Chapter 15: The Undeserving Persons and the Upper and Nether Millstones
  Hunter had take on three more painters that morning. Bundy and two labourers had commenced the work of putting in the new drains; the carpenters were back again doing some extra work, and there was also a plumber working on the house; so there was quite a little crowd in the kitchen at dinner-time. Crass had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to produce the newspaper cutting which it will be remembered he showed to Easton on Monday morning, but he had waited in vain, for there had been scarcely any ‘political’ talk at meal-times all the week, and it was now Thursday. As far as Owen was concerned, his thoughts were so occupied with the designs for the drawing-room that he had no time for anything else, and most of the others were only too willing to avoid a subject which frequently led to unpleasantness. As a rule Crass himself had no liking for such discussion, but he was so confident of being able to ‘flatten out’ Owen with the cutting from the Obscurer that he had several times tried to lead the conversation into the desired channel, but so far without success.
 During dinner - as they called it - various subjects were discussed. Harlow mentioned that he had found traces of bugs in one of the bedrooms upstairs and this called forth a number of anecdotes of those vermin and of houses infested by them. Philpot remembered working in a house over at Windley; the people who lived in it were very dirty and had very little furniture; no bedsteads, the beds consisting of dilapidated mattresses and rags on the floor. He declared that these ragged mattresses used to wander about the rooms by themselves. The house was so full of fleas that if one placed a sheet of newspaper on the floor one could hear and see them jumping on it. In fact, directly one went into that house one was covered from head to foot with fleas! During the few days he worked at that place, he lost several pounds in weight, and of evenings as he walked homewards the children and people in the streets, observing his ravaged countenance, thought he was suffering from some disease and used to get out of his way when they saw him coming.
 There were several other of these narratives, four or five men talking at the top of their voices at the same time, each one telling a different story. At first each story-teller addressed himself to the company generally, but after a while, finding it impossible to make himself heard, he would select some particular individual who seemed disposed to listen and tell him the story. It sometimes happened that in the middle of the tale the man to whom it was being told would remember a somewhat similar adventure of his own, which he would immediately proceed to relate without waiting for the other to finish, and each of them was generally so interested in the gruesome details of his own story that he was unconscious of the fact that the other was telling one at all. In a contest of this kind the victory usually went to the man with the loudest voice, but sometimes a man who had a weak voice, scored by repeating the same tale several times until someone heard it.
 Barrington, who seldom spoke and was an ideal listener, was appropriated by several men in succession, who each told him a different yarn. There was one man sitting on an up-ended pail in the far corner of the room and it was evident from the movements of his lips that he also was relating a story, although nobody knew what it was about or heard a single word of it, for no one took the slightest notice of him...
 When the uproar had subsided Harlow remembered the case of a family whose house got into such a condition that the landlord had given them notice and the father had committed suicide because the painters had come to turn ’em out of house and home. There were a man, his wife and daughter - a girl about seventeen - living in the house, and all three of ’em used to drink like hell. As for the woman, she COULD shift it and no mistake! Several times a day she used to send the girl with a jug to the pub at the corner. When the old man was out, one could have anything one liked to ask for from either of ’em for half a pint of beer, but for his part, said Harlow, he could never fancy it. They were both too ugly.
 The finale of this tale was received with a burst of incredulous laughter by those who heard it.
 ‘Do you ’ear what Harlow says, Bob?’ Easton shouted to Crass.
 ‘No. What was it?’
 ‘’E ses ’e once ’ad a chance to ’ave something but ’e wouldn’t take it on because it was too ugly!’
 ‘If it ’ad bin me, I should ’ave shut me bl—y eyes,’ cried Sawkins. ‘I wouldn’t pass it for a trifle like that.’
 ‘No,’ said Crass amid laughter, ‘and you can bet your life ’e didn’t lose it neither, although ’e tries to make ’imself out to be so innocent.’
 ‘I always though old Harlow was a bl—y liar,’ remarked Bundy, ‘but now we knows ’e is.’
 Although everyone pretended to disbelieve him, Harlow stuck to his version of the story.
 ‘It’s not their face you want, you know,’ added Bundy as he helped himself to some more tea.
 ‘I know it wasn’t my old woman’s face that I was after last night,’ observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and his wife after they had retired for the night.
 This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had had a few weeks previously: ‘I dreamt I was walkin’ along the top of a ’igh cliff or some sich place, and all of a sudden the ground give way under me feet and I began to slip down and down and to save meself from going over I made a grab at a tuft of grass as was growin’ just within reach of me ’and. And then I thought that some feller was ’ittin me on the ’ead with a bl—y great stick, and tryin’ to make me let go of the tuft of grass. And then I woke up to find my old woman shouting out and punchin’ me with ’er fists. She said I was pullin’ ’er ’air!’
 While the room was in an uproar with the merriment induced by these stories, Crass rose from his seat and crossed over to where his overcoat was hanging on a nail in the wall, and took from the pocket a piece of card about eight inches by about four inches. One side of it was covered with printing, and as he returned to his seat Crass called upon the others to listen while he read it aloud. He said it was one of the best things he had ever seen: it had been given to him by a bloke in the Cricketers the other night.
 Crass was not a very good reader, but he was able to read this all right because he had read it so often that he almost knew it by heart. It was entitled ‘The Art of Flatulence’, and it consisted of a number of rules and definitions. Shouts of laughter greeted the reading of each paragraph, and when he had ended, the piece of dirty card was handed round for the benefit of those who wished to read it for themselves. Several of the men, however, when it was offered to them, refused to take it, and with evident disgust suggested that it should be put into the fire. This view did not commend itself to Crass, who, after the others had finished with it, put it back in the pocket of his coat.
 Meanwhile, Bundy stood up to help himself to some more tea. The cup he was drinking from had a large piece broken out of one side and did not hold much, so he usually had to have three or four helpings.
 ‘Anyone else want any’ he asked.
 Several cups and jars were passed to him. These vessels had been standing on the floor, and the floor was very dirty and covered with dust, so before dipping them into the pail, Bundy - who had been working at the drains all morning - wiped the bottoms of the jars upon his trousers, on the same place where he was in the habit of wiping his hands when he happened to get some dirt on them. He filled the jars so full that as he held them by the rims and passed them to their owners part of the contents slopped over and trickled through his fingers. By the time he had finished the floor was covered with little pools of tea.
 ‘They say that Gord made everything for some useful purpose,’ remarked Harlow, reverting to the original subject, ‘but I should like to know what the hell’s the use of sich things as bugs and fleas and the like.’
 ‘To teach people to keep theirselves clean, of course,’ said Slyme.
 ‘That’s a funny subject, ain’t it?’ continued Harlow, ignoring Slyme’s answer. ‘They say as all diseases is caused by little insects. If Gord ’adn’t made no cancer germs or consumption microbes there wouldn’t be no cancer or consumption.’
 ‘That’s one of the proofs that there ISN’T an individual God,’ said Owen. ‘If we were to believe that the universe and everything that lives was deliberately designed and created by God, then we must also believe that He made his disease germs you are speaking of for the purpose of torturing His other creatures.’
 ‘You can’t tell me a bloody yarn like that,’ interposed Crass, roughly. ‘There’s a Ruler over us, mate, and so you’re likely to find out.’
 ‘If Gord didn’t create the world, ’ow did it come ’ere?’ demanded Slyme.
 ‘I know no more about that than you do,’ replied Owen. ‘That is - I know nothing. The only difference between us is that you THINK you know. You think you know that God made the universe; how long it took Him to do it; why He made it; how long it’s been in existence and how it will finally pass away. You also imagine you know that we shall live after we’re dead; where we shall go, and the kind of existence we shall have. In fact, in the excess of your "humility", you think you know all about it. But really you know no more of these things than any other human being does; that is, you know NOTHING.’
 ‘That’s only YOUR opinion,’ said Slyme.
 ‘If we care to take the trouble to learn,’ Owen went on, ‘we can know a little of how the universe has grown and changed; but of the beginning we know nothing,’
 ‘That’s just my opinion, matey,’ observed Philpot. ‘It’s just a bloody mystery, and that’s all about it.’
 ‘I don’t pretend to ’ave no ’ead knowledge,’ said Slyme, ‘but ’ead knowledge won’t save a man’s soul: it’s ’EART knowledge as does that. I knows in my ’eart as my sins is all hunder the Blood, and it’s knowin’ that, wot’s given ’appiness and the peace which passes all understanding to me ever since I’ve been a Christian.’
 ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah!’ shouted Bundy, and nearly everyone laughed.
 ‘"Christian" is right,’ sneered Owen. ‘You’ve got some title to call yourself a Christian, haven’t you? As for the happiness that passes all understanding, it certainly passes MY understanding how you can be happy when you believe that millions of people are being tortured in Hell; and it also passes my understanding why you are not ashamed of yourself for being happy under such circumstances.’
 ‘Ah, well, you’ll find it all out when you come to die, mate,’ replied Slyme in a threatening tone. ‘You’ll think and talk different then!’
 ‘That’s just wot gets over ME,’ observed Harlow. ‘It don’t seem right that after living in misery and poverty all our bloody lives, workin’ and slavin’ all the hours that Gord A’mighty sends, that we’re to be bloody well set fire and burned in ’ell for all eternity! It don’t seem feasible to me, you know.’
 ‘It’s my belief,’ said Philpot, profoundly, ‘that when you’re dead, you’re done for. That’s the end of you.’
 ‘That’s what *I* say,’ remarked Easton. ‘As for all this religious business, it’s just a money-making dodge. It’s the parson’s trade, just the same as painting is ours, only there’s no work attached to it and the pay’s a bloody sight better than ours is.’
 ‘It’s their livin’, and a bloody good livin’ too, if you ask me,’ said Bundy.
 ‘Yes,’ said Harlow; ‘they lives on the fat o’ the land, and wears the best of everything, and they does nothing for it but talk a lot of twaddle two or three times a week. The rest of the time they spend cadgin’ money orf silly old women who thinks it’s a sorter fire insurance.’
 ‘It’s an old sayin’ and a true one,’ chimed in the man on the upturned pail. ‘Parsons and publicans is the worst enemies the workin’ man ever ’ad. There may be SOME good ’uns, but they’re few and far between.’
 ‘If I could only get a job like the Harchbishop of Canterbury,’ said Philpot, solemnly, ‘I’d leave this firm.’
 ‘So would I,’ said Harlow, ‘if I was the Harchbishop of Canterbury, I’d take my pot and brushes down the office and shy ’em through the bloody winder and tell ole Misery to go to ’ell.’
 ‘Religion is a thing that don’t trouble ME much,’ remarked Newman; ‘and as for what happens to you after death, it’s a thing I believe in leavin’ till you comes to it - there’s no sense in meetin’ trouble ’arfway. All the things they tells us may be true or they may not, but it takes me all my time to look after THIS world. I don’t believe I’ve been to church more than arf a dozen times since I’ve been married - that’s over fifteen years ago now - and then it’s been when the kids ’ave been christened. The old woman goes sometimes and of course the young ’uns goes; you’ve got to tell ’em something or other, and they might as well learn what they teaches at the Sunday School as anything else.’
 A general murmur of approval greeted this. It seemed to be the almost unanimous opinion, that, whether it were true or not, ‘religion’ was a nice thing to teach children.
 ‘I’ve not been even once since I was married,’ said Harlow, ‘and I sometimes wish to Christ I ’adn’t gorn then.’
 ‘I don’t see as it matters a dam wot a man believes,’ said Philpot, ‘as long as you don’t do no ’arm to nobody. If you see a poor b—r wot’s down on ’is luck, give ’im a ’elpin’ ’and. Even if you ain’t got no money you can say a kind word. If a man does ’is work and looks arter ’is ’ome and ’is young ’uns, and does a good turn to a fellow creature when ’e can, I reckon ’e stands as much chance of getting into ’eaven - if there IS sich a place - as some of there ’ere Bible-busters, whether ’e ever goes to church or chapel or not.’
 These sentiments were echoed by everyone with the solitary exception of Slyme, who said that Philpot would find out his mistake after he was dead, when he would have to stand before the Great White Throne for judgement!
 ‘And at the Last Day, when yer sees the moon turned inter Blood, you’ll be cryin’ hout for the mountings and the rocks to fall on yer and ’ide yer from the wrath of the Lamb!’
 The others laughed derisively.
 ‘I’m a Bush Baptist meself,’ remarked the man on the upturned pail. This individual, Dick Wantley by name, was of what is usually termed a ‘rugged’ cast of countenance. He reminded one strongly of an ancient gargoyle, or a dragon.
 Most of the hands had by now lit their pipes, but there were a few who preferred chewing their tobacco. As they smoked or chewed they expectorated upon the floor or into the fire. Wantley was one of those who preferred chewing and he had been spitting upon the floor to such an extent that he was by this time partly surrounded by a kind of semicircular moat of dark brown spittle.
 ‘I’m a Bush Baptist!’ he shouted across the moat, ‘and you all knows wot that is.’
 This confession of faith caused a fresh outburst of hilarity, because of course everyone knew what a Bush Baptist was.
 ‘If ’evven’s goin’ to be full of sich b—r’s as Hunter,’ observed Eaton, ‘I think I’d rather go to the other place.’
 ‘If ever ole Misery DOES get into ’eaven,’ said Philpot, ‘’e won’t stop there very long. I reckon ’e’ll be chucked out of it before ’e’s been there a week, because ’e’s sure to start pinchin’ the jewels out of the other saints’ crowns.’
 ‘Well, if they won’t ’ave ’im in ’eaven, I’m sure I don’t know wot’s to become of ’im,’ said Harlow with pretended concern, ‘because I don’t believe ’e’d be allowed into ’ell, now.’
 ‘Why not?’ demanded Bundy. ‘I should think it’s just the bloody place for sich b—r’s as ’im.’
 ‘So it used to be at one time o’ day, but they’ve changed all that now. They’ve ’ad a revolution down there: deposed the Devil, elected a parson as President, and started puttin’ the fire out.’
 ‘From what I hears of it,’ continued Harlow when the laughter had ceased, ‘’ell is a bloody fine place to live in just now. There’s underground railways and ’lectric trams, and at the corner of nearly every street there’s a sort of pub where you can buy ice-cream, lemon squash, four ale, and American cold drinks; and you’re allowed to sit in a refrigerator for two hours for a tanner.’
 Although they laughed and made fun of these things the reader must not think that they really doubted the truth of the Christian religion, because - although they had all been brought up by ‘Christian’ parents and had been ‘educated’ in ‘Christian’ schools - none of them knew enough about Christianity to either really believe it or disbelieve it. The imposters who obtain a comfortable living by pretending to be the ministers and disciples of the Workman of Nazareth are too cunning to encourage their dupes to acquire anything approaching an intelligent understanding of the subject. They do not want people to know or understand anything: they want them to have Faith - to believe without knowledge, understanding, or evidence. For years Harlow and his mates - when children - had been ‘taught’ ‘Christianity’ in day school, Sunday School and in church or chapel, and now they knew practically nothing about it! But they were ‘Christians’ all the same. They believed that the Bible was the word of God, but they didn’t know where it came from, how long it had been in existence, who wrote it, who translated it or how many different versions there were. Most of them were almost totally unacquainted with the contents of the book itself. But all the same, they believed it - after a fashion.
 ‘But puttin’ all jokes aside,’ said Philpot, ‘I can’t believe there’s sich a place as ’ell. There may be some kind of punishment, but I don’t believe it’s a real fire.’
 ‘Nor nobody else, what’s got any sense,’ replied Harlow, contemptuously.
 ‘I believe as THIS world is ’ell,’ said Crass, looking around with a philosophic expression. This opinion was echoed by most of the others, although Slyme remained silent and Owen laughed.
 ‘Wot the bloody ’ell are YOU laughin’ at?’ Crass demanded in an indignant tone.
 ‘I was laughing because you said you think this world is hell.’
 ‘Well, I don’t see nothing to laugh at in that,’ said Crass.
 ‘So it IS a ’ell,’ said Easton. ‘There can’t be anywheres much worse than this.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ said the man behind the moat.
 ‘What I was laughing at is this,’ said Owen. ‘The present system of managing the affairs of the world is so bad and has produced such dreadful results that you are of the opinion that the earth is a hell: and yet you are a Conservative! You wish to preserve the present system - the system which has made the world into a hell!’
 ‘I thought we shouldn’t get through the dinner hour without politics if Owen was ’ere,’ growled Bundy. ‘Bloody sickenin’ I call it.’
 ‘Don’t be ’ard on ’im,’ said Philpot. ‘’E’s been very quiet for the last few days.’
 ‘We’ll ’ave to go through it today, though,’ remarked Harlow despairingly. ‘I can see it comin’.’
 ‘I’M not goin’ through it,’ said Bundy, ‘I’m orf!’ And he accordingly drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket and, having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.
 ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said as he went out. The others laughed.
 Crass, remembering the cutting from the Obscurer that he had in his pocket, was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was taking. He turned roughly on Owen:
 ‘The other day, when we was talkin’ about the cause of poverty, you contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself couldn’t tell us what’s the cause of poverty, could you?’
 ‘I think I could.’
 ‘Oh, of course, you think you know,’ sneered Crass, ‘and of course you think your opinion’s right and everybody else’s is wrong.’
 ‘Yes,’ replied Owen.
 Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of Owen’s, but the latter rejoined:
 ‘Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who differs from me is wrong. If I didn’t think their opinions were wrong I wouldn’t differ from them. If I didn’t think my own opinions right I wouldn’t hold them.’
 ‘But there’s no need to keep on arguin’ about it day after day,’ said Crass. ‘You’ve got your opinion and I’ve got mine. Let everyone enjoy his own opinion, I say.’
 A murmur of approbation from the crowd greeted these sentiments; but Owen rejoined:
 ‘But we can’t both be right; if your opinions are right and mine are not, how am I to find out the truth if we never talk about them?’
 ‘Well, wot do you reckon is the cause of poverty, then?’ demanded Easton.
 ‘The present system - competition - capitalism.’
 ‘It’s all very well to talk like that,’ snarled Crass, to whom this statement conveyed no meaning whatever. ‘But ’ow do you make it out?’
 ‘Well, I put it like that for the sake of shortness,’ replied Owen. ‘Suppose some people were living in a house -’
 ‘More supposin’!’ sneered Crass.
 ‘And suppose they were always ill, and suppose that the house was badly built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture, the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived there you would say - the house. All the tinkering in the world would not make that house fit to live in; the only thing to do with it would be to pull it down and build another. Well, we’re all living in a house called the Money System; and as a result most of us are suffering from a disease called poverty. There’s so much the matter with the present system that it’s no good tinkering at it. Everything about it is wrong and there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s only one thing to be done with it and that is to smash it up and have a different system altogether. We must get out of it.’
 ‘It seems to me that that’s just what you’re trying to do,’ remanded Harlow, sarcastically. ‘You seem to be tryin’ to get out of answering the question what Easton asked you.’
 ‘Yes!’ cried Crass, fiercely. ‘Why don’t you answer the bloody question? Wot’s the cause of poverty?’
 ‘What the ’ell’s the matter with the present system?’ demanded Sawkins.
 ‘Ow’s it goin’ to be altered?’ said Newman.
 ‘Wot the bloody ’ell sort of a system do YOU think we ought to ’ave?’ shouted the man behind the moat.
 ‘It can’t never be altered,’ said Philpot. ‘Human nature’s human nature and you can’t get away from it.’
 ‘Never mind about human nature,’ shouted Crass. ‘Stick to the point. Wot’s the cause of poverty?’
 ‘Oh, b—r the cause of poverty!’ said one of the new hands. ‘I’ve ’ad enough of this bloody row.’ And he stood up and prepared to go out of the room.
 This individual had two patches on the seat of his trousers and the bottoms of the legs of that garment were frayed and ragged. He had been out of work for about six weeks previous to having been taken on by Rushton & Co. During most of that time he and his family had been existing in a condition of semi-starvation on the earnings of his wife as a charwoman and on the scraps of food she brought home from the houses where she worked. But all the same, the question of what is the cause of poverty had no interest for him.
 ‘There are many causes,’ answered Owen, ‘but they are all part of and inseparable from the system. In order to do away with poverty we must destroy the causes: to do away with the causes we must destroy the whole system.’
 ‘What are the causes, then?’
 ‘Well, money, for one thing.’
 This extraordinary assertion was greeted with a roar of merriment, in the midst of which Philpot was heard to say that to listen to Owen was as good as going to a circus. Money was the cause of poverty!
 ‘I always thought it was the want of it!’ said the man with the patches on the seat of his trousers as he passed out of the door.
 ‘Other things,’ continued Owen, ‘are private ownership of land, private ownership of railways, tramways, gasworks, waterworks, private ownership of factories, and the other means of producing the necessaries and comforts of life. Competition in business -’
 ‘But ’ow do you make it out?’ demanded Crass, impatiently.
 Owen hesitated. To his mind the thing appeared very clear and simple. The causes of poverty were so glaringly evident that he marvelled that any rational being should fail to perceive them; but at the same time he found it very difficult to define them himself. He could not think of words that would convey his thoughts clearly to these others who seemed so hostile and unwilling to understand, and who appeared to have made up their minds to oppose and reject whatever he said. They did not know what were the causes of poverty and apparently they did not WANT to know.
 ‘Well, I’ll try to show you one of the causes,’ he said nervously at last.
 He picked up a piece of charred wood that had fallen from the fire and knelt down and began to draw upon the floor. Most of the others regarded him, with looks in which an indulgent, contemptuous kind of interest mingled with an air of superiority and patronage. There was no doubt, they thought, that Owen was a clever sort of chap: his work proved that: but he was certainly a little bit mad.
 By this time Owen had drawn a circle about two feet in diameter. Inside he had drawn two squares, one much larger than the other. These two squares he filled in solid black with the charcoal.
 ‘Wot’s it all about?’ asked Crass with a sneer.
 ‘Why, can’t you see?’ said Philpot with a wink. ‘’E’s goin’ to do some conjurin’! In a minit ’e’ll make something pass out o’ one o’ them squares into the other and no one won’t see ’ow it’s done.’
 When he had finished drawing, Owen remained for a few minutes awkwardly silent, oppressed by the anticipation of ridicule and a sense of his inability to put his thoughts into plain language. He began to wish that he had not undertaken this task. At last, with an effort, he began to speak in a halting, nervous way:
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 ‘This circle - or rather the space inside the circle - is supposed to represent England.’
 ‘Well, I never knowed it was round before,’ jeered Crass. ‘I’ve heard as the WORLD is round -’
 ‘I never said it was the shape - I said it was supposed to REPRESENT England.’
  ‘Oh, I see. I thought we’d very soon begin supposin’.’
 ‘The two black squares,’ continued Owen, ‘represent the people who live in the country. The small square represents a few thousand people. The large square stands for the remainder - about forty millions - that is, the majority.’
 ‘We ain’t sich bloody fools as to think that the largest number is the minority,’ interrupted Crass.
 ‘The greater number of the people represented by the large black square work for their living: and in return for their labour they receive money: some more, some less than others.’
 ‘You don’t think they’d be sich bloody fools as to work for nothing, do you?’ said Newman.
 ‘I suppose you think they ought all to get the same wages!’ cried Harlow. ‘Do you think it’s right that a scavenger should get as much as a painter?’
 ‘I’m not speaking about that at all,’ replied Owen. ‘I’m trying to show you what I think is one of the causes of poverty.’
 ‘Shut up, can’t you, Harlow,’ remonstrated Philpot, who began to feel interested. ‘We can’t all talk at once.’
 ‘I know we can’t,’ replied Harlow in an aggrieved tone: ‘but ’e takes sich a ’ell of a time to say wot ’e’s got to say. Nobody else can’t get a word in edgeways.’
 ‘In order that these people may live,’ continued Owen, pointing to the large black square, ‘it is first necessary that they shall have a PLACE to live in -’
 ‘Well! I should never a thought it!’ exclaimed the man on the pail, pretending to be much impressed. The others laughed, and two or three of them went out of the room, contemptuously remarking to each other in an audible undertone as they went:
 ‘Bloody rot!’
 ‘Wonder wot the bloody ’ell ’e thinks ’e is? A sort of schoolmaster?’
 Owen’s nervousness increased as he continued:
 ‘Now, they can’t live in the air or in the sea. These people are land animals, therefore they must live on the land.’
 ‘Wot do yer mean by animals?’ demanded Slyme.
 ‘A human bean ain’t a animal!’ said Crass indignantly.
 ‘Yes, we are!’ cried Harlow. ‘Go into any chemist’s shop you like and ask the bloke, and ’e’ll tell you -’
 ‘Oh, blow that!’ interrupted Philpot. ‘Let’s ’ear wot Owen’s sayin’.’
 ‘They must live on the land: and that’s the beginning of the trouble; because - under the present system - the majority of the people have really no right to be in the country at all! Under the present system the country belongs to a few - those who are here represented by this small black square. If it would pay them to do so, and if they felt so disposed, these few people have a perfect right - under the present system - to order everyone else to clear out!
 ‘But they don’t do that, they allow the majority to remain in the land on one condition - that is, they must pay rent to the few for the privilege of being permitted to live in the land of their birth. The amount of rent demanded by those who own this country is so large that, in order to pay it, the greater number of the majority have often to deprive themselves and their children, not only of the comforts, but even the necessaries of life. In the case of the working classes the rent absorbs at the lowest possible estimate, about one-third of their total earnings, for it must be remembered that the rent is an expense that goes on all the time, whether they are employed or not. If they get into arrears when out of work, they have to pay double when they get employment again.
 ‘The majority work hard and live in poverty in order that the minority may live in luxury without working at all, and as the majority are mostly fools, they not only agree to pass their lives in incessant slavery and want, in order to pay this rent to those who own the country, but they say it is quite right that they should have to do so, and are very grateful to the little minority for allowing them to remain in the country at all.’
 Owen paused, and immediately there arose a great clamour from his listeners.
 ‘So it IS right, ain’t it?’ shouted Crass. ‘If you ’ad a ’ouse and let it to someone, you’d want your rent, wouldn’t yer?’
 ‘I suppose,’ said Slyme with resentment, for he had some shares in a local building society, ‘after a man’s been careful, and scraping and saving and going without things he ought to ’ave ’ad all ’is life, and managed to buy a few ’ouses to support ’im in ’is old age - they ought all to be took away from ’im? Some people,’ he added, ‘ain’t got common honesty.’
 Nearly everyone had something to say in reprobation of the views suggested by Owen. Harlow, in a brief but powerful speech, bristling with numerous sanguinary references to the bottomless pit, protested against any interference with the sacred rights of property. Easton listened with a puzzled expression, and Philpot’s goggle eyes rolled horribly as he glared silently at the circle and the two squares.
 ‘By far the greatest part of the land,’ said Owen when the row had ceased, ‘is held by people who have absolutely no moral right to it. Possession of much of it was obtained by means of murder and theft perpetrated by the ancestors of the present holders. In other cases, when some king or prince wanted to get rid of a mistress of whom he had grown weary, he presented a tract of our country to some ‘nobleman’ on condition that he would marry the female. Vast estates were also bestowed upon the remote ancestors of the present holders in return for real or alleged services. Listen to this,’ he continued as he took a small newspaper cutting from his pocket-book.
 Crass looked at the piece of paper dolefully. It reminded him of the one he had in his own pocket, which he was beginning to fear that he would not have an opportunity of producing today after all.
 ‘Ballcartridge Rent Dat.
 ‘The hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Ballcartridge occurred yesterday and in accordance with custom the Duke of Ballcartridge handed to the authorities the little flag which he annually presents to the State in virtue of his tenure of the vast tract of this country which was presented to one of his ancestors - the first Duke - in addition to his salary, for his services at the battle of Ballcartridge.
 ‘The flag - which is the only rent the Duke has to pay for the great estate which brings him in several hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum - is a small tricoloured one with a staff surmounted by an eagle.
 ‘The Duke of Blankmind also presents the State with a little coloured silk flag every year in return for being allowed to retain possession of that part of England which was presented - in addition to his salary - to one of His Grace’s very remote ancestors, for his services at the battle of Commissariat - in the Netherlands.
 ‘The Duke of Southward is another instance,’ continued Owen. ‘He "owns" miles of the country we speak of as "ours". Much of his part consists of confiscated monastery lands which were stolen from the owners by King Henry VIII and presented to the ancestors of the present Duke.
 ‘Whether it was right or wrong that these parts of our country should ever have been given to those people - the question whether those ancestor persons were really deserving cases or not - is a thing we need not trouble ourselves about now. But the present holders are certainly not deserving people. They do not even take the trouble to pretend they are. They have done nothing and they do nothing to justify their possession of these "estates" as they call them. And in my opinion no man who is in his right mind can really think it’s just that these people should be allowed to prey upon their fellow men as they are doing now. Or that it is right that their children should be allowed to continue to prey upon our children for ever! The thousands of people on those estates work and live in poverty in order that these three men and their families may enjoy leisure and luxury. Just think of the absurdity of it!’ continued Owen, pointing to the drawings. ‘All those people allowing themselves to be overworked and bullied and starved and robbed by this little crowd here!’
 Observing signs of a renewal of the storm of protests, Owen hurriedly concluded:
 ‘Whether it’s right or wrong, you can’t deny that the fact that this small minority possesses nearly all the land of the country is one of the principal causes of the poverty of the majority.’
 ‘Well, that seems true enough,’ said Easton, slowly. ‘The rent’s the biggest item a workin’ man’s got to pay. When you’re out of work and you can’t afford other things, you goes without ’em, but the rent ’as to be paid whether you’re workin’ or not.’
 ‘Yes, that’s enough,’ said Harlow impatiently; ‘but you gets value for yer money: you can’t expect to get a ’ouse for nothing.’
 ‘Suppose we admits as it’s wrong, just for the sake of argyment,’ said Crass in a jeering tone. ‘Wot then? Wot about it? ’Ow’s it agoin’ to be altered.’
 ‘Yes!’ cried Harlow triumphantly. ‘That’s the bloody question! ’Ow’s it goin’ to be altered? It can’t be done!’
 There was a general murmur of satisfaction. Nearly everyone seemed very pleased to think that the existing state of things could not possibly be altered.
 ‘Whether it can be altered or not, whether it’s right or wrong, landlordism is one of the causes of poverty,’ Owen repeated. ‘Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it’s not caused by machinery; it’s not caused by "over-production"; it’s not caused by drink or laziness; and it’s not caused by "over-population". It’s caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It’s Their Land," "It’s Their Water," "It’s Their Coal," "It’s Their Iron," so you would say "It’s Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’
 ‘I suppose you think the landlords ought to let people live in their ’ouses for nothing?’ said Crass, breaking the silence that followed.
 ‘Certainly,’ remarked Harlow, pretending to be suddenly converted to Owen’s views, ‘I reckon the landlord ought to pay the rent to the tenant!’
 ‘Of course, Landlordism is not the only cause,’ said Owen, ignoring these remarks. ‘ The wonderful system fosters a great many others. Employers of labour, for instance, are as great a cause of poverty as landlords are.’
 This extraordinary statement was received with astonished silence.
 ‘Do you mean to say that if I’m out of work and a master gives me a job, that ’e’s doin’ me a injury?’ said Crass at length.
 ‘No, of course not,’ replied Owen.
 ‘Well, what the bloody ’ell DO yer mean, then?’
 ‘I mean this: supposing that the owner of a house wishes to have it repainted. What does he usually do?’
 ‘As a rule, ’e goes to three or four master painters and asks ’em to give ’im a price for the job.’
 ‘Yes; and those master painters are so eager to get the work that they cut the price down to what they think is the lowest possible point,’ answered Owen, ‘and the lowest usually gets the job. The successful tenderer has usually cut the price so fine that to make it pay he has to scamp the work, pay low wages, and drive and sweat the men whom he employs. He wants them to do two days’ work for one day’s pay. The result is that a job which - if it were done properly - would employ say twenty men for two months, is rushed and scamped in half that time with half that number of men.
 ‘This means that - in one such case as this - ten men are deprived of one month’s employment; and ten other men are deprived of two months’ employment; and all because the employers have been cutting each other’s throats to get the work.’
 ‘And we can’t ’elp ourselves, you nor me either,’ said Harlow. ‘Supposing one of us on this job was to make up ’is mind not to tear into it like we do, but just keep on steady and do a fair day’s work: wot would ’appen?’
 No one answered; but the same thought was in everyone’s mind. Such a one would be quickly marked by Hunter; and even if the latter failed to notice it would not be long before Crass reported his conduct.
 ‘We can’t ’elp ourselves,’ said Easton, gloomily. ‘If one man won’t do it there’s twenty others ready to take ’is place.’
 ‘We could help ourselves to a certain extent if we would stand by each other. If, for instance, we all belonged to the Society,’ said Owen.
 ‘I don’t believe in the Society,’ observed Crass. ‘I can’t see as it’s right that a inferior man should ’ave the same wages as me.’
 ‘They’re a drunken lot of beer-swillers,’ remarked Slyme. ‘That’s why they always ’as their meetings in public ’ouses.’
 Harlow made no comment on this question. He had at one time belonged to the Union and he was rather ashamed of having fallen away from it.
 ‘Wot good ’as the Society ever done ’ere?’ said Easton. ‘None that I ever ’eard of.’
 ‘It might be able to do some good if most of us belonged to it; but after all, that’s another matter. Whether we could help ourselves or not, the fact remains that we don’t. But you must admit that this competition of the employers is one of the causes of unemployment and poverty, because it’s not only in our line - exactly the same thing happens in every other trade and industry. Competing employers are the upper and nether millstones which grind the workers between them.’
 ‘I suppose you think there oughtn’t to be no employers at all?’ sneered Crass. ‘Or p’raps you think the masters ought to do all the bloody work theirselves, and give us the money?’
 ‘I don’t see ’ow its goin’ to be altered,’ remarked Harlow. ‘There MUST be masters, and SOMEONE ’as to take charge of the work and do the thinkin’.’
 ‘Whether it can be altered or not,’ said Owen, ‘Landlordism and Competing Employers are two of the causes of poverty. But of course they’re only a small part of the system which produces luxury, refinement and culture for a few, and condemns the majority to a lifelong struggle with adversity, and many thousands to degradation, hunger and rags. This is the system you all uphold and defend, although you don’t mind admitting that it has made the world into a hell.’
 Crass slowly drew the Obscurer cutting from his waistcoat pocket, but after a moment’s thought he replaced it, deciding to defer its production till a more suitable occasion.
 ‘But you ’aven’t told us yet ’ow you makes out that money causes poverty,’ cried Harlow, winking at the others. ‘That’s what I’M anxious to ’ear about!’
 ‘So am I,’ remarked the man behind the moat. ‘I was just wondering whether I ’adn’t better tell ole Misery that I don’t want no wages this week.’
 ‘I think I’ll tell ’im on Saterday to keep MY money and get ’imself a few drinks with it,’ said Philpot. ‘It might cheer ’im up a bit and make ’im a little more sociable and friendly like.’
 ‘Money IS the principal cause of poverty,’ said Owen.
 ‘’Ow do yer make it out?’ cried Sawkins.
 But their curiosity had to remain unsatisfied for the time being because Crass announced that it was ‘just on it’.
