear as he sponged his face. "Nothink like pluck. -But you mustn't go to pieces 'alf through the round. Was it a awk'ard -poke upsetcher?" - -Neddy, lying back and panting wildly, shook his head as he gazed at the -ceiling. "Awright; try an' save yourself a bit. Keep yer left goin'--you -roasted 'im good with that; 'e'll want a yard o' plaster to-night. An' -when 'e gits leadin' loose, take it auf an' give him the right straight -from the guard--if you know the trick. Point o' the jaw that's for, -mind. 'Ave a cooler." He took a mouthful of water and blew it in a fine -spray in Neddy's face, wiped it down, and began another overhead -fanning. - -"Seconds out of the ring!" called the timekeeper. - -"Go it, my lad,"--thus a whisper from behind,--"you can walk over 'im!" -And Neddy felt the wet sponge squeezed against the back of his neck, and -the cool water trickling down his spine. - -"Time!" - -Neddy was better, though there was a worn feeling in his arm-muscles. -Patsy's cut had been well sponged, but it still bled, and Patsy meant -giving Neddy no rest. He rushed at once, but was met by a clean -right-hander, slap on the sore spot. "Bravo, Neddy!" came a voice, and -the company howled as before. Patsy was steadied. He sparred with some -caution, twitching the cheek next the cut. Neddy would not lead (for he -must save himself), and so the two sparred for a few seconds. Then Patsy -rushed again, and Neddy got busy with both hands. Once he managed to get -the right in from the guard as his second had advised, but not heavily. -He could feel his strength going--earlier than in the last round--and -Patsy was as strong and determined as ever. Another rush carried Neddy -against the ropes, where he got two heavy body blows and a bad -jaw-rattler. He floundered to the right in an attempt to slip, and fell -on his face. He rolled on his side, however, and was up again, -breathless and unsteady. There was a sickening throbbing in the crown of -his head, and he could scarce lift his arms. But there was no respite: -the other lad was at him again, and he was driven across the ring and -back, blindly pushing his aching arms before him, while punch followed -punch on nose, ears, jaws, and body, till something began to beat -inside his head, louder and harder than all beside, stunning and -sickening him. He could hear the crowd roaring still, but it seemed -further off; and the yells of "That's it, Patsy! Now you've got 'im! -Keep at 'im! Hout 'im this time!" came from some other building close -by, where somebody was getting a bad licking. Somebody with no control -of his legs, and no breath to spit away the blood from his nose as it -ran and stuck over his lips. Somebody praying for the end of the three -minutes that seemed three hours, and groaning inwardly because of a lump -of cold lead in his belly that had once been sausage-roll. Somebody to -whom a few called--still in the other building--"Chuck it, Neddy; it's -no good. Why don'cher chuck it?" while others said, "Take 'im away, tyke -'im away!" Then something hit him between the eyes, and some other thing -behind the head; that was one of the posts. He swung an arm, but it met -nothing; then the other, and it struck somewhere; and then there was a -bang that twisted his head, and hard boards were against his face. O it -was bad, but it was a rest. - -Cold water was on his face, and somebody spoke. He was in his chair -again, and the one-eyed man was sponging him. "It was the call o' time -as saved ye then," he said; "you'd never 'a' got up in the ten seconds. -Y' ain't up to another round, are ye? Better chuck it. It's no disgrace, -after the way you've stood up." But Neddy shook his head. He had got -through two of the three rounds, and didn't mean throwing away a chance -of saving the bout. - -"Awright, if you won't," his Mentor said. "Nothink like pluck. But -you're no good on points--a knock-out's the on'y chance. Nurse yer -right, an' give it 'im good on the point. 'E's none so fresh 'isself; -'e's blowed with the work, an' you pasted 'im fine when you did 'it. -Last thing, just before 'e sent ye down, ye dropped a 'ot 'un on 'is -beak. Didn't see it, didjer?" The old bruiser rubbed vigorously at his -arms, and gave him a small, but welcome, drink of water. - -"Seconds out of the ring!" - -The one-eyed man was gone once more, but again his voice came from -behind. "Mind--give it 'im 'ard and give it 'im soon, an' if you feel -groggy, chuck it d'reckly. If ye don't, I'll drag ye out by the slack o' -yer trousis an' disgrace ye." - -"Time!" - -Neddy knew there was little more than half a minute's boxing left in -him--perhaps not so much. He must do his best at once. Patsy was showing -signs of hard wear, and still blew a little: his nose was encouragingly -crimson at the nostrils, and the cut was open and raw. He rushed in with -a lead which Neddy ducked and cross-countered, though ineffectually. -There were a few vigorous exchanges, and then Neddy staggered back from -a straight drive on the mouth. There was a shout of "Patsy!" and Patsy -sprang in, right elbow all a-jerk, and flung in the left. Neddy guarded -wildly, and banged in the right from the guard. Had he hit? He had felt -no shock, but there was Patsy, lying on his face. - -The crowd roared and roared again. The old pug stuffed his chair hastily -through the ropes, and Neddy sank into it, panting, with bloodshot eyes. -Patsy lay still. The timekeeper watched the seconds-hand pass its ten -points, and gave the word, but Patsy only moved a leg. Neddy Milton had -won. - -"Brayvo, young 'un," said the old fighter, as he threw his arm about -Neddy's waist, and helped him to the dressing-room. "Cleanest knock-out -I ever see--smack on the point o' the jaw. Never thought you'd 'a' done -it. I said there was nothink like pluck, did'n' I? 'Ave a wash now, an' -you'll be all the better for the exercise. Give us them gloves--I'm off -for the next bout." And he seized another lad, and marched him out. - -"'Ave a drop o' beer," said one of Neddy's new-won friends, extending a -tankard. He took it, though he scarcely felt awake. He was listless and -weak, and would not have moved for an hour had he been left alone. But -Patsy was brought to, and sneezed loudly, and Neddy was hauled over to -shake hands with him. - -"You give me a 'ell of a doin'," said Neddy, "_I_ never thought I'd beat -you." - -"Beat me? well you ain't, 'ave you? 'Ow?" - -"Knock-out," answered several at once. - -"Well, I'm damned," said Patsy Beard.... - - -In the bar, after the evening's business, Neddy sat and looked wistfully -at the stout red-faced men who smoked fourpenny cigars and drank special -Scotch; but not one noticed him. His luck had not come after all. But -there was the second round of bouts, and the final, in a week's -time--perhaps it would come then. If he could only win the final--then -it _must_ come. Meanwhile he was sick and faint, and felt doubtful about -getting home. Outside it was raining hard. He laid his head on the bar -table at which he was sitting, and at closing time there they found him -asleep. - - - - -IN BUSINESS. - - -There was a great effervescence of rumor in Cubitt Town when Ted Munsey -came into money. Ted Munsey, commonly alluded to as Mrs. Munsey's -'usband, was a moulder with a regular job at Moffat's: a large, quiet -man of forty-five, the uncomplaining appurtenance of his wife. This was -fitting, for she had married beneath her, her father having been a dock -timekeeper. - -To come into money is an unusual feat in Cubitt Town; a feat, -nevertheless, continually contemplated among possibilities by all Cubitt -Towners; who find nothing else in the Sunday paper so refreshing as the -paragraphs headed "Windfall for a Cabman" and "A Fortune for a Pauper," -and who cut them out to pin over the mantelpiece. The handsome coloring -of such paragraphs was responsible for many bold flights of fancy in -regard to Ted Munsey's fortune: Cubitt Town, left to itself, being -sterile soil for the imagination. Some said that the Munseys had come in -for chests packed with bank notes, on the decease of one of Mrs. -Munsey's relations, of whom she was wont to hint. Others put it at a -street full of houses, as being the higher ideal of wealth. A few, more -romantically given, imagined vaguely of ancestral lands and halls, which -Mrs. Munsey and her forbears had been "done out of" for many years by -the lawyers. All which Mrs. Munsey, in her hour of triumph, was at -little pains to discount, although, in simple fact, the fortune was no -more than a legacy of a hundred pounds from Ted's uncle, who had kept a -public-house in Deptford. - -Of the hundred pounds Mrs. Munsey took immediate custody. There was no -guessing what would have become of it in Ted's hands; probably it would -have been, in chief part, irrecoverably lent; certainly it would have -gone and left Ted a moulder at Moffat's, as before. With Mrs. Munsey -there was neither hesitation nor difficulty. The obvious use of a -hundred pounds was to put its possessors into business--which meant a -shop; to elevate them socially at a single bound beyond the many grades -lying between the moulder and the small tradesman. Wherefore the Munseys -straightway went into business. Being equally ignorant of every sort of -shopkeeping, they were free to choose the sort they pleased; and thus it -was that Mrs. Munsey decided upon drapery and haberdashery, Ted's -contribution to the discussion being limited to a mild hint of -greengrocery and coals, instantly suppressed as low. Nothing could be -more genteel than drapery, and it would suit the girls. General -chandlery, sweetstuff, oil, and firewood--all these were low, -comparatively. Drapery it was, and quickly; for Mrs. Munsey was not wont -to shilly-shally. An empty shop was found in Bromley, was rented, and -was stocked as far as possible. Tickets were hung upon everything, -bearing a very large main figure with a very small three-farthings -beside it, and the thing was done. The stain of moulding was washed from -the scutcheon; the descent thereunto from dock timekeeping was redeemed -fivefold; dock timekeeping itself was left far below, with carpentering, -shipwrighting, and engine-fitting. The Munseys were in business. - -Ted Munsey stood about helplessly and stared, irksomely striving not to -put his hands in his pockets, which was low; any lapse being instantly -detected by Mrs. Munsey, who rushed from all sorts of unexpected places -and corrected the fault vigorously. - -"I didn't go for to do it, Marier," he explained penitently. "It's -'abit. I'll get out of it soon. It don't look well, I know, in a -business; but it do seem a comfort, somehow." - -"O you an' your comfort! A lot you study _my_ comfort, Hedward!"--for he -was Ted no more--"a-toilin' an' a-moilin' with everything to think of -myself while you look on with your 'ands in your pockets. Do try an' not -look like a stuck ninny, do!" And Hedward, whose every attempt at help -or suggestion had been severely repulsed, slouched uneasily to the door, -and strove to look as business-like as possible. - -"There you go again, stickin' in the doorway and starin' up an' down the -street, as though there was no business doin'"--there was none, but that -might not be confessed. "D'y' expect people to come in with you -a-fillin' up the door? Do come in, do! You'd be better out o' the shop -altogether." - -Hedward thought so too, but said nothing. He had been invested with his -Sunday clothes of lustrous black, and brought into the shop to give such -impression of a shop-walker as he might. He stood uneasily on alternate -feet, and stared at the ceiling, the floor, or the space before him, -with an unhappy sense of being on show and not knowing what was expected -of him. He moved his hands purposelessly, and knocked things down with -his elbows; he rubbed his hair all up behind, and furtively wiped the -resulting oil from his hand on his trousers: never looking in the least -degree like a shop-walker. - -The first customer was a very small child who came for a ha'porth of -pins, and on whom Hedward gazed with much interest and respect, while -Mrs. Munsey handed over the purchase: abating not a jot of his -appreciation when the child returned, later, to explain that what she -really wanted was sewing cotton. Other customers were disappointingly -few. Several old neighbors came in from curiosity, to talk and buy -nothing. One woman, who looked at many things without buying, was -discovered after her departure to have stolen a pair of stockings; and -Hedward was duly abused for not keeping a sharp look-out while his -wife's back was turned. Finally, the shutters went up on a day's takings -of three and sevenpence farthing, including a most dubious threepenny -bit. But then, as Mrs. Munsey said, when you are in business you must -expect trade to vary; and of course there would be more customers when -the shop got known; although Hedward certainly might have taken the -trouble to find one in a busier thoroughfare. Hedward (whose opinion in -that matter, as in others, had never been asked) retired to the -back-yard to smoke a pipe--a thing he had been pining for all day; but -was quickly recalled (the pipe being a clay) upon Mrs. Munsey's -discovery that the act could be observed from a neighbor's window. He -was continually bringing the family into disgrace, and Mrs. Munsey -despaired aloud over him far into the night. - -The days came and went, and trade varied, as a fact, very little indeed. -Between three and sevenpence farthing and nothing the scope for -fluctuation is small, and for some time the first day's record was never -exceeded. But on the fifth day a customer bought nearly seven shillings' -worth all at once. Her husband had that day returned from sea with -money, and she, after months of stint, indulged in an orgie of -haberdashery at the nearest shop. Mrs. Munsey was reassured. Trade was -increasing; perhaps an assistant would be needed soon, in addition to -the two girls. - -Only the younger of the girls, by the bye, had as yet taken any active -interest in the business: Emma, the elder, spending much of her time in -a bedroom, making herself unpresentable by inordinate blubbering. This -was because of Mrs. Munsey's prohibition of more company-keeping with -Jack Page. Jack was a plumber, just out of his time--rather a catch for -a moulder's daughter, but impossible, of course, for the daughter of -people in business, as Emma should have had the proper feeling to see -for herself. This Emma had not: she wallowed in a luxury of woe, -exacerbated on occasions to poignancy by the scoldings and sometimes by -the thumpings of her mar; and neglected even the select weekly quadrille -class, membership whereof was part of the novel splendor. - -But there was never again a seven-shilling customer. The state of trade -perplexed Mrs. Munsey beyond telling. Being in business, one must, by -the circumstance, have a genteel competence: this was an elementary -axiom in Cubitt Town. But where was the money? What was the difference -between this and other shops? Was a screw loose anywhere? In that case -it certainly could not be her fault; wherefore she nagged Hedward. - -One day a polite young man called in a large pony-trap and explained the -whole mystery. Nobody could reasonably expect to succeed in a business -of this sort who did not keep a good stock of the fancy aprons and lace -bows made by the firm he was charged to represent. Of course he knew -what business was, and that cash was not always free, but that need -never hinder transactions with him: three months' credit was the regular -thing with any respectable, well-established business concern, and in -three months one would certainly sell all the fancy aprons and lace bows -of this especial kind and price that one had room for. And he need -scarcely remind a lady of Mrs. Munsey's business experience that fancy -aprons and lace bows--of the right sort--were by far the most profitable -goods known to the trade. Everybody knew _that_. Should they say a gross -of each, just to go on with? No? Well, then half a gross. These prices -were cut so near that it really did not pay to split the gross, but this -time, to secure a good customer, he would stretch a point. Mrs. Munsey -was enlightened. Plainly the secret of success in business was to buy -advantageously, in the way the polite