 
 Chapter 16
 True Freedom
  About three o’clock that afternoon, Rushton suddenly appeared and began walking silently about the house, and listening outside the doors of rooms where the hands were working. He did not succeed in catching anyone idling or smoking or talking. The nearest approach to what the men called ‘a capture’ that he made was, as he stood outside the door of one of the upper rooms in which Philpot and Harlow were working, he heard them singing one of Sankey’s hymns - ‘Work! for the night is coming’. He listened to two verses and several repetitions of the chorus. Being a ‘Christian’, he could scarcely object to this, especially as by peeping through the partly open door he could see that they were suiting the action to the word. When he went into the room they glanced around to see who it was, and stopped singing. Rushton did not speak, but stood in the middle of the floor, silently watching them as they worked, for about a quarter of an hour. Then, without having uttered a syllable, he turned and went out.
 They heard him softly descend the stairs, and Harlow, turning to Philpot said in a hoarse whisper:
 ‘What do you think of the b—r, standing there watchin’ us like that, as if we was a couple of bloody convicts? If it wasn’t that I’ve got someone else beside myself to think of, I would ’ave sloshed the bloody sod in the mouth with this pound brush!’
 ‘Yes; it does make yer feel like that, mate,’ replied Philpot, ‘but of course we mustn’t give way to it.’
 ‘Several times,’ continued Harlow, who was livid with anger, ‘I was on the point of turnin’ round and sayin’ to ’im, "What the bloody ’ell do you mean by standin’ there and watchin’ me, you bloody, psalm-singin’ swine?" It took me all my time to keep it in, I can tell you.’
 Meanwhile, Rushton was still going about the house, occasionally standing and watching the other men in the same manner as he had watched Philpot and Harlow.
 None of the men looked round from their work or spoke either to Rushton or to each other. The only sounds heard were the noises made by the saws and hammers of the carpenters who were fixing the frieze rails and dado rails or repairing parts of the woodwork in some of the rooms.
 Crass placed himself in Rushton’s way several times with the hope of being spoken to, but beyond curtly acknowledging the ‘foreman’s’ servile ‘Good hafternoon, sir,’ the master took no notice of him.
 After about an hour spent in this manner Rushton went away, but as no one say him go, it was not until some considerable time after his departure that they knew that he was gone.
 Owen was secretly very disappointed. ‘I thought he had come to tell me about the drawing-room,’ he said to himself, ‘but I suppose it’s not decided yet.’
 Just as the ‘hands’ were beginning to breathe freely again, Misery arrived, carrying some rolled-up papers in his hand. He also flitted silently from one room to another, peering round corners and listening at doors in the hope of seeing or hearing something which would give him an excuse for making an example of someone. Disappointed in this, he presently crawled upstairs to the room where Owen was working and, handing to him the roll of papers he had been carrying, said:
 ‘Mr Sweater had decided to ’ave this work done, so you can start on it as soon as you like.’
 It is impossible to describe, without appearing to exaggerate, the emotions experienced by Owen as he heard this announcement. For one thing it meant that the work at this house would last longer than it would otherwise have done; and it also meant that he would be paid for the extra time he had spent on the drawings, besides having his wages increased - for he was always paid an extra penny an hour when engaged on special work, such as graining or sign-writing or work of the present kind. But these considerations did not occur to him at the moment at all, for to him it meant much more. Since his first conversation on the subject with Rushton he had though of little else than this work.
 In a sense he had been DOING it ever since. He had thought and planned and altered the details of the work repeatedly. The colours for the different parts had been selected and rejected and re-selected over and over again. A keen desire to do the work had grown within him, but he had scarcely allowed himself to hope that it would be done at all. His face flushed slightly as he took the drawings from Hunter.
 ‘You can make a start on it tomorrow morning,’ continued that gentleman. ‘I’ll tell Crass to send someone else up ’ere to finish this room.’
 ‘I shan’t be able to commence tomorrow, because the ceiling and walls will have to be painted first.’
 ‘Yes: I know. You and Easton can do that. One coat tomorrow, another on Friday and the third on Saturday - that is, unless you can make it do with two coats. Even if it has to be the three, you will be able to go on with your decoratin’ on Monday.’
 ‘I won’t be able to start on Monday, because I shall have to make some working drawings first.’
 ‘Workin’ drorins!’ ejaculated Misery with a puzzled expression. ‘Wot workin’ drorins? You’ve got them, ain’t yer?’ pointing to the roll of papers.
 ‘Yes: but as the same ornaments are repeated several times, I shall have to make a number of full-sized drawings, with perforated outlines, to transfer the design to the walls,’ said Owen, and he proceeded to laboriously explain the processes.
 Nimrod looked at him suspiciously. ‘Is all that really necessary?’ he asked. ‘Couldn’t you just copy it on the wall, free-hand?’
 ‘No; that wouldn’t do. It would take much longer that way.’
 This consideration appealed to Misery.
 ‘Ah, well,’ he sighed. ‘I s’pose you’ll ’ave to do it the way you said; but for goodness sake don’t spend too much time over it, because we’ve took it very cheap. We only took it on so as you could ’ave a job, not that we expect to make any profit out of it.’
 ‘And I shall have to cut some stencils, so I shall need several sheets of cartridge paper.’
 Upon hearing of this addition expense, Misery’s long visage appeared to become several inches longer; but after a moment’s thought he brightened up.
 ‘I’ll tell you what!’ he exclaimed with a cunning leer, ‘there’s lots of odd rolls of wallpaper down at the shop. Couldn’t you manage with some of that?’
 ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t do,’ replied Owen doubtfully, ‘but I’ll have a look at it and if possible I’ll use it.’
 ‘Yes, do!’ said Misery, pleased at the thought of saving something. ‘Call at the shop on your way home tonight, and we’ll see what we can find. ’Ow long do you think it’ll take you to make the drorins and the stencils?’
 ‘Well, today’s Thursday. If you let someone else help Easton to get the room ready, I think I can get them done in time to bring them with me on Monday morning.’
 ‘Wot do yer mean, "bring them with you"?’ demanded Nimrod.
 ‘I shall have to do them at home, you know.’
 ‘Do ’em at ’ome! Why can’t you do ’em ’ere?’
 ‘Well, there’s no table, for one thing.’
 ‘Oh, but we can soon fit you out with a table. You can ’ave a pair of paperhanger’s tressels and boards for that matter.’
 ‘I have a lot of sketches and things at home that I couldn’t very well bring here,’ said Owen.
 Misery argued about it for a long time, insisting that the drawings should be made either on the ‘job’ or at the paint-shop down at the yard. How, he asked, was be to know at what hour Owen commenced or left off working, if the latter did them at home?
 ‘I shan’t charge any more time than I really work,’ replied Owen. ‘I can’t possibly do them here or at the paint-shop. I know I should only make a mess of them under such conditions.’
 ‘Well, I s’pose you’ll ’ave to ’ave your own way,’ said Misery, dolefully. ‘I’ll let Harlow help Easton paint the room out, so as you can get your stencils and things ready. But for Gord’s sake get ’em done as quick as you can. If you could manage to get done by Friday and come down and help Easton on Saturday, it would be so much the better. And when you do get a start on the decoratin’, I shouldn’t take too much care over it, you know, if I was you, because we ’ad to take the job for next to nothing or Mr Sweater would never ’ave ’ad it done at all!’
 Nimrod now began to crawl about the house, snarling and grumbling at everyone.
 ‘Now then, you chaps. Rouse yourselves!’ he bellowed, ’you seem to think this is a ’orspital. If some of you don’t make a better show than this, I’ll ’ave to ’ave a Alteration! There’s plenty of chaps walkin’ about doin’ nothin’ who’ll be only too glad of a job!’
 He went into the scullery, where Crass was mixing some colour.
 ‘Look ’ere, Crass!’ he said. ‘I’m not at all satisfied with the way you’re gettin’ on with the work. You must push the chaps a bit more than you’re doin’. There’s not enough being done, by a long way. We shall lose money over this job before we’re finished!’
 Crass - whose fat face had turned a ghastly green with fright - mumbled something about getting on with it as fast as he could.
 ‘Well, you’ll ’ave to make ’em move a bit quicker than this!’ Misery howled, ’or there’ll ’ave to be a ALTERATION!’
 By an ‘alteration’ Crass understood that he might get the sack, or that someone else might be put in charge of the job, and that would of course reduce him to the ranks and do away with his chance of being kept on longer than the others. He determined to try to ingratiate himself with Hunter and appease his wrath by sacrificing someone else. He glanced cautiously into the kitchen and up the passage and then, lowering his voice, he said:
 ‘They all shapes pretty well, except Newman. I would ’ave told you about ’im before, but I thought I’d give ’im a fair chance. I’ve spoke to ’im several times myself about not doin’ enough, but it don’t seem to make no difference.’
 ‘I’ve ’ad me eye on ’im meself for some time,’ replied Nimrod in the same tone. ‘Anybody would think the work was goin’ to be sent to a Exhibition, the way ’e messes about with it, rubbing it with glasspaper and stopping up every little crack! I can’t understand where ’e gets all the glasspaper FROM’
 ‘’E brings it ’isself!’ said Crass hoarsely. ‘I know for a fact that ’e bought two ’a’penny sheets of it, last week out of ’is own money!’
 ‘Oh, ’e did, did ’e?’ snarled Misery. ‘I’ll give ’im glasspaper! I’ll ’ave a Alteration!’
 He went into the hall, where he remained alone for a considerable time, brooding. At last, with the manner of one who has resolved on a certain course of action, he turned and entered the room where Philpot and Harlow were working.
 ‘You both get sevenpence an hour, don’t you?’ he said.
 They both replied to the affirmative.
 ‘I’ve never worked under price yet,’ added Harlow.
 ‘Nor me neither,’ observed Philpot.
 ‘Well, of course you can please yourselves,’ Hunter continued, ‘but after this week we’ve decided not to pay more than six and a half. Things is cut so fine nowadays that we can’t afford to go on payin’ sevenpence any longer. You can work up till tomorrow night on the old terms, but if you’re not willin’ to accept six and a half you needn’t come on Saturday morning. Please yourselves. Take it or leave it.’
 Harlow and Philpot were both too much astonished to say anything in reply to this cheerful announcement, and Hunter, with the final remark, ‘You can think it over,’ left them and went to deliver the same ultimatum to all the other full-price men, who took it in the same way as Philpot and Harlow had done. Crass and Owen were the only two whose wages were not reduced.
 It will be remembered that Newman was one of those who were already working for the reduced rate. Misery found him alone in one of the upper rooms, to which he was giving the final coat. He was at his old tricks. The woodwork of the cupboard be was doing was in a rather damaged condition, and he was facing up the dents with white-lead putty before painting it. He knew quite well that Hunter objected to any but very large holes or cracks being stopped, and yet somehow or other he could not scamp the work to the extent that he was ordered to; and so, almost by stealth, he was in the habit of doing it - not properly but as well as he dared. He even went to the length of occasionally buying a few sheets of glasspaper with his own money, as Crass had told Hunter. When the latter came into the room he stood with a sneer on his face, watching Newman for about five minutes before he spoke. The workman became very nervous and awkward under this scrutiny.
 ‘You can make out yer time-sheet and come to the office for yer money at five o’clock,’ said Nimrod at last. ‘We shan’t require your valuable services no more after tonight.’
 Newman went white.
 ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ said he. ‘What have I done?’
 ‘Oh, it’s not wot you’ve DONE,’ replied Misery. ‘It’s wot you’ve not done. That’s wot’s wrong! You’ve not done enough, that’s all!’ And without further parley he turned and went out.
 Newman stood in the darkening room feeling as if his heart had turned to lead. There rose before his mind the picture of his home and family. He could see them as they were at this very moment, the wife probably just beginning to prepare the evening meal, and the children setting the cups and saucers and other things on the kitchen table - a noisy work, enlivened with many a frolic and childish dispute. Even the two-year-old baby insisted on helping, although she always put everything in the wrong place and made all sorts of funny mistakes. They had all been so happy lately because they knew that he had work that would last till nearly Christmas - if not longer. And now this had happened - to plunge them back into the abyss of wretchedness from which they had so recently escaped. They still owed several weeks’ rent, and were already so much in debt to the baker and the grocer that it was hopeless to expect any further credit.
 ‘My God!’ said Newman, realizing the almost utter hopelessness of the chance of obtaining another ‘job’ and unconsciously speaking aloud. ‘My God! How can I tell them? What WILL become of us?’
 Having accomplished the objects of his visit, Hunter shortly afterwards departed, possibly congratulating himself that he had not been hiding his light under a bushel, but that he had set it upon a candlestick and given light unto all that were within that house.
 As soon as they knew that he was gone, the men began to gather into little groups, but in a little while they nearly all found themselves in the kitchen, discussing the reduction. Sawkins and the other ‘lightweights’ remained at their work. Some of them got only fourpence halfpenny - Sawkins was paid fivepence - so none of these were affected by the change. The other two fresh hands - the journeymen - joined the crowd in the kitchen, being anxious to conceal the fact that they had agreed to accept the reduced rate before being ‘taken on’. Owen also was there, having heard the news hem Philpot.
 There was a lot of furious talk. At first several of them spoke of ‘chucking up’, at once; but others were more prudent, for they knew that if they did leave there were dozens of others who would be eager to take their places.
 ‘After all, you know,’ said Slyme, who had - stowed away somewhere at the back of his head - an idea of presently starting business on his own account: he was only waiting until he had saved enough money, ‘after all, there’s something in what ’Unter says. It’s very ’ard to get a fair price for work nowadays. Things IS cut very fine.’
 ‘Yes! We know all about that!’ shouted Harlow. ‘And who the bloody ’ell is it cuts ’em? Why, sich b—rs as ’Unter and Rushton! If this firm ’adn’t cut this job so fine, some other firm would ’ave ’ad it for more money. Rushton’s cuttin’ it fine didn’t MAKE this job, did it? It would ’ave been done just the same if they ’adn’t tendered for it at all! The only difference is that we should ’ave been workin’ for some other master.’
 ‘I don’t believe the bloody job’s cut fine at all!’ said Philpot.
 ‘Rushton is a pal of Sweater’s and they’re both members of the Town Council.’
 ‘That may be,’ replied Slyme; ’but all the same I believe Sweater got several other prices besides Rushton’s - friend or no friend; and you can’t blame ’im: it’s only business. But pr’aps Rushton got the preference - Sweater may ’ave told ’im the others’ prices.’
 ‘Yes, and a bloody fine lot of prices they was, too, if the truth was known!’ said Bundy. "There was six other firms after this job to my knowledge - Pushem and Sloggem, Bluffum and Doemdown, Dodger and Scampit, Snatcham and Graball, Smeeriton and Leavit, Makehaste and Sloggitt, and Gord only knows ’ow many more.’
 At this moment Newman came into the room. He looked so white and upset that the others involuntarily paused in their conversation.
 ‘Well, what do YOU think of it?’ asked Harlow.
 ‘Think of what?’ said Newman.
 ‘Why, didn’t ’Unter tell you?’ cried several voices, whose owners looked suspiciously at him. They thought - if Hunter had not spoken to Newman, it must be because he was already working under price. There had been a rumour going about the last few days to that effect.
 ‘Didn’t Misery tell you? They’re not goin’ to pay more than six and a half after this week.’
 ‘That’s not what ’e said to me. ’E just told me to knock off. Said I didn’t do enough for ’em.’
 ‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Crass, pretending to be overcome with surprise.
 Newman’s account of what had transpired was listened to in gloomy silence. ‘Those who - a few minutes previously - had been talking loudly of chucking up the job became filled with apprehension that they might be served in the same manner as he had been. Crass was one of the loudest in his expression of astonishment and indignation, but he rather overdid it and only succeeded in confirming the secret suspicion of the others that he had had something to do with Hunter’s action.
 The result of the discussion was that they decided to submit to Misery’s terms for the time being, until they could see a chance of getting work elsewhere.
 As Owen had to go to the office to see the wallpaper spoken of by Hunter, he accompanied Newman when the latter went to get his wages. Nimrod was waiting for them, and had the money ready in an envelope, which he handed to Newman, who took it without speaking and went away.
 Misery had been rummaging amongst the old wallpapers, and had got out a great heap of odd rolls, which he now submitted to Owen, but after examining them the latter said that they were unsuitable for the purpose, so after some argument Misery was compelled to sign an order for some proper cartridge paper, which Owen obtained at a stationer’s on his way home.
 The next morning, when Misery went to the ‘Cave’, he was in a fearful rage, and he kicked up a terrible row with Crass. He said that Mr Rushton had been complaining of the lack of discipline on the job, and he told Crass to tell all the hands that for the future singing in working hours was strictly forbidden, and anyone caught breaking this rule would be instantly dismissed.
 Several times during the following days Nimrod called at Owen’s flat to see how the work was progressing and to impress upon him the necessity of not taking too much trouble over it.
 
 Chapter 17
 The Rev. John Starr
  ‘What time is it now, Mum?’ asked Frankie as soon as he had finished dinner on the following Sunday.
 ‘Two o’clock.’
 ‘Hooray! Only one more hour and Charley will be here! Oh, I wish it was three o’clock now, don’t you, Mother?’
 ‘No, dear, I don’t. You’re not dressed yet, you know.’
 Frankie made a grimace.
 ‘You’re surely not going to make me wear my velvets, are you, Mum? Can’t I go just as I am, in my old clothes?’
 The ‘velvets’ was a brown suit of that material that Nora had made out of the least worn parts of an old costume of her own.
 ‘Of course not: if you went as you are now, you’d have everyone staring at you.’
 ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to put up with it,’ said Frankie, resignedly.
 ‘And I think you’d better begin to dress me now, don’t you?’
 ‘Oh, there’s plenty of time yet; you’d only make yourself untidy and then I should have the trouble all over again. Play with your toys a little while, and when I’ve done the washing up I’ll get you ready.’
 Frankie obeyed, and for about ten minutes his mother heard him in the next room rummaging in the box where he stored his collection of ‘things’. At the end of that time, however, he returned to the kitchen. ‘Is it time to dress me yet, Mum?’
 ‘No, dear, not yet. You needn’t be afraid; you’ll be ready in plenty of time.’
 ‘But I can’t help being afraid; you might forget.’
 ‘Oh, I shan’t forget. There’s lots of time.’
 ‘Well, you know, I should be much easier in my mind if you would dress me now, because perhaps our clock’s wrong, or p’r’aps when you begin dressing me you’ll find some buttons off or something, and then there’ll be a lot of time wasted sewing them on; or p’r’aps you won’t be able to find my clean stockings or something and then while you’re looking for it Charley might come, and if he sees I’m not ready he mightn’t wait for me.’
 ‘Oh, dear!’ said Nora, pretending to be alarmed at this appalling list of possibilities. ‘I suppose it will be safer to dress you at once. It’s very evident you won’t let me have much peace until it is done, but mind when you’re dressed you’ll have to sit down quietly and wait till he comes, because I don’t want the trouble of dressing you twice.’
 ‘Oh, I don’t mind sitting still,’ returned Frankie, loftily. ‘That’s very easy.
 ‘I don’t mind having to take care of my clothes,’ said Frankie as his mother - having washed and dressed him, was putting the finishing touches to his hair, brushing and combing and curling the long yellow locks into ringlets round her fingers, ‘the only thing I don’t like is having my hair done. You know all these curls are quite unnecessary. I’m sure it would save you a lot of trouble if you wouldn’t mind cutting them off.’
 Nora did not answer: somehow or other she was unwilling to comply with this often-repeated entreaty. It seemed to her that when this hair was cut off the child would have become a different individual - more separate and independent.
 ‘If you don’t want to cut it off for your own sake, you might do it for my sake, because I think it’s the reason some of the big boys don’t want to play with me, and some of them shout after me and say I’m a girl, and sometimes they sneak up behind me and pull it. Only yesterday I had to have a fight with a boy for doing it: and even Charley Linden laughs at me, and he’s my best friend - except you and Dad of course.
 ‘Why don’t you cut it off, Mum?’
 ‘I am going to cut it as I promised you, after your next birthday.’
 ‘Then I shall be jolly glad when it comes. Won’t you? Why, what’s the matter, Mum? What are you crying for?’ Frankie was so concerned that he began to cry also, wondering if he had done or said something wrong. He kissed her repeatedly, stroking her face with his hand. What’s the matter, Mother?’
 ‘I was thinking that when you’re over seven and you’ve had your hair cut short you won’t be a baby any more.’
 ‘Why, I’m not a baby now, am I? Here, look at this!’
 He strode over to the wall and, dragging out two chairs, he placed them in the middle of the room, back to back, about fifteen inches apart, and before his mother realized what he was doing he had climbed up and stood with one leg on the back of each chair.
 ‘I should like to see a baby who could do this,’ he cried, with his face wet with tears. ‘You needn’t lift me down. I can get down by myself. Babies can’t do tricks like these or even wipe up the spoons and forks or sweep the passage. But you needn’t cut it off if you don’t want to. I’ll bear it as long as you like. Only don’t cry any more, because it makes me miserable. If I cry when I fall down or when you pull my hair when you’re combing it you always tell me to bear it like a man and not be a baby, and now you’re crying yourself just because I’m not a baby. You ought to be jolly glad that I’m nearly grown up into a man, because you know I’ve promised to build you a house with the money I earn, and then you needn’t do no more work. We’ll have a servant the same as the people downstairs, and Dad can stop at home and sit by the fire and read the paper or play with me and Maud and have pillow fights and tell stories and -’
 ‘It’s all right, dearie,’ said Nora, kissing him. ‘I’m not crying now, and you mustn’t either, or your eyes will be all red and you won’t be able to go with Charley at all.’
 When she had finished dressing him, Frankie sat for some time in silence, apparently lost in thought. At last he said:
 ‘Why don’t you get a baby, Mother? You could nurse it, and I could have it to play with instead of going out in the street.’
 ‘We can’t afford to keep a baby, dear. You know, even as it is, sometimes we have to go without things we want because we haven’t the money to buy them. Babies need many things that cost lots of money.’
 ‘When I build our house when I’m a man, I’ll take jolly good care not to have a gas-stove in it. That’s what runs away with all the money; we’re always putting pennies in the slot. And that reminds me: Charley said I’ll have to take a ha’penny to put in the mishnery box. Oh, dear, I’m tired of sitting still. I wish he’d come. What time is it now, Mother?’
 Before she could answer both Frankie’s anxiety and the painful ordeal of sitting still were terminated by the loud peal at the bell announcing Charley’s arrival, and Frankie, without troubling to observe the usual formality of looking out of the window to see if it was a runaway ring, had clattered half-way downstairs before he heard his mother calling him to come back for the halfpenny; then he clattered up again and then down again at such a rate and with so much noise as to rouse the indignation of all the respectable people in the house.
 When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs he remembered that he had omitted to say goodbye, and as it was too far to go up again he rang the bell and then went into the middle of the road and looked up at the window that Nora opened.
 ‘Goodbye, Mother,’ he shouted. ‘Tell Dad I forgot to say it before I came down.’
 The School was not conducted in the chapel itself, but in a large lecture hall under it. At one end was a small platform raised about six inches from the floor; on this was a chair and a small table. A number of groups of chairs and benches were arranged at intervals round the sides and in the centre of the room, each group of seats accommodating a separate class. On the walls - which were painted a pale green - were a number of coloured pictures: Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites dancing round the Golden Calf, and so on. As the reader is aware, Frankie had never been to a Sunday School of any kind before, and he stood for a moment looking in at the door and half afraid to enter. The lessons had already commenced, but the scholars had not yet settled down to work.
 The scene was one of some disorder: some of the children talking, laughing or playing, and the teachers alternately threatening and coaxing them. The girls’ and the very young children’s classes were presided over by ladies: the boys’ teachers were men.
 The reader already has some slight knowledge of a few of these people. There was Mr Didlum, Mr Sweater, Mr Rushton and Mr Hunter and Mrs Starvem (Ruth Easton’s former mistress). On this occasion, in addition to the teachers and other officials of the Sunday School, there were also present a considerable number of prettily dressed ladies and a few gentlemen, who had come in the hope of meeting the Rev. John Starr, the young clergyman who was going to be their minister for the next few weeks during the absence of their regular shepherd, Mr Belcher, who was going away for a holiday for the benefit of his health. Mr Belcher was not suffering from any particular malady, but was merely ‘run down’, and rumour had it that this condition had been brought about by the rigorous asceticism of his life and his intense devotion to the arduous labours of his holy calling.
 Mr Starr had conducted the service in the Shining Light Chapel that morning, and a great sensation had been produced by the young minister’s earnest and eloquent address, which was of a very different style from that of their regular minister. Although perhaps they had not quite grasped the real significance of all that he had said, most of them had been favourably impressed by the young clergyman’s appearance and manner in the morning: but that might have arisen from prepossession and force of habit, for they were accustomed, as a matter of course, to think well of any minister. There were, however, one or two members of the congregation who were not without some misgivings and doubts as to the soundness of his doctrines. Mr Starr had promised that he would look in some time during the afternoon to say a few words to the Sunday School children, and consequently on this particular afternoon all the grown-ups were looking forward so eagerly to hearing him again that not much was done in the way of lessons. Every time a late arrival entered all eyes were directed towards the door in the hope and expectation that it was he.
 When Frankie, standing at the door, saw all the people looking at him he drew back timidly.
 ‘Come on, man,’ said Charley. ‘You needn’t be afraid; it’s not like a weekday school; they can’t do nothing to us, not even if we don’t behave ourselves. There’s our class over in that corner and that’s our teacher, Mr Hunter. You can sit next to me. Come on!’
 Thus encouraged, Frankie followed Charley over to the class, and both sat down. The teacher was so kind and spoke so gently to the children that in a few minutes Frankie felt quite at home.
 When Hunter noticed how well cared for and well dressed he was he thought the child must belong to well-to-do, respectable parents. Frankie did not pay much attention to the lesson, for he was too much interested in the pictures on the walls and in looking at the other children. He also noticed a very fat man who was not teaching at all, but drifted aimlessly about he room from one class to another. After a time he came and stood by the class where Frankie was, and, after nodding to Hunter, remained near, listening and smiling patronizingly at the children. He was arrayed in a long garment of costly black cloth, a sort of frock coat, and by the rotundity of his figure he seemed to be one of those accustomed to sit in the chief places at feasts. This was the Rev. Mr Belcher, minister of the Shining Light Chapel. His short, thick neck was surrounded by a studless collar, and apparently buttonless, being fastened n some mysterious way known only to himself, and he showed no shirt front.
 The long garment beforementioned was unbuttoned and through the opening there protruded a vast expanse of waistcoat and trousers, distended almost to bursting by the huge globe of flesh they contained. A gold watch-chain with a locket extended partly across the visible portion of the envelope of the globe. He had very large feet which were carefully encased in soft calfskin boots. If he had removed the long garment, this individual would have resembled a balloon: the feet representing the car and the small head that surmounted the globe, the safety valve; as it was it did actually serve the purpose of a safety valve, the owner being, in consequence of gross overfeeding and lack of natural exercise, afflicted with chronic flatulence, which manifested itself in frequent belchings forth through the mouth of the foul gases generated in the stomach by the decomposition of the foods with which it was generally loaded. But as the Rev. Mr Belcher had never been seen with his coat off, no one ever noticed the resemblance. It was not necessary for him to take his coat off: his part in life was not to help to produce, but to help to devour the produce of the labour of others.
 After exchanging a few words and grins with Hunter, he moved on to another class, and presently Frankie with a feeling of awe noticed that the confused murmuring sound that had hitherto pervaded the place was hushed. The time allotted for lessons had expired, and the teachers were quietly distributing hymn-books to the children. Meanwhile the balloon had drifted up to the end of the hall and had ascended the platform, where it remained stationary by the side of the table, occasionally emitting puffs of gas through the safety valve. On the table were several books, and also a pile of folded cards. These latter were about six inches by three inches; there was some printing on the outside: one of them was lying open on the table, showing the inside, which was ruled and had money columns.
 Presently Mr Belcher reached out a flabby white hand and, taking up one of the folded cards, he looked around upon the under-fed, ill-clad children with a large, sweet, benevolent, fatherly smile, and then in a drawling voice occasionally broken by explosions of flatulence, he said:
 ‘My dear children. This afternoon as I was standing near Brother Hunter’s class I heard him telling them of the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, and of all the wonderful things that were done for them; and I thought how sad it was that they were so ungrateful.
 ‘Now those ungrateful Israelites had received many things, but we have even more cause to be grateful than they had, for we have received even more abundantly than they did.’ (Here the good man’s voice was stilled by a succession of explosions.) ‘And I am sure,’ he resumed, ‘that none of you would like to be even as those Israelites, ungrateful for all the good things you have received. Oh, how thankful you should be for having been made happy English children. Now, I am sure that you are grateful and that you will all be very glad of an opportunity of showing your gratitude by doing something in return.
 ‘Doubtless some of you have noticed the unseemly condition of the interior of our Chapel. The flooring is broken in countless places. the walls are sadly in need of cleansing and distempering. and they also need cementing externally to keep out the draught. The seats and benches and the chairs are also in a most unseemly condition and need varnishing.
 ‘Now, therefore, after much earnest meditation and prayer, it has been decided to open a Subscription List, and although times are very hard just now, we believe we shall succeed in getting enough to have the work done; so I want each one of you to take one of these cards and go round to all your friends to see how much you can collect. It doesn’t matter how trifling the amounts are, because the smallest donations will be thankfully received.
 ‘Now, I hope you will all do your very best. Ask everyone you know; do not refrain from asking people because you think that they are too poor to give a donation, but remind them that if they cannot give their thousands they can give the widow’s mite. Ask Everyone! First of all ask those whom you feel certain will give: then ask all those whom you think may possibly give: and, finally, ask all those whom you feel certain will not give: and you will be surprised to find that many of these last will donate abundantly.
 ‘If your friends are very poor and unable to give a large donation at one time, a good plan would be to arrange to call upon them every Saturday afternoon with your card to collect their donations. And while you are asking others, do not forget to give what you can yourselves. Just a little self-denial, and those pennies and half-pennies which you so often spend on sweets and other unnecessary things might be given - as a donation - to the good cause.’
 Here the holy man paused again, and there was a rumbling, gurgling noise in the interior of the balloon, followed by several escapes of gas through the safety valve. The paroxysm over, the apostle of self-denial continued:
 ‘All those who wish to collect donations will stay behind for a few minutes after school, when Brother Hunter - who has kindly consented to act as secretary to the fund - will issue the cards.
 ‘I would like here to say a few words of thanks to Brother Hunter for the great interest he has displayed in this matter, and for all the trouble he is taking to help us to gather in the donations.’
 This tribute was well deserved; Hunter in fact had originated the whole scheme in the hope of securing the job for Rushton & Co., and two-and-a-half per cent of the profits for himself.
 Mr Belcher now replaced the collecting card on the table and, taking up one of the hymn-books, gave out the words and afterwards conducted the singing, nourishing one fat, flabby white hand in the air and holding the book in the other.
 As the last strains of the music died away, he closed his eyes and a sweet smile widened his mouth as he stretched forth his right hand, open, palm down, with the fingers close together, and said:
 ‘Let us pray.’
 With much shuffling of feet everyone knelt down. Hunter’s lanky form was distributed over a very large area; his body lay along one of the benches, his legs and feet sprawled over the floor, and his huge hands clasped the sides of the seat. His eyes were tightly closed and an expression of the most intense misery pervaded his long face.
 Mrs Starvem, being so fat that she knew if she once knelt down she would never be able to get up again, compromised by sitting on the extreme edge of her chair, resting her elbows on the back of the seat in front of her, and burying her face in her hands. It was a very large face, but her hands were capacious enough to receive it.
 In a seat at the back of the hall knelt a pale-faced, weary-looking little woman about thirty-six years of age, very shabbily dressed, who had come in during the singing. This was Mrs White, the caretaker, Bert White’s mother. When her husband died, the committee of the Chapel, out of charity, gave her this work, for which they paid her six shillings a week. Of course, they could not offer her full employment; the idea was that she could get other work as well, charing and things of that kind, and do the Chapel work in between. There wasn’t much to do: just the heating furnace to light when necessary; the Chapel, committee rooms, classrooms and Sunday School to sweep and scrub out occasionally; the hymn-books to collect, etc. Whenever they had a tea meeting - which was on an average about twice a week - there were the trestle tables to fix up, the chairs to arrange, the table to set out, and then, supervised by Miss Didlum or some other lady, the tea to make. There was rather a lot to do on the days following these functions: the washing up, the tables and chairs to put away, the floor to sweep, and so on; but the extra work was supposed to be compensated by the cakes and broken victuals generally left over from the feast, which were much appreciated as a welcome change from the bread and dripping or margarine that constituted Mrs White’s and Bert’s usual fare.
 There were several advantages attached to the position: the caretaker became acquainted with the leading members and their wives, some of who, out of charity, occasionally gave her a day’s work as charwoman, the wages being on about the same generous scale as those she earned at the Chapel, sometimes supplemented by a parcel of broken victuals or some castoff clothing.
 An evil-minded, worldly or unconverted person might possibly sum up the matter thus: these people required this work done: they employed this woman to do it, taking advantage of her poverty to impose upon her conditions of price and labour that they would not have liked to endure themselves. Although she worked very hard, early and late, the money they paid her as wages was insufficient to enable her to provide herself with the bare necessaries of life. Then her employers, being good, kind, generous, Christian people, came to the rescue and bestowed charity, in the form of cast-off clothing and broken victuals.
 Should any such evil-minded, worldly or unconverted persons happen to read these lines, it is a sufficient answer to their impious and malicious criticisms to say that no such thoughts ever entered the simple mind of Mrs White herself: on the contrary, this very afternoon as she knelt in the Chapel, wearing an old mantle that some years previously had adorned the obese person of the saintly Mrs Starvem, her heart was filled with gratitude towards her generous benefactors.
 During the prayer the door was softly opened: a gentleman in clerical dress entered on tiptoe and knelt down next to Mr Didlum. He came in very softly, but all the same most of those present heard him and lifted their heads or peeped through their fingers to see who it was, and when they recognized him a sound like a sigh swept through the hall.
 At the end of the prayer, amid groans and cries of ’Amen’, the balloon slowly descended from the platform, and collapsed into one of the seats, and everyone rose up from the floor. When all were seated and the shuffling, coughing and blowing of noses had ceased Mr Didlum stood up and said:
 ‘Before we sing the closin’ ’ymn, the gentleman hon my left, the Rev. Mr John Starr, will say a few words.’
 An expectant murmur rippled through the hall. The ladies lifted their eyebrows and nodded, smiled and whispered to each other; the gentlemen assumed various attitudes and expressions; the children were very quiet. Everyone was in a state of suppressed excitement as John Starr rose from his seat and, stepping up on to the platform, stood by the side of the table, facing them.
 He was about twenty-six years of age, tall and slenderly built. His clean-cut, intellectual face, with its lofty forehead, and his air of refinement and culture were in striking contrast to the coarse appearance of the other adults in the room: the vulgar, ignorant, uncultivated crowd of profit-mongers and hucksters in front of him. But it was not merely his air of good breeding and the general comeliness of his exterior that attracted and held one. There was an indefinable something about him - an atmosphere of gentleness and love that seemed to radiate from his whole being, almost compelling confidence and affection from all those with whom he came in contact. As he stood there facing the others with an inexpressibly winning smile upon his comely face, it seemed impossible that there could be any fellowship between him and them.
 There was nothing in his appearance to give anyone even an inkling of the truth, which was: that he was there for the purpose of bolstering up the characters of the despicable crew of sweaters and slave-drivers who paid his wages.
 He did not give a very long address this afternoon - only just a Few Words but they were very precious, original and illuminating. He told them of certain Thoughts that had occurred to his mind on his way there that afternoon; and as they listened, Sweater, Rushton, Didlum, Hunter, and the other disciples exchanged significant looks and gestures. Was it not magnificent! Such power! Such reasoning! In fact, as they afterwards modestly admitted to each other, it was so profound that even they experienced great difficulty in fathoming the speaker’s meaning.
 As for the ladies, they were motionless and dumb with admiration. They sat with flushed faces, shining eyes and palpitating hearts, looking hungrily at the dear man as he proceeded:
 ‘Unfortunately, our time this afternoon does not permit us to dwell at length upon these Thoughts. Perhaps at some future date we may have the blessed privilege of so doing; but this afternoon I have been asked to say a Few Words on another subject. The failing health of your dear minister has for some time past engaged the anxious attention of the congregation.’
 Sympathetic glances were directed towards the interesting invalid; the ladies murmured, ‘Poor dear!’ and other expressions of anxious concern.
 ‘Although naturally robust,’ continued Starr, ‘long, continued Overwork, the loving solicitude for Others that often prevented him taking even necessary repose, and a too rigorous devotion to the practice of Self-denial have at last brought about the inevitable Breakdown, and rendered a period of Rest absolutely imperative.’
 The orator paused to take breath, and the silence that ensued was disturbed only by faint rumblings in the interior of the ascetic victim of overwork.
 ‘With this laudable object,’ proceeded Start, ‘a Subscription List was quietly opened about a month ago, and those dear children who had cards and assisted in the good work of collecting donations will be pleased to hear that altogether a goodly sum was gathered, but as it was not quite enough, the committee voted a further amount out of the General Fund, and at a special meeting held last Friday evening, your dear Shepherd was presented with an illuminated address, and a purse of gold sufficient to defray the expenses of a month’s holiday in the South of France.
 ‘Although, of course, he regrets being separated from you even for such a brief period he feels that in going he is choosing the lesser of two evils. It is better to go to the South of France for a month than to continue Working in spite of the warnings of exhausted nature and perhaps be taken away from you altogether - by Heaven.’
 ‘God forbid!’ fervently ejaculated several disciples, and a ghastly pallor overspread the features of the object of their prayers.
 ‘Even as it is there is a certain amount of danger. Let us hope and pray for the best, but if the worst should happen and he is called upon to Ascend, there will be some satisfaction in knowing that you have done what you could to avert the dreadful calamity.’
 Here, probably as a precaution against the possibility of an involuntary ascent, a large quantity of gas was permitted to escape through the safety valve of the balloon.
 ‘He sets out on his pilgrimage tomorrow,’ concluded Starr, ‘and I am sure he will be followed by the good wishes and prayers of all the members of his flock.’
 The reverend gentleman resumed his seat, and almost immediately it became evident from the oscillations of the balloon that Mr Belcher was desirous of rising to say a Few Words in acknowledgement, but he was restrained by the entreaties of those near him, who besought him not to exhaust himself. He afterwards said that he would not have been able to say much even if they had permitted him to speak, because he felt too full.
 ‘During the absence of our beloved pastor,’ said Brother Didlum, who now rose to give out the closing hymn, ‘his flock will not be left hentirely without a shepherd, for we ’ave arranged with Mr Starr to come and say a Few Words to us hevery Sunday.’
 From the manner in which they constantly referred to themselves, it might have been thought that they were a flock of sheep instead of being what they really were - a pack of wolves.
 When they heard Brother Didlum’s announcement a murmur of intense rapture rose from the ladies, and Mr Starr rolled his eyes and smiled sweetly. Brother Didlum did not mention the details of the ‘arrangement’, to have done so at that time would have been most unseemly, but the following extract from the accounts of the chapel will not be out of place here: ‘Paid to Rev. John Starr for Sunday, Nov. 14 - £4.4.0 per the treasurer.’ It was not a large sum considering the great services rendered by Mr Starr, but, small as it was, it is to be feared that many worldly, unconverted persons will think it was far too much to pay for a Few Words, even such wise words as Mr John Starr’s admittedly always were. But the Labourer is worthy of his hire.
 After the ‘service’ was over, most of the children, including Charley and Frankie, remained to get collecting cards. Mr Starr was surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and a little later, when he rode away with Mr Belcher and Mr Sweater in the latter’s motor car, the ladies looked hungrily after that conveyance, listening to the melancholy ‘pip, pip’ of its hooter and trying to console themselves with the reflection that they would see him again in a few hours’ time at the evening service.
 
 Chapter 18
 The Lodger
  In accordance with his arrangement with Hunter, Owen commenced the work in the drawing-room on the Monday morning. Harlow and Easton were distempering some of the ceilings, and about ten o’clock they went down to the scullery to get some more whitewash. Crass was there as usual, pretending to be very busy mixing colours.
 ‘Well, wot do you think of it?’ he said as he served them with what they required.
 ‘Think of what?’ asked Easton.
 ‘Why, hour speshul hartist,’ replied Crass with a sneer. ’Do you think ’e’s goin’ to get through with it?’
 ‘Shouldn’t like to say,’ replied Easton guardedly.
 ‘You know it’s one thing to draw on a bit of paper and colour it with a penny box of paints, and quite another thing to do it on a wall or ceiling,’ continued Crass. ’Ain’t it?’
 ‘Yes; that’s true enough,’ said Harlow.
 ‘Do you believe they’re ’is own designs?’ Crass went on.
 ‘Be rather ’ard to tell,’ remarked Easton, embarrassed.
 Neither Harlow nor Easton shared Crass’s sentiments in this matter, but at the same time they could not afford to offend him by sticking up for Owen.
 ‘If you was to ast me, quietly,’ Crass added, ‘I should be more inclined to say as ’e copied it all out of some book.’
 ‘That’s just about the size of it, mate,’ agreed Harlow.
 ‘It would be a bit of all right if ’e was to make a bloody mess of it, wouldn’t it?’ Crass continued with a malignant leer.
 ‘Not arf!’ said Harlow.
 When the two men regained the upper landing on which they were working they exchanged significant glances and laughed quietly. Hearing these half-suppressed sounds of merriment, Philpot, who was working alone in a room close by, put his head out of the doorway.
 ‘Wot’s the game?’ he inquired in a low voice.
 ‘Ole Crass ain’t arf wild about Owen doin’ that room,’ replied Harlow, and repeated the substance of Crass’s remarks.
 ‘It is a bit of a take-down for the bleeder, ain’t it, ’avin’ to play second fiddle,’ said Philpot with a delighted grin.
 ‘’E’s opin’ Owen’ll make a mess of it,’ Easton whispered.
 ‘Well, ’e’ll be disappointed, mate,’ answered Philpot. ‘I was workin’ along of Owen for Pushem and Sloggem about two year ago, and I seen ’im do a job down at the Royal ’Otel - the smokin’-room ceilin’ it was - and I can tell you it looked a bloody treat!’
 ‘I’ve heard tell of it,’ said Harlow.
 ‘There’s no doubt Owen knows ’is work,’ remarked Easton, ’although ’e is a bit orf is onion about Socialism.’
 ‘I don’t know so much about that, mate,’ returned Philpot. ‘I agree with a lot that ’e ses. I’ve often thought the same things meself, but I can’t talk like ’im, ’cause I ain’t got no ’ead for it.’
 ‘I agree with some of it too,’ said Harlow with a laugh, ‘but all the same ’e does say some bloody silly things, you must admit. For instance, that stuff about money bein’ the cause of poverty.’
 ‘Yes. I can’t exactly see that meself,’ agreed Philpot.
 ‘We must tackle ’im about that at dinner-time,’ said Harlow. ‘I should rather like to ’ear ’ow ’e makes it out.’
 ‘For Gord’s sake don’t go startin’ no arguments at dinner-time,’ said Easton. ‘Leave ’im alone when ’e is quiet.’
 ‘Yes; let’s ’ave our dinner in peace, if possible,’ said Philpot. ‘Sh!!’ he added, hoarsely, suddenly holding up his hand warningly. They listened intently. It was evident from the creaking of the stairs that someone was crawling up them. Philpot instantly disappeared. Harlow lifted up the pail of whitewash and set it down again noisily.
 ‘I think we’d better ’ave the steps and the plank over this side, Easton,’ he said in a loud voice.
 ‘Yes. I think that’ll be the best way,’ replied Easton.
 While they were arranging their scaffold to do the ceiling Crass arrived on the landing. He made no remark at first, but walked into the room to see how many ceilings they had done.
 ‘You’d better look alive, you chaps, he said as he went downstairs again. ‘If we don’t get these ceilings finished by dinner-time, Nimrod’s sure to ramp.’
 ‘All right,’ said Harlow, gruffly. ‘We’ll bloody soon slosh ’em over.’
 ‘Slosh’ was a very suitable word; very descriptive of the manner in which the work was done. The cornices of the staircase ceilings were enriched with plaster ornaments. These ceilings were supposed to have been washed off, but as the men who were put to do that work had not been allowed sufficient time to do it properly, the crevices of the ornaments were still filled up with old whitewash, and by the time Harlow and Easton had ‘sloshed’ a lot more whitewash on to them they were mere formless unsightly lumps of plaster. The ‘hands’ who did the ‘washing off’ were not to blame. They had been hunted away from the work before it was half done.
 While Harlow and Easton were distempering these ceiling, Philpot and the other hands were proceeding with the painting in different parts of the inside of the house, and Owen, assisted by Bert, was getting on with the work in the drawing-room, striking chalk lines and measuring and setting out the different panels.
 There were no ‘political’ arguments that day at dinner-time, to the disappointment of Crass, who was still waiting for an opportunity to produce the Obscurer cutting. After dinner, when the others had all gone back to their work, Philpot unobtrusively returned to the kitchen and gathered up the discarded paper wrappers in which some of the men had brought their food. Spreading one of these open, he shook the crumbs from the others upon it. In this way and by picking up particles of bread from the floor, he collected a little pile of crumbs and crusts. To these he added some fragments that he had left from his own dinner. He then took the parcel upstairs and opening one of the windows threw the crumbs on to the roof of the portico. He had scarcely closed the window when two starlings fluttered down and began to eat. Philpot watching them furtively from behind the shutter. The afternoon passed uneventfully. From one till five seemed a very long time to most of the hands, but to Owen and his mate, who was doing something in which they were able to feel some interest and pleasure, the time passed so rapidly that they both regretted the approach of evening.
 ‘Other days,’ remarked Bert, ‘I always keeps on wishin’ it was time to go ’ome, but today seems to ’ave gorn like lightnin’!’
 After leaving off that night, all the men kept together till they arrived down town, and then separated. Owen went by himself: Easton, Philpot, Crass and Bundy adjourned to the ‘Cricketers Arms’ to have a drink together before going home, and Slyme, who was a teetotaler, went by himself, although he was now lodging with Easton.
 ‘Don’t wait for me,’ said the latter as he went off with Crass and the others. ‘I shall most likely catch you up before you get there.’
 ‘All right,’ replied Slyme.
 This evening Slyme did not take the direct road home. He turned into the main street, and, pausing before the window of a toy shop, examined the articles displayed therein attentively. After some minutes he appeared to have come to a decision, and entering the shop he purchased a baby’s rattle for fourpence halfpenny. It was a pretty toy made of white bone and coloured wool, with a number of little bells hanging upon it, and a ring of white bone at the end of the handle.
 When he came out of the shop Slyme set out for home, this time walking rapidly. When he entered the house Ruth was sitting by the fire with the baby on her lap. She looked up with an expression of disappointment as she perceived that he was alone.
 ‘Where’s Will got to again?’ she asked.
 ‘He’s gone to ’ave a drink with some of the chaps. He said he wouldn’t be long,’ replied Slyme as he put his food basket on the dresser and went upstairs to his room to wash and to change his clothes.
 When he came down again, Easton had not yet arrived.
 ‘Everything’s ready, except just to make the tea,’ said Ruth, who was evidently annoyed at the continued absence of Easton, ‘so you may as well have yours now.’
 ‘I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait a little and see if he comes. He’s sure to be here soon.’
 ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind, I shall be glad if you will wait,’ said Ruth, ‘because it will save me making two lots of tea.’
 They waited for about half an hour, talking at intervals in a constrained, awkward way about trivial subjects. Then as Easton did not come, Ruth decided to serve Slyme without waiting any longer. With this intention she laid the baby in its cot, but the child resented this arrangement and began to cry, so she had to hold him under her left arm while she made the tea. Seeing her in this predicament, Slyme exclaimed, holding out his hands:
 ‘Here, let me hold him while you do that.’
 ‘Will you?’ said Ruth, who, in spite of her instinctive dislike of the man, could not help feeling gratified with this attention. ‘Well, mind you don’t let him fall.’
 But the instant Slyme took hold of the child it began to cry even louder than it did when it was put into the cradle.
 ‘He’s always like that with strangers,’ apologized Ruth as she took him back again.
 ‘Wait a minute,’ said Slyme, ‘I’ve got something upstairs in my pocket that will keep him quiet. I’d forgotten all about it.’
 He went up to his room and presently returned with the rattle. When the baby saw the bright colours and heard the tinkling of the bells he crowed with delight, and reached out his hands eagerly towards it and allowed Slyme to take him without a murmur of protest. Before Ruth had finished making and serving the tea the man and child were on the very best of terms with each other, so much so indeed that when Ruth had finished and went to take him again, the baby seemed reluctant to part from Slyme, who had been dancing him in the air and tickling him in the most delightful way.
 Ruth, too, began to have a better opinion of Slyme, and felt inclined to reproach herself for having taken such an unreasonable dislike of him at first. He was evidently a very good sort of fellow after all.
 The baby had by this time discovered the use of the bone ring at the end of the handle of the toy and was biting it energetically.
 ‘It’s a very beautiful rattle,’ said Ruth. ’Thank you very much for it. It’s just the very thing he wanted.’
 ‘I heard you say the other day that he wanted something of the kind to bite on to help his teeth through,’ answered Slyme, ‘and when I happened to notice that in the shop I remembered what you said and thought I’d bring it home.’
 The baby took the ring out of its mouth and shaking the rattle frantically in the air laughed and crowed merrily, looking at Slyme.
 ‘Dad! Dad! Dad!’ he cried, holding out his arms.
 Slyme and Ruth burst out laughing.
 ‘That’s not your Dad, you silly boy,’ she said, kissing the child as she spoke. ‘Your dad ought to be ashamed of himself for staying out like this. We’ll give him dad, dad, dad, when he does come home, won’t we?’
 But the baby only shook the rattle and rang the bells and laughed and crowed and laughed again, louder than ever.
 
 Chapter 19
 The Filling of the Tank
  Viewed from outside, the ‘Cricketers Arms’ was a pretentious-looking building with plate-glass windows and a profusion of gilding. The pilasters were painted in imitation of different marbles and the doors grained to represent costly woods. There were panels containing painted advertisements of wines and spirits and beer, written in gold, and ornamented with gaudy colours. On the lintel over the principal entrance was inscribed in small white letters:
 ‘A. Harpy. Licensed to sell wines, spirits and malt liquor by retail to be consumed either on or off the premises.’
 The bar was arranged in the usual way, being divided into several compartments. First there was the ‘Saloon Bar’: on the glass of the door leading into this was fixed a printed bill: ‘No four ale served in this bar.’ Next to the saloon bar was the jug and bottle department, much appreciated by ladies who wished to indulge in a drop of gin on the quiet. There were also two small ‘private’ bars, only capable of holding two or three persons, where nothing less than fourpennyworth of spirits or glasses of ale at threepence were served. Finally, the public bar, the largest compartment of all. At each end, separating it from the other departments, was a wooden partition, painted and varnished.
 Wooden forms fixed across the partitions and against the walls under the windows provided seating accommodation for the customers. A large automatic musical instrument - a ‘penny in the slot’ polyphone - resembling a grandfather’s clock in shape - stood against one of the partitions and close up to the counter, so that those behind the bar could reach to wind it up. Hanging on the partition near the polyphone was a board about fifteen inches square, over the surface of which were distributed a number of small hooks, numbered. At the bottom of the board was a net made of fine twine, extended by means of a semi-circular piece of wire. In this net several india-rubber rings about three inches in diameter were lying. There was no table in the place but jutting out from the other partition was a hinged flap about three feet long by twenty inches wide, which could be folded down when not in use. This was the shove-ha’penny board. The coins - old French pennies - used in playing this game were kept behind the bar and might be borrowed on application. On the partition, just above the shove-ha’penny board was a neatly printed notice, framed and glazed:
  NOTICE
 Gentlemen using this house are requested to refrain from using obscene language.
 Alongside this notice were a number of gaudily-coloured bills advertising the local theatre and the music-hall, and another of a travelling circus and menagerie, then visiting the town and encamped on a piece of waste ground about half-way on the road to Windley. The fittings behind the bar, and the counter, were of polished mahogany, with silvered plate glass at the back of the shelves. On the shelves were rows of bottles and cut-glass decanters, gin, whisky, brandy and wines and liqueurs of different kinds.
 When Crass, Philpot, Easton and Bundy entered, the landlord, a well-fed, prosperous-looking individual in white shirt-sleeves, and a bright maroon fancy waistcoat with a massive gold watch-chain and a diamond ring, was conversing in an affable, friendly way with one of his regular customers, who was sitting on the end of the seat close to the counter, a shabbily dressed, bleary-eyed, degraded, beer-sodden, trembling wretch, who spent the greater part of every day, and all his money, in this bar. He was a miserable-looking wreck of a man about thirty years of age, supposed to be a carpenter, although he never worked at that trade now. It was commonly said that some years previously he had married a woman considerably his senior, the landlady of a third-rate lodging-house. This business was evidently sufficiently prosperous to enable him to exist without working and to maintain himself in a condition of perpetual semi-intoxication. This besotted wretch practically lived at the ’Cricketers’. He came regularly very morning and sometimes earned a pint of beer by assisting the barman to sweep up the sawdust or clean the windows. He usually remained in the bar until closing time every night. He was a very good customer; not only did he spend whatever money he could get hold of himself, but he was the cause of others spending money, for he was acquainted with most of the other regular customers, who, knowing his impecunious condition, often stood him a drink ‘for the good of the house’.
 The only other occupant of the public bar - previous to the entrance of Crass and his mates - was a semi-drunken man, who appeared to be a house-painter, sitting on the form near the shove-ha’penny board. He was wearing a battered bowler hat and the usual shabby clothes. This individual had a very thin, pale face, with a large, high-bridged nose, and bore a striking resemblance to the portraits of the first Duke of Wellington. He was not a regular customer here, having dropped in casually about two o’clock and had remained ever since. He was beginning to show the effects of the drink he had taken during that time.
 As Crass and the others came in they were hailed with enthusiasm by the landlord and the Besotted Wretch, while the semi-drunk workman regarded them with fishy eyes and stupid curiosity.
 ‘Wot cheer, Bob?’ said the landlord, affably, addressing Crass, and nodding familiarly to the others. ‘’Ow goes it?’
 ‘All reet me ole dear!’ replied Crass, jovially. ‘’Ow’s yerself?’
 ‘A.1,’ replied the ‘Old Dear’, getting up from his chair in readiness to execute their orders.
 ‘Well, wot’s it to be?’ inquired Philpot of the others generally.
 ‘Mine’s a pint o’ beer,’ said Crass.
 ‘Half for me,’ said Bundy.
 ‘Half o’ beer for me too,’ replied Easton.
 ‘That’s one pint, two ’arves, and a pint o’ porter for meself,’ said Philpot, turning and addressing the Old Dear.
 While the landlord was serving these drinks the Besotted Wretch finished his beer and set the empty glass down on the counter, and Philpot observing this, said to him:
 ‘’Ave one along o’ me?’
 ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ replied the other.
 When the drinks were served, Philpot, instead of paying for them, winked significantly at the landlord, who nodded silently and unobtrusively made an entry in an account book that was lying on one of the shelves. Although it was only Monday and he had been at work all the previous week, Philpot was already stony broke. This was accounted for by the fact that on Saturday he had paid his landlady something on account of the arrears of board and lodging money that had accumulated while he was out of work; and he had also paid the Old Dear four shillings for drinks obtained on tick during the last week.
 ‘Well, ’ere’s the skin orf yer nose,’ said Crass, nodding to Philpot, and taking a long pull at the pint glass which the latter had handed to him.
 Similar appropriate and friendly sentiments were expressed by the others and suitably acknowledged by Philpot, the founder of the feast.
 The Old Dear now put a penny in the slot of the polyphone, and winding it up started it playing. It was some unfamiliar tune, but when the Semi-drunk Painter heard it he rose unsteadily to his feet and began shuffling and dancing about, singing:
  ’Oh, we’ll inwite you to the wedding, An’ we’ll ’ave a glorious time! Where the boys an’ girls is a-dancing, An’ we’ll all get drunk on wine.’
 ‘’Ere! that’s quite enough o’ that!’ cried the landlord, roughly. ‘We don’t want that row ’ere.’
 The Semi-drunk stopped, and looking stupidly at the Old Dear, sank abashed on to the seat again.
 ‘Well, we may as well sit as stand - for a few minutes,’ remarked Crass, suiting the action to the word. The others followed his example.
 At frequent intervals the bar was entered by fresh customers, most of them working men on their way home, who ordered and drank their pint or half-pint of ale or porter and left at once. Bundy began reading the advertisement of the circus and menageries and a conversation ensued concerning the wonderful performances of the trained animals. The Old Dear said that some of them had as much sense as human beings, and the manner with which he made this statement implied that he thought it was a testimonial to the sagacity of the brutes. He further said that he had heard - a little earlier in the evening - a rumour that one of the wild animals, a bear or something, had broken loose and was at present at large. This was what he had heard - he didn’t know if it were true or not. For his own part he didn’t believe it, and his hearers agreed that it was highly improbable. Nobody ever knew how these silly yarns got about.
 Presently the Besotted Wretch got up and, taking the india-rubber rings out of the net with a trembling hand, began throwing them one at a time at the hooks on the. board. The rest of the company watched him with much interest, laughing when he made a very bad shot and applauding when he scored.
 ‘’E’s a bit orf tonight,’ remarked Philpot aside to Easton, ’but as a rule ’e’s a fair knockout at it. Throws a splendid ring.’
 The Semidrunk regarded the proceedings of the Besotted Wretch with an expression of profound contempt.
 ‘You can’t play for nuts,’ he said scornfully.
 ‘Can’t I? I can play you, anyway.’
 ‘Right you are! I’ll play you for drinks round!’ cried the Semi-drunk.
 For a moment the Besotted Wretch hesitated. He had not money enough to pay for drinks round. However, feeling confident of winning, he replied:
 ‘Come on then. What’s it to be? Fifty up?’
 ‘Anything you like! Fifty or a ’undred or a bloody million!’
 ‘Better make it fifty for a start.’
 ‘All right!’
 ‘You play first if you like.’
 ‘All right,’ agreed the Semi-drunk, anxious to distinguish himself. Holding the six rings in his left hand, the man stood in the middle of the floor at a distance of about three yards from the board, with his right foot advanced. Taking one of the rings between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, and closing his left eye, he carefully ‘sighted’ the centre hook, No. 13; then he slowly extended his arm to its full length in the direction of the board: then bending his elbow, he brought his hand back again until it nearly touched his chin, and slowly extended his arm again. He repeated these movements several times, whilst the others watched with bated breath. Getting it right at last he suddenly shot the ring at the board, but it did not go on No. 13; it went over the partition into the private bar.
 This feat was greeted with a roar of laughter. The player stared at the board in a dazed way, wondering what had become of the ring. When someone in the next bar threw it over the partition again, he realized what had happened and, turning to the company with a sickly smile, remarked:
 ‘I ain’t got properly used to this board yet: that’s the reason of it.’
 He now began throwing the other rings at the board rather wildly, without troubling to take aim. One struck the partition to the right of the board: one to the left: one underneath: one went over the counter, one on the floor, the other - the last - hit the board, and amid a shout of applause, caught on the centre hook No. 13, the highest number it was possible to scare with a single throw.
 ‘I shall be all right now that I’ve got the range,’ observed the Semi- drunk as he made way for his opponent.
 ‘You’ll see something now,’ whispered Philpot to Easton. ’This bloke is a dandy!’
 The Besotted Wretch took up his position and with an affectation of carelessness began throwing the rings. It was really a remarkable exhibition, for notwithstanding the fact that his hand trembled like the proverbial aspen leaf, he succeeded in striking the board almost in the centre every time; but somehow or other most of them failed to catch on the hooks and fell into the net. When he finished his innings, he had only scored 4, two of the rings having caught on the No. 2 hook.
 ‘’Ard lines,’ remarked Bundy as he finished his beer and put the glass down on the counter.
 ‘Drink up and ’ave another,’ said Easton as he drained his own glass.
 ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ replied Crass, pouring what remained of the pint down his throat.
 Philpot’s glass had been empty for some time.
 ‘Same again,’ said Easton, addressing the Old Dear and putting six pennies on the counter.
 By this time the Semi-drunk had again opened fire on the board, but he seemed to have lost the range, for none of the rings scored.
 They flew all over the place, and he finished his innings without increasing his total.
 The Besotted Wretch now sailed in and speedily piled up 37. Then the Semi-drunk had another go, and succeeded in getting 8. His case appeared hopeless, but his opponent in his next innings seemed to go all to pieces. Twice he missed the board altogether, and when he did hit it he failed to score, until the very last throw, when he made 1. Then the Semi-drunk went in again and got 10.
 The scores were now:
  Besotted Wretch ........................ 42 Semi-drunk ............................. 31
 So far it was impossible to foresee the end. It was anybody’s game. Crass became so excited that he absentmindedly opened his mouth and shot his second pint down into his stomach with a single gulp, and Bundy also drained his glass and called upon Philpot and Easton to drink up and have another, which they accordingly did.
 While the Semi-drunk was having his next innings, the Besotted Wretch placed a penny on the counter and called for a half a pint, which he drank in the hope of steadying his nerves for a great effort. His opponent meanwhile threw the rings at the board and missed it every time, but all the same he scored, for one ring, after striking the partition about a foot above the board, fell down and caught on the hook.
 The other man now began his innings, playing very carefully, and nearly every ring scored. As he played, the others uttered exclamations of admiration and called out the result of every throw.
 ‘One!’
 ‘One again!’
 ‘Miss! No! Got ’im! Two!’
 ‘Miss!’
 ‘Miss!’
 ‘Four!’
 The Semi-drunk accepted his defeat with a good grace, and after explaining that he was a bit out of practice, placed a shilling on the counter and invited the company to give their orders. Everyone asked for ‘the same again,’ but the landlord served Easton, Bundy and the Besotted Wretch with pints instead of half-pints as before, so there was no change out of the shilling.
 ‘You know, there’s a great deal in not bein’ used to the board,’ said the Semi-drunk.
 ‘There’s no disgrace in bein’ beat by a man like ’im, mate,’ said Philpot. ‘’E’s a champion!’
 ‘Yes, there’s no mistake about it. ’E throws a splendid ring!’ said Bundy.
 This was the general verdict. The Semi-drunk, though beaten, was not disgraced: and he was so affected by the good feeling manifested by the company that he presently produced a sixpence and insisted on paying for another half-pint all round.
 Crass had gone outside during this conversation, but he returned in a few minutes. ‘I feel a bit easier now,’ he remarked with a laugh as he took the half-pint glass that the Semi-drunk passed to him with a shaking hand. One after the other, within a few minutes, the rest followed Crass’s example, going outside and returning almost immediately: and as Bundy, who was the last to return, came back he exclaimed:
 ‘Let’s ’ave a game of shove-’a’penny.’
 ‘All right,’ said Easton, who was beginning to feel reckless. ‘But drink up first, and let’s ’ave another.’
 He had only sevenpence left, just enough to pay for another pint for Crass and half a pint for everyone else.
 The shove-ha’penny table was a planed mahogany board with a number of parallel lines scored across it. The game is played by placing the coin at the end of the board - the rim slightly overhanging the edge - and striking it with the back part of the palm of the hand, regulating the force of the blow according to the distance it is desired to drive the coin.
 ‘What’s become of Alf tonight?’ inquired Philpot of the landlord whilst Easton and Bundy were playing. Alf was the barman.
 ‘’E’s doing a bit of a job down in the cellar; some of the valves gone a bit wrong. But the missus is comin’ down to lend me a hand presently. ’Ere she is now.’
 The landlady - who at this moment entered through the door at the back of the bar - was a large woman with a highly-coloured countenance and a tremendous bust, incased in a black dress with a shot silk blouse. She had several jewelled gold rings on the fingers of each fat white hand, and a long gold watch guard hung round her fat neck. She greeted Crass and Philpot with condescension, smiling affably upon them.
 Meantime the game of shove-ha’penny proceeded merrily, the Semi-drunk taking a great interest in it and tendering advice to both players impartially. Bundy was badly beaten, and then Easton suggested that it was time to think of going home. This proposal - slightly modified - met with general approval, the modification being suggested by Philpot, who insisted on standing one final round of drinks before they went.
 While they were pouring this down their throats, Crass took a penny from his waistcoat pocket and put it in the slot of the polyphone. The landlord put a fresh disc into it and wound it up and it began to play ‘The Boys of the Bulldog Breed.’ The Semi-drunk happened to know the words of the chorus of this song, and when he heard the music he started unsteadily to his feet and with many fierce looks and gestures began to roar at the top of his voice:
  ‘They may build their ships, my lads, And try to play the game, But they can’t build the boys of the Bulldog breed, Wot made ole Hingland’s -’
 ‘’Ere! Stop that, will yer?’ cried the Old Dear, fiercely. ‘I told you once before that I don’t allow that sort of thing in my ’ouse!’
 The Semi-drunk stopped in confusion.
 ‘I don’t mean no ’arm,’ he said unsteadily, appealing to the company.
 ‘I don’t want no chin from you!’ said the Old Dear with a ferocious scowl. ‘If you want to make that row you can go somewheres else, and the sooner you goes the better. You’ve been ’ere long enough.’
 This was true. The man had been there long enough to spend every penny he had been possessed of when he first came: he had no money left now, a fact that the observant and experienced landlord had divined some time ago. He therefore wished to get rid of the fellow before the drink affected him further and made him helplessly drunk. The Semi-drunk listened with indignation and wrath to the landlord’s insulting words.
 ‘I shall go when the bloody ’ell I like!’ he shouted. ‘I shan’t ask you nor nobody else! Who the bloody ’ell are you? You’re nobody! See? Nobody! It’s orf the likes of me that you gets your bloody livin’! I shall stop ’ere as long as I bloody well like, and if you don’t like it you can go to ’ell!’
 ‘Oh! Yer will, will yer?’ said the Old Dear. ‘We’ll soon see about that.’ And, opening the door at the back of the bar, he roared out:
 ‘Alf!’
 ‘Yes, sir,’ replied a voice, evidently from the basement.
 ‘Just come up ’ere.’
 ‘All right,’ replied the voice, and footsteps were heard ascending some stairs.
 ‘You’ll see some fun in a minute,’ gleefully remarked Crass to Easton.
 The polyphone continued to play 1The Boys of the Bulldog Breed.’
 Philpot crossed over to the Semi-drunk. ‘Look ’ere, old man,’ he whispered, ‘take my tip and go ’ome quietly. You’ll only git the worse of it, you know.’
 ‘Not me, mate,’ replied the other, shaking his head doggedly. ‘’Ere I am, and ’ere I’m goin’ to bloody well stop.’
 ‘No, you ain’t,’ replied Philpot coaxingly. ‘’Look ’ere. I’ll tell you wot we’ll do. You ’ave just one more ’arf-pint along of me, and then we’ll both go ’ome together. I’ll see you safe ’ome.’
 ‘See me safe ’ome! Wotcher mean?’ indignantly demanded the other. ’Do you think I’m drunk or wot?’
 ‘No. Certainly not,’ replied Philpot, hastily. ‘You’re all right, as right as I am myself. But you know wot I mean. Let’s go ’ome. You don’t want to stop ’ere all night, do you?’
 By this time Alf had arrived at the door of the back of the bar. He was a burly young man about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age.
 ‘Put it outside,’ growled the landlord, indicating the culprit.
 The barman instantly vaulted over the counter, and, having opened wide the door leading into the street, he turned to the half-drunken man and, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door, said:
 ‘Are yer goin’?’
 ‘I’m goin’ to ’ave ’arf a pint along of this genelman first -’
 ‘Yes. It’s all right,’ said Philpot to the landlord. ‘Let’s ’ave two ’arf-pints, and say no more about it.’
 ‘You mind your own business,’ shouted the landlord, turning savagely on him. ‘’E’ll get no more ’ere! I don’t want no drunken men in my ’ouse. Who asked you to interfere?’
 ‘Now then!’ exclaimed the barman to the cause of the trouble, ‘Outside!’
 ‘Not me!’ said the Semi-drunk firmly. ‘Not before I’ve ’ad my ’arf -’
 But before he could conclude, the barman had clutched him by the collar, dragged him violently to the door and shot him into the middle of the road, where he fell in a heap almost under the wheels of a brewer’s dray that happened to be passing. This accomplished, Alf shut the door and retired behind the counter again.
 ‘Serve ’im bloody well right,’ said Crass.
 ‘I couldn’t ’elp laughin’ when I seen ’im go flyin’ through the bloody door,’ said Bundy.
 ‘You oughter ’ave more sense than to go interferin’ like that,’ said Crass to Philpot. ‘It was nothing to do with you.’
 Philpot made no reply. He was standing with his back to the others, peeping out into the street over the top of the window casing. Then he opened the door and went out into the street. Crass and the others - through the window - watched him assist the Semi-drunk to his feet and rub some of the dirt off his clothes, and presently after some argument they saw the two go away together arm in arm.
 Crass and the others laughed, and returned to their half-finished drinks.
 ‘Why, old Joe ain’t drunk ’ardly ’arf of ’is!’ cried Easton, seeing Philpot’s porter on the counter. ’Fancy going away like that!’
 ‘More fool ’im,’ growled Crass. ‘There was no need for it: the man’s all right.’
 The Besotted Wretch gulped his beer down as quickly as he could, with his eyes fixed greedily on Philpot’s glass. He had just finished his own and was about to suggest that it was a pity to waste the porter when Philpot unexpectedly reappeared.
 ‘Hullo! What ’ave you done with ’im?’ inquired Crass.
 ‘I think ’e’ll be all right,’ replied Philpot. ‘He wouldn’t let me go no further with ’im: said if I didn’t go away, ’e’d go for me! But I believe ’e’ll be all right. I think the fall sobered ’im a bit.’
 ‘Oh, ’e’s all right,’ said Crass offhandedly. ‘There’s nothing the matter with ’im.’
 Philpot now drank his porter, and bidding ‘good night’ to the Old Dear, the landlady and the Besotted Wretch, they all set out for home. As they went along the dark and lonely thoroughfare that led over the hill to Windley, they heard from time to time the weird roaring of the wild animals in the menagerie that was encamped in the adjacent field. Just as they reached a very gloomy and deserted part, they suddenly observed a dark object in the middle of the road some distance in front of them. It seemed to be a large animal of some kind and was coming slowly and stealthily towards them.
 They stopped, peering in a half-frightened way through the darkness. The animal continued to approach. Bundy stooped down to the ground, groping about in search of a stone, and - with the exception of Crass, who was too frightened to move - the others followed his example. They found several large stones and stood waiting for the creature - whatever it was - to come a little nearer so as to get a fair shot at it. They were about to let fly when the creature fell over on its side and moaned as if in pain. Observing this, the four men advanced cautiously towards it. Bundy struck a match and held it over the prostrate figure. It was the Semi-drunk.