young man suggested, sell at a -good price, and live on the profits: merely paying over the remainder at -the end of three months. Nothing could be simpler. So she began the -system forthwith. Other polite young men called, and further certain -profits were arranged for on similar terms. - -The weak spot in the plan was the absence of any binding arrangement -with the general public; and this was not long in discovering itself. -Nobody came to buy the fancy aprons and the lace bows, tempting as they -might seem. Moreover, after they had hung a week or more, Alice reported -that a large shop in the Commercial Road was offering, by retail, aprons -and bows of precisely the same sort at a less price than the polite -young man had charged for a wholesale purchase. Mrs. Munsey grew -desperate, and Hedward's life became a horror unto him. He was set to -stand at the door with a fancy apron in one hand and a lace bow in the -other, and capture customers as they passed: a function wherein he -achieved detestable failure; alarming passing women (who considered him -dangerously drunk) as greatly as his situation distressed himself. - -Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate, and drove Hedward to the rear of the -house, with bitter revilings. Money must be got out of the stock -somehow. That a shop could in any circumstances be unremunerative -puzzled as much as it dismayed her. The goods were marked down to low -prices--often lower than cost. Still Mrs. Munsey had the abiding -conviction that the affair must pay, as others did, if only she might -hold out long enough. Hedward's suggestion that he should return to the -moulding, coming and going as little in sight as possible, she repelled -savagely. "A nice notion you've got o' keepin' up a proper position. You -ain't content with disgracin' me and yourself too, playin' the fool in -the shop till trade's ruined an' nobody won't come near the place--an' I -don't wonder at it.... You're a nice sort of 'usband, I must say. What -are you goin' to do now, with the business in this pretty mess, an' your -wife an' children ready to starve? What are you goin' to do? Where are -you goin' to turn? That's what I want to know." - -"Well, I'm a-thinkin' it out, Marier, in a legal point. P'r'aps, you -know, my dear--" - -"Oh, don't dear me! I 'ate a fool." - -Marked as low as they might be, none of the aprons nor the bows nor the -towels nor the stockings nor any other of the goods were bought--never a -thing beyond a ha'porth of thread or a farthing bodkin. Rent had to be -paid, and even food cost money. There was a flavor of blank -disappointment about Saturday--the pay day of less anxious times; and -quarter day, when all these polite young men would demand the money that -was not--that day was coming, black and soon. Mrs. Munsey grew more -desperate than ever, sharp of feature, and aged. Alone, she would -probably have wept. Having Hedward at hand, she poured forth her -bitterness of spirit upon him; till at last he was nagged out of his -normal stolidity, and there came upon his face the look of a bullock -that is harried on all hands through unfamiliar streets. - -On a night when, from sheer weariness of soul, she fell from clatter -toward sleep, of a sudden Hedward spoke. "Marier--" he said. - -"Well?" - -"You ain't give me a kiss lately. Kiss me now." - -"Don't be a fool. I'm sick an' tired. Go to sleep, if you can sleep, -with everything--" - -"Kiss me, I tell you!" He had never commanded like that before. She -marvelled, feared a little, and obeyed. - -In the morning, when she awoke, he had already gone downstairs. This was -as usual. When she followed, however, he was not to be found in the -house. The shop shutters had been taken down, and the windows carefully -cleaned, although it was not the regular window-cleaning day; but the -door was shut. On the sitting-room table were two papers, one within the -other. The first was written with many faults and smudges, and this was -how it ran:-- - - - "the deed and testiment of Ed. Munsey this is to cirtiffy that i - make over all my property to my belov^d wife stock bisness and - furnitur so help me god all detts i keep to pay myself and my wife - is not ansrable for them and certiffy that I O U Minchin and co 9 - pound 4/7½ Jones and son 6 pound 13/2 and settrer all other detts - me and not my wife I O U - - ED. MUNSEY" - - -The other was a letter:-- - - - "my dear wife i have done this legle dockerment after thinking it - out it will make you alrite having all made over and me still oawe - the detts not you as you can pull round the bisness as you said - with time and if you do not see me again will you pay the detts - when it is pull round as we have been allways honnest and straght i - should wish for Emma to keep co with Jhon Page if can be mannaged - he might be shop walker and you will soon all be rich swels i know - so no more from yours affec husband - - ED. MUNSEY - - "love to Emma and Alice this one must be burnt keep the other" - - -Near the papers lay Ted Munsey's large silver watch and chain, the -silver ring that he used to fasten his best tie, three keys, and a few -coppers. Upstairs the girls began to move about. Mrs. Munsey sat with -her frightened face on the table. - - - - -THE RED COW GROUP. - - -The Red Cow Anarchist Group no longer exists. Its leading spirit appears -no more among his devoted comrades, and without him they are -ineffectual. - -He was but a young man, this leading spirit, (his name, by the bye, was -Sotcher,) but of his commanding influence among the older but unlettered -men about him, read and judge. For themselves, they had long been -plunged in a beery apathy, neither regarding nor caring for the fearful -iniquities of the social system that oppressed them. A Red Cow group -they had always been, before the coming of Sotcher to make Anarchists of -them: forgathering in a remote compartment of the Red Cow bar, reached -by a side door in an alley; a compartment uninvaded and almost -undiscovered by any but themselves, where night after night they drank -their beer and smoked their pipes, sunk in a stagnant ignorance of their -manifold wrongs. During the day Old Baker remained to garrison the -stronghold. He was a long-bankrupt tradesman, with invisible resources -and no occupation but this, and no known lodging but the Red Cow -snuggery. There he remained all day and every day, "holding the fort," -as he put it: with his nose, a fiery signal of possession, never two -feet from the rim of his pot; while Jerry Shand was carrying heavy loads -in Columbia Market; while Gunno Polson was running for a book-maker in -Fleet Street; while Snorkey was wherever his instinct took him, doing -whatever paid best, and keeping out of trouble as long as he could; and -while the rest of the group--two or three--picked a living out of the -London heap in ways and places unspecified. But at evening they joined -Old Baker, and they filled their snuggery. - -Their talk was rarely of politics, and never of "social problems": -present and immediate facts filled their whole field of contemplation. -Their accounts were kept, and their references to pecuniary matters were -always stated, in terms of liquid measure. Thus, fourpence was never -spoken of in the common way: it was a quart, and a quart was the -monetary standard of the community. Even as twopence was a pint, and -eightpence was half-a-gallon. - -It was Snorkey who discovered Sotcher, and it was with Snorkey that that -revolutionary appeared before the Red Cow group with his message of -enlightenment. Snorkey (who was christened something else that nobody -knew or cared about) had a trick of getting into extraordinary and -unheard-of places in his daily quest of quarts, and he had met Sotcher -in a loft at the top of a house in Berners Street, Shadwell. It was a -loft where the elect of Anarchism congregated nightly, and where -everybody lectured all the others. Sotcher was a very young Anarchist, -restless by reason of not being sufficiently listened to, and glad to -find outsiders to instruct and to impress with a full sense of his -sombre, mystic dare-devilry. Therefore he came to the Red Cow with -Snorkey, to spread (as he said) the light. - -He was not received with enthusiasm, perhaps because of a certain -unlaundered aspect of person remarkable even to them of the Red Cow -group. Grease was his chief exterior characteristic, and his thick hair, -turning up over his collar, seemed to have lain for long unharried of -brush or comb. His face was a sebaceous trickle of long features, and on -his hands there was a murky deposit that looked like scales. He wore, in -all weathers, a long black coat with a rectangular rent in the skirt, -and his throat he clipped in a brown neckerchief that on a time had been -of the right Anarchist red. But no want of welcome could abash him. -Here, indeed, he had an audience, an audience that did not lecture on -its own account, a crude audience that might take him at his own -valuation. So he gave it to that crude audience, hot and strong. They -(and he) were the salt of the earth, bullied, plundered and abused. Down -with everything that wasn't down already. And so forth and so on. - -His lectures were continued. Every night it was the same as every other, -and each several chapter of his discourse was a repetition of the one -before. Slowly the Red Cow group came around. Plainly other people were -better off than they; and certainly each man found it hard to believe -that anybody else was more deserving than himself. - -"Wy are we pore?" asked Sotcher, leaning forward and jerking his -extended palm from one to another, as though attempting a hasty -collection. "I ask you straight, wy are we pore? Why is it, my frien's, -that awften and awften you find you ain't got a penny in yer pocket, not -for to git a crust o' bread or 'alf a pint o' reasonable refreshment? -'Ow is it that 'appens? Agin I ask, 'ow?" - -Snorkey, with a feeling that an answer was expected from somebody, -presently murmured, "No mugs," which encouraged Gunno Polson to suggest, -"Backers all stony-broke." Jerry Shand said nothing, but reflected on -the occasional result of a day on the loose. Old Baker neither spoke nor -thought. - -"I'll tell you, me frien's. It's 'cos o' the rotten state o' s'ciety. Wy -d'you allow the lazy, idle, dirty, do-nothing upper classes, as they -call 'emselves, to reap all the benefits o' your toil wile you slave an' -slave to keep 'em in lukshry an' starve yerselves? Wy don't you go an' -take your shares o' the wealth lyin' round you?" - -There was another pause. Gunno Polson looked at his friends one after -another, spat emphatically, and said, "Coppers." - -"Becos o' the brute force as the privileged classes is 'edged -theirselves in with, that's all. Becos o' the paid myrmidons armed an' -kep' to make slaves o' the people. Becos o' the magistrates an' p'lice. -Then wy not git rid o' the magistrates an' p'lice? They're no good, are -they? 'Oo wants 'em, I ask? 'Oo?" - -"They _are_ a noosance," admitted Snorkey, who had done a little time -himself. He was a mere groundling, and persisted in regarding the -proceedings as simple conversation, instead of as an oration with pauses -at the proper places. - -"Nobody wants 'em--nobody as is any good. Then don't 'ave 'em, me -frien's--don't 'ave 'em! It all rests with you. Don't 'ave no -magistrates nor p'lice, nor gover'ment, nor parliament, nor monarchy, -nor county council, nor nothink. Make a clean sweep of 'em. Blow 'em up. -Then you'll 'ave yer rights. The time's comin', I tell you. It's comin', -take my word for it. Now you toil an' slave; then everybody'll 'ave to -work w'ether 'e likes it or not, and two hours work a day'll be all -you'll 'ave to do." - -Old Baker looked a little alarmed, and for a moment paused in his -smoking. - -"Two hours a day at most, that's all; an' all yer wants provided for, -free an' liberal." Some of the group gave a lickerish look across the -bar. "No a'thority, no gover'ment, no privilege, an' nothink to -interfere. Free contrack between man an' man, subjick to free revision -an' change." - -"Wot's that?" demanded Jerry Shand, who was the slowest convert. - -"Wy, that," Sotcher explained, "means that everybody can make wot -arrangements with 'is feller-men 'e likes for to carry on the business -of life, but nothink can't bind you. You chuck over the arrangement if -it suits best." - -"Ah," said Gunno Polson musingly, rotating his pot horizontally before -him to stir the beer; "that 'ud be 'andy sometimes. They call it -welshin' now." - -The light spread fast and free, and in a few nights the Red Cow group -was a very promising little bed of Anarchy. Sotcher was at pains to have -it reported at two places west of Tottenham Court Road and at another in -Dean Street, Soho, that at last a comrade had secured an excellent -footing with a party of the proletariat of East London, hitherto looked -on as hopeless material. More: that an early manifestation of activity -might be expected in that quarter. Such activity had been held advisable -of late, in view of certain extraditions. - -And Sotcher's discourse at the Red Cow turned, lightly and easily, -toward the question of explosives. Anybody could make them, he -explained; nothing simpler, with care. And here he posed at large in the -character of mysterious desperado, the wonder and admiration of all the -Red Cow group. They should buy nitric acid, he said, of the strongest -sort, and twice as much sulphuric acid. The shops where they sold -photographic materials were best and cheapest for these things, and no -questions were asked. They should mix the acids, and then add gently, -drop by drop, the best glycerine, taking care to keep everything cool. -After which the whole lot must be poured into water, to stand for an -hour. Then a thick, yellowish, oily stuff would be found to have sunk to -the bottom, which must be passed through several pails of water to be -cleansed: and there it was, a terrible explosive. You handled it with -care and poured it on brick-dust or dry sand, or anything of that sort -that would soak it up, and then it could be used with safety to the -operator. - -The group listened with rapt attention, more than one pot stopping -half-way on its passage mouthwards. Then Jerry Shand wanted to know if -Sotcher had ever blown up anything or anybody himself. - -The missionary admitted that that glory had not been his. "I'm one o' -the teachers, me frien's--one o' the pioneers that goes to show the way -for the active workers like you. I on'y come to explain the principles -an' set you in the right road to the social revolution, so as you may -get yer rights at last. It's for you to act." - -Then he explained that action might be taken in two ways: either -individually or by mutual aid in the group. Individual work was much to -be preferred, being safer; but a particular undertaking often -necessitated co-operation. But that was for the workers to settle as the -occasion arose. However, one thing must be remembered. If the group -operated, each man must be watchful of the rest; there must be no half -measures, no timorousness; any comrade wavering, temporizing, or -behaving in any way suspiciously, must be straightway _suppressed_. -There must be no mistake about that. It was desperate and glorious work, -and there must be desperate and rapid methods both of striking and -guarding. These things he made clear in his best conspirator's manner: -with nods and scowls and a shaken forefinger, as of one accustomed to -oversetting empires. - -The men of the Red Cow group looked at each other, and spat -thoughtfully. Then a comrade asked what had better be blown up first. -Sotcher's opinion was that there was most glory in blowing up people, in -a crowd or at a theatre. But a building was safer, as there was more -chance of getting away. Of buildings, a public office was probably to be -preferred--something in Whitehall, say. Or a bank--nobody seemed to have -tried a bank: he offered the suggestion now. Of course there were not -many public buildings in the East End, but possibly the group would like -to act in their own neighborhood: it would be a novelty, and would -attract notice; the question was one for their own decision, independent -freedom of judgment being the right thing in these matters. There were -churches, of course, and