 After parting from Philpot, the poor wretch had managed to walk all right for some distance. As Philpot had remarked, the fall had to some extent sobered him; but he had not gone very far before the drink he had taken began to affect him again and he had fallen down. Finding it impossible to get up, he began crawling along on his hands and knees, unconscious of the fact that he was travelling in the wrong direction. Even this mode of progression failed him at last, and he would probably have been run over if they had not found him. They raised him up, and Philpot, exhorting him to ‘pull himself together’ inquired where he lived. The man had sense enough left to be able to tell them his address, which was fortunately at Windley, where they all resided.
 Bundy and Philpot took him home, separating from Crass and Easton at the corner of the street where both the latter lived.
 Crass felt very full and satisfied with himself. He had had six and a half pints of beer, and had listened to two selections on the polyphone at a total cost of one penny.
 Easton had but a few yards to go before reaching his own house after parting from Crass, but he paused directly he heard the latter’s door close, and leaning against a street lamp yielded to the feeling of giddiness and nausea that he had been fighting against all the way home. All the inanimate objects around him seemed to be in motion. The lights of the distant street lamps appeared to be floating about the pavement and the roadway rose and fell like the surface of a troubled sea. He searched his pockets for his handkerchief and having found it wiped his mouth, inwardly congratulating himself that Crass was not there to see him. Resuming his walk, after a few minutes he reached his own home. As he passed through, the gate closed of itself after him, clanging loudly. He went rather unsteadily up the narrow path that led to his front door and entered.
 The baby was asleep in the cradle. Slyme had gone up to his own room, and Ruth was sitting sewing by the fireside. The table was still set for two persons, for she had not yet taken her tea.
 Easton lurched in noisily. ‘’Ello, old girl!’ he cried, throwing his dinner basket carelessly on the floor with an affectation of joviality and resting his hands on the table to support himself. ‘I’ve come at last, you see.’
 Ruth left off sewing, and, letting her hands fall into her lap, sat looking at him. She had never seen him like this before. His face was ghastly pale, the eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, the lips tremulous and moist, and the ends of the hair of his fair moustache, stuck together with saliva and stained with beer, hung untidily round his mouth in damp clusters.
 Perceiving that she did not speak or smile, Easton concluded that she was angry and became grave himself.
 ‘I’ve come at last, you see, my dear; better late than never.’
 He found it very difficult to speak plainly, for his lips trembled and refused to form the words.
 ‘I don’t know so much about that,’ said Ruth, inclined to cry and trying not to let him see the pity she could not help feeling for him. ‘A nice state you’re in. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
 Easton shook his head and laughed foolishly. ‘Don’t be angry, Ruth. It’s no good, you know.’
 He walked clumsily towards her, still leaning on the table to steady himself.
 ‘Don’t be angry,’ he mumbled as he stooped over her, putting his arm round her neck and his face close to hers. ‘It’s no good being angry, you know, dear.’
 She shrank away, shuddering with involuntary disgust as he pressed his wet lips and filthy moustache upon her mouth. His fetid breath, foul with the smell of tobacco and beer, and the odour of the stale tobacco smoke that exuded from his clothes filled her with loathing. He kissed her repeatedly and when at last he released her she hastily wiped her face with her handkerchief and shivered.
 Easton said he did not want any tea, and went upstairs to bed almost immediately. Ruth did not want any tea either now, although she had been very hungry before he came home. She sat up very late, sewing, and when at length she did go upstairs she found him lying on his back, partly undressed on the outside of the bedclothes, with his mouth wide open, breathing stertorously.
 
 Chapter 20
 The Forty Thieves. The Battle: Brigands versus Bandits
  This is an even more unusually dull and uninteresting chapter, and introduces several matters that may appear to have nothing to do with the case. The reader is nevertheless entreated to peruse it, because it contains certain information necessary to an understanding of this history.
 The town of Mugsborough was governed by a set of individuals called the Municipal Council. Most of these ‘representatives of the people’ were well-to-do or retired tradesmen. In the opinion of the inhabitants of Mugsborough, the fact that a man had succeeded in accumulating money in business was a clear demonstration of his fitness to be entrusted with the business of the town.
 Consequently, when that very able and successful man of business Mr George Rushton was put up for election to the Council he was returned by a large majority of the votes of the working men who thought him an ideal personage ...
 These Brigands did just as they pleased. No one ever interfered with them. They never consulted the ratepayers in any way. Even at election time they did not trouble to hold meetings: each one of them just issued a kind of manifesto setting forth his many noble qualities and calling upon the people for their votes: and the latter never failed to respond. They elected the same old crew time after time ...
 The Brigands committed their depredations almost unhindered, for the voters were engaged in the Battle of Life. Take the public park for instance. Like so many swine around a trough - they were so busily engaged in this battle that most of them had no time to go to the park, or they might have noticed that there were not so many costly plants there as there should have been. And if they had inquired further they would have discovered that nearly all the members of the Town Council had very fine gardens. There was reason for these gardens being so grand, for the public park was systematically robbed of its best to make them so.
 There was a lake in the park where large numbers of ducks and geese were kept at the ratepayers’ expense. In addition to the food provided for these fowl with public money, visitors to the park used to bring them bags of biscuits and bread crusts. When the ducks and geese were nicely fattened the Brigands used to carry them off and devour them at home. When they became tired of eating duck or goose, some of the Councillors made arrangements with certain butchers and traded away the birds for meat.
 One of the most energetic members of the Band was Mr Jeremiah Didlum, the house-furnisher, who did a large hire system trade. He had an extensive stock of second-hand furniture that he had resumed possession of when the unfortunate would-be purchasers failed to pay the instalments regularly. Other of the second-hand things had been purchased for a fraction of their real value at Sheriff’s sales or from people whom misfortune or want of employment had reduced to the necessity of selling their household possessions.
 Another notable member of the Band was Mr Amos Grinder, who had practically monopolized the greengrocery trade and now owned nearly all the fruiterers’ shops in the town. As for the other shops, if they did not buy their stocks from him - or, rather, the company of which he was managing director and principal shareholder - if these other fruiterers and greengrocers did not buy their stuff from his company, he tried to smash them by opening branches in their immediate neighbourhood and selling below cost. He was a self-made man: an example of what may be accomplished by cunning and selfishness.
 Then there was the Chief of the Band - Mr Adam Sweater, the Mayor. He was always the Chief, although he was not always Mayor, it being the rule that the latter ‘honour’ should be enjoyed by all the members of the Band in turn. A bright ‘honour’, forsooth! to be the first citizen in a community composed for the most part of ignorant semi-imbeciles, slaves, slave-drivers and psalm-singing hypocrites. Mr Sweater was the managing director and principal shareholder of a large drapery business in which he had amassed a considerable fortune. This was not very surprising, considering that he paid none of his workpeople fair wages and many of them no wages at all. He employed a great number of girls and young women who were supposed to be learning dressmaking, mantle-making or millinery. These were all indentured apprentices, some of whom had paid premiums of from five to ten pounds. They were ‘bound’ for three years. For the first two years they received no wages: the third year they got a shilling or eightpence a week. At the end of the third year they usually got the sack, unless they were willing to stay on as improvers at from three shillings to four and sixpence per week.
 They worked from half past eight in the morning till eight at night, with an interval of an hour for dinner, and at half past four they ceased work for fifteen minutes for tea. This was provided by the firm - half a pint for each girl, but they had to bring their own milk and sugar and bread and butter.
 Few of the girls ever learned their trades thoroughly. Some were taught to make sleeves; others cuffs or button-holes, and so on. The result was that in a short time each one became very expert and quick at one thing; and although their proficiency in this one thing would never enable them to earn a decent living, it enabled Mr Sweater to make money during the period of their apprenticeship, and that was all he cared about.
 Occasionally a girl of intelligence and spirit would insist on the fulfilment of the terms of her indentures, and sometimes the parents would protest. If this were persisted in those girls got on better: but even these were turned to good account by the wily Sweater, who induced the best of them to remain after their time was up by paying them what appeared - by contrast with the others girls’ money - good wages, sometimes even seven or eight shillings a week! and liberal promises of future advancement. These girls then became a sort of reserve who could be called up to crush any manifestation of discontent on the part of the leading hands.
 The greater number of the girls, however, submitted tamely to the conditions imposed upon them. They were too young to realize the wrong that was being done them. As for their parents, it never occurred to them to doubt the sincerity of so good a man as Mr Sweater, who was always prominent in every good and charitable work.
 At the expiration of the girl’s apprenticeship, if the parents complained of her want of proficiency, the pious Sweater would attribute it to idleness or incapacity, and as the people were generally poor he seldom or never had any trouble with them. This was how he fulfilled the unctuous promise made to the confiding parents at the time the girl was handed over to his tender mercy - that he would ‘make a woman of her’.
 This method of obtaining labour by false pretences and without payment, which enabled him to produce costly articles for a mere fraction of the price for which they were eventually sold, was adopted in other departments of his business. He procured shop assistants of both sexes on the same terms. A youth was indentured, usually for five years, to be ‘Made a Man of and ‘Turned out fit to take a Position in any House’. If possible, a premium, five, ten, or twenty pounds - according to their circumstances - would be extracted from the parents. For the first three years, no wages: after that, perhaps two or three shillings a week.
 At the end of the five years the work of ‘Making a Man of him’ would be completed. Mr Sweater would then congratulate him and assure him that he was qualified to assume a ‘position’ in any House but regret that there was no longer any room for him in his. Business was so bad. Still, if the Man wished he might stay on until he secured a better ‘position’ and, as a matter of generosity, although he did not really need the Man’s services, he would pay him ten shillings per week!
 Provided he was not addicted to drinking, smoking, gambling or the Stock Exchange, or going to theatres, the young man’s future was thus assured. Even if he were unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain another position he could save a portion of his salary and eventually commence business on his own account.
 However, the branch of Mr Sweater’s business to which it is desired to especially direct the reader’s attention was the Homeworkers Department. He employed a large number of women making ladies’ blouses, fancy aprons and children’s pinafores. Most of these articles were disposed of wholesale in London and elsewhere, but some were retailed at ‘Sweaters’ Emporium’ in Mugsborough and at the firm’s other retail establishments throughout the county. Many of the women workers were widows with children, who were glad to obtain any employment that did not take hem away from their homes and families.
 The blouses were paid for at tie rate of from two shillings to five shillings a dozen, the women having to provide their own machine and cotton, besides calling for and delivering the work. These poor women were able to clear from six to eight shillings a week: and to earn even that they had to work almost incessantly for fourteen or sixteen hours a day. There was no time for cooling and very little to cook, for they lived principally on bread and margarine and tea. Their homes were squalid, their children half-starved and raggedly clothed in grotesque garments hastily fashioned out of the cast-off clothes of charitable neighbours.
 But it was not in vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case. It was not in vain that they passed their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless work that barely brought them bread. It was not in vain that they and their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced. Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased in goods and respectability.
 Of course, none of those women were COMPELLED to engage in that glorious cause. No one is compelled to accept any particular set of conditions in a free country like this. Mr Trafaim - the manager of Sweater’s Homework Department - always put the matter before them in the plainest, fairest possible way. There was the work: that was the figure! And those who didn’t like it could leave it. There was no compulsion.
 Sometimes some perverse creature belonging to that numerous class who are too lazy to work DID leave it! But as the manager said, there were plenty of others who were only too glad to take it. In fact, such was the enthusiasm amongst these women - especially such of them as had little children to provide for - and such was their zeal for the Cause, that some of them have been known to positively beg to be allowed to work!
 By these and similar means Adam Sweater had contrived to lay up for himself a large amount of treasure upon earth, besides attaining undoubted respectability; for that he was respectable no one questioned. He went to chapel twice every Sunday, his obese figure arrayed in costly apparel, consisting - with other things - of grey trousers, a long garment called a frock-coat, a tall silk hat, a quantity of jewellery and a morocco-bound gilt-edged Bible. He was an official of some sort of the Shining Light Chapel. His name appeared in nearly every published list of charitable subscriptions. No starving wretch had ever appealed to him in vain for a penny soup ticket.
 Small wonder that when this good and public-spirited man offered his services to the town - free of charge - the intelligent working men of Mugsborough accepted his offer with enthusiastic applause. The fact that he had made money in business was a proof of his intellectual capacity. His much-advertised benevolence was a guarantee that his abilities would be used to further not his own private interests, but the interests of every section of the community, especially those of the working classes, of whom the majority of his constituents was composed.
 As for the shopkeepers, they were all so absorbed in their own business - so busily engaged chasing their employees, adding up their accounts, and dressing themselves up in feeble imitation of the ‘Haristocracy’ - that they were incapable of taking a really intelligent interest in anything else. They thought of the Town Council as a kind of Paradise reserved exclusively for jerry-builders and successful tradesmen. Possibly, some day, if they succeeded in making money, they might become town councillors themselves! but in the meantime public affairs were no particular concern of theirs. So some of them voted for Adam Sweater because he was a Liberal and some of them voted against him for the same ‘reason’.
 Now and then, when details of some unusually scandalous proceeding of the Council’s leaked out, the townspeople - roused for a brief space from their customary indifference - would discuss the matter in a casual, half-indignant, half-amused, helpless sort of way; but always as if it were something that did not directly concern them. It was during some such nine days’ wonder that the title of ‘The Forty Thieves’ was bestowed on the members of the Council by their semi-imbecile constituents, who, not possessing sufficient intelligence to devise means of punishing the culprits, affected to regard the manoeuvres of the Brigands as a huge joke.
 There was only one member of the Council who did not belong to the Band - Councillor Weakling, a retired physician; but unfortunately he also was a respectable man. When he saw something going forwards that he did not think was right, he protested and voted against it and then - he collapsed! There was nothing of the low agitator about HIM. As for the Brigands, they laughed at his protests and his vote did not matter.
 With this one exception, the other members of the band were very similar in character to Sweater, Rushton, Didlum and Grinder. They had all joined the Band with the same objects, self-glorification and the advancement of their private interests. These were the real reasons why they besought the ratepayers to elect them to the Council, but of course none of them ever admitted that such was the case. No! When these noble-minded altruists offered their services to the town they asked the people to believe that they were actuated by a desire to give their time and abilities for the purpose of furthering the interests of Others, which was much the same as asking them to believe that it is possible for the leopard to change his spots.
 
 Owing to the extraordinary apathy of the other inhabitants, the Brigands were able to carry out their depredations undisturbed. Daylight robberies were of frequent occurrence.
 For many years these Brigands had looked with greedy eyes upon the huge profits of the Gas Company. They thought it was a beastly shame that those other bandits should be always raiding the town and getting clear away with such rich spoils.
 At length - about two years ago - after much study and many private consultations, a plan of campaign was evolved; a secret council of war was held, presided over by Mr Sweater, and the Brigands formed themselves into an association called ‘The Mugsborough Electric Light Supply and Installation Coy. Ltd.’, and bound themselves by a solemn oath to do their best to drive the Gas Works Bandits out of the town and to capture the spoils at present enjoyed by the latter for themselves.
 There was a large piece of ground, the property of the town, that was a suitable site for the works; so in their character of directors of the Electric Light Coy. they offered to buy this land from the Municipality - or, in other words, from themselves - for about half its value.
 At the meeting of the Town Council when this offer was considered, all the members present, with the solitary exception of Dr Weakling, being shareholders in the newly formed company, Councillor Rushton moved a resolution in favour of accepting it. He said that every encouragement should be given to the promoters of the Electric Light Coy., those public-spirited citizens who had come forward and were willing to risk their capital in an undertaking that would be a benefit to every class of residents in the town that they all loved so well. (Applause.) There could be no doubt that the introduction of the electric light would be a great addition to the attractions of Mugsborough, but there was another and more urgent reason that disposed him to do whatever he could to encourage the Company to proceed with this work. Unfortunately, as was usual at that time of the year (Mr Rushton’s voice trembled with emotion) the town was full of unemployed. (The Mayor, Alderman Sweater, and all the other Councillors shook their heads sadly; they were visibly affected.) There was no doubt that the starting of that work at that time would be an inestimable boon to the working-classes. As the representative of a working-class ward he was in favour of accepting the offer of the Company. (Hear. Hear.)
 Councillor Didlum seconded. In his opinion, it would be nothing short of a crime to oppose anything that would provide work for the unemployed.
 Councillor Weakling moved that the offer be refused. (Shame.) He admitted that the electric light would be an improvement to the town, and in view of the existing distress he would be glad to see the work started, but the price mentioned was altogether too low. It was not more than half the value of the land. (Derisive laughter.)
 Councillor Grinder said he was astonished at the attitude taken up by Councillor Weakling. In his (Grinder’s) opinion it was disgraceful that a member of the council should deliberately try to wreck a project which would do so much towards relieving the unemployed.
 The Mayor, Alderman Sweater, said that he could not allow the amendment to be discussed until it was seconded: if there were no seconder he would put the original motion.
 There was no seconder, because everyone except Weakling was in favour of the resolution, which was carried amid loud cheers, and the representatives of the ratepayers proceeded to the consideration of the next business.
 Councillor Didlum proposed that the duty on all coal brought into the borough be raised from two shillings to three shillings per ton.
 Councillor Rushton seconded. The largest consumer of coal was the Gas Coy., and, considering the great profits made by that company, they were quite justified in increasing the duty to the highest figure the Act permitted.
 After a feeble protest from Weakling, who said it would only increase the price of gas and coal without interfering with the profits of the Gas Coy., this was also carried, and after some other business had been transacted, the Band dispersed.
 That meeting was held two years ago, and since that time the Electric Light Works had been built and the war against the gasworks carried on vigorously. After several encounters, in which they lost a few customers and a portion of the public lighting, the Gasworks Bandits retreated out of the town and entrenched themselves in a strong position beyond the borough boundary, where they erected a number of gasometers. They were thus enabled to pour gas into the town at long range without having to pay the coal dues.
 This masterly stratagem created something like a panic in the ranks of the Forty Thieves. At the end of two years they found themselves exhausted with the protracted campaign, their movements hampered by a lot of worn-out plant and antiquated machinery, and harassed on every side by the lower charges of the Gas Coy. They were reluctantly constrained to admit that the attempt to undermine the Gasworks was a melancholy failure, and that the Mugsborough Electric Light and Installation Coy. was a veritable white elephant. They began to ask themselves what they should do with it; and some of them even urged unconditional surrender, or an appeal to the arbitration of the Bankruptcy Court.
 In the midst of all the confusion and demoralization there was, however, one man who did not lose his presence of mind, who in this dark hour of disaster remained calm and immovable, and like a vast mountain of flesh reared his head above the storm, whose mighty intellect perceived a way to turn this apparently hopeless defeat into a glorious victory. That man was Adam Sweater, the Chief of the Band.
 
 Chapter 21
 The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick
  During the next four weeks the usual reign of terror continued at ‘The Cave’. The men slaved like so many convicts under the vigilant surveillance of Crass, Misery and Rushton. No one felt free from observation for a single moment. It happened frequently that a man who was working alone - as he thought - on turning round would find Hunter or Rushton standing behind him: or one would look up from his work to catch sight of a face watching him through a door or a window or over the banisters. If they happened to be working in a room on the ground floor, or at a window on any floor, they knew that both Rushton and Hunter were in the habit of hiding among the trees that surrounded the house, and spying upon them thus.
 There was a plumber working outside repairing the guttering that ran round the bottom edge of the roof. This poor wretch’s life was a perfect misery: he fancied he saw Hunter or Rushton in every bush. He had two ladders to work from, and since these ladders had been in use Misery had thought of a new way of spying on the men. Finding that he never succeeded in catching anyone doing anything wrong when he entered the house by one of the doors, Misery adopted the plan of crawling up one of the ladders, getting in through one of the upper windows and creeping softly downstairs and in and out of the rooms. Even then he never caught anyone, but that did not matter, for he accomplished his principal purpose - every man seemed afraid to cease working for even an instant.
 The result of all this was, of course, that the work progressed rapidly towards completion. The hands grumbled and cursed, but all the same every man tore into it for all he was worth. Although he did next to nothing himself, Crass watched and urged on the others. He was ‘in charge of the job’: he knew that unless he succeeded in making this work pay he would not be put in charge of another job. On the other hand, if he did make it pay he would be given the preference over others and be kept on as long as the firm had any work. The firm would give him the preference only as long as it paid them to do so.
 As for the hands, each man knew that there was no chance of obtaining work anywhere else at present; there were dozens of men out of employment already. Besides, even if there had been a chance of getting another job somewhere else, they knew that the conditions were more or less the same on every firm. Some were even worse than this one. Each man knew that unless he did as much as ever he could, Crass would report him for being slow. They knew also that when the job began to draw to a close the number of men employed upon it would be reduced, and when that time came the hands who did the most work would be kept on and the slower ones discharged. It was therefore in the hope of being one of the favoured few that while inwardly cursing the rest for ‘tearing into it’, everyone as a matter of self-preservation went and ‘tore into it’ themselves.
 They all cursed Crass, but most of them would have been very to change places with him: and if any one of them had been in his place they would have been compelled to act in the same way - or lose the job.
 They all reviled Hunter, but most of them would have been glad to change places with him also: and if any one of them had been in his place they would have been compelled to do the same things, or lose the job.
 They all hated and blamed Rushton. Yet if they had been in Rushton’s place they would have been compelled to adopt the same methods, or become bankrupt: for it is obvious that the only way to compete successfully against other employers who are sweaters is to be a sweater yourself. Therefore no one who is an upholder of the present system can consistently blame any of these men. Blame the system.
 If you, reader, had been one of the hands, would you have slogged? Or would you have preferred to starve and see your family starve? If you had been in Crass’s place, would you have resigned rather than do such dirty work? If you had had Hunter’s berth, would you have given it up and voluntarily reduced yourself to the level of the hands? If you had been Rushton, would you rather have become bankrupt than treat your ‘hands’ and your customers in the same way as your competitors treated theirs? It may be that, so placed, you - being the noble-minded paragon that you are - would have behaved unselfishly. But no one has any right to expect you to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of other people who would only call you a fool for your pains. It may be true that if any one of the hands - Owen, for instance - had been an employer of labour, he would have done the same as other employers. Some people seem to think that proves that the present system is all right! But really it only proves that the present system compels selfishness. One must either trample upon others or be trampled upon oneself. Happiness might be possible if everyone were unselfish; if everyone thought of the welfare of his neighbour before thinking of his own. But as there is only a very small percentage of such unselfish people in the world, the present system has made the earth into a sort of hell. Under the present system there is not sufficient of anything for everyone to have enough. Consequently there is a fight - called by Christians the ‘Battle of Life’. In this fight some get more than they need, some barely enough, some very little, and some none at all. The more aggressive, cunning, unfeeling and selfish you are the better it will be for you. As long as this ‘Battle of Life’ System endures, we have no right to blame other people for doing the same things that we are ourselves compelled to do. Blame the system.
 But that IS just what the hands did not do. They blamed each other; they blamed Crass, and Hunter, and Rushton, but with the Great System of which they were all more or less the victims they were quite content, being persuaded that it was the only one possible and the best that human wisdom could devise. The reason why they all believed this was because not one of them had ever troubled to inquire whether it would not be possible to order things differently. They were content with the present system. If they had not been content they would have been anxious to find some way to alter it. But they had never taken the trouble to seriously inquire whether it was possible to find some better way, and although they all knew in a hazy fashion that other methods of managing the affairs of the world had already been proposed, they neglected to inquire whether these other methods were possible or practicable, and they were ready and willing to oppose with ignorant ridicule or brutal force any man who was foolish or quixotic enough to try to explain to them the details of what he thought was a better way. They accepted the present system in the same way as they accepted the alternating seasons. They knew that there was spring and summer and autumn and winter. As to how these different seasons came to be, or what caused them, they hadn’t the remotest notion, and it is extremely doubtful whether the question had ever occurred to any of them: but there is no doubt whatever about the fact that none of them knew. From their infancy they had been trained to distrust their own intelligence, and to leave the management of the affairs of the world - and for that matter of the next world too - to their betters; and now most of them were absolutely incapable of thinking of any abstract subject whatever. Nearly all their betters - that is, the people who do nothing - were unanimous in agreeing that he present system is a very good one and that it is impossible to alter or improve it. Therefore Crass and his mates, although they knew nothing whatever about it themselves, accepted it as an established, incontrovertible fact that the existing state of things is immutable. They believed it because someone else told them so. They would have believed anything: on one condition - namely, that they were told to believe it by their betters. They said it was surely not for the Like of Them to think that they knew better than those who were more educated and had plenty of time to study.
 As the work in the drawing-room proceeded, Crass abandoned the hope that Owen was going to make a mess of it. Some of the rooms upstairs being now ready for papering, Slyme was started on that work, Bert being taken away from Owen to assist Slyme as paste boy, and it was arranged that Crass should help Owen whenever he needed someone to lend him a hand.
 Sweater came frequently during these four weeks, being interested in the progress of the work. On these occasions Crass always managed to be present in the drawing-room and did most of the talking. Owen was very satisfied with this arrangement, for he was always ill at ease when conversing with a man like Sweater, who spoke in an offensively patronizing way and expected common people to kowtow to and ‘Sir’ him at every second word. Crass however, seemed to enjoy doing that kind of thing. He did not exactly grovel on the floor, when Sweater spoke to him, but he contrived to convey the impression that he was willing to do so if desired.
 Outside the house Bundy and his mates had dug deep trenches in the damp ground in which they were laying new drains. This work, like that of the painting of the inside of the house, was nearly completed. It was a miserable job. Owing to the fact that there had been a spell of bad weather the ground was sodden with rain and there was mud everywhere, the men’s clothing and boots being caked with it. But the worst thing about the job was the smell. For years the old drain-pipes had been defective and leaky. The ground a few feet below the surface was saturated with fetid moisture and a stench as of a thousand putrefying corpse emanated from the opened earth. The clothing of the men who were working in the hendeca became saturated with this fearful odour, and for that matter, so did the men themselves.
 They said they could smell and taste it all the time, even when they were away from the work at home, and when they were at meals. Although they smoked their pipes all the time they were at work, Misery having ungraciously given them permission, several times Bundy and one or other of his mates were attacked with fits of vomiting.
 But, as they began to realize that the finish of the job was in sight, a kind of panic seized upon the hands, especially those who had been taken on last and who would therefore be the first to be ‘stood still’. Easton, however, felt pretty confident that Crass would do his best to get him kept on till the end of the job, for they had become quite chummy lately, usually spending a few evenings together at the Cricketers every week.
 ‘There’ll be a bloody slaughter ’ere soon,’ remarked Harlow to Philpot one day as they were painting the banisters of the staircase. ‘I reckon next week will about finish the inside.’
 ‘And the outside ain’t goin’ to take very long, you know,’ replied Philpot.
 ‘They ain’t got no other work in, have they?’
 ‘Not that I knows of,’ replied Philpot gloomily; ’and I don’t think anyone else has either.’
 ‘You know that little place they call the "Kiosk" down the Grand Parade, near the bandstand,’ asked Harlow after a pause.
 ‘Where they used to sell refreshments?’
 ‘Yes; it belongs to the Corporation, you know.’
 ‘It’s been closed up lately, ain’t it?’
 ‘Yes; the people who ’ad it couldn’t make it pay; but I ’eard last night that Grinder the fruit-merchant is goin’ to open it again. If it’s true, there’ll be a bit of a job there for someone, because it’ll ’ave to be done up.’
 ‘Well, I hope it does come orf replied Philpot. ‘It’ll be a job for some poor b—rs.’
 ‘I wonder if they’ve started anyone yet on the venetian blinds for this ’ouse?’ remarked Easton after a pause.
 ‘I don’t know,’ replied Philpot.
 They relapsed into silence for a while.
 ‘I wonder what time it is?’ said Philpot at length. ‘I don’t know ’ow you feel, but I begin to want my dinner.’
 ‘That’s just what I was thinking; it can’t be very far off it now. It’s nearly ’arf an hour since Bert went down to make the tea. It seems a ’ell of a long morning to me.’
 ‘So it does to me,’ said Philpot; ‘slip upstairs and ask Slyme what time it is.’
 Harlow laid his brush across the top of his paint-pot and went upstairs. He was wearing a pair of cloth slippers, and walked softly, not wishing that Crass should hear him leaving his work, so it happened that without any intention of spying on Slyme, Harlow reached the door of the room in which the former was working without being heard and, entering suddenly, surprised Slyme - who was standing near the fireplace - in the act of breaking a whole roll of wallpaper across his knee as one might break a stick. On the floor beside him was what had been another roll, now broken into two pieces. When Harlow came in, Slyme started, and his face became crimson with confusion. He hastily gathered the broken rolls together and, stooping down, thrust the pieces up the flue of the grate and closed the register.
 ‘Wot’s the bloody game?’ inquired Harlow.
 Slyme laughed with an affectation of carelessness, but his hands trembled and his face was now very pale.
 ‘We must get our own back somehow, you know, Fred,’ he said.
 Harlow did not reply. He did not understand. After puzzling over it for a few minutes, he gave it up.
 ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.
 ‘Fifteen minutes to twelve,’ said Slyme and added, as Harlow was going away: ‘Don’t mention anything about that paper to Crass or any of the others.’
 ‘I shan’t say nothing,’ replied Harlow.
 Gradually, as he pondered over it, Harlow began to comprehend the meaning of the destruction of the two rolls of paper. Slyme was doing the paperhanging piecework - so much for each roll hung. Four of the rooms upstairs had been done with the same pattern, and Hunter - who was not over-skilful in such matters - had evidently sent more paper than was necessary. By getting rid of these two rolls, Slyme would be able to make it appear that he had hung two rolls more than was really the case. He had broken the rolls so as to be able to take them away from the house without being detected, and he had hidden them up the chimney until he got an opportunity of so doing. Harlow had just arrived at this solution of the problem when, hearing the lower flight of stairs creaking, he peeped over and observed Misery crawling up. He had come to see if anyone had stopped work before the proper time. Passing the two workmen without speaking, he ascended to the next floor, and entered the room where Slyme was.
 ‘You’d better not do this room yet,’ said Hunter. ‘There’s to be a new grate and mantelpiece put in.’
 He crossed over to the fireplace and stood looking at it thoughtfully for a few minutes.
 ‘It’s not a bad little grate, you know, is it?’ he remarked. ‘We’ll be able to use it somewhere or other.’
 ‘Yes; it’s all right,’ said Slyme, whose heart was beating like a steam-hammer.
 ‘Do for a front room in a cottage,’ continued Misery, stooping down to examine it more closely. ‘There’s nothing broke that I can see.’
 He put his hand against the register and vainly tried to push it open. ‘H’m, there’s something wrong ’ere,’ he remarked, pushing harder.
 ‘Most likely a brick or some plaster fallen down,’ gasped Slyme, coming to Misery’s assistance. ‘Shall I try to open it?’
 ‘Don’t trouble,’ replied Nimrod, rising to his feet. ‘It’s most likely what you say. I’ll see that the new grate is sent up after dinner. Bundy can fix it this afternoon and then you can go on papering as soon as you like.’
 With this, Misery went out of the room, downstairs and away from the house, and Slyme wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. Then he knelt down and, opening the register, he took out the broken rolls of paper and hid them up the chimney of the next room. While he was doing this the sound of Crass’s whistle shrilled through the house.
 ‘Thank Gord!’ exclaimed Philpot fervently as he laid his brushes on the top of his pot and joined in the general rush to the kitchen. The scene here is already familiar to the reader. For seats, the two pairs of steps laid on their sides parallel to each other, about eight feet apart and at right angles to the fireplace, with the long plank placed across; and the upturned pails and the drawers of the dresser. The floor unswept and littered with dirt, scraps of paper, bits of plaster, pieces of lead pipe and dried mud; and in the midst, the steaming bucket of stewed tea and the collection of cracked cups, jam-jam and condensed milk tins. And on the seats the men in their shabby and in some cases ragged clothing sitting and eating their coarse food and cracking jokes.
 It was a pathetic and wonderful and at the same time a despicable spectacle. Pathetic that human beings should be condemned to spend the greater part of their lives amid such surroundings, because it must be remembered that most of their time was spent on some job or other. When ‘The Cave’ was finished they would go to some similar ‘job’, if they were lucky enough to find one. Wonderful, because although they knew that they did more than their fair share of the great work of producing the necessaries and comforts of life, they did not think they were entitled to a fair share of the good things they helped to create! And despicable, because although they saw their children condemned to the same life of degradation, hard labour and privation, yet they refused to help to bring about a better state of affairs. Most of them thought that what had been good enough for themselves was good enough for their children.
 It seemed as if they regarded their own children with a kind of contempt, as being only fit to grow up to be the servants of the children of such people as Rushton and Sweater. But it must be remembered that they had been taught self-contempt when they were children. In the so-called ‘Christian’ schools. they attended then they were taught to ‘order themselves lowly and reverently towards their betters’, and they were now actually sending their own children to learn the same degrading lessons in their turn! They had a vast amount of consideration for their betters, and for the children of their betters, but very little for their own children, for each other, or for themselves.
 That was why they sat there in their rags and ate their coarse food, and cracked their coarser jokes, and drank the dreadful tea, and were content! So long as they had Plenty of Work and plenty of - Something - to eat, and somebody else’s cast-off clothes to wear, they were content! And they were proud of it. They gloried in it. They agreed and assured each other that the good things of life were not intended for the ‘Likes of them’, or their children.
 ‘Wot’s become of the Professor?’ asked the gentleman who sat on the upturned pail in the corner, referring to Owen, who had not yet come down from his work.
 ‘P’raps ’e’s preparing ’is sermon,’ remarked Harlow with a laugh.
 ‘We ain’t ’ad no lectures from ’im lately, since ’e’s been on that room,’ observed Easton. ‘’Ave we?’
 ‘Dam good job too!’ exclaimed Sawkins. ‘It gives me the pip to ’ear ’im, the same old thing over and over again.’
 ‘Poor ole Frank,’ remarked Harlow. ‘’E does upset ’isself about things, don’t ’e?’
 ‘More fool ’im!’ said Bundy. ‘I’ll take bloody good care I don’t go worryin’ myself to death like ’e’s doin’, about such dam rot as that.’
 ‘I do believe that’s wot makes ’im look so bad as ’e does,’ observed Harlow. ‘Several times this morning I couldn’t help noticing the way ’e kept on coughing.’
 ‘I thought ’e seemed to be a bit better lately,’ Philpot observed; ‘more cheerful and happier like, and more inclined for a bit of fun.’
 ‘He’s a funny sort of chap, ain’t he?’ said Bundy. ‘One day quite jolly, singing and cracking jokes and tellin’ yarns, and the next you can’t hardly get a word out of ’im.’
 ‘Bloody rot, I call it,’ chimed in the man on the pail. ‘Wot the ’ell’s the use of the likes of us troublin’ our ’eads about politics?’
 ‘Oh, I don’t see that.’ replied Harlow. ‘We’ve got votes and we’re really the people what control the affairs of the country, so I reckon we ought to take SOME interest in it, but at the same time I can’t see no sense in this ’ere Socialist wangle that Owen’s always talkin’ about.’
 ‘Nor nobody else neither,’ said Crass with a jeering laugh.
 ‘Even if all the bloody money in the world WAS divided out equal,’ said the man on the pail, profoundly, ‘it wouldn’t do no good! In six months’ time it would be all back in the same ’ands again.’
 ‘Of course,’ said everybody.
 ‘But ’e ’ad a cuff the other day about money bein’ no good at all!’ observed Easton. ‘Don’t you remember ’e said as money was the principal cause of poverty?’
 ‘So it is the principal cause of poverty,’ said Owen, who entered at that moment.
 ‘Hooray!’ shouted Philpot, leading off a cheer which the others took up. ‘The Professor ’as arrived and will now proceed to say a few remarks.’
 A roar of merriment greeted this sally.
 ‘Let’s ’ave our bloody dinner first, for Christ’s sake,’ appealed Harlow, with mock despair.
 As Owen, having filled his cup with tea, sat down in his usual place, Philpot rose solemnly to his feet, and, looking round the company, said:
 ‘Genelmen, with your kind permission, as soon as the Professor ’as finished ’is dinner ’e will deliver ’is well-known lecture, entitled, "Money the Principal Cause of being ’ard up", proving as money ain’t no good to nobody. At the hend of the lecture a collection will be took up to provide the lecturer with a little encouragement.’ Philpot resumed his seat amid cheers.
 As soon as they had finished eating, some of the men began to make remarks about the lecture, but Owen only laughed and went on reading the piece of newspaper that his dinner had been wrapped in. Usually most of the men went out for a walk after dinner, but as it happened to be raining that day they were determined, if possible, to make Owen fulfill the engagement made in his name by Philpot.
 ‘Let’s ’oot ’im,’ said Harlow, and the suggestion was at once acted upon; howls, groans and catcalls filled the air, mingled with cries of ‘Fraud!’ ‘Imposter!’ ‘Give us our money back!’ ‘Let’s wreck the ’all!’ and so on.
 ‘Come on ’ere,’ cried Philpot, putting his hand on Owen’s shoulder. ‘Prove that money is the cause of poverty.’
 ‘It’s one thing to say it and another to prove it,’ sneered Crass, who was anxious for an opportunity to produce the long-deferred Obscurer cutting.
 ‘Money IS the real cause of poverty,’ said Owen.
 ‘Prove it,’ repeated Crass.
 ‘Money is the cause of poverty because it is the device by which those who are too lazy to work are enabled to rob the workers of the fruits of their labours.’
 ‘Prove it,’ said Crass.
 Owen slowly folded up the piece of newspaper he had been reading and put it into his pocket.
 ‘All right,’ he replied. ‘I’ll show you how the Great Money Trick is worked.’
 Owen opened his dinner basket and took from it two slices of bread but as these were not sufficient, he requested that anyone who had some bread left would give it to him. They gave him several pieces, which he placed in a heap on a clean piece of paper, and, having borrowed the pocket knives they used to cut and eat their dinners with from Easton, Harlow and Philpot, he addressed them as follows:
 ‘These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist naturally in and on the earth for the use of mankind; they were not made by any human being, but were created by the Great Spirit for the benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light of the sun.’
 ‘You’re about as fair-speakin’ a man as I’ve met for some time,’ said Harlow, winking at the others.
 ‘Yes, mate,’ said Philpot. ‘Anyone would agree to that much! It’s as clear as mud.’
 ‘Now,’ continued Owen, ‘I am a capitalist; or, rather, I represent the landlord and capitalist class. That is to say, all these raw materials belong to me. It does not matter for our present argument how I obtained possession of them, or whether I have any real right to them; the only thing that matters now is the admitted fact that all the raw materials which are necessary for the production of the necessaries of life are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. I am that class: all these raw materials belong to me.’
 ‘Good enough!’ agreed Philpot.
 ‘Now you three represent the Working class: you have nothing - and for my part, although I have all these raw materials, they are of no use to me - what need is - the things that can be made out of these raw materials by Work: but as I am too lazy to work myself, I have invented the Money Trick to make you work FOR me. But first I must explain that I possess something else beside the raw materials. These three knives represent - all the machinery of production; the factories, tools, railways, and so forth, without which the necessaries of life cannot be produced in abundance. And these three coins’ - taking three halfpennies from his pocket - ‘represent my Money Capital.’
 ‘But before we go any further,’ said Owen, interrupting himself, ‘it is most important that you remember that I am not supposed to be merely "a" capitalist. I represent the whole Capitalist Class. You are not supposed to be just three workers - you represent the whole Working Class.’
 ‘All right, all right,’ said Crass, impatiently, ‘we all understand that. Git on with it.’
 Owen proceeded to cut up one of the slices of bread into a number of little square blocks.
 ‘These represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by machinery, from the raw materials. We will suppose that three of these blocks represent - a week’s work. We will suppose that a week’s work is worth - one pound: and we will suppose that each of these ha’pennies is a sovereign. We’d be able to do the trick better if we had real sovereigns, but I forgot to bring any with me.’
 ‘I’d lend you some,’ said Philpot, regretfully, ‘but I left me purse on our grand pianner.’
 As by a strange coincidence nobody happened to have any gold with them, it was decided to make shift with the halfpence.
 ‘Now this is the way the trick works -’
 ‘Before you goes on with it,’ interrupted Philpot, apprehensively, ‘don’t you think we’d better ’ave someone to keep watch at the gate in case a Slop comes along? We don’t want to get runned in, you know.’
 ‘I don’ think there’s any need for that,’ replied Owen, ‘there’s only one slop who’d interfere with us for playing this game, and that’s Police Constable Socialism.’
 ‘Never mind about Socialism,’ said Crass, irritably. ‘Get along with the bloody trick.’
 Owen now addressed himself to the working classes as represented by Philpot, Harlow and Easton.
 ‘You say that you are all in need of employment, and as I am the kind-hearted capitalist class I am going to invest all my money in various industries, so as to give you Plenty of Work. I shall pay each of you one pound per week, and a week’s work is - you must each produce three of these square blocks. For doing this work you will each receive your wages; the money will be your own, to do as you like with, and the things you produce will of course be mine, to do as I like with. You will each take one of these machines and as soon as you have done a week’s work, you shall have your money.’
 The Working Classes accordingly set to work, and the Capitalist class sat down and watched them. As soon as they had finished, they passed the nine little blocks to Owen, who placed them on a piece of paper by his side and paid the workers their wages.
 ‘These blocks represent the necessaries of life. You can’t live without some of these things, but as they belong to me, you will have to buy them from me: my price for these blocks is - one pound each.’
 As the working classes were in need of the necessaries of life and as they could not eat, drink or wear the useless money, they were compelled to agree to the kind Capitalist’s terms. They each bought back and at once consumed one-third of the produce of their labour. The capitalist class also devoured two of the square blocks, and so the net result of the week’s work was that the kind capitalist had consumed two pounds worth of the things produced by the labour of the others, and reckoning the squares at their market value of one pound each, he had more than doubled his capital, for he still possessed the three pounds in money and in addition four pounds worth of goods. As for the working classes, Philpot, Harlow and Easton, having each consumed the pound’s worth of necessaries they had bought with their wages, they were again in precisely the same condition as when they started work - they had nothing.
 This process was repeated several times: for each week’s work the producers were paid their wages. They kept on working and spending all their earnings. The kind-hearted capitalist consumed twice as much as any one of them and his pile of wealth continually increased. In a little while - reckoning the little squares at their market value of one pound each - he was worth about one hundred pounds, and the working classes were still in the same condition as when they began, and were still tearing into their work as if their lives depended upon it.
 After a while the rest of the crowd began to laugh, and their merriment increased when the kind-hearted capitalist, just after having sold a pound’s worth of necessaries to each of his workers, suddenly took their tools - the Machinery of Production - the knives away from them, and informed them that as owing to Over Production all his store-houses were glutted with the necessaries of life, he had decided to close down the works.
 ‘Well, and wot the bloody ’ell are we to do now?’ demanded Philpot.
 ‘That’s not my business,’ replied the kind-hearted capitalist. ‘I’ve paid you your wages, and provided you with Plenty of Work for a long time past. I have no more work for you to do at present. Come round again in a few months’ time and I’ll see what I can do for you.’
 ‘But what about the necessaries of life?’ demanded Harlow. ‘We must have something to eat.’
 ‘Of course you must,’ replied the capitalist, affably; ‘and I shall be very pleased to sell you some.’
 ‘But we ain’t got no bloody money!’
 ‘Well, you can’t expect me to give you my goods for nothing! You didn’t work for me for nothing, you know. I paid you for your work and you should have saved something: you should have been thrifty like me. Look how I have got on by being thrifty!’
 The unemployed looked blankly at each other, but the rest of the crowd only laughed; and then the three unemployed began to abuse the kind-hearted Capitalist, demanding that he should give them some of the necessaries of life that he had piled up in his warehouses, or to be allowed to work and produce some more for their own needs; and even threatened to take some of the things by force if he did not comply with their demands. But the kind-hearted Capitalist told them not to be insolent, and spoke to them about honesty, and said if they were not careful he would have their faces battered in for them by the police, or if necessary he would call out the military and have them shot down like dogs, the same as he had done before at Featherstone and Belfast.
 ‘Of course,’ continued the kind-hearted capitalist, ‘if it were not for foreign competition I should be able to sell these things that you have made, and then I should be able to give you Plenty of Work again: but until I have sold them to somebody or other, or until I have used them myself, you will have to remain idle.’
 ‘Well, this takes the bloody biskit, don’t it?’ said Harlow.
 ‘The only thing as I can see for it,’ said Philpot mournfully, ‘is to ’ave a unemployed procession.’
 ‘That’s the idear,’ said Harlow, and the three began to march about the room in Indian file, singing:
  ‘We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo’ We’ve got no work to do-oo-oo! Just because we’ve been workin’ a dam sight too hard, Now we’ve got no work to do.’
 As they marched round, the crowd jeered at them and made offensive remarks. Crass said that anyone could see that they were a lot of lazy, drunken loafers who had never done a fair day’s work in their lives and never intended to.
 ‘We shan’t never get nothing like this, you know,’ said Philpot. ‘Let’s try the religious dodge.’
 ‘All right,’ agreed Harlow. ‘What shall we give ’em?’
 ‘I know!’ cried Philpot after a moment’s deliberation. ‘"Let my lower lights be burning." That always makes ’em part up.’
 The three unemployed accordingly resumed their march round the room, singing mournfully and imitating the usual whine of street-singers:
  ‘Trim your fee-bil lamp me brither-in, Some poor sail-er tempest torst, Strugglin’ ’ard to save the ’arb-er, Hin the dark-niss may be lorst, So let try lower lights be burning, Send ’er gleam acrost the wave, Some poor shipwrecked, struggling seaman, You may rescue, you may save.’
 ‘Kind frens,’ said Philpot, removing his cap and addressing the crowd, ‘we’re hall honest British workin’ men, but we’ve been hout of work for the last twenty years on account of foreign competition and over-production. We don’t come hout ’ere because we’re too lazy to work; it’s because we can’t get a job. If it wasn’t for foreign competition, the kind’earted Hinglish capitalists would be able to sell their goods and give us Plenty of Work, and if they could, I assure you that we should hall be perfectly willing and contented to go on workin’ our bloody guts out for the benefit of our masters for the rest of our lives. We’re quite willin’ to work: that’s hall we arst for - Plenty of Work - but as we can’t get it we’re forced to come out ’ere and arst you to spare a few coppers towards a crust of bread and a night’s lodgin’.’
 As Philpot held out his cap for subscriptions, some of them attempted to expectorate into it, but the more charitable put in pieces of cinder or dirt from the floor, and the kind-hearted capitalist was so affected by the sight of their misery that he gave them one of the sovereigns he had in us pocket: but as this was of no use to them they immediately returned it to him in exchange for one of the small squares of the necessaries of life, which they divided and greedily devoured. And when they had finished eating they gathered round the philanthropist and sang, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow,’ and afterwards Harlow suggested that they should ask him if he would allow them to elect him to Parliament.
 
 Chapter 22
 The Phrenologist
  The following morning - Saturday - the men went about their work in gloomy silence; there were but few attempts at conversation and no jests or singing. The tenor of the impending slaughter pervaded the house. Even those who were confident of being spared and kept on till the job was finished shared the general depression, not only out of sympathy for the doomed, but because they knew that a similar fate awaited themselves a little later on.
 They all waited anxiously for Nimrod to come, but hour after hour dragged slowly by and he did not arrive. At half past eleven some of those who had made up their minds that they were to be ‘stood still’ began to hope that the slaughter was to be deferred for a few days: after all, there was plenty of work still to be done: even if all hands were kept on, the job could scarcely be finished in another week. Anyhow, it would not be very long now before they would know one way or the other. If he did not come before twelve, it was all right: all the hands were paid by the hour and were therefore entitled to an hour’s notice.
 Easton and Harlow were working together on the staircase, finishing the doors and other woodwork with white enamel. The men had not been allowed to spend the time necessary to prepare this work in a proper manner, it had not been rubbed down smooth or properly filled up, and it had not had a sufficient number of coats of paint to make it solid white. Now that the glossy enamel was put on, the work looked rather rough and shady.
 ‘It ain’t ’arf all right, ain’t it?’ remarked Harlow, sarcastically, indicating the door he had just finished.
 Easton laughed: ’I can’t understand how people pass such work,’ he said.
 ‘Old Sweater did make some remark about it the other day,’ replied Harlow, ‘and I heard Misery tell ’im it was impossible to make a perfect job of such old doors.’
 ‘I believe that man’s the biggest liar Gord ever made,’ said Easton, an opinion in which Harlow entirely concurred.
 ‘I wonder what the time is?’ said the latter after a pause.
 ‘I don’t know exactly,’ replied Easton, ’but it can’t be far off twelve.’
 ‘’E don’t seem to be comin’, does ’e?’ Harlow continued.
 ‘No: and I shouldn’t be surprised if ’e didn’t turn up at all, now. P’raps ’e don’t mean to stop nobody today after all.’
 They spoke in hushed tones and glanced cautiously about them fearful of being heard or observed.
 ‘This is a bloody life, ain’t it?’ Harlow said, bitterly. ‘Workin’ our guts out like a lot of slaves for the benefit of other people, and then as soon as they’ve done with you, you’re chucked aside like a dirty rag.’
 ‘Yes: and I begin to think that a great deal of what Owen says is true. But for my part I can’t see ’Ow it’s ever goin’ to be altered, can you?’
 Blowed if I know, mate. But whether it can be altered or not, there’s one thing very certain; it won’t be done in our time.’
 Neither of them seemed to think that if the ‘alteration’ they spoke of were to be accomplished at all they themselves would have to help to bring it about.
 ‘I wonder what they’re doin’ about the venetian blinds?’ said Easton. ‘Is there anyone doin’ em yet?’
 ‘I don’t know; ain’t ’eard nothing about ’em since the boy took ’em to the shop.’
 There was quite a mystery about these blinds. About a month ago they were taken to the paint-shop down at the yard to be repainted and re-harnessed, and since then nothing had been heard of them by the men working at the ‘Cave’.
 ‘P’hap’s a couple of us will be sent there to do ’em next week,’ remarked Harlow.
 ‘P’hap’s so. Most likely they’ll ’ave to be done in a bloody ’urry at the last minute.’
 Presently Harlow - who was very anxious to know what time it was - went downstairs to ask Slyme. It was twenty minutes to twelve.
 From the window of the room where Slyme was papering, one could see into the front garden. Harlow paused a moment to watch Bundy and the labourers, who were still working in the trenches at the drains, and as he looked out he saw Hunter approaching the house. Harlow drew back hastily and returned to his work, and as he went he passed the word to the other men, warning them of the approach of Misery.
 Hunter entered ii his usual manner and, after crawling quietly about the house for about ten minutes, he went into the drawing room.
 ‘I see you’re putting the finishing touches on at last,’ he said.
 ‘Yes,’ replied Owen. ‘I’ve only got this bit of outlining to do now.’
 ‘Ah, well, it looks very nice, of course,’ said Misery in a voice of mourning, ‘but we’ve lost money over it. It’s taken you a week longer to do than we allowed for; you said three weeks and it’s taken you a month; and we only allowed for fifteen books of gold, but you’ve been and used twenty-three.’
 ‘You can hardly blame me for that, you know,’ answered Owen. ‘I could have got it done in the three weeks, but Mr Rushton told me not to hurry for the sake of a day or two, because he wanted a good job. He said he would rather lose a little over it than spoil it; and as for the extra gold, that was also his order.’
 ‘Well, I suppose it can’t be helped,’ whined Misery. ‘Anyhow, I’m very glad it’s done, because this kind of work don’t pay. We’ll ’ave you back on the brush on Monday morning; we want to get outside done next week if it keeps fine.’
 The ‘brush’ alluded to by Nimrod was the large ‘pound’ brush used in ordinary painting.
 Misery now began wandering about the house, in and out of the rooms, sometimes standing for several minutes silently watching the hands as they worked. As he watched them the men became nervous and awkward, each one dreading that he might be one of those who were to be paid off at one o’clock.
 At about five minutes to twelve Hunter went down to the paint-shop - the scullery - where Crass was mixing some colour, and getting ready some ‘empties’ to be taken to the yard.
 ‘I suppose the b—r’s gone to ask Crass which of us is the least use,’ whispered Harlow to Easton.
 ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was you and me, for two,’ replied the latter in the same tone. ‘You can’t trust Crass you know, for all ’e seems so friendly to our faces. You never know what ’e ses behind our backs.’
 ‘You may be sure it won’t be Sawkins or any of the other light-weights, because Nimrod won’t want to pay us sixpence ha’penny for painting guttering and rainpipes when THEY can do it near enough for fourpence ha’penny and fivepence. They won’t be able to do the sashes, though, will they?’
 ‘I don’t know so much about that,’ replied Easton. ‘Anything seems to be good enough for Hunter.’
 ‘Look out! Ere ’e comes!’ said Harlow, and they both relapsed into silence and busied themselves with their work. Misery stood watching them for some time without speaking, and then went out of the house. They crept cautiously to the window of a room that overlooked the garden and, peeping furtively out, they saw him standing on the brink of one of the trenches, moodily watching Bundy and his mates as they toiled at the drains. Then, to their surprise and relief, he turned and went out of the gate! They just caught sight of one of the wheels of his bicycle as he rode away.
 The slaughter was evidently to be put off until next week! It seemed too good to be true.
 ‘P’hap’s ’e’s left a message for some of us with Crass?’ suggested Easton. ‘I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s just possible.’
 ‘Well, I’m goin’ down to ask ’im,’ said Harlow, desperately. ‘We may as well know the worst at once.’
 He returned in a few minutes with the information that Hunter had decided not to stop anyone that day because he wanted to get the outside finished during the next week, if possible.
 The hands received this intelligence with mixed feelings, because although it left them safe for the present, it meant that nearly everybody would certainly be stopped next Saturday, if not before; whereas if a few had been sacked today it would have made it all the better for the rest. Still, this aspect of the business did not greatly interfere with the relief that they all felt at knowing that the immediate danger was over; and the fact that it was Saturday - pay-day - also served to revive their drooping spirits. They all felt pretty certain that Misery would return no more that day, and presently Harlow began to sing the old favourite. ‘Work! for the night is coming!’ the refrain of which was soon taken up by nearly everyone in the house:
  ‘Work! for the night is coming, Work in the morning hours. Work! for the night is coming, Work ’mid springing flowers.
  ‘Work while the dew is sparkling, Work in the noonday sun! Work! for the night is coming When man’s work is done!’
 When this hymn was finished, someone else, imitating the whine of a street-singer, started, ‘Oh, where is my wandering boy tonight?’ and then Harlow - who by some strange chance had a penny - took it out of his pocket and dropped it on the floor, the ringing of the coin being greeted with shouts of ‘Thank you, kind lady,’ from several of the singers. This little action of Harlow’s was the means of bringing a most extraordinary circumstance to light. Although it was Saturday morning, several of the others had pennies or half-pence! and at the conclusion of each verse they all followed Harlow’s example and the house resounded with the ringing of falling coins, cries of ‘Thank you, kind lady,’ ‘Thank you, sir,’ and ‘Gord bless you,’ mingled with shouts of laughter.
 ‘My wandering boy’ was followed by a choice selection of choruses of well-known music-hall songs, including ‘Goodbye, my Bluebell’, ‘The Honeysuckle and the Bee’, ‘I’ve got ’em!’ and ‘The Church Parade’, the whole being tastefully varied and interspersed with howls, shrieks, curses, catcalls, and downward explosions of flatulence.
 In the midst of the uproar Crass came upstairs.
 ‘’Ere!’ he shouted. ‘For Christ’s sake make less row! Suppose Nimrod was to come back!’
 ‘Oh, he ain’t comin’ any more today,’ said Harlow, recklessly.
 ‘Besides, what if ’e does come?’ cried Easton. ‘Oo cares for ’im?’
 ‘Well, we never know; and for that matter Rushton or Sweater might come at any minit.’
 With this, Crass went muttering back to the scullery, and the men relapsed into their usual silence.
 At ten minutes to one they all ceased work, put away their colours and locked up the house. There were a number of ‘empties’ to be taken away and left at the yard on their way to the office; these Crass divided amongst the others - carrying nothing himself - and then they all set out for the office to get their money, cracking jokes as they went along. Harlow and Easton enlivened the journey by coughing significantly whenever they met a young woman, and audibly making some complimentary remark about her personal appearance. If the girl smiled, each of them eagerly claimed to have ‘seen her first’, but if she appeared offended or ‘stuck up’, they suggested that she was cross-cut or that she had been eating vinegar with a fork. Now and then they kissed their hands affectionately to servant-girls whom they saw looking out of windows. Some of these girls laughed, others looked indignant, but whichever way they took it was equally amusing to Crass and the rest, who were like a crowd of boys just let out of school.
 It will be remembered that there was a back door to Rushton’s office; in this door was a small sliding panel or trap-door with a little shelf at the bottom. The men stood in the road on the pavement outside the closed door, their money being passed out to them through the sliding panel. As there was no shelter, when it rained they occasionally got wet through while waiting to be paid. With some firms it is customary to call out the names of the men and pay them in order of seniority or ability, but there was no such system here; the man who got to the aperture first was paid first, and so on. The result was that there was always a sort of miniature ‘Battle of Life’, the men pushing and struggling against each other as if their lives depended upon their being paid by a certain time.
 On the ledge of the little window through which their money was passed there was always a Hospital collection-box. Every man put either a penny or twopence into this box. Of course, it was not compulsory to do so, but they all did, because they felt that any man who omitted to contribute might be ‘marked’. They did not all agree with contributing to the Hospital, for several reasons. They knew that the doctors at the Hospital made a practice of using the free patients to make experiments upon, and they also knew that the so-called ‘free’ patients who contribute so very largely directly to the maintenance of such institutions, get scant consideration when they apply for the ‘free’ treatment, and are plainly given to understand that they are receiving ‘charity’. Some of the men thought that, considering the extent to which they contributed, they should be entitled to attention as a right.
 After receiving their wages, Crass, Easton, Bundy, Philpot, Harlow and a few others adjourned to the Cricketers for a drink. Owen went away alone, and Slyme also went on by himself. There was no use waiting for Easton to come out of the public house, because there was no knowing how long he would be; he might stay half an hour or two hours.
 On his way home, in accordance with his usual custom, Slyme called at the Post Office to put some of his wages in the bank. Like most other ‘Christians’, he believed in taking thought for the morrow, what he should eat and drink and wherewithal he was to be clothed. He thought it wise to layup for himself as much treasure upon earth as possible. The fact that Jesus said that His disciples were not to do these things made no more difference to Slyme’s conduct than it does to the conduct of any other ‘Christian’. They are all agreed that when Jesus said this He meant something else: and all the other inconvenient things that Jesus said are disposed of in the same way. For instance, these ‘disciples’ assure us that when Jesus said, ‘Resist not evil’, ‘If a man smite thee upon he right cheek turn unto him also the left’, He really meant ’Turn on to him a Maxim gun; disembowel him with a bayonet or batter in his skull with the butt end of a rifle!’ When He said, ‘If one take thy coat, give him thy cloak also,’ the ‘Christians’ say that what He really meant was: ‘If one take thy coat, give him six months’ hard labour. A few of the followers of Jesus admit that He really did mean just what He said, but they say that the world would never be able to go on if they followed out His teachings! That is true. It is probably the effect that Jesus intended His teachings to produce. It is altogether improbable that He wished the world to continue along its present lines. But, if these pretended followers really think - as they say that they do - that the teachings of Jesus are ridiculous and impracticable, why continue the hypocritical farce of calling themselves ‘Christians’ when they don’t really believe in or follow Him at all?
 As Jesus himself pointed out, there’s no sense in calling Him ‘Lord, Lord’ when they do not the things that He said.
 This banking transaction finished, Slyme resumed his homeward way, stopping only to purchase some sweets at a confectioner’s. He spent a whole sixpence at once in this shop on a glass jar of sweets for the baby.
 Ruth was not surprised when she saw him come in alone; it was the usual thing since Easton had become so friendly with Crass.
 She made no reference to his absence, but Slyme noticed with secret chagrin that she was annoyed and disappointed. She was just finishing scrubbing the kitchen floor and little Freddie was sitting up in a baby’s high chair that had a little shelf or table fixed in front of it. To keep him amused while she did her work, Ruth had given him a piece of bread and raspberry jam, which the child had rubbed all over his face and into his scalp, evidently being under the impression that it was something for the improvement of the complexion, or a cure for baldness. He now looked as if he had been in a fight or a railway accident. The child hailed the arrival of Slyme with enthusiasm, being so overcome with emotion that he began to shed tears, and was only pacified when the man gave him the jar of sweets and took him out of the chair.
 Slyme’s presence in the house had not proved so irksome as Easton and Ruth had dreaded it would be. Indeed, at first, he made a point of retiring to his own room after tea every evening, until they invited him to stay downstairs in the kitchen. Nearly every Wednesday and Saturday he went to a meeting, or an open-air preaching, when the weather permitted, for he was one of a little zealous band of people connected with the Shining Light Chapel who carried on the ‘open-air’ work all the year round. After a while, the Eastons not only became reconciled to his presence in the house, but were even glad of it. Ruth especially would often have been very lonely if he had not been there, for it had lately become Easton’s custom to spend a few evenings every week with Crass at the Cricketers.
 When at home Slyme passed his time playing a mandolin or making fretwork photo frames. Ruth had the baby’s photograph taken a few weeks after Slyme came, and the frame he made for it was now one of the ornaments of the sitting-room. The instinctive, unreasoning aversion she had at first felt for him had passed away. In a quiet, unobtrusive manner he did her so many little services that she found it impossible to dislike him. At first, she used.to address him as ‘Mr’ but after a time she fell naturally into Easton’s practice of calling him by his first name.
 As for the baby, he made no secret of his affection for the lodger, who nursed and played with him for hours at a stretch.
 ‘I’ll serve your dinner now, Alf,’ said Ruth when she had finished scrubbing the floor, ‘but I’ll wait for mine for a little while. Will may come’
 ‘I’m in no hurry,’ replied Slyme. ‘I’ll go and have a wash; he may be here then.’
 As he spoke, Slyme - who had been sitting by the fire nursing the baby - who was trying to swallow the jar of sweets - put the child back into the high chair, giving him one of the sticks of sweet out of the jar to keep him quiet; and went upstairs to his own room. He came down again in about a quarter of an hour, and Ruth proceeded to serve his dinner, for Easton was still absent.
 ‘If I was you, I wouldn’t wait for Will,’ said Slyme, ‘he may not come for another hour or two. It’s after two o’clock now, and I’m sure you must be hungry.’
 ‘I suppose I may as well,’ replied Ruth, hesitatingly. ‘He’ll most likely get some bread and cheese at the "Cricketers", same as he did last Saturday.’
 ‘Almost sure to,’ responded Slyme.
 The baby had had his face washed while Slyme was upstairs. Directly he saw his mother eating he threw away the sugar-stick and began to cry, holding out his arms to her. She had to take him on her lap whilst she ate her dinner, and feed him with pieces from her plate.
 Slyme talked all the time, principally about the child. He was very fond of children, he said, and always got on well with them, but he had really never known such an intelligent child - for his age - as Freddie. His fellow-workmen would have been astonished had they been present to hear him talking about the shape of the baby’s head. They would have been astonished at the amount of knowledge he appeared to possess of the science of Phrenology. Ruth, at any rate, thought he was very clever.
 After a time the child began to grow fretful and refused to eat; when his mother gave him a fresh piece of sugar-stick out of the jar he threw it peevishly on the floor and began to whimper, rubbing his face against his mother’s bosom and pulling at her dress with his hands. When Slyme first came Ruth had made a practice of withdrawing from the room if he happened to be present when she wanted to nurse the child, but lately she had been less sensitive. She was sitting with her back to the window and she partly covered the baby’s face with a light shawl that she wore. By the time they finished dinner the child had dozed off to sleep. Slyme got up from his chair and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at them; presently he spoke, referring, of course, to the baby:
 ‘He’s very like you, isn’t he?’
 ‘Yes,’ replied Ruth. ‘Everyone says he takes after me.’
 Slyme moved a little closer, bending down to look at the slumbering infant.
 ‘You know, at first I thought he was a girl,’ he continued after a pause. ‘He seems almost too pretty for a boy, doesn’t he?’
 Ruth smiled. ‘People always take him for a girl at first,’ she said. ‘Yesterday I took him with me to the Monopole Stores to buy some things, and the manager would hardly believe it wasn’t a girl.’
 The man reached out his hand and stroked the baby’s face.
 Although Slyme’s behaviour had hitherto always been very correct, yet there was occasionally an indefinable something in his manner when they were alone that made Ruth feel conscious and embarrassed. Now, as she glanced up at him and saw the expression on his face she crimsoned with confusion and hastily lowered her eyes without replying to his last remark. He did not speak again either, and they remained for several minutes in silence, as if spellbound, Ruth oppressed with instinctive dread, and Slyme scarcely less agitated, his face flushed and his heart beating wildly. He trembled as he stood over her, hesitating and afraid.
 And then the silence was suddenly broken by the creaking and clanging of the front gate, heralding the tardy coming of Easton. Slyme went out into the scullery and, taking down the blacking brushes from the shelf, began cleaning his boots.
 It was plain from Easton’s appearance and manner that he had been drinking, but Ruth did not reproach him in any way; on the contrary, she seemed almost feverishly anxious to attend to his comfort.
 When Slyme finished cleaning his boots he went upstairs to his room, receiving a careless greeting from Easton as he passed through the kitchen. He felt nervous and apprehensive that Ruth might say something to Easton, and was not quite able to reassure himself with the reflection that, after all, there was nothing to tell. As for Ruth, she had to postpone the execution of her hastily formed resolution to tell her husband of Slyme’s strange behaviour, for Easton fell asleep in his chair before he had finished his dinner, and she had some difficulty in waking him sufficiently to persuade him to go upstairs to bed, where he remained until tea-time. Probably he would not have come down even then if it had not been for the fact that he had made an appointment to meet Crass at the Cricketers.
 Whilst Easton was asleep, Slyme had been downstairs in the kitchen, making a fretwork frame. He played with Freddie while Ruth prepared the tea, and he appeared to her to be so unconscious of having done anything unusual that she began to think that she must have been mistaken in imagining that he had intended anything wrong.
 After tea, Slyme put on his best clothes to go to his usual ‘open-air’ meeting. As a rule Easton and Ruth went out marketing together every Saturday night, but this evening he could not wait for her because he had promised to meet Crass at seven o’clock; so he arranged to see her down town at eight.
 
 Chapter 23
 The ‘Open-air’
  During the last few weeks ever since he had been engaged on the decoration of the drawing-room, Owen had been so absorbed in his work that he had no time for other things. Of course, all he was paid for was the time he actually worked, but really every waking moment of his time was given to the task. Now that it was finished he felt something like one aroused from a dream to the stern realities and terrors of life. By the end of next week, the inside of the house and part of the outside would be finished, and as far as he knew the firm had nothing else to do at present. Most of the other employers in the town were in the same plight, and it would be of no use to apply even to such of them as had something to do, for they were not likely to take on a fresh man while some of their regular hands were idle.
 For the last month he had forgotten that he was ill; he had forgotten that when the work at ‘The Cave’ was finished he would have to stand off with the rest of the hands. In brief, he had forgotten for the time being that, like the majority of his fellow workmen, he was on the brink of destitution, and that a few weeks of unemployment or idleness meant starvation. As far as illness was concerned, he was even worse off than most others, for the greater number of them were members of some sick benefit club, but Owen’s ill-health rendered him ineligible for membership of such societies.
 As he walked homewards after being paid, feeling unutterably depressed and weary, he began once more to think of the future; and the more he thought of it the more dreadful it appeared. Even looking at it in the best possible light - supposing he did not fall too ill to work, or lose his employment from some other cause - what was there to live for? He had been working all this week. These few coins that he held in his hand were the result, and he laughed bitterly as he thought of all they had to try to do with this money, and of all that would have to be left undone.
 As he turned the corner of Kerk Street he saw Frankie coming to meet him, and the boy catching sight of him at the same moment began running and leapt into his arms with a joyous whoop.
 ‘Mother told me to tell you to buy something for dinner before you come home, because there’s nothing in the house.’
 ‘Did she tell you what I was to get?’
 She did tell me something, but I forget what it was. But I know she said to get anything you like if you couldn’t get what she told me to tell you.’
 ‘Well, we’ll go and see what we can find,’ said Owen.
 ‘If I were you, I’d get a tin of salmon or some eggs and bacon,’ suggested Frankie as he skipped along holding his father’s hand. ‘We don’t want anything that’s a lot of trouble to cook, you know, because Mum’s not very well today.’
 ‘Is she up?’
 She’s been up all the morning, but she’s lying down now. We’ve done all the work, though. While she was making the beds I started washing up the cups and saucers without telling her, but when she came in and saw what a mess I’d made on the floor, she had to stop me doing it, and she had to change nearly all my clothes as well, because I was almost wet through; but I managed the wiping up all right when she did the washing, and I swept the passage and put all my things tidy and made the cat’s bed. And that just reminds me: will you please give me my penny now? I promised the cat that I’d bring him back some meat.’
 Owen complied with the boy’s request, and while the latter went to the butcher’s for the meat, Owen went into the grocer’s to get something for dinner, it being arranged that they were to meet again at the corner of the street. Owen was at the appointed place first and after waiting some time and seeing no sign of the boy he decided to go towards the butcher’s to meet him. When he came in sight of the shop he saw the boy standing outside in earnest conversation with the butcher, a jolly-looking stoutly built man, with a very red face. Owen perceived at once that the child was trying to explain something, because Frankie had a habit of holding his head sideways and supplementing his speech by spreading out his fingers and making quaint gestures with his hands whenever he found it difficult to make himself understood. The boy was doing this now, waving one hand about with the fingers and thumb extended wide, and with the other flourishing a paper parcel which evidently contained the pieces of meat . Presently the man laughed heartily and after shaking hands with Frankie went into the shop to attend to a customer, and Frankie rejoined his father.
 ‘That butcher’s a very decent sort of chap, you know, Dad,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t take a penny for the meat.’
 ‘Is that what you were talking to him about?’