the factories of the bloated capitalist. -Particularly, he might suggest the gas-works close by. There was a large -gasometer abutting on the street, and probably an explosion there would -prove tremendously effective, putting the lights out everywhere, and -attracting great attention in the papers. That was glory. - -Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the lives of the men in the -gas-works; but Sotcher explained that that was a trivial matter. -Revolutions were never accomplished without bloodshed, and a few casual -lives were not to be weighed in the balance against the glorious -consummation of the social upheaval. He repeated his contention, when -some weaker comrade spoke of the chance of danger to the operator, and -repeated it with a proper scorn of the soft-handed pusillanimity that -shrank from danger to life and limb in the cause. Look at the glory, and -consider the hundred-fold vengeance on the enemy in the day to come! The -martyr's crown was his who should die at the post of duty. - -His eloquence prevailed: there were murmurs no more. "'Ere, tell us the -name of the stuff agin," broke out Gunno Polson, resolutely, feeling for -a pencil and paper. "Blimy, I'll make some to-morrer." - -He wrote down the name of the ingredients with much spelling. "Thick, -yuller, oily stuff, ain't it, wot you make?" he asked. - -"Yus--an' keep it cool." - -The group broke up, stern and resolute, and Sotcher strode to his home -exultant, a man of power. - - -For the next night or two the enthusiasm at the Red Cow was unbounded. -There was no longer any questioning of principles or action--every man -was an eager Anarchist--strong and devoted in the cause. The little -chemical experiment was going on well, Gunno Polson reported, with -confident nods and winks. Sotcher repeated his discourse, as a matter of -routine, to maintain the general ardor, which had, however, to endure a -temporary check as the result of a delicate inquiry of Snorkey's, as to -what funds might be expected from head-quarters. For there were no -funds, said Sotcher, somewhat surprised at the question. - -"Wot?" demanded Jerry Shand, opening his mouth and putting down his -pipe: "ain't we goin' to get nothink for all this?" - -They would get the glory, Sotcher assured him, and the consciousness of -striking a mighty blow at this, and that, and the other; but that was -all. And instantly the faces of the group grew long. - -"But," said Old Baker, "I thought all you blokes always got somethink -from the--the committee?" - -There was no committee, and no funds: there was nothing but glory, and -victory, and triumph, and the social revolution, and things of that -kind. For a little, the comrades looked at each other awkwardly, but -they soon regained their cheerfulness, with zeal no whit abated. The -sitting closed with promises of an early gathering for the next night. - -But when the next night came Sotcher was later than usual. "Ullo," -shouted Gunno Polson, as he entered, "'ere you are at last. We've 'ad to -do important business without you. See," he added in a lower tone, -"'ere's the stuff!" And he produced an old physic-bottle nearly full of -a thick, yellowish fluid. - -Sotcher started back half a pace, and slightly paled. "Don't shake it," -he whispered hoarsely. "Don't shake it, for Gawd's sake!... Wot--wotjer -bring it 'ere for, like that? It's--it's awful stuff, blimy." He looked -uneasily about the group, and wiped his forehead with the back of his -hand. "I--I thought you'd git the job over soon as the stuff was -ready.... 'Ere, my Gawd!" he squeaked under his breath, "don't put it -down 'ard on the table like that. It's sich--sich awful stuff." He wiped -his forehead again, and, still standing, glanced once more -apprehensively round the circle of impassive faces. Then after a pause, -he asked, with an effort, "Wot--wotjer goin' to do now?" - -"Blow up the bleed'n' gas-works, o' course," answered Gunno Polson -complacently. "'Ere's a penn'orth o' silver sand, an' a 'bacca canister, -an' some wire, an' a big cracker with a long touch-paper, so as to stick -out o' the canister-lid. That ought to set it auf, oughtn't it? 'Ere, -you pour the stuff over the sand, doncher?" And he pulled out the cork -and made ready to mix. - -"'Old on--'old on--don't! Wait a bit, for Gawd's sake!" cried Sotcher, -in a sweat of terror. "You--you dunno wot awful stuff it is--s'elp me, -you don't! You--you'll blow us all up if you don't keep it still. -Y--you'll want some--other things. I'll go an'--" - -But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the door. "This 'ere conspiracy'll -'ave to be gawn through proper," he said. "We can't 'ave no waverers nor -blokes wot want to clear out in the middle of it, and p'r'aps go an' -tell the p'lice. Them sort we 'as to _suppress_, see? There's all the -stuff there, me lad, an' you know it. Wot's more, it's you as is got to -put it up agin the gas-works an' set it auf." - -The hapless Sotcher turned a yellower pallor and asked faintly, "Me? Wy -me?" - -"All done reg'lar and proper," Jerry replied, "'fore you come. We voted -it--by ballot, all square. If you'd 'a' come earlier you'd 'a' 'ad a -vote yerself." - -Sotcher pushed at Jerry's shoulder despairingly. "I won't, I won't!" he -gasped. "Lemme go--it ain't fair--I wasn't 'ere--lemme go!" - -"None o' yer shovin', young man," said Jerry severely. "None o' yer -shovin', else I'll 'ave to punch you on the jore. You're a bleed'n' nice -conspirator, you are. It's pretty plain we can't depend on you, an' you -know wot that means,--eh? Doncher? You're one o' the sort as 'as to be -suppressed, that's wot it means. 'Ere, 'ave a drink o' this 'ere beer, -an' see if that can't put a little 'art in ye. You got to do it, so you -may as well do it cheerful. Snorkey, give 'im a drink." - -But the wretched revolutionary would not drink. He sank in a corner--the -furthest from the table where Gunno Polson was packing his dreadful -canister--a picture of stupefied affright. - -Presently he thought of the bar--a mere yard of counter in an angle of -the room, with a screen standing above it--and conceived a wild notion -of escape by scrambling over. But scarce had he risen ere the watchful -Jerry divined his purpose. - -"'Old 'im, Snorkey," he said. "Keep 'im in the corner. An' if 'e won't -drink that beer, pour it over 'is 'ead." - -Snorkey obeyed gravely and conscientiously, and the bedraggled Sotcher, -cowed from protest, whined and sobbed desolately. - -When all was ready, Jerry Shand said: "I s'pose it's no good askin' you -to do it willin', like a man?" - -"O, let me go, I--I ain't well--s'elp me, I ain't. I--I might do it -wrong--an'--an'--I'm a--a teacher--a speaker; not the active branch, -s'elp me. Put it auf--for to-night--wait till to-morrer. I ain't well -an'--an' you're very 'ard on me!" - -"Desp'rit work, desp'rit ways," Jerry replied laconically. "You're -be'avin' very suspicious, an' you're rebellin' agin the orders o' the -group. There's only one physic for that, ain't there, in the rules? -You're got to be suppressed. Question is 'ow. We'll 'ave to kill 'im -quiet somehow," he proceeded, turning to the group. "Quiet an' quick. -It's my belief 'e's spyin' for the p'lice, an' wants to git out to split -on us. Question is 'ow to do for 'im?" - -Sotcher rose, a staring spectre. He opened his mouth to call, but there -came forth from it only a dry murmur. Hands were across his mouth at -once, and he was forced back into the corner. One suggested a -clasp-knife at the throat, another a stick in his neckerchief, twisted -to throttling-point. But in the end it was settled that it would be -simpler, and would better destroy all traces, to despatch him in the -explosion--to tie him to the canister, in fact. - -A convulsive movement under the men's hands decided them to throw more -beer on Sotcher's face, for he seemed to be fainting. Then his pockets -were invaded by Gunno Polson, who turned out each in succession. "You -won't 'ave no use for money where you're goin'," he observed callously; -"besides, it 'ud be blowed to bits an' no use to nobody. Look at the -bloke at Greenwich, 'ow 'is things was blowed away. 'Ullo! 'ere's two -'arf-crowns an' some tanners. Seven an' thrippence altogether, with the -browns. This is the bloke wot 'adn't got no funds. This'll be divided on -free an' equal principles to 'elp pay for that beer you've wasted. 'Old -up, ol' man! Think o' the glory. P'r'aps you're all right, but it's best -to be on the safe side, an' dead blokes can't split to the coppers. An' -you mustn't forget the glory. You 'ave to shed blood in a revolution, -an' a few odd lives more or less don't matter--not a single damn. Keep -your eye on the bleed'n' glory! They'll 'ave photos of you in the -papers, all the broken bits in a 'eap, fac-similiar as found on the -spot. Wot a comfort that'll be!" - -But the doomed creature was oblivious--prostrate--a swooning heap. They -ran a piece of clothes-line under his elbows, and pulled them together -tight. They then hobbled his ankles, and took him among them through the -alley and down the quiet street, singing and shouting their loudest as -they went, in case he might sufficiently recover his powers to call for -help. But he did not, and there in the shadow, at the foot of the great -gasometer, they flung him down with a parting kick and a barbarous knock -on the head, to keep him quiet for those few necessary moments. Then the -murderous canister, bound with wire, was put in place; the extruding -touch-paper was set going with a match; and the Red Cow Anarchists -disappeared at a run, leaving their victim to his fate. Presently the -policeman on that beat heard a sudden report from the neighborhood of -the gas-works, and ran to see what it might mean. - - -The next morning Alfred Sotcher was charged at the Thames Police Court -as a drunk and incapable. He had been found in a helpless state near the -gas-works, and appeared to have been tied at the elbows and ankles by -mischievous boys, who had also, it seemed, ignited a cracker near by -where he lay. The divisional surgeon stated that he was called to the -prisoner, and found him tearful and incoherent, and smelling strongly of -drink. He complained of having been assaulted in a public-house, but -could give no intelligible account of himself. A canister found by his -side appeared to contain a mixture of sand and castor oil, but prisoner -could not explain how it came there. The magistrate fined him five -shillings, with the alternative of seven days, and as he had no money he -was removed to the cells. - - - - -ON THE STAIRS. - - -The house had been "genteel." When trade was prospering in the East End, -and the ship-fitter or block-maker thought it no shame to live in the -parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived here. Now, it was -a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and paintless in the -joinery, cracked and patched in the windows: where the front door stood -open all day long; and the womankind sat on the steps, talking of -sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and treacherous holes lurked -in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. For when -eight families live in a house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the street -was one of those streets that are always muddy. It smelt, too, of many -things, none of them pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all that it -was not a slum. - -Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her way to -listen at a door which, opening, let out a warm, fetid waft from a close -sick-room. A bent and tottering old woman stood on the threshold, -holding the door behind her. - -"An' is 'e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?" the gaunt woman asked, with a -nod at the opening. - -The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw -waggled loosely in her withered chaps: "Nor won't be; till 'e's gone." -Then after a certain pause, "'E's goin'," she said. - -"Don't doctor give no 'ope?" - -"Lor' bless ye, I don't want to ast no doctors," Mrs. Curtis replied, -with something not unlike a chuckle. "I've seed too many on 'em. The -boy's a-goin', fast; I can see that. An' then"--she gave the handle -another tug, and whispered--"he's been called." She nodded amain. "Three -seprit knocks at the bed-head las' night; an' I know what _that_ means!" - -The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. "Ah, well," she said, "we -all on us comes to it some day, sooner or later. An' it's often a 'appy -release." - -The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod and a -croak. Presently the other pursued, "'E's been a very good son, ain't -'e?" - -"Ay, ay, well enough son to me," responded the old woman, a little -peevishly; "an' I'll 'ave 'im put away decent, though there's on'y the -Union for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd!" she added, meditatively, -as chin on fist she stared into the thickening dark over the stairs. - -"When I lost my pore 'usband," said the gaunt woman, with a certain -brightening, "I give 'im a 'ansome funeral. 'E was a Oddfeller, an' I -got twelve pound. I 'ad a oak caufin an' a open 'earse. There was a -kerridge for the fam'ly an' one for 'is mates--two 'orses each, an' -feathers, an' mutes; an' it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. -'Wotever 'appens, Mrs. Manders,' says the undertaker, 'you'll feel as -you're treated 'im proper; nobody can't reproach you over that.' An' -they couldn't. 'E was a good 'usband to me, an' I buried 'im -respectable." - -The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Manders's funeral fell -upon the other one's ears with a freshened interest, and she mumbled her -gums ruminantly. "Bob'll 'ave a 'ansome buryin', too," she said. "I can -make it up, with the insurance money, an' this, an' that. On'y I dunno -about mutes. It's a expense." - -In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing much -desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing is an -"expense," or a "great expense." It means the same thing, but it sounds -better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her resources, and found that mutes -would be an "expense." At a cheap funeral mutes cost half-a-sovereign -and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much. - -"Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign," the old woman assented. Within, the sick -man feebly beat the floor with a stick. "I'm a-comin'," she cried -shrilly; "yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it's a lot, an' I don't see 'ow I'm -to do it--not at present." She reached for the door-handle again, but -stopped and added, by after-thought, "Unless I don't 'ave no plooms." - -"It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. I 'ad--" - -There were footsteps on the stairs: then a stumble and a testy word. -Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. "Is it the doctor, -sir?" she asked. It was the doctor's assistant; and Mrs. Manders tramped -up to the next landing as the door of the sick-room took him in. - -For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the assistant, a -very young man, came out again, followed by the old woman with a candle. -Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark. "He's sinking fast," said the -assistant. "He _must_ have a stimulant. Dr. Mansell ordered port wine. -Where is it?" Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. "I tell you he _must_ -have it," he averred with unprofessional emphasis (his qualification -was only a month old). "The man can't take solid food, and his strength -must be kept up somehow. Another day may make all the difference. Is it -because you can't afford it?" "It's a expense--sich a expense, doctor," -the old woman pleaded. "An' wot with 'arf-pints o' milk an'--" She grew -inarticulate, and mumbled dismally. - -"But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if it's your last shilling: it's the -only way. If you mean you absolutely haven't the money--" And he paused -a little awkwardly. He was not a wealthy young man--wealthy young men do -not devil for East End doctors--but he was conscious of a certain haul -of sixpences at nap the night before; and, being inexperienced, he did -not foresee the career of persecution whereon he was entering at his own -expense and of his own motion. He produced five shillings: "If you -absolutely haven't the money, why--take this and get a bottle--good: not -at a public-house. But mind, _at once_. He should have had it before." - -It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know that -his principal had been guilty of the selfsame indiscretion--even the -amount was identical--on that landing the day before. But, as Mrs. -Curtis said nothing of this, he floundered down the stair and out into -the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the beloved son of a -Congregational minister might take full credit for a deed of charity on -the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her wrinkles, and -shook her head sagaciously as she carried in her candle. From the room -came a clink as of money falling into a teapot. And Mrs. Manders went -about her business. - -The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a lodger -passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men and women -walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in again. From the -street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the pit. On the -pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage -there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented old clock buzzed -divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes by the -regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody shut the -street-door with a great bang, and the street was muffled. A key turned -inside the door on the landing, but that was all. A feeble light shone -for hours along the crack below, and then went out. The crazy old clock -went buzzing on, but nothing left that room all night. Nothing that -opened the door.... - -When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manders's knock, in the full -morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing together, Mrs. -Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. "Ah, 'e's a lovely corpse," -said Mrs. Manders. "Like wax. So was my 'usband." - -"I must be stirrin'," croaked the old woman, "an' go about the insurance -an' the measurin' an' that. There's lots to do." - -"Ah, there is. 'Oo are you goin' to 'ave,--Wilkins? I 'ad Wilkins. -Better than Kedge, _I_ think: Kedge's mutes dresses rusty, an' their -trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin' of 'avin' mutes--" - -"Yus, yus,"--with a palsied nodding,--"I'm a-goin' to 'ave mutes: I can -do it respectable, thank Gawd!" - -"And the plooms?" - -"Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain't sich a great expense, after -all." - - - - -SQUIRE NAPPER. - - -I. - -Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and forty. -His moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he wore his -coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his chest. The -casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper punctiliously made -it known that he was "in the paving"; which meant that he was a pavior. -He lived in Canning Town, and was on a footpath job at West Ham (Allen -was the contractor) when he won and began to wear the nickname "Squire." - -Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighboring church, Bill Napper's -mates let drop rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and turned toward a row -of basins, tied in blue-and-red handkerchiefs, and accompanied of divers -tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked toward the street -corner for the punctual Polly bearing his own dinner fresh and hot; for -home was not far, and Polly, being thirteen, had no school now. - -One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first impatient, -grew savage, and thought wrathfully on the strap on its nail by the -kitchen-dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly came, bringing -a letter as well as the basin-load of beef and cabbage. A young man had -left it, she said, after asking many ill-mannered questions. The letter -was addressed "W. Napper, Esq.," with a flourish; the words, "By hand," -stood in the corner of the envelope; and on the flap at the back were -the embossed characters "T. & N." These things Bill Napper noted several -times over, as he turned the letter about in his hand. - -"Seems to me you'll 'ave to open it after all," said one of Bill's -mates; and he opened it, setting back his hat as a preparation to -serious study. The letter was dated from Old Jewry, and ran thus:-- - - - "_Re_ B. NAPPER _deceased_. - - "DEAR SIR,--We have a communication in this matter from our - correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to - testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be - obliged if you can make it convenient to call at this office any - day except Saturday between two and four.--Your obedient servants, - - "TIMS & NORTON." - - -The dinner hour had gone by before the full inner meaning had been -wrested from this letter. "B. Napper deceased" Bill accepted, with a -little assistance, as an announcement of the death of his brother Ben, -who had gone to Australia nearly twenty years ago, and had been -forgotten. "Testamentary dispositions" nobody would tackle with -confidence, although its distinct suggestion of biblical study was duly -remarked. "Benefit" was right enough, and led one of the younger men, -after some thought, to the opinion that Bill Napper's brother might have -left him something: a theory instantly accepted as the most probable, -although some thought it foolish of him not to leave it direct instead -of authorizing the interference of a lawyer, who would want to do Bill -out of it. - -Bill Napper put up his tools and went home. There the missis put an end -to doubt by repeating what the lawyer's clerk said: which was nothing -more definite than that Bill had been "left a bit"; and the clerk only -acknowledged so much when he had satisfied himself, by sinuous -questionings, that he had found the real legatee. He further advised the -bringing of certain evidence on the visit to the office. Thus it was -plain that the Napper fortunes were in good case, for, as "a bit" means -money all the world over, the thing was clearly no worthless keepsake. - - -II. - -On the afternoon of the next day, Bill Napper, in clean moleskins and -black coat, made for Old Jewry. On mature consideration he had decided -to go through it alone. There was not merely one lawyer, which would be -bad enough, but two of them in a partnership; and to take the missis, -whose intellects, being somewhat flighty, were quickly divertible by the -palaver of which a lawyer was master, would be to distract and impede -his own faculties. A male friend might not have been so bad, but Bill -could not call to mind one quite cute enough to be of any use, and in -any case such a friend would have to be paid for the loss of his day's -work. Moreover, he might imagine himself to hold a sort of interest in -the proceeds. So Bill Napper went alone. - -Having waited the proper time without the bar in the clerk's office, he -was shown into a room where a middle-aged man sat at a writing-table. -There was no other lawyer to be seen. This was a stratagem for which -Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked suspiciously about the room, but -without discovering anything that looked like a hiding-place. Plainly -there were two lawyers, because their names were on the door and on the -letter itself; and the letter said we. Why one should hide it was hard -to guess, unless it were to bear witness to some unguarded expression. -Bill Napper resolved to speak little, and not loud. - -The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting him to sit. Then he asked to -see the papers that Bill had brought. These were an old testimonial -reciting that Bill had been employed "with his brother Benjamin" as a -boy in a brick-field, and had given satisfaction; a letter from a parish -guardian, the son of an old employer of Bill's father, certifying that -Bill was his father's son and his brother's brother; copies of the birth -registry of both Bill and his brother, procured that morning; and a -letter from Australia, the last word from Benjamin, dated eighteen years -back. These Bill produced in succession, keeping a firm grip on each as -he placed it beneath the lawyer's nose. The lawyer behaved somewhat -testily under this restraint, but Bill knew better than to let the -papers out of his possession, and would not be done. - -When he had seen all, "Well, Mr. Napper," said the lawyer, rather -snappishly (obviously he was balked), "these things seem all right, and -with the inquiries I have already made I suppose I may proceed to pay -you the money. It is a legacy of three hundred pounds. Your brother was -married, and I believe his business and other property goes to his wife -and children. The money is intact, the estate paying legacy duty and -expenses. In cases of this sort there is sometimes an arrangement for -the amount to be paid a little at a time as required; that, however, I -judge, would not be an arrangement to please you. I hope, at any rate, -you will be able to invest the money in a profitable way. I will draw a -check." - -Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill Napper's wildest dreams. But he -would not be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the lawyer tore the -check from the book, and pushed it across the table with another paper. -He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other hand at the bottom of the -second paper, and saying, "This is the receipt. Sign just there, -please." - -Bill took up the check, but made no movement toward the pen. "Receipt?" -he grunted softly; "receipt wot for? I ain't 'ad no money." - -"There's the check in your hand--the same thing. It's an order to the -bank to hand you the amount--the usual way of paying money in business -affairs. If you would rather have the money paid here, I can send a -clerk to the bank to get it. Give me the check." - -But again Bill was not to be done. The lawyer, finding him sharper than -he expected, now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper back. So Bill -only grinned at him, keeping a good hold of the check. The lawyer lost -his temper. "Why, damn it," he said, "you're a curious person to deal -with. D'ye want the money and the check too?" - -He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. "Mr. Dixon," said the -lawyer, "I have given this person a check for three hundred pounds. Just -take him round to the bank, and get it cashed. Let him sign the receipt -at the bank. I suppose," he added, turning to Bill, "that you won't -object to giving a receipt when you get the money, eh?" - -Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, expressed his willingness to do -the proper thing at the proper time, and went out with the clerk. At the -bank there was little difficulty, except at the clerk's advice to take -the money chiefly in notes, which instantly confirmed Bill in a -determination to accept nothing but gold. When all was done, and the -three hundred sovereigns, carefully counted over for the third and -fourth time, were stowed in small bags about his person, Bill, much -relieved after his spell of watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk -a drink. - -"Ah," he said, "all you City lawyers an' clurks are pretty bleed'n' -sharp, I know, but you ain't done me, an' _I_ don't bear no malice. 'Ave -wot you like--'ave wine or a six o' Irish--I ain't goin' to be stingy. -I'm goin' to do it open an' free, I am, an' set a example to men o' -property." - - -III. - -Bill Napper went home in a hansom, ordering a barrel of beer on the way. -One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have beer in by -the barrel; for then Sundays and closing times vex not, and you have but -to reach the length of your arm for another pot whenever moved -thereunto. Nobody in Canning Town had beer by the barrel except the -tradesmen, and for that Bill had long envied the man who kept shop. And -now, at his first opportunity, he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons. - -Once home with the news, and Canning Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had -come in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred -thousand--any number of thousands that were within the compass of the -gossip's command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called "W. Napper, -Esq."--he was to be knighted--he was a long-lost baronet--anything. Bill -Napper came home in a hansom--a brougham--a state coach. - -Mrs. Napper went that very evening to the Grove at Stratford to buy silk -and satin, green, red, and yellow--cutting her neighbors dead, right and -left. And by the next morning tradesmen had sent circulars and samples -of goods. Mrs. Napper was for taking a proper position in society, and a -house in a fashionable part--Barking Road, for instance, or even East -India Road, Poplar; but Bill would none of such foolishness. He wasn't -proud, and Canning Town was quite good enough for him. This much, -though, he conceded: that the family should take a whole house of five -rooms in the next street, instead of the two rooms and a cellule -upstairs now rented. - -That morning Bill lit his pipe, stuck his hands in his pockets, and -strolled as far as his job. "Wayo, squire," shouted one of the men as he -approached. "'Ere comes the bleed'n' toff," remarked another. - -"'Tcheer, 'tcheer, mates," Bill responded, calmly complacent. "I'm -a-goin' to wet it." And all the fourteen men left their paving for the -beer-house close by. The foreman made some demur, but was helpless, and -ended by coming himself. "Now then, gaffer," said Bill, "none o' your -sulks. No one ain't a-goin' to stand out of a drink o' mine--unless 'e -wants to fight. As for the job--damn the job! I'd buy up fifty jobs like -that 'ere and not stop for the change. You send the guv'nor to me if -_'e_ says anythink: unnerstand? You send 'im to _me_." And he laid hands -on the foreman, who was not a big man, and hauled him after the others. - -They wetted it for two or three hours, from many quart pots. Then there -appeared between the swing doors the wrathful face of the guv'nor. - -The guv'nor's position was difficult. He was only a small master, and -but a few years back had been a working mason. This deserted job was his -first for the parish, and by contract he was bound to end it quickly -under penalty. Moreover, he much desired something on account that week, -and must stand well with the vestry. On the other hand, this was a time -of strikes, and the air was electrical. Several large and successful -movements had quickened a spirit of restlessness in the neighborhood, -and no master was sure of his men. Some slight was fancied, something -was not done as it should have been done from the point of view of the -workshop, and there was a strike, picketing, and bashing. Now, the worst -thing that could have happened to the guv'nor at this moment was one of -those tiny, unrecorded strikes that were bursting out weekly and daily -about him, with the picketing of his two or three jobs. Furious, -therefore, as he was, he dared not discharge every man on the spot. So -he stood in the door, and said: "Look here, I won't stand this sort of -thing--it's a damn robbery. I'll--" - -"That's all right, ol' cock," roared Bill Napper, reaching toward the -guv'nor. "You come 'an 'ave a tiddley. I'm a bleed'n' millionaire meself -now, but I ain't proud. What, you won't?"--for the guv'nor, -unenthusiastic, remained at the door. "You're a sulky old bleeder. These -'ere friends o' mine are 'avin' 'arf a day auf at my expense: -unnerstand? My expense. I'm a-payin' for their time, if you dock 'em; -an' I can give _you_ a bob, me fine feller, if you're 'ard up. See?" - -The guv'nor addressed himself to the foreman. "What's the meaning o' -this, Walker?" he said. "What game d'ye call it?" - -Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots had made uproarious, slapped the -foreman violently on the shoulder. "This 'ere's the gaffer," he -shouted. "'E's all right. 'E come 'ere 'cos 'e couldn't 'elp 'isself. I -made 'im come, forcible. Don't you bear no spite agin' the gaffer, d'y' -ear? 