 No; we were talking about Socialism. You see, this is the second time he wouldn’t take the money, and the first time he did it I thought he must be a Socialist, but I didn’t ask him then. But when he did it again this time I asked him if he was. So he said, No. He said he wasn’t quite mad yet. So I said, "If you think that Socialists are all mad, you’re very much mistaken, because I’m a Socialist myself, and I’m quite sure I’M not mad." So he said he knew I was all right, but he didn’t understand anything about Socialism himself - only that it meant sharing out all the money so that everyone could have the same. So then I told him that’s not Socialism at all! And when I explained it to him properly and advised him to be one, he said he’d think about it. So I said if he’d only do that he’d be sure to change over to our side; and then he laughed and promised to let me know next time he sees me, and I promised to lend him some literature. You won’t mind, will you, Dad?’
 ‘Of course not; when we get home we’ll have a look through what we’ve got and you can take him some of them.’
 ‘I know!’ cried Frankie eagerly. ‘The two very best of all. Happy Britain and England for the English.’
 He knew that these were ‘two of the best’ because he had often heard his father and mother say so, and he had noticed that whenever a Socialist friend came to visit them, he was also of the same opinion.
 
 As a rule on Saturday evenings they all three went out together to do the marketing, but on this occasion, in consequence of Nora being unwell, Owen and Frankie went by themselves. The frequent recurrence of his wife’s illness served to increase Owen’s pessimism with regard to the future, and the fact that he was unable to procure for her the comforts she needed was not calculated to dispel the depression that filled his mind as he reflected that there was no hope of better times.
 In the majority of cases, for a workman there is no hope of advancement. After he has learnt his trade and become a ‘journeyman’ all progress ceases. He is at the goal. After he has been working ten or twenty years he commands no more than he did at first - a bare living wage - sufficient money to purchase fuel to keep the human machine working. As he grows older he will have to be content with even less; and all the time he holds his employment at the caprice and by the favour of his masters, who regard him merely as a piece of mechanism that enables them to accumulate money - a thing which they are justified in casting aside as soon as it becomes unprofitable. And the workman must not only be an efficient money-producing machine, but he must also be the servile subject of his masters. If he is not abjectly civil and humble, if he will not submit tamely to insult, indignity, and every form of contemptuous treatment that occasion makes possible, he can be dismissed, and replaced in a moment by one of the crowd of unemployed who are always waiting for his job. This is the status of the majority of the ‘Heirs of all the ages’ under the present system.
 As he walked through the crowded streets holding Frankie by the hand, Owen thought that to voluntarily continue to live such a life as this betokened a degraded mind. To allow one’s child to grow up to suffer it in turn was an act of callous, criminal cruelty.
 In this matter he held different opinions from most of his fellow workmen. The greater number of them were quite willing and content that their children should be made into beasts of burden for the benefit of other people. As he looked down upon the little, frail figure trotting along by his side, Owen thought for the thousandth time that it would be far better for the child to die now: he would never be fit to be a soldier in the ferocious Christian Battle of Life.
 Then he remembered Nora. Although she was always brave, and never complained, he knew that her life was one of almost incessant physical suffering; and as for himself he was tired and sick of it all. He had been working like a slave all his life and there was nothing to show for it - there never would be anything to show for it. He thought of the man who had killed his wife and children. The jury had returned the usual verdict, ‘Temporary Insanity’. It never seemed to occur to these people that the truth was that to continue to suffer hopelessly like this was evidence of permanent insanity.
 But supposing that bodily death was not the end. Suppose there was some kind of a God? If there were, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that the Being who was capable of creating such a world as this and who seemed so callously indifferent to the unhappiness of His creatures, would also be capable of devising and creating the other Hell that most people believed in.
 Although it was December the evening was mild and clear. The full moon deluged the town with silvery light, and the cloudless sky was jewelled with myriads of glittering stars.
 Looking out into the unfathomable infinity of space, Owen wondered what manner of Being or Power it was that had originated and sustained all this? Considered as an explanation of the existence of the universe, the orthodox Christian religion was too absurd to merit a second thought. But then, every other conceivable hypothesis was also - ultimately - unsatisfactory and even ridiculous. To believe that the universe as it is now has existed from all eternity without any Cause is surely ridiculous. But to say that it was created by a Being who existed without a Cause from all eternity is equally ridiculous. In fact, it was only postponing the difficulty one stage. Evolution was not more satisfactory, because although it was undoubtedly true as far as it went, it only went part of the way, leaving the great question still unanswered by assuming the existence - in the beginning - of the elements of matter, without a cause! The question remained unanswered because it was unanswerable. Regarding this problem man was but -
  ‘An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light And with no language but a cry.’
 All the same, it did not follow, because one could not explain the mystery oneself, that it was right to try to believe an unreasonable explanation offered by someone else.
 But although he reasoned like this, Owen could not help longing for something to believe, for some hope for the future; something to compensate for the unhappiness of the present. In one sense, he thought, how good it would be if Christianity were true, and after all the sorrow there was to be an eternity of happiness such as it had never entered into the heart of man to conceive? If only that were true, nothing else would matter. How contemptible and insignificant the very worst that could happen here would be if one knew that this life was only a short journey that was to terminate at the beginning of an eternity of joy? But no one really believed this; and as for those who pretended to do so - their lives showed that they did not believe it at all. Their greed and inhumanity - their ferocious determination to secure for themselves the good things of THIS world - were conclusive proofs of their hypocrisy and infidelity.
 ‘Dad,’ said Frankie, suddenly, ’let’s go over and hear what that man’s saying. ’ He pointed across the way to where - a little distance back from the main road, just round the corner of a side street - a group of people were standing encircling a large lantern fixed on the top of a pole about seven feet high, which was being held by one of the men. A bright light was burning inside this lantern and on the pane of white, obscured glass which formed the sides, visible from where Owen and Frankie were standing, was written in bold plain letters that were readable even at that distance, the text:
  ‘Be not deceived: God is not mocked!’
 The man whose voice had attracted Frankie’s attention was reading out a verse of a hymn:
  ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say, Behold, I freely give, The living water, thirsty one, Stoop down and drink, and live. I came to Jesus and I drank Of that life giving stream, My thirst was quenched, My soul revived, And now I live in Him.’
 The individual who gave out this hymn was a tall, thin man whose clothes hung loosely on the angles of his round-shouldered, bony form. His long, thin legs - about which the baggy trousers hung in ungraceful folds - were slightly knock-kneed, and terminated in large, fiat feet. His arms were very long even for such a tall man, and the huge, bony hands were gnarled and knotted. Regardless of the season, he had removed his bowler hat, revealing his forehead, which was high, flat and narrow. His nose was a large, fleshy, hawklike beak, and from the side of each nostril a deep indentation extended downwards until it disappeared in the drooping moustache that concealed his mouth when he was not speaking, but the vast extent of which was perceptible now as he opened it to call out the words of the hymn. His chin was large and extraordinarily long: the eyes were pale blue, very small and close together, surmounted by spare, light-coloured, almost invisible eyebrows with a deep vertical cleft between them over the nose. His head - covered with thick, coarse brown hair - was very large, especially at the back; the ears were small and laid close to the head. If one were to make a full-face drawing of his cadaverous visage, it would be found that the outline resembled that of the lid of a coffin.
 As Owen and Frankie drew near, the boy tugged at his father’s hand and whispered: ‘Dad! that’s the teacher at the Sunday School where I went that day with Charley and Elsie.’
 Owen looked quickly and saw that it was Hunter.
 As Hunter ceased reading out the words of the hymn, the little company of evangelists began to sing, accompanied by the strains of a small but peculiarly sweet-toned organ. A few persons in the crowd joined in, the words being familiar to them. During the singing their faces were a study, they all looked so profoundly solemn and miserable, as if they were a gang of condemned criminals waiting to be led forth to execution. The great number of the people standing around appeared to be listening more out of idle curiosity than anything else, and two well-dressed young men - evidently strangers and visitors to the town - amused themselves by making audible remarks about the texts on the lantern. There was also a shabbily dressed, semi-drunken man in a battered bowler hat who stood on the inner edge of the crowd, almost in the ring itself, with folded arms and an expression of scorn. He had a very thin, pale face with a large, high-bridged nose, and bore a striking resemblance to the First Duke of Wellington.
 As the singing proceeded, the scornful expression faded from the visage of the Semi-drunk, and he not only joined in, but unfolded his arms and began waving them about as if he were conducting the music.
 By the time the singing was over a considerable crowd had gathered, and then one of the evangelists, the same man who had given out the hymn, stepped into the middle of the ring. He had evidently been offended by the unseemly conduct of the two well-dressed young men, for after a preliminary glance round upon the crowd, he fixed his gaze upon the pair, and immediately launched out upon a long tirade against what he called ‘Infidelity’. Then, having heartily denounced all those who - as he put it - ‘refused’ to believe, he proceeded to ridicule those half-and-half believers, who, while professing to believe the Bible, rejected the doctrine of Hell. That the existence of a place of eternal torture is taught in the Bible, he tried to prove by a long succession of texts. As he proceeded he became very excited, and the contemptuous laughter of the two unbelievers seemed to make him worse. He shouted and raved, literally foaming at the mouth and glaring in a frenzied manner around upon the faces of the crowd.
 ‘There is a Hell!’ he shouted. ‘And understand this clearly - "The wicked shall be turned into hell" - "He that believeth not shall be damned."’
 ‘Well, then, you’ll stand a very good chance of being damned also,’ exclaimed one of the two young men.
 ‘’Ow do you make it out?’ demanded the preacher, wiping the froth from his lips and the perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.
 ‘Why, because you don’t believe the Bible yourselves.’
 Nimrod and the other evangelists laughed, and looked pityingly at the young man.
 ‘Ah, my dear brother,’ said Misery. ‘That’s your delusion. I thank God I do believe it, every word!’
 ‘Amen,’ fervently ejaculated Slyme and several of the other disciples.
 ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ replied the other. ‘And I can prove you don’t.’
 ‘Prove it, then,’ said Nimrod.
 ‘Read out the 17th and 18th verses of the XVIth chapter of Mark,’ said the disturber of the meeting. The crowd began to close in on the centre, the better to hear the dispute. Misery, standing close to the lantern, found the verse mentioned and read aloud as follows:
 ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’
 ‘Well, you can’t heal the sick, neither can you speak new languages or cast out devils: but perhaps you can drink deadly things without suffering harm.’ The speaker here suddenly drew from his waistcoat pocket a small glass bottle and held it out towards Misery, who shrank from it with horror as he continued: ‘I have here a most deadly poison. There is in this bottle sufficient strychnine to kill a dozen unbelievers. Drink it! And if it doesn’t harm you, we’ll know that you really are a believer and that what you believe is the truth!’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear!’ said the Semi-drunk, who had listened to the progress of the argument with great interest. ‘’Ear, ’ear! That’s fair enough. Git it acrost yer chest.’
 Some of the people in the crowd began to laugh, and voices were heard from several quarters calling upon Misery to drink the strychnine.
 ‘Now, if you’ll allow me, I’ll explain to you what that there verse means,’ said Hunter. ‘If you read it carefully - WITH the context -’
 ‘I don’t want you to tell me what it means,’ interrupted the other. ‘I am able to read for myself. Whatever you may say, or pretend to think it means, I know what it says.’
 ‘Hear, Hear,’ shouted several voices, and angry cries of ‘Why don’t you drink the poison?’ began to be heard from the outskirts of the crowd.
 ‘Are you going to drink it or not?’ demanded the man with the bottle.
 ‘No! I’m not such a fool!’ retorted Misery, fiercely, and a loud shout of laughter broke from the crowd.’
 ‘P’haps some of the other "believers" would like to,’ said the young man sneeringly, looking round upon the disciples. As no one seemed desirous of availing himself of this offer, the man returned the bottle regretfully to his pocket.
 ‘I suppose,’ said Misery, regarding the owner of the strychnine with a sneer, ‘I suppose you’re one of them there hired critics wot’s goin’ about the country doin’ the Devil’s work?’
 ‘Wot I wants to know is this ’ere,’ said the Semi-drunk, suddenly advancing into the middle of the ring and speaking in a loud voice. ‘Where did Cain get ’is wife from?’
 ‘Don’t answer ’im, Brother ’Unter,’ said Mr Didlum, one of the disciples. This was rather an unnecessary piece of advice, because Misery did not know the answer.
 An individual in a long black garment - the ‘minister’ - now whispered something to Miss Didlum, who was seated at the organ, whereupon she began to play, and the ‘believers’ began to sing, as loud as they could so as to drown the voices of the disturbers of the meeting, a song called ‘Oh, that will be Glory for me!’
 After this hymn the ‘minister’ invited a shabbily dressed ‘brother’ - a working-man member of the PSA, to say a ‘few words’, and the latter accordingly stepped into the centre of the ring and held forth as follows:
 ‘My dear frens, I thank Gord tonight that I can stand ’ere tonight, hout in the hopen hair and tell hall you dear people tonight of hall wot’s been done for ME. Ho my dear frens hi ham so glad tonight as I can stand ’ere tonight and say as hall my sins is hunder the blood tonight and wot ’E’s done for me ’E can do for you tonight. If you’ll honly do as I done and just acknowledge yourself a lost sinner -’
 ‘Yes! that’s the honly way!’ shouted Nimrod.
 ‘Amen,’ cried all the other believers.
 ‘- If you’ll honly come to ’im tonight in the same way as I done you’ll see wot ’E’s done for me ’E can do for you. Ho my dear frens, don’t go puttin’ it orf from day to day like a door turnin’ on its ’inges, don’t put orf to some more convenient time because you may never ’ave another chance. ’Im that bein’ orfen reproved ’ardeneth ’is neck shall be suddenly cut orf and that without remedy. Ho come to ’im tonight, for ’Is name’s sake and to ’Im we’ll give hall the glory. Amen.’
 ‘Amen,’ said the believers, fervently, and then the man who was dressed in the long garment entreated all those who were not yet true believers - and doers - of the word to join earnestly and MEANINGLY in the singing of the closing hymn, which he was about to read out to them.
 The Semi-drunk obligingly conducted as before, and the crowd faded away with the last notes of the music.
 
 Chapter 24
 Ruth
  As has already been stated, hitherto Slyme had passed the greater number of his evenings at home, but during the following three weeks a change took place in his habits in this respect. He now went out nearly every night and did not return until after ten o’clock. On meeting nights he always changed his attire, dressing himself as on Sundays, but on the other occasions he went out in his week-day clothes. Ruth often wondered where he went on those nights, but he never volunteered the information and she never asked him.
 Easton had chummed up with a lot of the regular customers at the ‘Cricketers’, where he now spent most of his spare time, drinking beer, telling yarns or playing shove-ha’penny or hooks and rings. When he had no cash the Old Dear gave him credit until Saturday. At first, the place had not had much attraction for him, and he really went there only for the purpose of ‘keeping in’ with Crass: but after a time he found it a very congenial way of passing his evenings ...
 One evening, Ruth saw Slyme meet Crass as if by appointment and as the two men went away together she returned to her housework wondering what it meant.
 Meantime, Crass and Slyme proceeded on their way down town. It was about half past six o’clock: the shops and streets were brilliantly lighted, and as they went along they saw numerous groups of men talking together in a listless way. Most of them were artisans and labourers out of employment and evidently in no great hurry to go home. Some of them had neither tea nor fire to go to, and stayed away from home as long as possible so as not to be compelled to look upon the misery of those who were waiting for them there. Others hung about hoping against all probability that they might even yet - although it was so late - hear of some job to be started somewhere or other.
 As they passed one of these groups they recognized and nodded to Newman and old Jack Linden, and the former left the others and came up to Crass and Slyme, who did not pause, so Newman walked along with them.
 ‘Anything fresh in, Bob?’ he asked.
 ‘No; we ain’t got ’ardly anything,’ replied Crass. ‘I reckon we shall finish up at "The Cave" next week, and then I suppose we shall all be stood orf. We’ve got several plumbers on, and I believe there’s a little gas-fitting work in, but next to nothing in our line.’
 ‘I suppose you don’t know of any other firm what’s got anything?’
 ‘No, I don’t, mate. Between you and me, I don’t think any of ’em has; they’re all in about the same fix.’
 ‘I’ve not done anything since I left, you know,’ said Newman, ‘and we’ve just about got as far as we can get, at home.’
 Slyme and Crass said nothing in reply to this. They wished that Newman would take himself off, because they did not want him to know where they were going.
 However, Newman continued to accompany them and an awkward silence succeeded. He seemed to wish to say something more, and they both guessed what it was. So they walked along as rapidly as possible in order not to give him any encouragement. At last Newman blurted out:
 ‘I suppose - you don’t happen - either of you - to have a tanner you could lend me? I’ll let you have it back - when I get a job.’
 ‘I ain’t mate,’ replied Crass. ‘I’m sorry; if I ’ad one on me, you should ’ave it, with pleasure.’
 Slyme also expressed his regret that he had no money with him, and at the corner of the next street Newman - ashamed of having asked - wished them ‘good night’ and went away.
 Slyme and Crass hurried along and presently arrived at Rushton & Co.’s shop. The windows were lit up with electric light, displaying an assortment of wallpapers, gas and electric light fittings, glass shades, globes, tins of enamel, paint and varnish. Several framed show-cards - ‘Estimates Free’, ‘First class work only, at moderate charges’, ‘Only First Class Workmen Employed’ and several others of the same type. On one side wall of the window was a large shield-shaped board covered with black velvet on which a number of brass fittings for coffins were arranged. The shield was on an oak mount with the inscription: ‘Funerals conducted on modern principles’.
 Slyme waited outside while Crass went in. Mr Budd, the shopman, was down at the far end near the glazed partition which separated Mr Rushton’s office from the front shop. As Crass entered, Budd - who was a pale-faced, unhealthy-looking, undersized youth about twenty years of age - looked round and, with a grimace, motioned him to walk softly . Crass paused, wondering what the other meant; but the shopman beckoned him to advance, grinning and winking and jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the office. Crass hesitated, fearing that possibly the miserable Budd had gone - or been driven - out of his mind; but as the latter continued to beckon and grin and point towards the office Crass screwed up his courage and followed him behind one of the showcases, and applying his eye to a crack in the woodwork of the partition indicated by Budd, he could see Mr Rushton in the act of kissing and embracing Miss Wade, the young lady clerk. Crass watched them for some time and then whispered to Budd to call Slyme, and when the latter came they all three took turns at peeping through the crack in the partition.
 When they had looked their fill they came out from behind the showcase, almost bursting with suppressed merriment. Budd reached down a key from where it was hanging on a hook on the wall and gave it to Crass and the two resumed their interrupted journey. But before they had proceeded a dozen yards from the shop, they were accosted by a short, elderly man with grey hair and a beard. This man looked about sixty-five years of age, and was very shabbily dressed. The ends of the sleeves of his coat were frayed and ragged, and the elbows were worn threadbare. His boots were patched, broken, and down at heel, and the knees and bottoms of the legs of his trousers were in the same condition as the sleeves of his coat. This man’s name was Latham; he was a venetian blind maker and repairer. With his son, he was supposed to be ‘in business’ on his own account, but as most of their work was done for ‘the trade’, that is, for such firms as Rushton & Co., they would be more correctly described as men who did piecework at home.
 He had been ‘in business’ - as he called it - for about forty years working, working, always working; and ever since his son became old enough to labour he had helped his father in the philanthropic task of manufacturing profits for the sweaters who employed them. They had been so busy running after work, and working for the benefit of others, that they had overlooked the fact that they were only earning a bare living for themselves and now, after forty years’ hard labour, the old man was clothed in rags and on the verge of destitution.
 ‘Is Rushton there?’ he asked.
 ‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Crass, attempting to pass on; but the old man detained him.
 ‘He promised to let us know about them blinds for "The Cave". We gave ’im a price for ’em about a month ago. In fact, we gave ’im two prices, because he said the first was too high. Five and six a set I asked ’im! take ’em right through the ’ole ’ouse! one with another - big and little. Two coats of paint, and new tapes and cords. That wasn’t too much, was it?’
 ‘No,’ said Crass, walking on; ‘that was cheap enough!’
 HE said it was too much,’ continued Latham. ‘Said as ’e could get ’em done cheaper! But I say as no one can’t do it and make a living.’
 As he walked along, talking, between Crass and Slyme, the old man became very excited.
 ‘But we ’adn’t nothing to do to speak of, so my son told ’im we’d do ’em for five bob a set, and ’e said ’e’d let us know, but we ain’t ’eard nothing from ’im yet, so I thought I’d try and see ’im tonight.’
 Well, you’ll find ’im in there now,’ said Slyme with a peculiar look, and walking faster. ‘Good night.’
 ‘I won’t take ’em on for no less!’ cried the old man as he turned back. I’ve got my livin’ to get, and my son’s got ’is wife and little ’uns to keep. We can’t work for nothing!’
 ‘Certainly not,’ said Crass, glad to get away at last. ‘Good night, and good luck to you.’
 As soon as they were out of hearing, they both burst out laughing at the old man’s vehemence.
 ‘Seemed quite upset about it,’ said Slyme; and they laughed again.
 They now left the main road and pursued their way through a number of badly lighted, mean-looking streets, and finally turning down a kind of alley, arrived at their destination. On one side of this street was a row of small houses; facing these were a number of buildings of a miscellaneous description - sheds and stables; and beyond these a plot of waste ground on which could be seen, looming weirdly through the dusk, a number of empty carts and waggons with their shafts resting on the ground or reared up into the air. Threading their way carefully through these and avoiding as much as possible the mud, pools of water, and rubbish which covered the ground, they arrived at a large gate fastened with a padlock. Applying the key, Crass swung back the gate and they found themselves in a large yard filled with building materials and plant, ladders, huge tressels, planks and beams of wood, hand-carts, and wheelbarrows, heaps of sand and mortar and innumerable other things that assumed strange fantastic shapes in the semi-darkness. Crates and packing cases, lengths of iron guttering and rain-pipes, old door-frames and other woodwork that had been taken from buildings where alterations had been made. And over all these things, a gloomy, indistinct and shapeless mass, rose the buildings and sheds that comprised Rushton & Co.’s workshop.
 Crass struck a match, and Slyme, stooping down, drew a key from a crevice in the wall near one of the doors, which he unlocked, and they entered. Crass struck another match and lit the gas at the jointed bracket fixed to the wall. This was the paint-shop. At one end was a fireplace without a grate but with an iron bar fixed across the blackened chimney for the purpose of suspending pails or pots over the fire, which was usually made of wood on the hearthstone. All round the walls of the shop - which had once been whitewashed, but were now covered with smears of paint of every colour where the men had ‘rubbed out’ their brushes - were rows of shelves with kegs of paint upon them. In front of the window was a long bench covered with an untidy litter of dirty paint-pots, including several earthenware mixing vessels or mortars, the sides of these being thickly coated with dried paint. Scattered about the stone floor were a number of dirty pails, either empty or containing stale whitewash; and standing on a sort of low platform or shelf at one end of the shop were four large round tanks fitted with taps and labelled ‘Boiled Oil’, ‘Turps’, ‘Linseed Oil’, ‘Turps Substitute’. The lower parts of the walls were discoloured with moisture. The atmosphere was cold and damp and foul with the sickening odours of the poisonous materials.
 It was in this place that Bert - the apprentice - spent most of his time, cleaning out pots and pails, during slack periods when there were no jobs going on outside.
 In the middle of the shop, under a two-armed gas pendant, was another table or bench, also thickly coated with old, dried paint, and by the side of this were two large stands on which were hanging up to dry some of the lathes of the venetian blinds belonging to ‘The Cave’, which Crass and Slyme were painting - piecework - in their spare time. The remainder of the lathes were leaning against the walls or piled in stacks on the table.
 Crass shivered with cold as he lit the two gas-jets. ‘Make a bit of a fire, Alf, he said, ‘while I gets the colour ready.’
 Slyme went outside and presently returned with his arms full of old wood, which he smashed up and threw into the fireplace; then he took an empty paint-pot and filled it with turpentine from the big tank and emptied it over the wood. Amongst the pots on the mixing bench he found one full of old paint, and he threw this over the wood also, and in a few minutes he had made a roaring fire.
 Meantime, Crass had prepared the paint and brushes and taken down the lathes from the drying frames. The two men now proceeded with the painting of the blinds, working rapidly, each lathe being hung on the wires of the drying frame after being painted. They talked freely as they worked, having no fear of being overheard by Rushton or Nimrod. This job was piecework, so it didn’t matter whether they talked or not. They waxed hilarious over Old Latham’s discomfiture and wondered what he would say if he could see them now. Then the conversation drifted to the subject of the private characters of the other men who were employed by Rushton & Co., and an impartial listener - had there been one there - would have been forced to come to the same conclusion as Crass and Slyme did: namely, that they themselves were the only two decent fellows on the firm. There was something wrong or shady about everybody else. That bloke Barrington, for instance - it was a very funny business, you know, for a chap like ’im to be workin’ as a labourer, it looked very suspicious. Nobody knowed exactly who ’e was or where ’e come from, but anyone could tell ’e’d been a toff. It was very certain ’e’d never bin brought up to work for ’is livin’. The most probable explanation was that ’e’d committed some crime and bin disowned by ’is family - pinched some money, or forged a cheque or something like that. Then there was that Sawkins. He was no class whatever. It was a well-known fact that he used to go round to Misery’s house nearly every night to tell him every little thing that had happened on the job during the day! As for Payne, the foreman carpenter, the man was a perfect fool: he’d find out the difference if ever he got the sack from Rushton’s and went to work for some other firm! He didn’t understand his trade, and he couldn’t make a coffin properly to save ’is life! Then there was that rotter Owen; there was a bright specimen for yer! An Atheist! didn’t believe in no God or Devil or nothing else. A pretty state of things there would be if these Socialists could have their own way: for one thing, nobody would be allowed to work overtime!
 Crass and Slyme worked and talked in this manner till ten o’clock, and then they extinguished the fire by throwing some water on it - put out the gas and locked up the shop and the yard, dropping the key of the latter into the letter-box at Rushton’s office on their way home.
 In this way they worked at the blinds nearly every night for three weeks.
 
 When Saturday arrived the, men working at ‘The Cave’ were again surprised that nobody was sacked, and they were divided in opinion as to the reason, some thinking that Nimrod was determined to keep them all on till the job was finished, so as to get it done as quickly as possible; and others boldly asserting the truth of a rumour that had been going about for several days that the firm had another big job in. Mr Sweater had bought another house; Rushton had to do it up, and they were all to be kept on to start this other work as soon as ‘The Cave’ was finished. Crass knew no more than anyone else and he maintained a discreet silence, but the fact that he did not contradict the rumour served to strengthen it. The only foundation that existed for this report was that Rushton and Misery had been seen looking over the garden gate of a large empty house near ‘The Cave’. But although it had such an insignificant beginning, the rumour had grown and increased in detail and importance day by day. That very morning at breakfast-time, the man on the pail had announced that he had heard on the very best authority that Mr Sweater had sold all his interest in the great business that bore his name and was about to retire into private life, and that he intended to buy up all the house property in the neighbourhood of ‘The Cave’. Another individual - one of the new hands - said that he had heard someone else - in a public house - say that Rushton was about to marry one of Sweater’s daughters, and that Sweater intended to give the couple a house to live in, as a wedding present: but the fact that Rushton was already married and the father of four children, rather knocked the bottom out of this story, so it was regretfully dismissed. Whatever the reason, the fact remained that nobody had been discharged, and when pay-time arrived they set out for the office in high spirits.
 That evening, the weather being fine, Slyme went out as usual to his open-air meeting, but Easton departed from HIS usual custom of rushing off to the ‘Cricketers’ directly he had had his tea, having on this occasion promised to wait for Ruth and to go with her to do the marketing. The baby was left at home alone, asleep in the cradle.
 By the time they had made all their purchases they had a fairly heavy load. Easton carried the string-bag containing the potatoes and other vegetables, and the meat, and Ruth, the groceries. On their way home, they had to pass the ‘Cricketers’ and just before they reached that part of their journey they met Mr and Mrs Crass, who were also out marketing. They both insisted on Easton and Ruth going in to have a drink with them. Ruth did not want to go, but she allowed herself to be persuaded for she could see that Easton was beginning to get angry with her for refusing. Crass had on a new overcoat and a new hat, with dark grey trousers and yellow boots, and a ‘stand-up’ collar with a bright blue tie. His wife - a fat, vulgar-looking, well-preserved woman about forty - was arrayed in a dark red ‘motor’ costume, with hat to match. Both Easton and Ruth - whose best clothes had all been pawned to raise the money to pay the poor rate - felt very mean and shabby before them.
 When they got inside, Crass paid for the first round of drinks, a pint of Old Six for himself; the same for Easton, half a pint for Mrs Easton and threepenny-worth of gin for Mrs Crass.
 The Besotted Wretch was there, just finishing a game of hooks and rings with the Semi-drunk - who had called round on the day after he was thrown out, to apologize for his conduct to the Old Dear, and had since then become one of the regular customers. Philpot was absent. He had been there that afternoon, so the Old Dear said, but he had gone home about five o’clock, and had not been back since. He was almost sure to look in again in the course of the evening.
 Although the house was not nearly so full as it would have been if times had been better, there was a large number of people there, for the ‘Cricketers’ was one of the most popular houses in the town. Another thing that helped to make them busy was the fact that two other public houses in the vicinity had recently been closed up. There were people in all the compartments. Some of the seats in the public bar were occupied by women, some young and accompanied by their husbands, some old and evidently sodden with drink. In one corner of the public bar, drinking beer or gin with a number of young fellows, were three young girls who worked at a steam laundry in the neighbourhood. Two large, fat, gipsy-looking women: evidently hawkers, for on the floor beside them were two baskets containing bundles of flowers - chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies. There were also two very plainly and shabbily dressed women about thirty-five years of age, who were always to be found there on Saturday nights, drinking with any man who was willing to pay for them. The behaviour of these two women was very quiet and their manners unobtrusive. They seemed to realize that they were there only on sufferance, and their demeanour was shamefaced and humble.
 The majority of the guests were standing. The floor was sprinkled with sawdust which served to soak up the beer that slopped out of the glasses of those whose hands were too unsteady to hold them upright. The air was foul with the smell of beer, spirits and tobacco smoke, and the uproar was deafening, for nearly everyone was talking at the same time, their voices clashing discordantly with the strains of the Polyphone, which was playing ‘The Garden of Your Heart’. In one corner a group of men convulsed with laughter at the details of a dirty story related by one of their number. Several impatient customers were banging the bottoms of their empty glasses or pewters on the counter and shouting their orders for more beer. Oaths, curses and obscene expressions resounded on every hand, coming almost as frequently from the women as the men. And over all the rattle of money, the ringing of the cash register. The clinking and rattling of the glasses and pewter pots as they were being washed, and the gurgling noise made by the beer as it poured into the drinking vessels from the taps of the beer engine, whose handles were almost incessantly manipulated by the barman, the Old Dear and the glittering landlady, whose silken blouse, bejewelled hair, ears, neck and fingers scintillated gloriously in the blaze of the gaslight.
 The scene was so novel and strange to Ruth that she felt dazed and bewildered. Previous to her marriage she had been a total abstainer, but since then she had occasionally taken a glass of beer with Easton for company’s sake with their Sunday dinner at home; but it was generally Easton who went out and bought the beer in a jug. Once or twice she had bought it herself at an Off Licence beer-shop near where they lived, but she had never before been in a public house to drink. She was so confused and ill at ease that she scarcely heard or understood Mrs Crass, who talked incessantly, principally about their other residents in North Street where they both resided; and about Mr Crass. She also promised Ruth to introduce her presently - if he came in, as he was almost certain to do - to Mr Partaker, one of her two lodgers a most superior young man, who had been with them now for over three years and would not leave on any account. In fact, he had been their lodger in their old house, and when they moved he came with them to North Street, although it was farther away from his place of business than their former residence. Mrs Crass talked a lot more of the same sort of stuff, to which Ruth listened like one in a dream, and answered with an occasional yes or no.
 Meantime, Crass and Easton - the latter had deposited the string-bag on the seat at Ruth’s side - and the Semi-drunk and the Besotted Wretch, arranged to play a match of Hooks and Rings, the losers to pay for drinks for all the party, including the two women. Crass and the Semi-drunk tossed up for sides. Crass won and picked the Besotted Wretch, and the game began. It was a one-sided affair from the first, for Easton and the Semi-drunk were no match for the other two. The end of it was that Easton and his partner had to pay for the drinks. The four men had a pint each of four ale, and Mrs Crass had another threepennyworth of gin. Ruth protested that she did not want any more to drink, but the others ridiculed this, and both the Besotted Wretch and the Semi-drunk seemed to regard her unwillingness as a personal insult, so she allowed them to get her another half-pint of beer, which she was compelled to drink, because she was conscious that the others were watching her to see that she did so.
 The Semi-drunk now suggested a return match. He wished to have his revenge. He was a little out of practice, he said, and was only just getting his hand in as they were finishing the other game. Crass and his partner readily assented, and in spite of Ruth’s whispered entreaty that they should return home without further delay, Easton insisted on joining the game.
 Although they played more carefully than before, and notwithstanding the fact that the Besotted Wretch was very drunk, Easton and his partner were again beaten and once more had to pay for the drinks. The men had a pint each as before. Mrs Crass - upon whom the liquor so far seemed to have no effect - had another threepennyworth of gin; and Ruth consented to take another glass of beer on condition that Easton would come away directly their drinks were finished. Easton agreed to do so, but instead of keeping his word he began to play a four-handed game of shove-ha’penny with the other three, the sides and stakes being arranged as before.
 The liquor was by this time beginning to have some effect upon Ruth: she felt dizzy and confused. Whenever it was necessary to reply to Mrs Crass’s talk she found some difficulty in articulating the words and she knew she was not answering very intelligently. Even when Mrs Crass introduced her to the interesting Mr Partaker, who arrived about this time, she was scarcely able to collect herself sufficiently to decline that fascinating gentleman’s invitation to have another drink with himself and Mrs Crass.
 After a time a kind of terror took possession of her, and she resolved that if Easton would not come when he had finished the game he was playing, she would go home without him.
 Meantime the game of shove-ha’penny proceeded merrily, the majority of the male guests crowding round the board, applauding or censuring the players as occasion demanded. The Semi-drunk was in high glee, for Crass was not much of a hand at this game, and the Besotted Wretch, although playing well, was not able to make up for his partner’s want of skill. As the game drew near its end and it became more and more certain that his opponents would be defeated, the joy of the Semi-drunk was unbounded, and he challenged them to make it double or quits - a generous offer which they wisely declined, and shortly afterwards, seeing that their position was hopeless, they capitulated and prepared to pay the penalty of the vanquished.
 Crass ordered the drinks and the Besotted Wretch - half the damage - a pint of four ale for each of the men and the same as before for the ladies. The Old Dear executed the order, but by mistake, being very busy, he served two ‘threes’ of gin instead of one. Ruth did not want any more at all, but she was afraid to say so, and she did not like to make any fuss about it being the wrong drink, especially as they all assured her that the spirits would do her more good than beer. She did not want either; she wanted to get away, and would have liked to empty the stuff out of the glass on the floor, but she was afraid that Mrs Crass or one of the others might see her doing so, and there might be some trouble about it. Anyway, it seemed easier to drink this small quantity of spirits and water than a big glass of beer, the very thought of which now made her feel ill. She drank the stuff which Easton handed to her at a single draught and, handing back the empty glass with a shudder, stood up resolutely.
 ‘Are you coming home now? You promised you would,’ she said.
 ‘All right: presently,’ replied Easton. ’There’s plenty of time; it’s not nine yet.’
 ‘That doesn’t matter; it’s quite late enough. You know we’ve left the child at home alone in the house. You promised you’d come as soon as you’d finished that other game.’