'E's my mate, is the gaffer; an' I could buy you up forty times, -s'elp me--but I ain't proud. An' you're a bleed'n' gawblimy -slackbaked...." - -"Well," said the guv'nor to the assembled company, but still ignoring -Bill, "don't you think there's been about enough of this?" - -A few of the men glanced at one another, and one or two rose. "Awright, -guv'nor," said one, "we're auf." And two more echoed, "Awright, -guv'nor," and began to move away. - -"Ah!" said Bill Napper, with disgust, as he turned to finish his pot, -"you're a blasted nigger-driver, you are. An' a sulky beast," he added -as he set the pot down. "Never mind," he pursued, "_I'm_ awright, an' I -ain't a 'arf-paid kerb-whacker no more, under you." - -"You was a damn sight better kerb-whacker than you are a millionaire," -the guv'nor retorted, feeling safer now that his men were getting back -to work. - -"None o' your lip," replied Bill, rising and reaching for a pipe-spill: -"none o' your lip, you work'us stone-breaker." Then, turning with a -sudden access of fury, "I'll knock yer face off, blimy!" he shouted, and -raised his fist. - -"Now, then, none o' that here, please," cried the landlord from behind -the bar; unto whom Bill Napper, with all his wonted obedience in that -quarter, answered only, "All right, guv'nor," and subsided. - -Left alone, he soon followed the master-pavior and his men through the -swing doors, and so went home. In his own street, observing two small -boys in the prelusory stages of a fight, he put up sixpence by way of -stakes, and supervised the battle from the seat afforded by a convenient -window-sill. After that he bought a morning paper, and lay upon his bed -to read it, with a pipe and a jug; for he was beginning a life of -leisure and comfort, wherein every day should be a superior Sunday. - - -IV. - -Thus far the outward and visible signs of the Napper wealth were these: -the separate house; the barrel of beer; a piano--not bought as a musical -instrument, but as one of the visible signs; a daily paper, also -primarily a sign; the bonnets and dresses of the missis; and the -perpetual possession of Bill Napper by a varying degree of fuddlement. -An inward and dissembled sign was a regiment, continually reinforced, -of mostly empty bottles, in a cupboard kept sacred by the missis. And -the faculties of that good lady herself experienced a fluctuating -confusion from causes not always made plain to Bill: for the money was -kept in the bedroom chest of drawers, and it was easy to lay hands on a -half-sovereign as required without unnecessary disturbance. - -Now and again Bill Napper would discuss the abstract question of -entering upon some investment or business pursuit. Land had its -advantages; great advantages; and he had been told that it was very -cheap just now, in some places. Houses were good, too, and a suitable -possession for a man of consideration. Not so desirable on the whole, -however, as Land. You bought your Land and--well there it was, and you -could take things easily. But with Houses there was rent to collect, and -repairs to see to, and so forth. It was a vastly paying thing for any -man with capital to be a Merchant; but there was work even in that, and -you had to be perpetually on guard against sharp chaps in the City. A -public-house, suggested by one of his old mates on the occasion of -wetting it, was out of the question. There was tick, and long hours, and -a sharp look-out, and all kinds of trouble, which a man with money would -be a fool to encounter. Altogether, perhaps, Land seemed to be the -thing: although there was no need to bother now, and plenty of time to -turn things over, even if the matter were worth pondering at all, when -it was so easy for a man to live on his means. After all, to take your -boots off, and lie on the bed with a pipe and a pot and the paper was -very comfortable, and you could always stroll out and meet a mate, or -bring him in when so disposed. - -Of an evening the Albert Music Hall was close at hand, and the Queen's -not very far away. And on Sundays and Saturday afternoons Bill would -often take a turn down by the dock gates, or even in Victoria Park, or -Mile End Waste, where there were speakers of all sorts. At the dock -gates it was mostly Labor and Anarchy, but at the other places there was -a fine variety; you could always be sure of a few minutes of -Teetotalism, Evangelism, Atheism, Republicanism, Salvationism, -Socialism, Anti-Vaccinationism, and Social Purity, with now and again -some Mormonism or another curious exotic. Most of the speakers denounced -something, and if the denunciations of one speaker were not sufficiently -picturesque and lively, you passed on to the next. Indeed, you might -always judge afar off where the best denouncing was going on by the size -of the crowds, at least until the hat went round. - -It was at Mile End Waste that a good notion occurred to Bill Napper. He -had always vastly admired the denunciations of one speaker--a little -man, shabbier, if anything, than most of the others, and surpassingly -tempestuous of antic. He was an unattached orator, not confining himself -to any particular creed, but denouncing whatever seemed advisable, -considering the audience and circumstances. He was always denouncing -something somewhere, and was ever in a crisis that demanded the -circulation of a hat. Bill esteemed this speaker for his versatility as -well as for the freshness of his abuse, and Bill's sudden notion was to -engage him for private addresses. - -The orator did not take kindly to the proposal at first, strongly -suspecting something in the nature of "guy" or "kid"; but a serious -assurance of a shilling for an occasional hour and the payment of one in -advance brought him over. After this Squire Napper never troubled to go -to Mile End Waste. He sat at ease in his parlor, with his pot on the -piano, while the orator, with another pot on the mantelpiece, stood up -and denounced to order. "Tip us the Teetotal an' -Down-with-the-Public-'Ouse," Bill would request, and the orator (his -name was Minns) would oblige in that line till most of the strong -phrases had run out, and had begun to recur. Then Bill would say, "Now -come the Rights o' Labor caper." Whereupon Minns would take a pull at -the pot, and proceed to denounce Capital, Bill Napper applauding or -groaning at the pauses provided for those purposes. And so on with -whatever subjects appealed to the patron's fancy. It was a fancy that -sometimes put the orator's invention to grievous straits; but for Bill -the whole performance was peculiarly privileged and dignified. For to -have an orator gesticulating and speechifying all to one's self, on -one's own order and choice of subject, is a thing not given to all men. - -One day Minns turned up (not having been invited) with a friend. Bill -did not take to the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a shifty eye, -who smiled as he spoke, and showed a top row of irregular and dirty -teeth. This friend, Minns explained, was a journalist--a writer of -newspapers; and between them they had an idea, which idea the friend set -forth. Everybody, he said, who knew the history of Mr. Napper admired -his sturdy independence and democratic simplicity. He was of the people -and not ashamed of it. ("Well, no, I ain't proud," Bill interjected, -wondering what was coming.) With all the advantages of wealth, he -preferred to remain one of the people, living among them plainly, -conforming to their simple habits, and sympathizing with their sorrows. -("This chap," thought Bill, "wants to be took on to hold forth turn -about with the other, and he's showing his capers; but I ain't on it.") -It was the knowledge of these things, so greatly to Mr. Napper's honor, -that had induced Minns and Minns's friend to place before him a means by -which he might do the cause of toiling humanity a very great service. A -new weekly paper was wanted--wanted very badly: a paper that should rear -its head on behalf of the downtrodden toilers, and make its mighty voice -heard with dread by the bloated circles of Class and Privilege. That -paper would prove a marvellously paying investment to its proprietor, -bringing him enormous profits every week. He would have a vast fortune -in that paper alone, besides the glory and satisfaction of striking the -great blow that should pave the way to the emancipation of the Masses -and the destruction of the vile system of society whose whole and sole -effect was the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the Grasping Few. -Being professionally disengaged at present, he (the speaker), in -conjunction with his friend Minns, had decided to give Mr. Napper the -opportunity of becoming its proprietor. - -Bill was more than surprised: he was also a little bewildered. "What," -he said, after two draws of his pipe, "d'ye mean you want me to go in -the printin' line?" - -That was not at all necessary. The printing would be done by contract. -Mr. Napper would only have to find the money. The paper, with a couple -of thousand pounds behind it--or even one thousand (Minns's friend read -a difficulty in Bill's face)--would be established forever. Even five -hundred would do, and many successful papers had been floated with no -more than a couple of hundred or so. Suppose they said just a couple of -hundred to go on with, till the paper found its legs and began to pay? -How would that do? - -Bill Napper smoked a dozen whiffs. Then he said: "An' what should I 'ave -to do with the two 'undred pound? Buy anythink?" - -Not directly that, the promoters explained. It would finance the -thing--just finance it. - -"'Oo'd 'ave the money then?" - -That was perfectly simple. It would simply be handed over to Minns and -his friend, and they would attend to all the details. - -Bill Napper continued to smoke. Then, beginning with a slight chuckle at -the back of his throat, he said: "W'en I got my money, I went to a -lawyer's for it. There was two lawyers--one layin' low. There was two -fust-rate lawyers an' a lot o' clurks--City clurks--an' a bank an' all. -An' they couldn't 'ave me, not for a single farden--not a farden, try -an' fiddle as they would.... Well, arter that, it ain't much good _you_ -a-tryin' it on, is it?" And he chuckled again, louder. - -Minns was indignant, and Minns's friend was deeply hurt. Both protested. -Bill Napper laughed aloud. "Awright, you'll do," he said; "you'll do. My -'abits may be simple, but they ain't as simple as all that. Ha--ha! -'Ere, 'ave a drink--you ain't done no 'arm, an' I ain't spiteful. -Ha--ha!" - - -It was on an evening a fortnight after this that, as Bill Napper lay, -very full of beer and rather sleepy, on the bed--the rest of his -household being out of doors--a ladder was quietly planted against the -outer wall from the back-yard. Bill heard nothing until the window, -already a little open, was slowly pushed up, and from the twilight -outside a head and an arm plunged into the thicker darkness of the room, -and a hand went feeling along the edge of the chest of drawers by the -window. Bill rolled over on the bed, and reached from the floor one of a -pair of heavy iron-set boots. Taking the toe in his right hand, and -grasping the footrail of the bedstead with his left, he raised himself -on his knees, and brought the boot-heel down heavily on the intruding -head. There was a gasp, and the first breath of a yell, and head, arm, -shoulders, and body vanished with a bump and a rattle. Bill Napper let -the boot fall, dropped back on the bed, and took no further heed. - -Neither Minns nor his friend ever came back again, but for some time -after, at Victoria Park, Minns, inciting an outraged populace to rise -and sweep police and army from the earth, was able to point to an -honorable scar on his own forehead, the proof and sign of a police -bludgeoning at Tower Hill--or Trafalgar Square. - - -V. - -Things went placidly on for near ten months. Many barrels of beer had -come in full and been sent empty away. Also the missis had got a gold -watch and divers new bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill, some by -applying privily to the drawer. Her private collection of bottles, too, -had been cleared out twice, and was respectable for the third time. -Everybody was not friendly with her, and one bonnet had been torn off -her head by a neighbor who disliked her airs. - -So it stood when, on a certain morning, Bill being minded to go out, -found but two shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to the missis, -as was his custom in such a pass, asking her to fetch a sovereign or two -when she came down; and as she was long in coming, he went up himself. -The missis left the room hurriedly, and Bill, after raking out every -corner of the drawer (which he himself had not opened for some time) saw -not a single coin. The missis had no better explanation than that there -must have been thieves in the house some time lately: a suggestion -deprived of some value by the subsequent protest that Bill couldn't -expect money to last forever, and that he had had the last three days -ago. In the end there was a vehement row, and the missis was severely -thumped. - -The thumping over, Bill Napper conceived a great idea. Perhaps after all -the lawyers had done him by understating the amount his brother had -left. It might well have been five hundred pounds--a thousand -pounds--anything. Probably it was, and the lawyers had had the -difference. Plainly, three hundred pounds was a suspiciously small sum -to inherit from a well-to-do brother. He would go to the lawyers and -demand the rest of his money. He would not reveal his purpose till he -saw the lawyers face to face, and then he would make his demand -suddenly, so that surprise and consternation should overwhelm and betray -them. He would give them to understand that he had complete evidence of -the whole swindle. In any case he could lose nothing. He went, after -carefully preparing his part, and was turned out by a policeman. - -"After that," mused Squire Napper, going home, "I suppose I'd better see -about getting a job at Allen's again. He can't but make me gaffer, -considering I've been a man of property." - - - - -"A POOR STICK." - - -Mrs. Jennings (or Jinnins, as the neighbors would have it) ruled -absolutely at home, when she took so much trouble as to do anything at -all there--which was less often than might have been. As for Robert, her -husband, he was a poor stick, said the neighbors. And yet he was a man -with enough of hardihood to remain a non-unionist in the erector's shop -at Maidment's all the years of his service; no mean test of a man's -fortitude and resolution, as many a sufferer for independent opinion -might testify. The truth was that Bob never grew out of his -courtship-blindness. Mrs. Jennings governed as she pleased, stayed out -or came home as she chose, and cooked a dinner or didn't, as her -inclination stood. Thus it was for ten years, during which time there -were no children, and Bob bore all things uncomplaining: cooking his own -dinner when he found none cooked, and sewing on his own buttons. Then of -a sudden came children, till in three years there were three; and Bob -Jennings had to nurse and to wash them as often as not. - -Mrs. Jennings at this time was what is called rather a fine woman: a -woman of large scale and full development; whose slatternly habit left -her coarse black hair to tumble in snake-locks about her face and -shoulders half the day; who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore herself -notoriously and unabashed in her fulness; and of whom ill things were -said regarding the lodger. The gossips had their excuse. The lodger was -an irregular young cabinetmaker, who lost quarters and halves and whole -days; who had been seen abroad with his landlady, what time Bob Jennings -was putting the children to bed at home; who on his frequent holidays -brought in much beer, which he and the woman shared, while Bob was at -work. To carry the tale to Bob would have been a thankless errand, for -he would have none of anybody's sympathy, even in regard to miseries -plain to his eye. But the thing got about in the workshop, and there his -days were made bitter. - -At home things grew worse. To return at half-past five, and find the -children still undressed, screaming, hungry, and dirty, was a matter of -habit: to get them food, to wash them, to tend the cuts and bumps -sustained through the day of neglect, before lighting a fire and -getting tea for himself, were matters of daily duty. "Ah," he said to -his sister, who came at intervals to say plain things about Mrs. -Jennings, "you shouldn't go for to set a man agin 'is wife, Jin. Melier -do'n' like work, I know, but that's nach'ral to 'er. She ought to -married a swell 'stead o' me; she might 'a' done easy if she liked, -bein' sich a fine gal; but she's good-'arted, is Melier; an' she can't -'elp bein' a bit thoughtless." Whereat his sister called him a fool (it -was her customary good-by at such times), and took herself off. - -Bob Jennings's intelligence was sufficient for his common needs, but it -was never a vast intelligence. Now, under a daily burden of dull misery, -it clouded and stooped. The base wit of the workshop he comprehended -less, and realized more slowly, than before; and the gaffer cursed him -for a sleepy dolt. - -Mrs. Jennings ceased from any pretence of housewifery, and would -sometimes sit--perchance not quite sober--while Bob washed the children -in the evening, opening her mouth only to express her contempt for him -and his establishment, and to make him understand that she was sick of -both. Once, exasperated by his quietness, she struck at him; and for a -moment he was another man. "Don't do that, Melier," he said, "else I -might forget myself." His manner surprised his wife: and it was such -that she never did do that again. - -So was Bob Jennings: without a friend in the world, except his sister, -who chid him, and the children, who squalled at him: when his wife -vanished with the lodger, the clock, a shade of wax flowers, Bob's best -boots (which fitted the lodger), and his silver watch. Bob had returned, -as usual, to the dirt and the children, and it was only when he struck a -light that he found the clock was gone. "Mummy tooked ve t'ock," said -Milly, the eldest child, who had followed him in from the door, and now -gravely observed his movements. "She tooked ve t'ock an' went ta-ta. An' -she tooked ve fyowers." - -Bob lit the paraffin lamp with the green glass reservoir, and carried it -and its evil smell about the house. Some things had been turned over and -others had gone, plainly. All Melier's clothes were gone. The lodger was -not in, and under his bedroom window, where his box had stood, there was -naught but an oblong patch of conspicuously clean wall-paper. In a -muddle of doubt and perplexity, Bob found himself at the front door, -staring up and down the street. Divers women-neighbors stood at their -doors, and eyed him curiously; for Mrs. Webster, moralist, opposite, had -not watched the day's proceedings (nor those of many other days) for -nothing, nor had she kept her story to herself. - -He turned back into the house, a vague notion of what had befallen -percolating feebly through his bewilderment. "I dunno--I dunno," he -faltered, rubbing his ear. His mouth was dry, and he moved his lips -uneasily, as he gazed with aimless looks about the walls and ceiling. -Presently his eyes rested on the child, and "Milly," he said decisively, -"come an' 'ave yer face washed." - -He put the children to bed early, and went out. In the morning, when his -sister came, because she had heard the news in common with everybody -else, he had not returned. Bob Jennings had never lost more than two -quarters in his life, but he was not seen at the workshop all this day. -His sister stayed in the house, and in the evening, at his regular -homing-time, he appeared, haggard and dusty, and began his preparations -for washing the children. When he was made to understand that they had -been already attended to, he looked doubtful and troubled for a moment. -Presently he said: "I ain't found 'er yet, Jin; I was in 'opes she might -'a' bin back by this. I--I don't expect she'll be very long. She was -alwis a bit larky, was Melier; but very good-'arted." - -His sister had prepared a strenuous lecture on the theme of "I told you -so"; but the man was so broken, so meek, and so plainly unhinged in his -faculties, that she suppressed it. Instead she gave him comfortable -talk, and made him promise in the end to sleep that night, and take up -his customary work in the morning. - -He did these things, and could have worked placidly enough had he been -alone; but the tale had reached the workshop, and there was no lack of -brutish chaff to disorder him. This the decenter men would have no part -in, and even protested against. But the ill-conditioned kept their way, -till, at the cry of "Bell O!" when all were starting for dinner, one of -the worst shouted the cruellest gibe of all. Bob Jennings turned on him -and knocked him over a scrapheap. - -A shout went up from the hurrying workmen, with a chorus of "Serve ye -right," and the fallen joker found himself awkwardly confronted by the -shop bruiser. But Bob had turned to a corner, and buried his eyes in the -bend of his arm, while his shoulders heaved and shook. - -He slunk away home, and stayed there: walking restlessly to and fro, and -often peeping down the street from the window. When, at twilight, his -sister came again, he had become almost cheerful, and said with some -briskness, "I'm a-goin' to meet 'er, Jin, at seven. I know where she'll -be waitin'." - -He went upstairs, and after a little while came down again in his best -black coat, carefully smoothing a tall hat of obsolete shape with his -pocket-handkerchief. "I ain't wore it for years," he said. "I ought to -'a' wore it--it might 'a' pleased 'er. She used to say she wouldn't walk -with me in no other--when I used to meet 'er in the evenin', at seven -o'clock." He brushed assiduously, and put the hat on. "I'd better 'ave a -shave round the corner as I go along," he added, fingering his stubbly -chin. - -He received as one not comprehending his sister's persuasion to remain -at home; but when he went she followed at a little distance. After his -penny shave he made for the main road, where company-keeping couples -walked up and down all evening. He stopped at a church, and began pacing -slowly to and fro before it, eagerly looking out each way as he went. - -His sister watched him for nearly half an hour, and then went home. In -two hours more she came back with her husband. Bob was still there, -walking to and fro. - -"'Ullo, Bob," said his brother-in-law; "come along 'ome an' get to bed, -there's a good chap. You'll be awright in the mornin'." - -"She ain't turned up," Bob complained, "or else I've missed 'er. This is -the reg'lar place--where I alwis used to meet 'er. But she'll come -to-morrer. She used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, bein' nach'rally -larky. But very good-'arted, mindjer; very good-'arted." - -She did not come the next evening, nor the next, nor the evening after, -nor the one after that. But Bob Jennings, howbeit depressed and anxious, -was always confident. "Somethink's prevented 'er to-night," he would -say, "but she'll come to-morrer.... I'll buy a blue tie to-morrer--she -used to like me in a blue tie. I won't miss 'er to-morrer. I'll come a -little earlier." - -So it went. The black coat grew ragged in the service, and hobbledehoys, -finding him safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes time after -time. He wept over the hat, and straightened it as best he might. Was -she coming? Night after night, and night and night. But to-morrow.... - - - - -A CONVERSION. - - -There are some poor criminals that never have a chance: circumstances -are against them from the first, as they explain, with tears, to -sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances had always been against -Scuddy Lond, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly -synonym for thief. - -His first name was properly James, but that had been long forgotten. -"Scuddy" meant nothing in particular, was derived from nothing, and was -not, apparently, the invention of any distinct person. Still, it was -commonly his only name, and most of his acquaintances had also nicknames -of similarly vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of -a most creditable hour of rapturous misery after hearing, perhaps at a -sing-song, "Put Me in my Little Bed," or any other ditty that was rank -enough in sentiment: wherefore the mission-readers never really -despaired of him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking -younger; with a runaway chin, a sharp yellow face, and tremulously sly -eyes; with but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a great deal of -it, straight and ragged and dirty, on his head. - -Scuddy Lond's misfortunes began early. Temptation had prevailed against -him when he was at school, but that was nothing. He became errand boy in -a grocer's shop, and complications with the till brought him, a howling -penitent, to the police court. Here, while his mother hid her head in -the waiting-room, he set forth the villainy of older boys who had -prompted him to sin, and got away with no worse than a lecture on the -evils of bad company. So that a philanthropist found him a better -situation at a distance, where the evil influence could no longer move -him. Here he stayed a good while--longer than some who had been there -before him, but who had to leave because of vanishing postal orders. -Nevertheless, the postal orders still went, and in the end he confessed -to another magistrate, and fervently promised to lead a better life if -his false start were only forgiven. Betting, he protested, was this time -the author of his fall; and as that pernicious institution was clearly -to blame for the unhappy young man's ruin, the lamenting magistrate let -him off with a simple month in consideration of his misfortune and the -intercession of his employer, who had never heard of the grocer and his -till. - -After his month Scuddy went regularly into business as a lob-crawler: -that is to say, he returned to his first love, the till: not narrowly to -any individual till, but broad-mindedly to the till as a general -institution, to be approached in unattended shops by stealthy grovelling -on the belly. This he did until he perceived the greater security and -comfort of waiting without while a small boy did the actual work within. -From this, and with this, he ventured on peter-claiming: laying hands -nonchalantly on unconsidered parcels and bags at railway stations, until -a day when, bearing a fat portmanteau, he ran against its owner by the -door of a refreshment bar. This time the responsibility lay with Drink. -Strong Drink, he declared, with deep emotion, had been his ruin; he -dated his downfall from the day when a false friend persuaded him to -take a Social Glass; he would still have been an honest, upright, -self-respecting young man but for the Cursed Drink. From that moment he -would never touch it more. The case was met with three months with hard -labor, and for all that Scuddy Lond had so clearly pointed out the -culpability of Drink, he had to do the drag himself. But the -mission-readers were comforted: for clearly there was hope for one whose -eyes were so fully opened to the causes of his degradation. - -After the drag, Scuddy for long made a comfortable living, free from -injurious overwork, in the several branches of lob-crawling and -peter-claiming, with an occasional deviation into parlor-jumping. It is -true that this last _did_ sometimes involve unpleasant exertion when the -window was high and the boy heavy to bunk up; and it was necessary, at -times, to run. But Scuddy was out of work, and hunger drove him to -anything, so long as it was light and not too risky. And it is -marvellous to reflect how much may be picked up in the streets and at -the side-doors of London and the suburbs without danger or vulgar -violence. And so Scuddy's life went on, with occasional misfortunes in -the way of a moon, or another drag, or perhaps a sixer. And the -mission-readers never despaired, because the real cause was always -hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden temptation, or something -quite exceptional--never anything like real, hardened, unblushing -wickedness; and the man himself was always truly penitent. He made such -touching references to his innocent childhood, and was so grateful for -good advice or anything else you might give him. - -One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize his desire for better things. He -resolved to depart from his evil ways and to become a nark--a copper's -nark--which is a police spy, or informer. The work was not hard, there -was no imprisonment, and he would make amends for the past. But hardly -had he begun his narking when some of the Kate Street mob dropped on him -in Brick Lane, and bashed him full sore. This would never do: so once -more implacable circumstance drove him to his old courses. And there was -this added discomfort: that no boy would parlor-jump nor dip the lob for -him. Indeed they bawled aloud, "Yah, Scuddy Lond the copper's nark!" So -that the hand of all Flower and Dean Street was against him. Scuddy grew -very sad. - -These and other matters were heavy upon his heart on an evening when, -with nothing in his pockets but the piece of coal that he carried for -luck, he turned aimlessly up Baker's Row. Things were very bad: it was -as though the whole world knew him--and watched. Shopkeepers stood -frowningly at their doors. People sat defiantly on piles of luggage at -the railway stations, and there was never a peter to touch for. All the -areas were empty, and there were no side-doors left unguarded, where, -failing the more desirable wedge, one might claim a pair or two of -daisies put out for cleaning. All the hundred trifling things that -commonly come freely to hand in a mile or two of streets were somehow -swept out of the world's economy; and Scuddy tramped into Baker's Row -in melting mood. Why were things so hard for some and so easy for -others? It was not as though he were to blame--he, a man of feeling and -sentiment. Why were others living comfortable lives unvexed of any dread -of the police? And apart from that, why did other gonophs get lucky -touches for half a century of quids at a time, while he!... But there: -the world was one brutal oppression, and he was its most pitiable -victim; and he slunk along, dank with the pathos of things. - -At a corner a group was standing about a woman, whose voice was uplifted -to a man's accompaniment on a stand-accordion. Scuddy listened. She -sang, with a harsh tremble:-- - - - "An' sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome, - The song that reached my 'art. - 'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome, - She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome, - The song that reached my 'art." - - -Here, indeed, was something in tune with Scuddy's fine feelings. He -looked up. From the darkening sky the evening star winked through the -smoke from a factory chimney. From anear came an exquisite scent of -saveloys. Plaintive influences all. He tried to think of 'ome -himself--of 'ome strictly in the abstract, so that it might reach his -'art. He stood for some minutes torpid and mindless, oozing with -sentiment: till the song ended, and he went on. Fine feelings--fine. - -He crossed the road, and took a turning. A lame old woman sat in a -recess selling trotters, where a dark passage led back to a -mission-hall. About the opening a man hovered--fervent, watchful--and -darted forth on passers-by. He laid his hand on Scuddy's shoulder, and -said: "My dear friend, will you come in an' 'ear the word of the Lord -Jesus Christ?" - -Scuddy turned: the sound of an harmonium and many strenuous voices came -faintly down the passage. It was his mood. Why not give his fine -feelings another little run? He would: he would go in. - -"Trotters!" quavered the lame old woman, looking up wistfully. "Two a -penny! Two a penny!" But no: he went up the passage, and she turned -patiently to her board. - -Along the passage the singing grew louder, and burst on his ears -unchecked as he pushed open the door at the end:-- - - - "'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will, - Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill; - 'Tis a lovin' Father calls the wand'rer 'ome, - 'Oosoever will may come!" - - -A man by the door knew him at once for a stranger, and found him a seat. -The hymn went quavering to an end, and the preacher in charge, a small, -bright-eyed man with rebellious hair and a surprisingly deep voice, -announced that Brother Spyers would offer a prayer. - -The man prayed with his every faculty. He was a sturdy, red-necked -artisan, great of hand and wiry of beard: a smith, perhaps, or a -bricklayer. He spread his arms wide, and, his head thrown back, brought -forth, with passion and pain, his fervid, disordered sentences. As he -went on, his throat swelled and convulsed in desperate knots, and the -sweat hung thick on his face. He called for grace, that every unsaved -soul there might come to the fold and believe that night. Or if not all, -then some--even a few. That at least one, only one, poor soul might be -plucked as a brand from the burning. And as he flung together, with -clumsy travail, his endless, formless, unconsidered vehemences of -uttermost Cockney, the man stood transfigured, admirable. - -From here and there came deep amens. Then more, with gasps, groans, and -sobs. Scuddy Lond, carried away luxuriously on a tide of grievous -sensation, groaned with the others. The prayer ended in a chorus of -ejaculations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody stuffed an open hymn-book -into Scuddy's hand, but he scarce saw it. Abandoning himself to the -mesmeric influence of the many who were singing about him, he plunged -and revelled in a debauch of emotion. He heard, he even joined in; but -understood nothing, for his feelings filled him to overflowing. - - - "I 'ave a robe: 'tis resplendent in w'iteness, - Awaitin' in glory my wonderin' view: - Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin' in brightness, - Dear friend, could I see you receivin' one too! - For you I am prayin'! For you I am prayin'! - For you I am prayin', I'm prayin' for you." - - -The hymn ceased; all sat down, and the preacher began his discourse: -quietly at first, and then, though in a different way, with all the -choking fervor of the man who had prayed. For the preacher was fluent as -well as zealous, and his words, except when emotion stayed them, poured -in a torrent. He preached faith--salvation in faith--declaiming, -beseeching, commanding. "Come--come! Now is the appointed time! Only -believe--only come! Only--only come!" To impassioned, broken entreaty he -added sudden command and the menace of eternity, but broke away -pitifully again in urgent pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above, -spreading his arms abroad, stretching them forth imploringly. Come, only -come! - -Sobs broke out in more than one place. A woman bowed her head and -rocked, while her shoulders shook again. Brother Spyers's face was -alight with joy. A tremor, a throe of the senses, ran through the -assembly as through a single body. - -The preacher, nearing his peroration, rose to a last frenzy of -adjuration. Then, ending in a steadier key, he summoned any to stand -forth who had found grace that night. - -His bright, strenuous eyes were on the sobbers, charging them, drawing -them. First rose the woman who had bowed her head. Her face uncovered -but distorted and twitching, still weeping but rapt and unashamed, she -tottered out between the seats, and sank at last on the vacant form in -front. Next a child, a little maid of ten, lank-legged and outgrown of -her short skirts, her eyes squeezed down on a tight knot of -pocket-handkerchief, crying wildly, broken-heartedly, sobbed and -blundered over seat-corners and toes, and sat down, forlorn and -solitary, at the other end of the form. And after her came Scuddy Lond. - -Why, he knew not--nor cared. In the full enjoyment of a surfeit of -indefinite emotion, tearful, rapturous, he had accepted the command put -on him by the preacher, and he had come forth, walking on clouds, -regenerate, compact of fine feelings. There was a short prayer of -thanks, and then a final hymn:-- - - - "Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day, - For a soul returnin' from the wild!" - - -Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of spirits--a serene -cheerfulness. His emotional orgasm was spent, and in its place was a -numb calm, pleasant enough. - - - "Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing-- - Glory! glory! 'ow the loud 'arps ring! - 'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea, - Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!" - - -The service ended. The congregation trooped forth into the evening; but -Scuddy sat where he was, for the preacher wanted a few words with his -converts ere he would let them go. He shook hands with Scuddy Lond, and -spoke with grave, smiling confidence about his soul. Brother Spyers also -shook hands with him and bespoke his return on Sunday. - -In the cool air of the empty passage, Scuddy's ordinary faculties began -to assert themselves; still in an atmosphere of calm cheer. Fine -feelings--fine. And as he turned the piece of coal in his pocket, he -reflected that, after all, the day had not been altogether unlucky--not -in every sense a blank. Emerging into the street, he saw that the lame -old woman, who was almost alone in view, had risen on her crutch and -turned her back to roll her white cloth over her remaining trotters. On -the ledge behind stood her little pile of coppers, just reckoned. Scuddy -Lond's practised eye took the case in a flash. With two long tip-toed -steps he reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and hurried away up -the street. He did not run, for the woman was lame and had not heard -him. No: decidedly the day had not been blank. For here was a hot -supper. - - - - -"ALL THAT MESSUAGE." - - -I. - -"All that messuage dwelling-house and premises now standing on part of -the said parcel of ground" was the phrase in the assignment of lease, -although it only meant Number Twenty-seven Mulberry Street, Old Ford, -containing five rooms and a wash-house, and sharing a dirty front wall -with the rest of the street on the same side. The phrase was a very fine -one, and, with others more intricate, lent not a little to the triumph -and the perplexity the transaction filled old Jack Randall withal. The -business was a conjunction of purchase and mortgage, whereby old Jack -Randall, having thirty pounds of his own, had, after half-an-hour of -helpless stupefaction in a solicitor's office in Cornhill, bought a -house for two hundred and twenty pounds, and paid ten pounds for stamps -and lawyer's fees. The remaining two hundred pounds had been furnished -by the Indubitable Perpetual Building Society, on the security of a -mortgage; and the loan, with its interest, was to be repaid in monthly -instalments of two pounds and fourpence during twelve years. Thus old -Jack Randall designed to provide for the wants and infirmities of age; -and the outright purchase, he argued, was a thing of mighty easy -accomplishment. For the house let at nine shillings a week, which was -twenty-three pounds eight shillings a year; and the mortgage -instalments, with the ground rent of three pounds a year, only came to -twenty-seven pounds four, leaving a difference of three pounds sixteen, -which would be more than covered by a saving of eighteenpence a week: -certainly not a difficult saving for a man with a regular job and no -young family, who had put by thirty pounds in little more than three -years. Thus on many evenings old Jack Randall and his wife would figure -out the thing, wholly forgetting rates and taxes and repairs. - -Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill, and stared at the traffic. -When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side, he said, "Well, -mother, we done it;" and his wife replied, "Yus, fa', you're a lan'lord -now." Hereat he chuckled and began to walk eastward. For to be a -landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the -world if you are a landlord; and there is no work. You just walk round -on Monday mornings (or maybe you even drive in a trap), and you collect -your rents: eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the -case may be. And there you are! It is better than shopkeeping, because -the money comes by itself; and it is infinitely more genteel. Also, it -is better than having money in a bank and drawing interest; because the -house cannot run away as is the manner of directors, nor dissolve into -nothingness as is the way of banks. And here was he, Jack Randall, -walking down Leadenhall Street a landlord. He mounted a tram-car at -Aldgate, and all things were real. - - -II. - -Old Jack had always been old Jack since at fourteen young Jack had come -'prentice in the same engine-turner's shop. Young Jack was a married man -himself now, at another shop; and old Jack was near fifty, and had set -himself toward thrift. All along Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, and -Bow Road he considered the shops and houses from the tram-roof, madly -estimating rents and values. Near Bow Road end he and his wife alighted, -and went inspecting Twenty-seven Mulberry Street once more. Old Jack -remarked that the scraper was of a different shape from that he had -carried in his mind since their last examination; and he mentioned it to -Mrs. Randall, who considered the scraper of fact rather better than the -scraper of memory. They walked to and fro several times, judging the -door and three windows from each side of the street, and in the end they -knocked, with a purpose of reporting the completed purchase. But the -tenant's wife, peeping from behind a blind, and seeing only the people -who had already come spying about the house some two or three times, -retired to the back and went on with her weekly washing. - -They waited a little, repeated the knock, and then went away. The whole -day was "off," and a stroll in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery was decided -on. Victoria Park was as near, but was not in the direction of home. -Moreover, there was less interest for Mrs. Randall in Victoria Park, -because there were no funerals. In the cemetery, Mrs. Randall solaced -herself and old Jack with the more sentimental among the inscriptions. -In the poor part, whose miscellaneous graves are marked by mounds alone, -they stopped to look at a very cheap funeral. - -"Lor', Jack," Mrs. Randall said under her breath with a nudge, "wot a -common caufin! Why, the body's very nigh a-droppin' through the -bottom!" The thin under-board had, in fact, a bulge. "Pore chap! ain't -it shockin'!" - -The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers was a thing accepted of -course, but the horror of a cheap coffin they had never realized till -now. They turned away. In the main path they met the turgid funeral of a -Bow Road bookmaker. After the dozen mourning coaches there were cars and -pony traps, and behind these came a fag-end of carts and donkey-barrows. -Ahead of all was the glazed hearse, with attendants in weepers, and by -it, full of the pride of artistry, walked the undertaker himself. - -"Now that," said old Jack, "is somethin' like a caufin." (It was heavy -and polished and beset with bright fittings.) "Ah," sighed his missis, -"ain't it lovely!" - -The hearse drew up at the chapel door, where the undertaker turned to -the right-about and placidly surveyed the movements of his forces. Mrs. -Randall murmured again: "Lovely--lovely!" and kept her eyes on the -coffin. Then she edged gently up to the undertaker, and whispered, "What -would that kind o' caufin be called, mister?" - -The undertaker looked at her from the sides of his eyes, and answered -briskly, "Two-inch polished oak solid extry brass fittin's." Mrs. -Randall returned to old Jack's side and repeated the words. "That must -cost a lot," she said. "What a thing, though, to be certain you won't be -buried in a trumpery box like that other! Ah, it's well to be rich." - -Old Jack gazed on the coffin, and thought. Surely a landlord, if -anybody, was entitled to indulge in an expensive coffin? All day he had -nursed a fancy that some small indulgence, something a little heavier -than usual in the matter of expense, would be proper to celebrate the -occasion. But he reflected that his savings were gone and his pockets no -fuller than had always been their Wednesday wont: though, of course, in -that matter the future would be different. The bearers carried the -coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Randall turned away among the graves. -Old Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, looking at the ground, said: -"That was a nobby caufin, mother, wasn't it?" Whereunto Mrs. Randall -murmured: "Lovely--lovely!" yet again. - -Old Jack walked a little further, and asked, "Two-inch polished oak, 'e -said, didn't 'e?" - -"Solid, an' extry brass fittin's; beautiful!" - -"I'll remember it. That's what you shall 'ave if it 'appens you go fust. -There!" And old Jack sat on the guard-chain of a flowery grave with the -air of one giving a handsome order. - -"Me? Git out! Look at the expense." - -"Matter o' circumstances. Look at Jenkins's Gardens. Jenkins was a -bench-'and at the Limited; got 'is 'ouses one under another through -building s'ieties. That there caufin 'ud be none too dear for _'im_. -We're beginnin'; an' I promise you that same, if you'd like it." - -"Like it!" the missis ejaculated. "Course I should. Wouldn't you?" - -"Wy, yus. Any one 'ud prefer somethin' a bit nobby; an' thick." - -And the missis reciprocated old Jack's promise, in case he died first: -if a two-inch polished oak solid could be got for everything she had to -offer. And, tea-time approaching, they made well pleased for home. - - -III. - -In two days old Jack was known as a landlord all about. On the third -day, which was Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half a sovereign, -but succeeded only to the extent of five shillings: work was slack with -him, and three days of it was all he had had that week. This had -happened before, and he had got on as best he could; but now, with a -father buying house-property, it was absurd to economize for lack of -half a sovereign. When he brought the five shillings home, his wife -asked why he had not thrown them at his father's head: a course of -procedure which, young Jack confessed, had never occurred to his mind. -"Stingy old 'unks!" she scolded. "A-goin' about buyin' 'ouses, an' won't -lend 'is own son ten shillin's! Much good may all 'is money do 'im with -'is 'ateful mean ways!" This was the beginning of old Jack's -estrangement from his relatives. For young Jack's missis expressed her -opinion in other places, and young Jack was soon ready to share it: -rigidly abstaining from another attempt at a loan, though he never -repaid the five shillings. - -In the course of the succeeding week two of his shopmates took old Jack -aside at different times to explain that the loan of a pound or two -would make the greatest imaginable difference to the whole course of -their future lives, while the temporary absence of the money would be -imperceptible to a capitalist like himself. When he roundly declared -that he had as few loose sovereigns as themselves, he was set down as an -uncommon liar as well as a wretched old miser. This was the beginning of -old Jack's unpopularity in the workshop. - - -IV. - -He took a half-day off to receive the first week's rent in state, and -Mrs. Randall went with him. He showed his written authority from the -last landlord, and the tenant's wife paid over the sum of nine -shillings, giving him at the same time the rent-book to sign and a slip -of written paper. This last was a week's notice to terminate the -tenancy. - -"We're very well satisfied with the 'ouse," the tenant's wife said (she -was a painfully clean, angular woman, with a notable flavor of yellow -soap and scrubbing-brush about her), "but my 'usband finds it too far to -get to an' from Albert Docks mornin' and night. So we're goin' to West -'Am." And she politely ejected her visitors by opening the door and -crowding them through it. - -The want of a tenant was a contingency that old Jack had never -contemplated. As long as it lasted it would necessitate the setting by -of ten and sixpence a week for the building society payments and the -ground-rent. This was serious: it meant knocking off some of the -butcher's meat, all the beer and tobacco, and perhaps a little firing. -Old Jack resolved to waste no more half-days in collecting, but to send -his missis. On the following Monday, therefore, while