 ‘All right, all right,’ answered Easton impatiently. ‘Just wait a minute, I want to see this, and then I’ll come.’
 ‘This’ was a most interesting problem propounded by Crass, who had arranged eleven matches side by side on the shove-ha’penny board. The problem was to take none away and yet leave only nine. Nearly all the men in the bar were crowding round the shove-ha’penny board, some with knitted brows and drunken gravity trying to solve the puzzle and others waiting curiously for the result. Easton crossed over to see how it was done, and as none of the crowd were able to do the trick, Crass showed that it could be accomplished by simply arranging the eleven matches so as to form the word NINE. Everybody said it was very good indeed, very clever and interesting. But the Semi-drunk and the Besotted Wretch were reminded by this trick of several others equally good, and they proceeded to do them; and then the men had another pint each all round as a reviver after the mental strain of the last few minutes.
 Easton did not know any tricks himself, but he was an interested spectator of those done by several others until Ruth came over and touched his arm.
 ‘Aren’t you coming?’
 ‘Wait a minute, can’t you?’ cried Easton roughly. ‘What’s your hurry?’
 ‘I don’t want to stay here any longer,’ said Ruth, hysterically. ‘You said you’d come as soon as you saw that trick. If you don’t come, I shall go home by myself. I don’t want to stay in this place any longer.’
 ‘Well, go by yourself if you want to!’ shouted Easton fiercely, pushing her away from him. ‘I shall stop ’ere as long as I please, and if you don’t like it you can do the other thing.’
 Ruth staggered and nearly fell from the force of the push he gave her, and the man turned again to the table to watch the Semi-drunk, who was arranging six matches so as to form the numeral XII, and who said he could prove that this was equal to a thousand.
 Ruth waited a few minutes longer, and then as Easton took no further notice of her, she took up the string-bag and the other parcels, and without staying to say good night to Mrs Crass - who was earnestly conversing with the interesting Partaker - she with some difficulty opened the door and went out into the street. The cold night air felt refreshing and sweet after the foul atmosphere of the public house, but after a little while she began to feel faint and dizzy, and was conscious also that she was walking unsteadily, and she fancied that people stared at her strangely as they passed. The parcels felt very heavy and awkward to carry, and the string-bag seemed as if it were filled with lead.
 Although under ordinary circumstances it was only about ten minutes’ walk home from here, she resolved to go by one of the trams which passed by the end of North Street. With this intention, she put down her bag on the pavement at the stopping-place, and waited, resting her hand on the iron pillar at the corner of the street, where a little crowd of people were standing evidently with the same object as herself. Two trains passed without stopping, for they were already full of passengers, a common circumstance on Saturday nights. The next one stopped, and several persons alighted, and then ensued a fierce struggle amongst the waiting crowd for the vacant seats. Men and women pushed, pulled and almost fought, shoving their fists and elbows into each other’s sides and breasts and faces. Ruth was quickly thrust aside and nearly knocked down, and the tram, having taken aboard as many passengers as it had accommodation for, passed on. She waited for the next one, and the same scene was enacted with the same result for her, and then, reflecting that if she had not stayed for these trains she might have been home by now, she determined to resume her walk. The parcels felt heavier than ever, and she had not proceeded very far before she was compelled to put the bag down again upon the pavement, outside an empty house.
 Leaning against the railings, she felt very tired and ill. Everything around her - the street, the houses, the traffic - seemed vague and shadowy and unreal. Several people looked curiously at her as they passed, but by this time she was scarcely conscious of their scrutiny.
 Slyme had gone that evening to the usual ‘open-air’ conducted by the Shining Light Mission. The weather being fine, they had a most successful meeting, the disciples, including Hunter, Rushton, Sweater, Didlum, and Mrs Starvem - Ruth’s former mistress - assembled in great force so as to be able to deal more effectively with any infidels or hired critics or drunken scoffers who might try to disturb the proceedings; and - possibly as an evidence of how much real faith there was in them - they had also arranged to have a police officer in attendance, to protect them from what they called the ‘Powers of Darkness’. One might be excused for thinking that - if they really believed - they would have relied rather upon those powers of Light which they professed to represent on this planet to protect them without troubling to call in the aid of such a ‘worldly’ force as the police. However, it came to pass that on this occasion the only infidels present were those who were conducting the meeting, but as these consisted for the most part of members of the chapel, it will be seen that the infidel fraternity was strongly represented.
 On his way home after the meeting Slyme had to pass by the ‘Cricketers’ and as he drew near the place he wondered if Easton was there, but he did not like to go and look in, because he was afraid someone might see him coming away and perhaps think he had been in to drink. Just as he arrived opposite the house another man opened the door of the public bar and entered, enabling Slyme to catch a momentary glimpse of the interior, where he saw Easton and Crass with a number of others who were strangers to him, laughing and drinking together.
 Slyme hurried away; it had turned very cold, and he was anxious to get home. As he approached the place where the trams stopped to take up passengers and saw that there was a tram in sight he resolved to wait for it and ride home: but when the tram arrived and there were only one or two seats vacant, and although he did his best to secure one of these he was unsuccessful, and after a moment’s hesitation he decided that it would be quicker to walk than to wait for the next one. He accordingly resumed his journey, but he had not gone very far when he saw a small crowd of people on the pavement on the other side of the road outside an unoccupied house, and although he was in a hurry to get home he crossed over to see what was the matter. There were about twenty people standing there, and in the centre close to the railing there were three or four women whom Slyme could not see although he could hear their voices.
 ‘What’s up?’ he inquired of a man on the edge of the crowd.
 ‘Oh, nothing much,’ returned the other. ‘Some young woman; she’s either ill, come over faint, or something - or else she’s had a drop too much.’
 ‘Quite a respectable-looking young party, too,’ said another man.
 Several young fellows in the crowd were amusing themselves by making suggestive jokes about the young woman and causing some laughter by the expressions of mock sympathy.
 ‘Doesn’t anyone know who she is?’ said the second man who had spoken in reply to Slyme’s inquiry.
 ‘No,’ said a woman who was standing a little nearer the middle of the crowd. ‘And she won’t say where she lives.’
 ‘She’ll be all right now she’s had that glass of soda,’ said another man, elbowing his way out of the crowd. As this individual came out, Slyme managed to work himself a little further into the group of people, and he uttered an involuntary cry of astonishment as he caught sight of Ruth, very pale, and looking very ill, as she stood clasping one of the railings with her left hand and holding the packages of groceries in the other. She had by this time recovered sufficiently to feel overwhelmed with shame and confusion before the crowd of strangers who hemmed her in on every side, and some of whom she could hear laughing and joking about her. It was therefore with a sensation of intense relief and gratitude that she saw Slyme’s familiar face and heard his friendly voice as he forced his way through to her side.
 ‘I can walk home all right now,’ she stammered in reply to his anxious questioning. ‘If you wouldn’t mind carrying some of these things for me.’
 He insisted on taking all the parcels, and the crowd, having jumped to the conclusion that he was the young woman’s husband began to dwindle away, one of the jokers remarking ‘It’s all over!’ in a loud voice as he took himself off.
 It was only about seven minutes’ walk home from there, and as the streets along which they had to pass were not very brilliantly lighted, Ruth was able to lean on Slyme’s arm most of the way. When they arrived home, after she had removed her hat, he made her sit down in the armchair by the fire, which was burning brightly, and the kettle was singing on the hob, for she had banked up the fire with cinders and small coal before she went out.
 The baby was still asleep in the cradle, but his slumbers had evidently not been of the most restful kind, for he had kicked all the bedclothes off him and was lying all uncovered. Ruth obeyed passively when Slyme told her to sit down, and, lying back languidly in the armchair, she watched him through half-closed eyes and with a slight flush on her face as he deftly covered the sleeping child with the bedclothes and settled him more comfortably in the cot.
 Slyme now turned his attention to the fire, and as he placed the kettle upon it he remarked: ‘As soon as the water boils I’ll make you some strong tea.’
 During their walk home she had acquainted Slyme with the cause of her being in the condition in which he found her in the street, and as she reclined in the armchair, drowsily watching him, she wondered what would have happened to her if he had not passed by when he did.
 ‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked, looking down at her.
 ‘Yes, thanks. I feel quite well now; but I’m afraid I’ve given you a lot of trouble.’
 ‘No, you haven’t. Nothing I can do for you is a trouble to me. But don’t you think you’d better take your jacket off? Here, let me help you.’
 It took a very long time to get this jacket off, because whilst he was helping her, Slyme kissed her repeatedly and passionately as she lay limp and unresisting in his arms.
 
 Chapter 25
 The Oblong
  During the following week the work at ‘The Cave’ progressed rapidly towards completion, although, the hours of daylight being so few, the men worked only from 8 A.M. till 4 P.M. and they had their breakfasts before they came. This made 40 hours a week, so that those who were paid sevenpence an hour earned £1.3.4. Those who got sixpence- halfpenny drew £1.1.8. Those whose wages were fivepence an hour were paid the princely sum of 16/8d. for their week’s hard labour, and those whose rate was fourpence-halfpenny ‘picked up’ 15/-.
 And yet there are people who have the insolence to say that Drink is the cause of poverty.
 And many of the persons who say this, spend more money than that on drink themselves - every day of their useless lives.
 By Tuesday night all the inside was finished with the exception of the kitchen and scullery. The painting of the kitchen had been delayed owing to the non-arrival of the new cooking range, and the scullery was still used as the paint shop. The outside work was also nearly finished: all the first coating was done and the second coating was being proceeded with. According to the specification, all the outside woodwork was supposed to have three coats, and the guttering, rain-pipes and other ironwork two coats, but Crass and Hunter had arranged to make two coats do for most of the windows and woodwork, and all the ironwork was to be made to do with one coat only. The windows were painted in two colours: the sashes dark green and the frames white. All the rest - gables, doors, railings, guttering, etc. - was dark green; and all the dark green paint was made with boiled linseed oil and varnish; no turpentine being allowed to be used on this part of the work.
 ‘This is some bloody fine stuff to ’ave to use, ain’t it?’ remarked Harlow to Philpot on Wednesday morning. ‘It’s more like a lot of treacle than anything else.’
 ‘Yes: and it won’t arf blister next summer when it gets a bit of sun on it,’ replied Philpot with a grin.
 ‘I suppose they’re afraid that if they was to put a little turps in, it wouldn’t bear out, and they’d ’ave to give it another coat.’
 ‘You can bet yer life that’s the reason,’ said Philpot. ‘But all the same I mean to pinch a drop to put in mine as soon as Crass is gorn.’
 ‘Gorn where?’
 ‘Why, didn’t you know? there’s another funeral on today? Didn’t you see that corfin plate what Owen was writing in the drorin’-room last Saturday morning?’
 ‘No, I wasn’t ’ere. Don’t you remember I was sent away to do a ceilin’ and a bit of painting over at Windley?’
 ‘Oh, of course; I forgot,’ exclaimed Philpot.
 ‘I reckon Crass and Slyme must be making a small fortune out of all these funerals,’ said Harlow. ‘This makes the fourth in the last fortnight. What is it they gets for ’em?’
 ‘A shillin’ for taking’ ’ome the corfin and liftin’ in the corpse, and four bob for the funeral - five bob altogether.’
 ‘That’s a bit of all right, ain’t it?’ said Harlow. ‘A couple of them in a week besides your week’s wages, eh? Five bob for two or three hours work!’
 ‘Yes, the money’s all right, mate, but they’re welcome to it for my part . I don’t want to go messin’ about with no corpses,’ replied Philpot with a shudder.
 ‘Who is this last party what’s dead?’ asked Harlow after a pause.
 ‘It’s a parson what used to belong to the "Shining Light" Chapel. He’d been abroad for ’is ’ollerdays - to Monte Carlo. It seems ’e was ill before ’e went away, but the change did ’im a lot of good; in fact, ’e was quite recovered, and ’e was coming back again. But while ’e was standin’ on the platform at Monte Carlo Station waitin’ for the train, a porter runned into ’im with a barrer load o’ luggage, and ’e blowed up.’
 ‘Blowed up?’
 ‘Yes,’ repeated Philpot. ‘Blowed up! Busted! Exploded! All into pieces. But they swep’ ’em all up and put it in a corfin and it’s to be planted this afternoon.’
 Harlow maintained an awestruck silence, and Philpot continued:
 ‘I had a drink the other night with a butcher bloke what used to serve this parson with meat, and we was talkin’ about what a strange sort of death it was, but ’e said ’e wasn’t at all surprised to ’ear of it; the only thing as ’e wondered at was that the man didn’t blow up long ago, considerin’ the amount of grub as ’e used to make away with. He ses the quantities of stuff as ’e’s took there and seen other tradesmen take was something chronic. Tons of it!’
 ‘What was the parson’s name?’ asked Harlow.
 ‘Belcher. You must ’ave noticed ’im about the town. A very fat chap,’ replied Philpot. ‘I’m sorry you wasn’t ’ere on Saturday to see the corfin plate. Frank called me in to see the wordin’ when ’e’d finished it. It had on: "Jonydab Belcher. Born January 1st, 1849. Ascended, December 8th, 19—"’
 ‘Oh, I know the bloke now!’ cried Harlow. ‘I remember my youngsters bringin’ ’ome a subscription list what they’d got up at the Sunday School to send ’im away for a ’ollerday because ’e was ill, and I gave ’em a penny each to put on their cards because I didn’t want ’em to feel mean before the other young ’uns.’
 ‘Yes, it’s the same party. Two or three young ’uns asked me to give ’em something to put on at the time. And I see they’ve got another subscription list on now. I met one of Newman’s children yesterday and she showed it to me. It’s for an entertainment and a Christmas Tree for all the children what goes to the Sunday School, so I didn’t mind giving just a trifle for anything like that.’ ...
 ‘Seems to be gettin’ colder, don’t it?’
 ‘It’s enough to freeze the ears orf a brass monkey!’ remarked Easton as he descended from a ladder close by and, placing his pot of paint on the pound, began to try to warm his hands by rubbing and beating them together.
 He was trembling, and his teeth were chattering with cold.
 ‘I could just do with a nice pint of beer, now,’ he said as he stamped his feet on the pound.
 ‘That’s just what I was thinkin’,’ said Philpot, wistfully, ’and what’s more, I mean to ’ave one, too, at dinner-time. I shall nip down to the "Cricketers". Even if I don’t get back till a few minutes after one, it won’t matter, because Crass and Nimrod will be gorn to the funeral.’
 ‘Will you bring me a pint back with you, in a bottle?’ asked Easton.
 ‘Yes, certainly,’ said Philpot.
 Harlow said nothing. He also would have liked a pint of beer, but, as was usual with him, he had not the necessary cash. Having restored the circulation to a certain extent, they now resumed their work, and only just in time, for a few minutes afterwards they observed Misery peeping round the corner of the house at them and they wondered how long he had been there, and whether he had overheard their conversation.
 At twelve o’clock Crass and Slyme cleared off in a great hurry, and a little while afterwards, Philpot took off his apron and put on his coat to go to the ‘Cricketers’. When the others found out where he was going, several of them asked him to bring back a drink for them, and then someone suggested that all those who wanted some beer should give twopence each. This was done: one shilling and fourpence was collected and given to Philpot, who was to bring back a gallon of beer in a jar. He promised to get back as soon as ever he could, and some of the shareholders decided not to drink any tea with their dinners, but to wait for the beer, although they knew that it would be nearly time to resume work before he could get back. It would be a quarter to one at the very earliest.
 The minutes dragged slowly by, and after a while the only man on the job who had a watch began to lose his temper and refused to answer any more inquiries concerning the time. So presently Bert was sent up to the top of the house to look at a church clock which was visible therefrom, and when he came down he reported that it was ten minutes to one.
 Symptoms of anxiety now began to manifest themselves amongst the shareholders, several of whom went down to the main road to see if Philpot was yet in sight, but each returned with the same report - they could see nothing of him.
 No one was formally ‘in charge’ of the job during Crass’s absence, but they all returned to their work promptly at one because they feared that Sawkins or some other sneak might report any irregularity to Crass or Misery.
 At a quarter-past one, Philpot was still missing and the uneasiness of the shareholders began to develop into a panic. Some of them plainly expressed the opinion that he had gone on the razzle with the money. As the time wore on, this became the general opinion. At two o’clock, all hope of his return having been abandoned, two or three of the shareholders went and drank some of the cold tea.
 Their fears were only too well founded, for they saw no more of Philpot till the next morning, when he arrived looking very sheepish and repentant and promised to refund all the money on Saturday. He also made a long, rambling statement from which it appeared that on his way to the ‘Cricketers’ he met a couple of chaps whom he knew who were out of work, and he invited them to come and have a drink. When they got to the pub, they found there the Semi-drunk and the Besotted Wretch. One drink led to another, and then they started arguing, and he had forgotten all about the gallon of beer until he woke up this morning.
 Whilst Philpot was making this explanation they were putting on their aprons and blouses, and Crass was serving out the lots of colour. Slyme took no part in the conversation, but got ready as quickly as possible and went outside to make a start. The reason for this haste soon became apparent to some of the others, for they noticed that he had selected and commenced painting a large window that was so situated as to be sheltered from the keen wind that was blowing.
 The basement of the house was slightly below the level of the ground and there was a sort of a trench or area about three feet deep in front of the basement windows. The banks of this trench were covered with rose trees and evergreens, and the bottom was a mass of slimy, evil-smelling, rain-sodden earth, foul with the excrement of nocturnal animals. To second-coat these basement windows, Philpot and Harlow had to get down into and stand in all this filth, which soaked through the worn and broken soles of their boots. As they worked, the thorns of the rose trees caught and tore their clothing and lacerated the flesh of their half-frozen hands.
 Owen and Easton were working on ladders doing the windows immediately above Philpot and Harlow, Sawkins, on another ladder, was painting one of the gables, and the other men were working at different parts of the outside of the house. The boy Bert was painting the iron railings of the front fence. The weather was bitterly cold, the sun was concealed by the dreary expanse of grey cloud that covered the wintry sky.
 As they stood there working most of the time they were almost perfectly motionless, the only part of their bodies that were exercised being their right arms. The work they were now doing required to be done very carefully and deliberately, otherwise the glass would be ‘messed up’ or the white paint of the frames would ‘run into’ the dark green of the sashes, both colours being wet at the same time, each man having two pots of paint and two sets of brushes. The wind was not blowing in sudden gusts, but swept by in a strong, persistent current that penetrated their clothing and left them trembling and numb with cold. It blew from the right; and it was all the worse on that account, because the right arm, being in use, left that side of the body fully exposed. They were able to keep their left hands in their trousers pockets and the left arm close to the side most of the time. This made a lot of difference.
 Another reason why it is worse when the wind strikes upon one from the right side is that the buttons on a man’s coat are always on the right side, and consequently the wind gets underneath. Philpot realized this all the more because some of the buttons on his coat and waistcoat were missing.
 As they worked on, trembling with cold, and with their teeth chattering, their faces and hands became of that pale violet colour generally seen on the lips of a corpse. Their eyes became full of water and the lids were red and inflamed. Philpot’s and Harlow’s boots were soon wet through, with the water they absorbed from the damp ground, and their feet were sore and intensely painful with cold.
 Their hands, of course, suffered the most, becoming so numbed that they were unable to feel the brushes they held; in fact, presently, as Philpot was taking a dip of colour, the brush fell from his hand into the pot; and then, finding that he was unable to move his fingers, he put his hand into his trousers pocket to thaw, and began to walk about, stamping his feet upon the ground. His example was quickly followed by Owen, Easton and Harlow, and they all went round the corner to the sheltered side of the house where Slyme was working, and began walking up and down, rubbing their hands, stamping their feet and swinging their arms to warm themselves.
 ‘If I thought Nimrod wasn’t comin’, I’d put my overcoat on and work in it,’ remarked Philpot, ’but you never knows when to expect the b—r, and if ’e saw me in it, it would mean the bloody push.’
 ‘It wouldn’t interfere with our workin’ if we did wear ’em,’ said Easton; ‘in fact, we’d be able to work all the quicker if we wasn’t so cold.’
 ‘Even if Misery didn’t come, I suppose Crass would ’ave something to say if we did put ’em on,’ continued Philpot.
 ‘Well, yer couldn’t blame ’im if ’e did say something, could yer?’ said Slyme, offensively. ‘Crass would get into a row ’imself if ’Unter came and saw us workin’ in overcoats. It would look ridiclus.’
 Slyme suffered less from the cold than any of them, not only because he had secured the most sheltered window, but also because he was better clothed than most of the rest.
 ‘What’s Crass supposed to be doin’ inside?’ asked Easton as he tramped up and down, with his shoulders hunched up and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers.
 ‘Blowed if I know,’ replied Philpot. ‘Messin’ about touchin’ up or makin’ colour. He never does ’is share of a job like this; ’e knows ’ow to work things all right for ’isself.’
 ‘What if ’e does? We’d be the same if we was in ’is place, and so would anybody else,’ said Slyme, and added sarcastically: ‘Or p’haps you’d give all the soft jobs to other people and do all the rough yerself!’
 Slyme knew that, although they were speaking of Crass, they were also alluding to himself, and as he replied to Philpot he looked slyly at Owen, who had so far taken no part in the conversation.
 ‘It’s not a question of what we would do,’ chimed in Harlow. ‘It’s a question of what’s fair. If it’s not fair for Crass to pick all the soft jobs for ’imself and leave all the rough for others, the fact that we might do the same if we ’ad the chance don’t make it right.’
 ‘No one can be blamed for doing the best he can for himself under existing circumstances,’ said Owen in reply to Slyme’s questioning look. That is the principle of the present system - every man for himself and the devil take the rest. For my own part I don’t pretend to practise unselfishness. I don’t pretend to guide my actions by the rules laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. But it’s certainly surprising to hear you who profess to be a follower of Christ - advocating selfishness. Or, rather, it would be surprising if it were not that the name of "Christian" has ceased to signify one who follows Christ, and has come to mean only liar and hypocrite.’
 Slyme made no answer. Possibly the fact that he was a true believer enabled him to bear this insult with meekness and humility.
 ‘I wonder what time it is?’ interposed Philpot.
 Slyme looked at his watch. It was nearly ten o’clock.
 ‘Jesus Christ! Is that all?’ growled Easton as they returned to work. ‘Two hours more before dinner!’
 Only two more hours, but to these miserable, half-starved, ill-clad wretches, standing here in the bitter wind that pierced their clothing and seemed to be tearing at their very hearts and lungs with icy fingers, it appeared like an eternity. To judge by the eagerness with which they longed for dinner-time, one might have thought they had some glorious banquet to look forward to instead of bread and cheese and onions, or bloaters - and stewed tea.
 Two more hours of torture before dinner; and three more hours after that. And then, thank God, it would be too dark to see to work any longer.
 It would have been much better for them if, instead of being ‘Freemen’, they had been slaves, and the property, instead of the hirelings, of Mr Rushton. As it was, HE would not have cared if one or all of them had become ill or died from the effects of exposure. It would have made no difference to him. There were plenty of others out of work and on the verge of starvation who would be very glad to take their places. But if they had been Rushton’s property, such work as this would have been deferred until it could be done without danger to the health and lives of the slaves; or at any rate, even if it were proceeded with during such weather, their owner would have seen to it that they were properly clothed and fed; he would have taken as much care of them as he would of his horse.
 People always take great care of their horses. If they were to overwork a horse and make it ill, it would cost something for medicine and the veterinary surgeon, to say nothing of the animal’s board and lodging. If they were to work their horses to death, they would have to buy others. But none of these considerations applies to workmen. If they work a man to death they can get another for nothing at the corner of the next street. They don’t have to buy him; all they have to do is to give him enough money to provide him with food and clothing - of a kind - while he is working for them. If they only make him ill, they will not have to feed him or provide him with medical care while he is laid up. He will either go without these things or pay for them himself. At the same time it must be admitted that the workman scores over both the horse and the slave, inasmuch as he enjoys the priceless blessing of Freedom. If he does not like the hirer’s conditions he need not accept them. He can refuse to work, and he can go and starve. There are no ropes on him. He is a Free man. He is the Heir of all the Ages. He enjoys perfect Liberty. He has the right to choose freely which he will do - Submit or Starve. Eat dirt or eat nothing.
 The wind blew colder and colder. The sky, which at first had shown small patches of blue through rifts in the masses of clouds, had now become uniformly grey. There was every indication of an impending fall of snow.
 The men perceived this with conflicting feelings. If it did commence to snow, they would not be able to continue this work, and therefore they found themselves involuntarily wishing that it would snow, or rain, or hail, or anything that would stop the work. But on the other hand, if the weather prevented them getting on with the outside, some of them would have to ‘stand off’, because the inside was practically finished. None of them wished to lose any time if they could possibly help it, because there were only ten days more before Christmas.
 The morning slowly wore away and the snow did not fall. The hands worked on in silence, for they were in no mood for talking, and not only that, but they were afraid that Hunter or Rushton or Crass might be watching them from behind some bush or tree, or through some of the windows. This dread possessed them to such an extent that most of them were almost afraid even to look round, and kept steadily on at work. None of them wished to spoil his chance of being kept on to help to do the other house that it was reported Rushton & Co. were going to ‘do up’ for Mr Sweater.
 Twelve o’clock came at last, and Crass’s whistle had scarcely ceased to sound before they all assembled in the kitchen before the roaring fire. Sweater had sent in two tons of coal and had given orders that fires were to be lit every day in nearly every room to make the house habitable by Christmas.
 ‘I wonder if it’s true as the firm’s got another job to do for old Sweater?’ remarked Harlow as he was toasting a bloater on the end of the pointed stick.
 ‘True? No!’ said the man on the pail scornfully. ‘It’s all bogy. You know that empty ’ouse as they said Sweater ’ad bought - the one that Rushton and Nimrod was seen lookin’ at?’
 ‘Yes,’ replied Harlow. The other men listened with evident interest. ‘Well, they wasn’t pricing it up after all! T he landlord of that ’ouse is abroad, and there was some plants in the garden as Rushton thought ’e’d like, and ’e was tellin’ Misery which ones ’e wanted. And afterwards old Pontius Pilate came up with Ned Dawson and a truck. They made two or three journeys and took bloody near everything in the garden as was worth takin’. What didn’t go to Rushton’s place went to ’Unter’s.’
 The disappointment of their hopes for another job was almost forgotten in their interest in this story.
 ‘Who told you about it?’ said Harlow.
 ‘Ned Dawson ’imself. It’s right enough what I say. Ask ’im.’
 Ned Dawson, usually called ‘Bundy’s mate’, had been away from the house for a few days down at the yard doing odd jobs, and had only come back to the ‘Cave’ that morning. On being appealed to, he corroborated Dick Wantley’s statement.
 ‘They’ll be gettin’ theirselves into trouble if they ain’t careful,’ remarked Easton.
 ‘Oh, no they won’t, Rushton’s too artful for that. It seems the agent is a pal of ’is, and they worked it between ’em.’
 ‘Wot a bloody cheek, though!’ exclaimed Harlow.
 ‘Oh, that’s nothing to some of the things I’ve known ’em do before now,’ said the man on the pail. ‘Why, don’t you remember, back in the summer, that carved hoak hall table as Rushton pinched out of that ’ouse on Grand Parade?’
 ‘Yes; that was a bit of all right too, wasn’t it?’ cried Philpot, and several of the others laughed.
 ‘You know, that big ’ouse we did up last summer - No. 596,’ Wantley continued, for the benefit of those not ‘in the know’. ‘Well, it ’ad bin empty for a long time and we found this ’ere table in a cupboard under the stairs. A bloody fine table it was too. One of them bracket tables what you fix to the wall, without no legs. It ’ad a ’arf-round marble top to it, and underneath was a carved hoak figger, a mermaid, with ’er arms up over ’er ’ead ’oldin’ up the table top - something splendid!’ The man on the pail waxed enthusiastic as he thought of it. ‘Must ’ave been worth at least five quid. Well, just as we pulled this ’ere table out, who should come in but Rushton, and when ’e seen it, ’e tells Crass to cover it over with a sack and not to let nobody see it. And then ’e clears orf to the shop and sends the boy down with the truck and ’as it took up to ’is own ’ouse, and it’s there now, fixed in the front ’all. I was sent up there a couple of months ago to paint and varnish the lobby doors and I seen it meself. There’s a pitcher called "The Day of Judgement" ’angin’ on the wall just over it - thunder and lightning and earthquakes and corpses gettin’ up out o’ their graves - something bloody ’orrible! And underneath the picture is a card with a tex out of the Bible - "Christ is the ’ead of this ’ouse: the unknown guest at every meal. The silent listener to every conversation." I was workin’ there for three or four days and I got to know it orf by ’eart.’
 ‘Well, that takes the biskit, don’t it?’ said Philpot.
 ‘Yes: but the best of it was,’ the man on the pail proceeded, ‘the best of it was, when ole Misery ’eard about the table, ’e was so bloody wild because ’e didn’t get it ’imself that ’e went upstairs and pinched one of the venetian blinds and ’ad it took up to ’is own ’ouse by the boy, and a few days arterwards one of the carpenters ’ad to go and fix it up in ’is bedroom.’
 ‘And wasn’t it never found out?’ inquired Easton.
 ‘Well, there was a bit of talk about it. The agent wanted to know where it was, but Pontius Pilate swore black and white as there ’adn’t been no blind in that room, and the end of it was that the firm got the order to supply a new one.’
 ‘What I can’t understand is, who did the table belong to?’ said Harlow.
 ‘It was a fixture belongin’ to the ’ouse,’ replied Wantley. ‘But I suppose the former tenants had some piece of furniture of their own that they wanted to put in the ’all where this table was fixed, so they took it down and stored it away in this ’ere cupboard, and when they left the ’ouse I suppose they didn’t trouble to put it back again. Anyway, there was the mark on the wall where it used to be fixed, but when we did the staircase down, the place was papered over, and I suppose the landlord or the agent never give the table a thought. Anyhow, Rushton got away with it all right.’
 A number of similar stories were related by several others concerning the doings of different employers they had worked for, but after a time the conversation reverted to the subject that was uppermost in their thoughts - the impending slaughter, and the improbability of being able to obtain another job, considering the large number of men who were already out of employment.
 ‘I can’t make it out, myself,’ remarked Easton. ‘Things seems to get worse every year. There don’t seem to be ’arf the work about that there used to be, and even what there is is messed up anyhow, as if the people who ’as it done can’t afford to pay for it.’
 ‘Yes,’ said Harlow; ‘that’s true enough. Why, just look at the work that’s in one o’ them ’ouses on the Grand Parade. People must ’ave ’ad more money to spend in those days, you know; all those massive curtain cornishes over the drawing- and dining-room winders - gilded solid! Why, nowadays they’d want all the bloody ’ouse done down right through - inside and out, for the money it cost to gild one of them.’
 ‘It seems that nearly everybody is more or less ’ard up nowadays,’ said Philpot. ‘I’m jiggered if I can understand it, but there it is.’
 ‘You should ast Owen to explain it to yer,’ remarked Crass with a jeering laugh. ‘’E knows all about wot’s the cause of poverty, but ’e won’t tell nobody. ’E’s been GOIN’ to tell us wot it is for a long time past, but it don’t seem to come orf.’
 Crass had not yet had an opportunity of producing the Obscurer cutting, and he made this remark in the hope of turning the conversation into a channel that would enable him to do so. But Owen did not respond, and went on reading his newspaper.
 ‘We ain’t ’ad no lectures at all lately, ’ave we?’ said Harlow in an injured tone. ‘I think it’s about time Owen explained what the real cause of poverty is. I’m beginning to get anxious about it.’
 The others laughed.
 
 When Philpot had finished eating his dinner he went out of the kitchen and presently returned with a small pair of steps, which he opened and placed in a corner of the room, with the back of the steps facing the audience.
 ‘There you are, me son!’ he exclaimed to Owen. ‘There’s a pulpit for yer.’
 ‘Yes! come on ’ere!’ cried Crass, feeling in his waistcoat pocket for the cutting. ‘Tell us wot’s the real cause of poverty.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ shouted the man on the pail. ‘Git up into the bloody pulpit and give us a sermon.’
 As Owen made no response to the invitations, the crowd began to hoot and groan.
 ‘Come on, man,’ whispered Philpot, winking his goggle eye persuasively at Owen. ‘Come on, just for a bit of turn, to pass the time away.’
 Owen accordingly ascended the steps - much to the secret delight of Crass - and was immediately greeted with a round of enthusiastic applause.
 ‘There you are, you see,’ said Philpot, addressing the meeting. ‘It’s no use booin’ and threatenin’, because ’e’s one of them lecturers wot can honly be managed with kindness. If it ’adn’t a bin for me, ’e wouldn’t ’ave agreed to speak at all.’
 Philpot having been unanimously elected chairman, proposed by Harlow and seconded by the man on the pail, Owen commenced:
 ‘Mr Chairman and gentlemen:
 ‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, it is with some degree of hesitation that I venture to address myself to such a large, distinguished, fashionable, and intelligent looking audience as that which I have the honour of seeing before me on the present occasion.’ (Applause.)
 ‘One of the finest speakers I’ve ever ’eard!’ remarked the man on the pail in a loud whisper to the chairman, who motioned him to be silent.
 Owen continued:
 ‘In some of my previous lectures I have endeavoured to convince you that money is in itself of no value and of no real use whatever. In this I am afraid I have been rather unsuccessful.’
 ‘Not a bit of it, mate,’ cried Crass, sarcastically. ‘We all agrees with it.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ shouted Easton. ‘If a bloke was to come in ’ere now and orfer to give me a quid - I’d refuse it!’
 ‘So would I,’ said Philpot.
 ‘Well, whether you agree or not, the fact remains. A man might possess so much money that, in England, he would be comparatively rich, and yet if he went to some country where the cost of living is very high he would find himself in a condition of poverty. Or one might conceivably be in a place where the necessaries of life could not be bought for money at all. Therefore it is more conducive to an intelligent understanding of the subject if we say that to be rich consists not necessarily in having much money, but in being able to enjoy an abundance of the things that are made by work; and that poverty consists not merely in being without money, but in being short of the necessaries and comforts of life - or in other words in being short of the Benefits of Civilization, the things that are all, without exception, produced by work. Whether you agree or not with anything else that I say, you will all admit that that is our condition at the present time. We do not enjoy a full share of the benefits of civilization - we are all in a state of more or less abject poverty.’
 ‘Question!’ cried Crass, and there were loud murmurs of indignant dissent from several quarters as Owen proceeded:
 ‘How does it happen that we are so short of the things that are made by work?’
 ‘The reason why we’re short of the things that’s made by work,’ interrupted Crass, mimicking Owen’s manner, ‘is that we ain’t got the bloody money to buy ’em.’
 ‘Yes,’ said the man on the pail; ‘and as I said before, if all the money in the country was shared out equal today according to Owen’s ideas - in six months’ time it would be all back again in the same ’ands as it is now, and what are you goin’ to do then?’
 ‘Share again, of course.’
 This answer came derisively from several places at the same instant, and then they all began speaking at once, vying with each other in ridiculing the foolishness of ‘them there Socialists’, whom they called ‘The Sharers Out’.
 Barrington was almost the only one who took no part in the conversation. He was seated in his customary place and, as usual, silently smoking, apparently oblivious to his surroundings.
 ‘I never said anything about "sharing out all the money",’ said Owen during a lull in the storm, ‘and I don’t know of any Socialist who advocates anything of the kind. Can any of you tell me the name of someone who proposes to do so?’