the tenant's wife -kept a sharp eye on the man who was piling a greengrocer's van with -chairs and tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a "To Let" bill in the front -window. In the leaves of the rent-book she found another thing of -chagrin: to wit, a notice demanding payment of poor, highway, and -general rates to the amount of one pound eighteen and sevenpence. Now, -no thought of rates and taxes had ever vexed the soul of old Jack. Of -course, he might have known that his own landlord paid the rates for his -house; but, indeed, he had never once thought of the thing, being -content with faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no more about it. -That night was one of dismal wakefulness for old Jack and his missis. If -he had understood the transaction at the lawyer's office, he would have -known that a large proportion of the sum due had been allowed him in the -final adjustment of payment to the day; and if he had known something of -the ways of rate-collecting, he would have understood that payment was -not expected for at least a month. As it was, the glories of -lease-possession grew dim in his eyes, and a landlord seemed a poor -creature, spending his substance to keep roofs over the heads of -strangers. - - -V. - -On Wednesday afternoon a man called about taking the house, and returned -in the evening, when old Jack was home. He was a large-featured, -quick-eyed man, with a loud, harsh voice and a self-assertive manner. -Quickly old Jack recognized him as a speaker he had heard at certain -street-corners: a man who was secretary, or delegate, or that sort of -thing, to something that old Jack had forgotten. - -He began with the announcement, "I am Joe Parsons," delivered with a -stare for emphasis, and followed by a pause to permit assimilation. - -Old Jack had some recollection of the name, but it was indefinite. He -wondered whether or not he should address the man as "sir," considering -the street speeches, and the evident importance of the name. But then, -after all, he was a landlord himself. So he only said, "Yus?" - -"I am Joe Parsons," the man repeated; "and I'm looking for a 'ouse." - -There was another pause, which lasted till old Jack felt obliged to say -something. So he said, "Yus?" again. - -"I'm looking for a 'ouse," the man repeated, "and, if we can arrange -things satisfactory, I might take yours." - -Mr. Joe Parsons was far above haggling about the rent, but he had -certain ideas as to painting and repairs that looked expensive. In the -end old Jack promised the paint a touch-up, privily resolving to do the -work himself in his evenings. And on the whole, Mr. Joe Parsons was -wonderfully easy to come to terms with, considering his eminent public -character. And anything in the nature of a reference in his case would -have been absurd. As himself observed, his name was enough for that. - - -VI. - -Old Jack did the painting, and the new tenant took possession. When Mrs. -Randall called for the first week a draggle-tailed little woman with a -black eye meekly informed her that Mr. Parsons was not at home, and had -left no money nor any message as to the rent. This was awkward, because -the first building society instalment would be due before next -rent-day--to say nothing of the rates. But it would never do to offend -Mr. Parsons. So the money was scraped together by heroic means (the -missis produced an unsuspected twelve and sixpence from a gallipot on -the kitchen dresser), and the first instalment was paid. - -Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry Street next rent-day, but nobody -answered her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty notion, born of use, -that rent was constitutionally demandable only on Monday morning, called -no more for a week. But on Thursday evening a stout little stranger, -with a bald head which he wiped continually, came to the Randalls to ask -if the tenant of Twenty-seven Mulberry Street was Mr. Joe Parsons. -Assured that it was, he nodded, said, "Thanks! that's all," wiped his -head again, and started to go. Then he paused, and "Pay his rent -regular?" he asked. Old Jack hesitated. "Ah, thought so," said the -little stranger. "He's a wrong 'un. _I've_ got a bit o' paper for 'im." -And he clapped on his hat with the handkerchief in it and vanished. - - -VII. - -Old Jack felt unhappy, for a landlord. He and the missis reproached -themselves for not asking the little stranger certain questions; but he -had gone. Next Monday morning old Jack took another half-day, and went -to Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, he assured himself that a -belief, entertained by his missis, that the upper part of his house was -being sublet, was well founded. He watched awhile from a corner, until a -dirty child kicked at the door, and it was opened. Then he went across -and found the draggle-tailed woman who had answered Mrs. Randall before, -in every respect the same to look at, except that not one eye was black -but two. Old Jack, with some abruptness, demanded his rent of her, -addressing her as Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the name, she -pleaded with meek uneasiness that Mr. Parsons really wasn't at home, and -she didn't know when to expect him. At last, finding this ineffectual, -she produced four and sixpence: begging him with increasing agitation to -take that on account and call again. - -Old Jack took the money, and called again at seven. Custom or law or -what-not, he would wait for no Monday morning now. The door was open, -and a group of listening children stood about it. From within came a -noise of knocks and thuds and curses--sometimes a gurgle. Old Jack asked -a small boy, whose position in the passage betokened residence, what was -going forward. "It's the man downstairs," said the boy, "a-givin' of it -to 'is wife for payin' awy the lodgers' rent." - -At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared in the passage. The children, -who had once or twice commented in shouts, dispersed. "I've come for my -rent," said old Jack. - -Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he said, "Rent? Ain't you 'ad it? I -don't bother about things in the 'ouse. Come again when my wife's in." - -"She is in," rejoined old Jack, "an' you've been a-landin' of 'er for -payin' me what little she 'as. Come, you pay me what you owe me, and -take a week's notice now. I want my house kep' respectable." - -Mr. Joe Parsons had no other shift. "You be damned," he said. "Git out." - -"What?" gasped old Jack--for to tell a landlord to get out of his own -house!... "What?" - -"Why git out? Y' ought to know better than comin' 'ere askin' for money -you ain't earnt." - -"Ain't earnt? What d'ye mean?" - -"What I say. Y' ain't earnt it. It's you blasted lan'lords as sucks the -blood o' the workers. You go an' work for your money." - -Old Jack was confounded. "Why--what--how d'ye think I can pay the rates, -an' everythink?" - -"I don't care. You'll _'ave_ to pay 'em, an' I wish they was 'igher. -They ought to be the same as the rent, an' that 'ud do away with fellers -like you. Go on: you do your damdest an' get your rent best way you -can." - -"But what about upstairs? You're lettin' it out an' takin' the rent -there. I--" - -"That's none o' your business. Git out, will ye?" They had gradually -worked over the doorstep, and Randall was on the pavement. "I sha'n't -pay, an' I sha'n't go, an' ye can do what ye like; so it's no good your -stoppin'--unless you want to fight. Eh--do ye?" And Mr. Parsons put a -foot over the threshold. - -Old Jack had not fought for many years. It was low. For a landlord -outside his own house it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was quite dark -now, and there was scarcely a soul in the street. Perhaps nobody would -know, and this man deserved something for himself. He looked up the -street again, and then, "Well, I ain't so young as I was," he said, "but -I won't disappoint ye. Come on." - -Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within and slammed the door. - - -VIII. - -Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to do. -Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out in the -workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for anything in -the nature of sympathy or advice. Not only would he lend no money, but -he refused to stand treat on rent days. Also, there was a collection on -behalf of men on strike at another factory, to which he gave nothing; -and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an extension of that -strike, and his own intention to continue working if it happened. For -what would become of all his plans and his savings if his wages ceased? -Wherefore there was no other man in the shop so unpopular as old Jack, -and in a workshop unpopularity is a bad thing. - -He called on a professional rent-receiver and seller-up. This man knew -Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a -profitable distress might be levied. But if he took lodgers, and they -were quiet people, something might be got out of them--if the job were -made worth while. But this was not at all what old Jack wanted. - -Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice of the secretary of the -building society. This was a superficial young man, an auctioneer's -clerk until evening, who had no disposition to trouble himself about -matters outside his duties. Still, he went so far as to assure old Jack -that turning out a tenant who meant to stay was not a simple job. If you -didn't mind losing the rent it might be done by watching until the house -was left ungarrisoned, getting in, putting the furniture into the -street, and keeping the tenant out. With this forlorn hope old Jack -began to spend his leisure about Mulberry Street: ineffectually, for -Mrs. Parsons never came out while he was there. Once he saw the man, and -offered to forgive him the rent if he would leave: a proposal which Mr. -Parsons received with ostentatious merriment. At this old Jack's -patience gave out, and he punched his tenant on the ear. Whereat the -latter, suddenly whitening in the face, said something about the police, -and walked away at a good pace. - - -IX. - -The strike extended, as it was expected and designed to do. The men at -old Jack's factory were ordered out, and came, excepting only old Jack -himself. He was desperate. Since he had ventured on that cursed -investment everything had gone wrong: but he would not lose his savings -if mere personal risk would preserve them. Moreover, a man of fifty is -not readily re-employed, once out; and as the firm was quite ready to -keep one hand on to oil and see that things were in order, old Jack -stayed: making his comings and goings late to dodge the pickets, and -approaching subtly by a railway-arch stable and a lane thereunto. It was -not as yet a very great strike, and with care these things could be -done. Still, he was sighted and chased twice, and he knew that, if the -strike lasted, and feeling grew hotter, he would be attacked in his own -house. If only he could hold on through the strike, and by hook or crook -keep the outgoings paid, he would attend to Mr. Parsons afterward. - - -X. - -One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall was buying greens and potatoes, -old Jack, waiting without, strolled toward a crowd standing about a -speaker. A near approach discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe Parsons, -who was saying:-- - -"----strike pay is little enough at the time, of course, but don't -forget what it will lead to! An' strike pay does very well, my frien's, -when the party knows 'ow to lay it out, an' don't go passin' it on to -the lan'lord. Don't give it away. When the lan'lord comes o' Monday -mornin', tell 'im (polite as you like) that there's nothink for 'im till -there's more for you. Let the lan'lord earn 'is money, like me an' you. -Let the lan'lords pay a bit towards this 'ere strike as well as the -other blaggards, the imployers. Lan'lords gits quite enough out o' you, -my feller workers, when--" - -"They don't git much out o' you!" shouted old Jack in his wrath; and -then felt sorry he had spoken. For everybody looked at him, and he knew -some of the faces. - -"Ho!" rejoined the speaker, mincingly. "There's a gent there as seems to -want to address this 'ere meetin'. P'r'aps you'll 'ave the kindness to -step up 'ere, my friend, an' say wot you got to say plain." And he -looked full at old Jack, pointing with his finger. - -Old Jack fidgeted, wishing himself out of it. "You pay me what you owe -me," he growled sulkily. - -"As this 'ere individual, after intruding 'isself on this peaceful -meetin', ain't got anythink to say for 'isself," pursued Mr. Joe -Parsons, "I'll explain things for 'im. That's _my_ lan'lord, that is: -look at 'im! 'E comes 'angin' round my door waitin' for a chance to turn -my pore wife an' children out o' 'ouse and 'ome. 'E follers me in the -street an' tries to intimidate me. 'E comes 'ere, my feller workers, as -a spy, an' to try an' poison your minds agin me as devotes my 'ole life -to your int'rests. That's the sort o' man, that's the sort o' lan'lord -_'e_ is. But 'e's somethink more than a greedy, thievin', overfed -lan'lord, my frien's, an' I'll tell you wot. 'E's a dirty, crawlin' -blackleg; that's wot else 'e is. 'E's the on'y man as wouldn't come out -o' Maidment's; an' 'e's workin' there now, skulkin' in an' out in the -dark--a dirty rat! Now you all know very well I won't 'ave nothink to do -with any violence or intimidation. It's agin my principles, although I -know there's very often great temptation, an' it's impossible to -identify in a crowd, an' safe to be very little evidence. But this I -will say, that when a dirty low rat, not content with fattenin' on -starvin' tenants, goes an' takes the bread out o' 'is feller men's -mouths, like that bleedin' blackleg--blackleg!--blackleg!--" - -Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy boots were at work about his head and -belly. In from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her way, shedding -potatoes as she ran, and screaming; threw herself upon the man on the -ground; and shared the kicks. Over the shoulders of the kickers whirled -the buckle-end of a belt. "One for the old cow," said a voice. - - -XI. - -When a man is lying helpless on his back, with nothing in hand, he pays -nothing off a building society mortgage, because, as his wife pawns the -goods of the house, the resulting money goes for necessaries. To such a -man the society shows no useless grace: especially when the secretary -has a friend always ready to take over a forfeited house at forced sale -price. So the lease of Twenty-seven vanished, and old Jack's savings -with it. - -And one day, some months later, old Jack, supported by the missis and a -stick, took his way across the workhouse forecourt. There was a door -some twenty yards from that directly before them, and two men came out -of it, carrying a laden coffin of plain deal. - -"Look there, Jack," the missis said, as she checked her step; "what a -common caufin!" And indeed there was a distinct bulge in the bottom. - - -THE END. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of Mean Streets, by Arthur Morrison - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MEAN STREETS *** - -***** This file should be named 40569-8.txt or 40569-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/6/40569/ - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Tales of Mean Streets - -Author: Arthur Morrison - -Release Date: August 23, 2012 [EBook #40569] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MEAN STREETS *** - - - - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40569 ***</div> <div class="center"><a name="cover.jpg" id="cover.jpg"></a><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" /></div> @@ -4757,387 +4719,6 @@ common caufin!" And indeed there was a distinct bulge in the bottom.</p> <p class="bold">THE END.</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of Mean Streets, by Arthur Morrison - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES OF MEAN STREETS *** - -***** This file should be named 40569-h.htm or 40569-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/6/40569/ - -Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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