 No one answered, as Owen repeated his inquiry, this time addressing himself directly to Crass, who had been one of the loudest in denouncing and ridiculing the ‘Sharers Out’. Thus cornered, Crass - who knew absolutely nothing about the subject - for a few moments looked rather foolish. Then he began to talk in a very loud voice:
 ‘Why, it’s a well-known fact. Everybody knows that’s what they wants. But they take bloody good care they don’t act up to it theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament - a lot of b—rs what’s too bloody lazy to work for their livin’! What the bloody ’ell was they before they got there? Only workin’ men, the same as you and me! But they’ve got the gift o’ the gab and -’
 ‘Yes, we know all about that,’ said Owen, ‘but what I’m asking you is to tell us who advocates taking all the money in the country and sharing it out equally?’
 ‘And I say that everybody knows that’s what they’re after!’ shouted Crass. ‘And you know it as well as I do. A fine thing!’ he added indignantly. ‘Accordin’ to that idear, a bloody scavenger or a farm labourer ought to get as much wages as you or me!’
 ‘We can talk about that some other time. What I want to know at present is - what authority have you for saying that Socialists believe in sharing out all the money equally amongst all the people?’
 ‘Well, that’s what I’ve always understood they believed in doing,’ said Crass rather lamely.
 ‘It’s a well-known fact,’ said several others.
 ‘Come to think of it,’ continued Crass as he drew the Obscurer cutting from his waistcoat pocket, ‘I’ve got a little thing ’ere that I’ve been goin’ to read to yer. It’s out of the Obscurer. I’d forgotten all about it.’
 Remarking that the print was too small for his own eyes, he passed the slip of paper to Harlow, who read aloud as follows:
  PROVE YOUR PRINCIPLES: OR, LOOK AT BOTH SIDES
  ‘I wish I could open your eyes to the true misery of our condition: injustice, tyranny and oppression!’ said a discontented hack to a weary-looking cob as they stood side by side in unhired cabs.
  ‘I’d rather have them opened to something pleasant, thank you,’ replied the cob.
  ‘I am sorry for you. If you could enter into the noble aspirations -’ the hack began.
  ‘Talk plain. What would you have?’ said the cob, interrupting him.
  ‘What would I have? Why, equality, and share and share alike all over the world,’ said the hack.
  ‘You MEAN that?’ said the cob.
  ‘Of course I do. What right have those sleek, pampered hunters and racers to their warm stables and high feed, their grooms and jockeys? It is really heart-sickening to think of it,’ replied the hack.
  ‘I don’t know but you may be right,’ said the cob, ‘and to show I’m in earnest, as no doubt you are, let me have half the good beans you have in your bag, and you shall have half the musty oats and chaff I have in mine. There’s nothing like proving one’s principles.’Original Parables. By Mrs Prosier.
 ‘There you are!’ cried several voices.
 ‘What does that mean?’ cried Crass, triumphantly. ‘Why don’t you go and share your wages with the chaps what’s out of work?’
 ‘What does it mean?’ replied Owen contemptuously. ‘It means that if the Editor of the Obscurer put that in his paper as an argument against Socialism, either he is of feeble intellect himself or else he thinks that the majority of his readers are. That isn’t an argument against Socialism - it’s an argument against the hypocrites who pretend to be Christians - the people who profess to "Love their neighbours as themselves" - who pretend to believe in Universal Brotherhood, and that they do not love the world or the things of the world and say that they are merely "Pilgrims on their way to a better land". As for why I don’t do it - why should I? I don’t pretend to be a Christian. But you’re all "Christians" - why don’t you do it?’
 ‘We’re not talkin’ about religion,’ exclaimed Crass, impatiently.
 ‘Then what are you talking about? I never said anything about "Sharing Out" or "Bearing one another’s burdens". I don’t profess to "Give to everyone who asks of me" or to "Give my cloak to the man who take away my coat". I have read that Christ taught that His followers must do all these things, but as I do not pretend to be one of His followers I don’t do them. But you believe in Christianity: why don’t you do the things that He said?’
 As nobody seemed to know the answer to this question, the lecturer proceeded:
 ‘In this matter the difference between so-called "Christians" and Socialists is this: Christ taught the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Men. Those who today pretend to be Christ’s followers hypocritically profess to carry out those teachings now. But they don’t . They have arranged "The Battle of Life" system instead!
 ‘The Socialist - very much against his will - finds himself in the midst of this horrible battle, and he appeals to the other combatants to cease from fighting and to establish a system of Brotherly Love and Mutual Helpfulness, but he does not hypocritically pretend to practise brotherly love towards those who will not agree to his appeal, and who compel him to fight with them for his very life. He knows that in this battle he must either fight or go under. Therefore, in self-defiance, he fights; but all the time he continues his appeal for the cessation of the slaughter. He pleads for the changing system. He advocates Co-operation instead of Competition: but how can he co-operate with people who insist on competing with him? No individual can practise co-operation by himself! Socialism can only be practised by the Community - that is the meaning of the word. At present, the other members of the community - the "Christians" - deride and oppose the Socialist’s appeal.
 ‘It is these pretended Christians who do not practise what they preach, because, all the time they are singing their songs of Brotherhood and Love, they are fighting with each other, and strangling each other and trampling each other underfoot in their horrible "Battle of Life"!
 ‘No Socialist suggests "Sharing out" money or anything else in the manner you say. And another thing: if you only had a little more sense you might be able to perceive that this stock "argument" of yours is really an argument against the present system, inasmuch as it proves that Money is in itself of no use whatever. Supposing all the money was shared out equally; and suppose there was enough of it for everyone to have ten thousand pounds; and suppose they then all thought they were rich and none of them would work. What would they live on? Their money? Could they eat it or drink it or wear it? It wouldn’t take them very long to find out that this wonderful money - which under the present system is the most powerful thing in existence - is really of no more use than so much dirt. They would speedily perish, not from lack of money, but from lack of wealth - that is, from lack of things that are made by work. And further, it is quite true that if all the money were distributed equally amongst all the people tomorrow, it would all be up in heaps again in a very short time. But that only proves that while the present Money System remains, it will be impossible to do away with poverty, for heaps in some places mean little or nothing in other places. Therefore while the money system lasts we are bound to have poverty and all the evils it brings in its train.’
 ‘Oh, of course everybody’s an idjit except you,’ sneered Crass, who was beginning to feel rather fogged.
 ‘I rise to a pint of order,’ said Easton.
 ‘And I rise to order a pint,’ cried Philpot.
 ‘Order what the bloody ’ell you like,’ remarked Harlow, ‘so long as I ’aven’t got to pay for it.’
 ‘Mine’s a pint of porter,’ observed the man on the pail.
 ‘The pint is,’ proceeded Easton, ‘when does the lecturer intend to explain to us what is the real cause of poverty.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ cried Harlow. ‘That’s what I want to know, too.’
 ‘And what I should like to know is, who is supposed to be givin’ this ’ere lecture?’ inquired the man on the pail.
 ‘Why, Owen, of course,’ replied Harlow.
 ‘Well, why don’t you try to keep quiet for a few minutes and let ’im get on with it?’
 ‘The next B—r wot interrupts,’ cried Philpot, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and glaring threateningly round upon the meeting. ‘The next b—r wot interrupts goes out through the bloody winder!’
 At this, everybody pretended to be very frightened, and edged away as far as possible from Philpot. Easton, who was sitting next to him, got up and crossed over to Owen’s vacant seat. The man on the pail was the only one who did not seem nervous; perhaps he felt safer because he was, as usual, surrounded by a moat.
 ‘Poverty,’ resumed the lecturer, consists in a shortage of the necessaries of life - or rather, of the benefits of civilization.’
 ‘You’ve said that about a ’undred times before,’ snarled Crass.
 ‘I know I have; and I have no doubt I shall have to say it about five hundred times more before you understand what it means.’
 ‘Get on with the bloody lecture,’ shouted the man on the pail. ‘Never mind arguin’ the point.’
 ‘Well, keep horder, can’t you?’ cried Philpot, fiercely, ‘and give the man a chance.’
 ‘All these things are produced in the same way,’ proceeded Owen. ‘They are made from the Raw materials by those who work - aided by machinery. When we inquire into the cause of the present shortage of these things, the first question we should ask is - Are there not sufficient of the raw materials in existence to enable us to produce enough to satisfy the needs of all?
 ‘The answer to this question is - There are undoubtedly more than sufficient of all the raw materials.
 ‘Insufficiency of raw material is therefore not the cause. We must look in another direction.
 ‘The next question is - Are we short of labour? Is there not a sufficient number of people able and willing to work? Or is there not enough machinery?
 ‘The answers to these questions are - There are plenty of people able and willing to work, and there is plenty of machinery!
 ‘These things being so, how comes this extraordinary result? How is it that the benefits of civilization are not produced in sufficient quantity to satisfy the needs of all? How is it that the majority of the people always have to go without most of the refinements, comforts, and pleasures of life, and very often without even the bare necessaries of existence?
 ‘Plenty of materials - Plenty of Labour - Plenty of Machinery - and, nearly everybody going short of nearly everything!
 ‘The cause of this extraordinary state of affairs is that although we possess the means of producing more than abundance for all, we also have an imbecile system of managing our affairs.
 ‘The present Money System prevents us from doing the necessary work, and consequently causes the majority of the population to go short of the things that can be made by work. They suffer want in the midst of the means of producing abundance. They remain idle because they are bound and fettered with a chain of gold.
 ‘Let us examine the details of this insane, idiotic, imbecile system.’
 Owen now asked Philpot to pass him a piece of charred wood from under the grate, and having obtained what he wanted, he drew upon the wall a quadrangular figure about four feet in length and one foot deep. The walls of the kitchen had not yet been cleaned off, so it did not matter about disfiguring them.
 +—————————————————————————————————+ | | | | | | | | | | | This represents the whole of the adult population of the country | | | | | | | | | | | +—————————————————————————————————+
 ‘To find out the cause of the shortage in this country of the things that can be made by work it is first of all necessary to find out how people spend their time. Now this square represents the whole of the adult population of this country. There are many different classes of people, engaged in a great number of different occupations. Some of them are helping to produce the benefits of civilization, and some are not. All these people help to consume these things, but when we inquire into their occupations we shall find that although the majority are workers, only a comparatively small number are engaged in actually producing either the benefits of civilization or the necessaries of life.’ ...
 Order being once more restored, the lecturer turned again to the drawing on the wall and stretched out his hand, evidently with the intention of making some addition to it, but instead of doing so lie paused irresolutely, and faltering, let his arm drop down again by his side.
 An absolute, disconcerting silence reigned. His embarrassment and nervousness increased. He knew that they were unwilling to hear or talk or think about such subjects as the cause of poverty at all. They preferred to make fun of and ridicule them. He knew they would refuse to try to see the meaning of what he wished to say if it were at all difficult or obscure. How was he to put it to them so that they would HAVE to understand it whether they wished to or not. It was almost impossible.
 It would be easy enough to convince them if they would only take a LITTLE trouble and try to understand, but he knew that they certainly would not ‘worry’ themselves about such a subject as this; it was not as if it were some really important matter, such as a smutty story, a game of hooks and rings or shove-ha’penny, something concerning football or cricket, horse-racing or the doings of some Royal personage or aristocrat.
 The problem of the cause of poverty was only something that concerned their own and their children’s future welfare. Such an unimportant matter, being undeserving of any earnest attention, must be put before them so clearly and plainly that they would be compelled to understand it at a glance; and it was almost impossible to do it.
 Observing his hesitation, some of the men began to snigger. ‘’E seems to ’ave got ’isself into a bit of a fog,’ remarked Crass in a loud whisper to Slyme, who laughed.
 The sound roused Owen, who resumed:
 ‘All these people help to consume the things produced by labour. We will now divide them into separate classes. Those who help to produce; those who do nothing, those who do harm, and those who are engaged in unnecessary work.’
 ‘And,’ sneered Crass, ‘those who are engaged in unnecessary talk.’
 ‘First we will separate those who not only do nothing, but do not even pretend to be of any use; people who would consider themselves disgraced if they by any chance did any useful work. This class includes tramps, beggars, the "Aristocracy", "Society" people, great landowners, and generally all those possessed of hereditary wealth.’
 As he spoke he drew a vertical line across one end of the oblong.
  +——————+——————————————————————————-+ | Tramps | | | Beggars | | | Society | | | People | | | Aristoc- | | | racy | | | Great | | | Landowners | | | All those | | | possessed | | | of | | | hereditary | | | wealth | | +——————+——————————————————————————-+
 ‘These people do absolutely nothing except devour or enjoy the things produced by the labours of others.
 ‘Our next division represents those who do work of a kind - "mental" work if you like to call it so - work that benefits themselves and harms other people. Employers - or rather Exploiters of Labour; Thieves, Swindlers, Pickpockets; profit seeking share-holders; burglars; Bishops; Financiers; Capitalists, and those persons humorously called "Ministers" of religion. If you remember that the word "minister" means "servant" you will be able to see the joke.
  1 2 +——————+——————-+———————————————————-+ | Tramps | Exploiters | | | Beggars | of Labour | | | Society | Thieves | | | People | Swindlers | | | Aristoc- | Pickpockets | | | racy | Burglars | | | Great | Bishops | | | Landowners | Financiers | | | All those | Capitalists | | | possessed | Share- | | | of | holders | | | hereditary | Ministers | | | wealth | of religion | | +——————+——————-+———————————————————-+
 ‘None of these people produce anything themselves, but by means of cunning and scheming they contrive between them to obtain possession of a very large portion of the things produced by the labour of others.
 ‘Number three stands for those who work for wages or salaries, doing unnecessary work. That is, producing things or doing things which - though useful and necessary to the Imbecile System - cannot be described as the necessaries of life or the benefits of civilization. This is the largest section of all. It comprises Commercial Travellers, Canvassers, Insurance agents, commission agents, the great number of Shop Assistants, the majority of clerks, workmen employed in the construction and adornment of business premises, people occupied with what they call "Business", which means being very busy without producing anything. Then there is a vast army of people engaged in designing, composing, painting or printing advertisements, things which are for the most part of no utility whatever, the object of most advertisements is merely to persuade people to buy from one firm rather than from another. If you want some butter it doesn’t matter whether you buy it from Brown or Jones or Robinson.’
  1 2 3 +——————+——————-+——————-+————————————-+ | Tramps | Exploiters | All those | | | Beggars | of Labour | engaged in | | | Society | Thieves | unnecessary | | | People | Swindlers | work | | | Aristoc- | Pickpockets | | | | racy | Burglars | | | | Great | Bishops | | | | Landowners | Financiers | | | | All those | Capitalists | | | | possessed | Share- | | | | of | holders | | | | hereditary | Ministers | | | | wealth | of religion | | | +——————+——————-+——————-+————————————-+
 During the delivery of this pert of the lecture, the audience began to manifest symptoms of impatience and dissent. Perceiving this, Owen, speaking very rapidly, continued:
 ‘If you go down town, you will see half a dozen drapers’ shops within a stone’s-throw of each other - often even next door to each other - all selling the same things. You can’t possibly think that all those shops are really necessary? You know that one of them would serve the purpose for which they are all intended - to store and serve as a centre for the distribution of the things that are made by work. If you will admit that five out of the six shops are not really necessary, you must also admit that the men who built them, and the salesmen and women or other assistants engaged in them, and the men who design and write and print their advertisements are all doing unnecessary work; all really wasting their time and labour, time and labour that might be employed in helping to produce these things that we are at present short of. You must admit that none of these people are engaged in producing either the necessaries of life or the benefits of civilization. They buy them, and sell them, and handle them, and haggle over, them, and display them, in the plate glass windows of "Stores" and "Emporiums" and make profit out of them, and use them, but these people themselves produce nothing that is necessary to life or happiness, and the things that some of them do produce are only necessary to the present imbecile system.’
 ‘What the ’ell sort of a bloody system do you think we ought to ’ave, then?’ interrupted the man on the pail.
 ‘Yes: you’re very good at finding fault,’ sneered Slyme, ‘but why don’t you tell us ’ow it’s all going to be put right?’
 ‘Well, that’s not what we’re talking about now, is it?’ replied Owen. ‘At present we’re only trying to find out how it is that there is not sufficient produced for everyone to have enough of the things that are made by work. Although most of the people in number three work very hard, they produce Nothing.’
 ‘This is a lot of bloody rot!’ exclaimed Crass, impatiently.
 ‘Even if there is more shops than what’s actually necessary,’ cried Harlow, ‘it all helps people to get a livin’! If half of ’em was shut up, it would just mean that all them what works there would be out of a job. Live and let live, I say: all these things makes work.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ shouted the man behind the moat.
 ‘Yes, I know it makes "work",’ replied Owen, ‘but we can’t live on mere "work", you know. To live in comfort we need a sufficiency of the things that can be made by work. A man might work very hard and yet be wasting his time if he were not producing something necessary or useful.
 ‘Why are there so many shops and stores and emporiums? Do you imagine they exist for the purpose of giving those who build them, or work in them, a chance to earn a living? Nothing of the sort. They are carried on, and exorbitant prices are charged for the articles they sell, to enable the proprietors to amass fortunes, and to pay extortionate rents to the landlords. That is why the wages and salaries of nearly all those who do the work created by these businesses are cut down to the lowest possible point.’
 ‘We knows all about that,’ said Crass, ‘but you can’t get away from it that all these things makes Work; and that’s what we wants - Plenty of Work.’
 Cries of ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ and expressions of dissent from the views expressed by the lecturer resounded through the room, nearly everyone speaking at the same time. After a while, when the row had in some measure subsided, Owen resumed:
 ‘Nature has not provided ready-made all the things necessary for the life and happiness of mankind. In order to obtain these things we have to Work. The only rational labour is that which is directed to the creation of those things. Any kind of work which does not help us to attain this object is a ridiculous, idiotic, criminal, imbecile, waste of time.
 ‘That is what the great army of people represented by division number three are doing at present: they are all very busy - working very hard - but to all useful intents and purposes they are doing Nothing.’
 ‘Well, all right,’ said Harlow. ‘’Ave it yer own way, but there’s no need to keep on repeating the same thing over an’ over again.’
 ‘The next division,’ resumed Owen, ‘stands for those who are engaged in really useful work - the production of the benefits of civilization - the necessaries, refinements and comforts of life.’
  1 2 34 +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+ | Tramps | Exploiters | All those | All those || | Beggars | of Labour | engaged in | engaged in || | Society | Thieves | unnecessary | necessary | U | | People | Swindlers | work | work - the | N | | Aristoc- | Pickpockets | | production | E | | racy | Burglars | | of the | M | | Great | Bishops | | benefits | P | | Landowners | Financiers | | of | L | | All those | Capitalists | | civiliz- | O | | possessed | Share- | | ation | Y | | of | holders | || E | | hereditary | Ministers | || D | | wealth | of religion | ||| +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+
 ‘Hooray!’ shouted Philpot, leading off a cheer which was taken up enthusiastically by the crowd, ‘Hooray! This is where WE comes in,’ he added, nodding his head and winking his goggle eyes at the meeting.
 ‘I wish to call the chairman to horder,’ said the man on the pail.
 When Owen had finished writing in the list of occupations several members of the audience rose to point out that those engaged in the production of beer had been omitted. Owen rectified this serious oversight and proceeded:
 ‘As most of the people in number four are out of work at least one quarter of their time, we must reduce the size of this division by one fourth - so. The grey part represents the unemployed.’
 ‘But some of those in number three are often unemployed as well,’ said Harlow.
 Yes: but as THEY produce nothing even when they are at work we need not trouble to classify them unemployed, because our present purpose is only to discover the reason why there is not enough produced for everyone to enjoy abundance; and this - the Present System of conducting our affairs - is the reason of the shortage - the cause of poverty. When you reflect that all the other people are devouring the things produced by those in number four - can you wonder that there is not plenty for all?’
 ‘"Devouring" is a good word,’ said Philpot, and the others laughed.
 The lecturer now drew a small square upon the wall below the other drawing. This square he filled in solid black.
  1 2 34 +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+ | Tramps | Exploiters | All those | All those || | Beggars | of Labour | engaged in | engaged in || | Society | Thieves | unnecessary | necessary | U | | People | Swindlers | work | work - the | N | | Aristoc- | Pickpockets | | production | E | | racy | Burglars | | of the | M | | Great | Bishops | | benefits | P | | Landowners | Financiers | | of | L | | All those | Capitalists | | civiliz- | O | | possessed | Share- | | ation | Y | | of | holders | || E | | hereditary | Ministers | || D | | wealth | of religion | ||| +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+
  ############## ############## ############## This represents the total ############## of the things produced by ############## the people in division 4. ##############
 ‘This represents the total amount of the benefits of civilization and necessaries of life produced by the people in number four. We now proceed to "Share Out" the things in the same way as they are actually divided amongst the different classes of the population under the present imbecile system.
 ‘As the people in divisions one and two are universally considered to be the most worthy and deserving we give them - two-thirds of the whole.
 ‘The remainder we give to be "Shared Out" amongst the people represented by divisions three and four.
  1 2 34 +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+ | Tramps | Exploiters | All those | All those || | Beggars | of Labour | engaged in | engaged in || | Society | Thieves | unnecessary | necessary | U | | People | Swindlers | work | work - the | N | | Aristoc- | Pickpockets | | production | E | | racy | Burglars | | of the | M | | Great | Bishops | | benefits | P | | Landowners | Financiers | | of | L | | All those | Capitalists | | civiliz- | O | | possessed | Share- | | ation | Y | | of | holders | || E | | hereditary | Ministers | || D | | wealth | of religion | ||| +——————+——————-+——————-+——————+——————+ \___________ ____________/ \___________ ___________/ \/ \/ ######### ##### ######### ##### ######### ##### ######### ##### ######### ##### ######### ##### How the things produced by the people in division 4 are ‘shared out’ amongst the different classes of the population.
 ‘Now you mustn’t run away with the idea that the people in three and four take their share quietly and divide the things equally between them. Not at all. Some get very little, some none, some more than a fair share. It is in these two divisions that the ferocious "Battle of Life" ranges most fiercely; and of course in this battle the weak and the virtuous fare the worst. Even those whose exceptional abilities or opportunities enable them to succeed, are compelled to practise selfishness, because a man of exceptional ability who was not selfish would devote his abilities to relieving the manifest sufferings of others, and not to his own profit, and if he did the former he would not be successful in the sense that the world understands the word. All those who really seek to "Love their neighbour as themselves", or to return good for evil, the gentle, the kind, and all those who refrain from doing to others the things they would not like to suffer themselves; all these are of necessity found amongst the vanquished; because only the worst - only those who are aggressive, cunning, selfish and mean are fitted to survive. And all these people in numbers three and four are so fully occupied in this dreadful struggle to secure a little, that but few of them pause to inquire why there are not more of the things they are fighting for, or why it is necessary to fight like this at all!’
 For a few minutes silence prevailed, each man’s mind being busy trying to think of some objection to the lecturer’s arguments.
 ‘How could the small number of people in number one and two consume as much as you’ve given ’em in your drorin’?’ demanded Crass.
 ‘They don’t actually consume all of it,’ replied Owen. ‘Much of it is wantonly wasted. They also make fortunes by selling some of it in foreign countries; but they consume a great part of it themselves, because the amount of labour expended on the things enjoyed by these people is greater than that expended in the production of the things used by the workers. Most of the people who do nothing get the best of everything. More than three-quarters of the time of the working classes is spent in producing the things used by the wealthy. Compare the quality and quantity of the clothing possessed by the wife or daughter of a rich man with that of the wife or daughter of a worker. The time and labour spent on producing the one is twenty times greater in one case than in the other; and it’s the same with everything else. Their homes, their clothing, boots, hats, jewellery, and their food. Everything must be of the very best that art or long and painful labour can produce. But for most of those whose labour produces all these good things - anything is considered good enough. For themselves, the philanthropic workers manufacture shoddy cloth - that is, cheap cloth made of old rags and dirt; and shoddy, uncomfortable ironclad boots. If you see a workman wearing a really good suit of clothes you may safely conclude that he is either leading an unnatural life - that is, he is not married - or that he has obtained it from a tallyman on the hire system and has not yet paid for it - or that it is someone else’s cast-off suit that he has bought second-hand or had given to him by some charitable person. It’s the same with the food. All the ducks and geese, pheasants, partridges, and all the very best parts of the very best meat - all the soles and the finest plaice and salmon and trout -’
 ‘’Ere chuck it,’ cried Harlow, fiercely. ‘We don’t want to ’ear no more of it,’ and several others protested against the lecturer wasting time on such mere details.
 ‘- all the very best of everything is reserved exclusively for the enjoyment of the people in divisions one and two, while the workers subsist on block ornaments, margarine, adulterated tea, mysterious beer, and are content - only grumbling when they are unable to obtain even such fare as this.’
 Owen paused and a gloomy silence followed, but suddenly Crass brightened up. He detected a serious flaw in the lecturer’s argument.
 ‘You say the people in one and two gets all the best of everything, but what about the tramps and beggars? You’ve got them in division one.’
 ‘Yes, I know. You see, that’s the proper place for them. They belong to a Loafer class. They are no better mentally or morally than any of the other loafers in that division; neither are they of any more use. Of course, when we consider them in relation to the amount they consume of the things produced by others, they are not so harmful as the other loafers, because they consume comparatively little. But all the same they are in their right place in that division. All those people don’t get the same share. The section represents not individuals - but the loafer class.’
 ‘But I thought you said you was goin’ to prove that money was the cause of poverty,’ said Easton.
 ‘So it is,’ said Owen. ‘Can’t you see that it’s money that’s caused all these people to lose sight of the true purpose of labour - the production of the things we need? All these people are suffering from the delusion that it doesn’t matter what kind of work they do - or whether they merely do nothing - so long as they get MONEY for doing it. Under the present extraordinary system, that’s the only object they have in view - to get money. Their ideas are so topsy-turvey that they regard with contempt those who are engaged in useful work! With the exception of criminals and the poorer sort of loafers, the working classes are considered to be the lowest and least worthy in the community. Those who manage to get money for doing something other than productive work are considered more worthy of respect on that account. Those who do nothing themselves, but get money out of the labour of others, are regarded as being more worthy still! But the ones who are esteemed most of all and honoured above all the rest, are those who obtain money for doing absolutely nothing!’
 ‘But I can’t see as that proves that money is the cause of poverty,’ said Easton.
 ‘Look here,’ said Owen. ‘The people in number four produce everything, don’t they?’
 ‘Yes; we knows all about that,’ interrupted Harlow. ‘But they gets paid for it, don’t they? They gets their wages.’
 ‘Yes, and what does their wages consist of?’ said Owen.
 ‘Why, money, of course,’ replied Harlow, impatiently.
 And what do they do with their money when they get it? Do they eat it, or drink it, or wear it?’
 At this apparently absurd question several of those who had hitherto been attentive listeners laughed derisively; it was really very difficult to listen patiently to such nonsense.
 ‘Of course they don’t,’ answered Harlow scornfully. ‘They buy the things they want with it.’
 ‘Do you think that most of them manage to save a part of their wages - put it away in the bank.’
 ‘Well, I can speak for meself,’ replied Harlow amid laughter. ‘It takes me all my bloody time to pay my rent and other expenses and to keep my little lot in shoe leather, and it’s dam little I spend on beer; p’r’aps a tanner or a bob a week at the most.’
 ‘A single man can save money if he likes,’ said Slyme.
 ‘I’m not speaking of single men,’ replied Owen. ‘I’m referring to those who live natural lives.’
 ‘What about all the money what’s in the Post Office Savings Bank, and Building and Friendly Societies?’ said Crass.
 ‘A very large part of that belongs to people who are in business, or who have some other source of income than their own wages. There are some exceptionally fortunate workers who happen to have good situations and higher wages than the ordinary run of workmen. Then there are some who are so placed - by letting lodgings, for instance - that they are able to live rent free. Others whose wives go out to work; and others again who have exceptional jobs and work a lot of overtime - but these are all exceptional cases.’
 ‘I say as no married workin’ man can save any money at all!’ shouted Harlow, ’not unless ’e goes without some of even the few things we are able to get - and makes ’is wife and kids go without as well.’
 ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ said everybody except Crass and Slyme, who were both thrifty working men, and each of them had some money saved in one or other of the institutions mentioned.
 ‘Then that means,’ said Owen, ‘that means that the wages the people in division four receive is not equivalent to the work they do.’
 ‘Wotcher mean, equivalent?’ cried Crass. ‘Why the ’ell don’t yer talk plain English without draggin’ in a lot of long words wot nobody can’t understand?’
 ‘I mean this,’ replied Owen, speaking very slowly. ‘Everything is produced by the people in number four. In return for their work they are given - Money, and the things they have made become the property of the people who do nothing. Then, as the money is of no use, the workers go to shops and give it away in exchange for some of the things they themselves have made. They spend - or give back - ALL their wages; but as the money they got as wages is not equal in value to the things they produced, they find that they are only able to buy back a VERY SMALL PART. So you see that these little discs of metal - this Money - is a device for enabling those who do not work to rob the workers of the greater part of the fruits of their toil.’
 The silence that ensued was broken by Crass.
 ‘It sounds very pretty,’ he sneered, ‘but I can’t make no ’ead or tail of it, meself.’
 ‘Look here!’ cried Owen. ‘The producing class - these people in number four are supposed to be paid for their work. Their wages are supposed to be equal in value to their work. But it’s not so. If it were, by spending all their wages, the producing class would be able to buy back All they had produced.’
 Owen ceased speaking and silence once more ensued. No one gave any sign of understanding, or of agreeing or of disagreeing with what he had said. Their attitude was strictly neutral. Barrington’s pipe had gone out during the argument. He relit it from the fire with a piece of twisted paper.
 ‘If their wages were really equal in value to the product of their labour,’ Owen repeated, ‘they would be able to buy back not a small part - but the Whole.’ ...
 At this, a remark from Bundy caused a shout of laughter, and when Wantley added point to the joke by making a sound like the discharge of a pistol the merriment increased tenfold.
 ‘Well, that’s done it,’ remarked Easton, as he got up and opened the window.
 ‘It’s about time you was buried, if the smell’s anything to go by,’ said Harlow, addressing Wantley, who laughed and appeared to think he had distinguished himself.
 ‘But even if we include the whole of the working classes,’ continued Owen, ‘that is, the people in number three as well as those in number four, we find that their combined wages are insufficient to buy the things made by the producers. The total value of the wealth produced in this country during the last year was £1,800,000,000, and the total amount paid in wages during the same period was only £600,000,000. In other words, by means of the Money Trick, the workers were robbed of two-thirds of the value of their labour. All the people in numbers three and four are working and suffering and starving and fighting in order that the rich people in numbers one and two may live in luxury, and do nothing. These are the wretches who cause poverty: they not only devour or waste or hoard the things made by the worker, but as soon as their own wants are supplied - they compel the workers to cease working and prevent them producing the things they need. Most of these people!’ cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, ‘most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They’re devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind - all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger.’
 The silence which followed was at length broken by Harlow:
 ‘You say the workers is entitled to all they produce, but you forget there’s the raw materials to pay for. They don’t make them, you know.’
 ‘Of course the workers don’t create the raw materials,’ replied Owen. ‘But I am not aware that the capitalists or the landlords do so either. The raw materials exist in abundance in and on the earth, but they are of no use until labour has been applied to them.’
 ‘But then, you see, the earth belongs to the landlords!’ cried Crass, unguardedly.
 ‘I know that; and of course you think it’s right that the whole country should belong to a few people -’
 ‘I must call the lecturer to horder,’ interrupted Philpot. ‘The land question is not before the meeting at present.’
 ‘You talk about the producers being robbed of most of the value of what they produce,’ said Harlow, ‘but you must remember that it ain’t all produced by hand labour. What about the things what’s made by machinery?’
 ‘The machines themselves were made by the workers,’ returned Owen, ‘but of course they do not belong to the workers, who have been robbed of them by means of the Money Trick.’
 ‘But who invented all the machinery?’ cried Crass.
 ‘That’s more than you or I or anyone else can say,’ returned Owen, ‘but it certainly wasn’t the wealthy loafer class, or the landlords, or the employers. Most of the men who invented the machinery lived and died unknown, in poverty and often in actual want. The inventors too were robbed by the exploiter-of-labour class. There are no men living at present who can justly claim to have invented the machinery that exists today. The most they can truthfully say is that they have added to or improved upon the ideas of those who lived and worked before them. Even Watt and Stevenson merely improved upon steam engines and locomotives already existing. Your question has really nothing to do with the subject we are discussing: we are only trying to find out why the majority of people have to go short of the benefits of civilization. One of the causes is - the majority of the population are engaged in work that does not produce those things; and most of what IS produced is appropriated and wasted by those who have no right to it.
 ‘The workers produce Everything! If you walk through the streets of a town or a city, and look around, Everything that you can see - Factories, Machinery, Houses, Railways, Tramways, Canals, Furniture, Clothing, Food and the very road or pavement you stand upon were all made by the working class, who spend all their wages in buying back only a very small part of the things they produce. Therefore what remains in the possession of their masters represents the difference between the value of the work done and the wages paid for doing it. This systematic robbery has been going on for generations, the value of the accumulated loot is enormous, and all of it, all the wealth at present in the possession of the rich, is rightly the property of the working class - it has been stolen from them by means of the Money Trick.’ ...
 For some moments an oppressive silence prevailed. The men stared with puzzled, uncomfortable looks alternately at each other and at the drawings on the wall. They were compelled to do a little thinking on their own account, and it was a process to which they were unaccustomed. In their infancy they had been taught to distrust their own intelligence and to leave "thinking’ to their ‘pastors’ and masters and to their ‘betters’ generally. All their lives they had been true to this teaching, they had always had blind, unreasoning faith in the wisdom and humanity of their pastors and masters. That was the reason why they and their children had been all their lives on the verge of starvation and nakedness, whilst their ‘betters’ - who did nothing but the thinking - went clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.
 Several men had risen from their seats and were attentively studying the diagrams Owen had drawn on the wall; and nearly all the others were making the same mental efforts - they were trying to think of something to say in defence of those who robbed them of the fruits of their toil.
 ‘I don’t see no bloody sense in always runnin’ down the rich,’ said Harlow at last. ‘There’s always been rich and poor in the world and there always will be.’
 ‘Of course,’ said Slyme. ‘It says in the Bible that the poor shall always be with us.’
 ‘What the bloody ’ell kind of system do you think we ought to ’ave?’ demanded Crass. ‘If everything’s wrong, ’ow’s it goin’ to be altered?’
 At this, everybody brightened up again, and exchanged looks of satisfaction and relief. Of course! It wasn’t necessary to think about these things at all! Nothing could ever be altered: it had always been more or less the same, and it always would be.
 ‘It seems to me that you all HOPE it is impossible to alter it,’ said Owen. ‘Without trying to find out whether it could be done, you persuade yourselves that it is impossible, and then, instead of being sorry, you’re glad!’
 Some of them laughed in a silly, half-ashamed way.
 ‘How do YOU reckon it could be altered?’ said Harlow.
 ‘The way to alter it is, first to enlighten the people as to the real cause of their sufferings, and then -’
 ‘Well,’ interrupted Crass, with a self-satisfied chuckle, ‘it’ll take a better bloody man than you to enlighten ME!’
 ‘I don’t want to be henlightened into Darkness!’ said Slyme piously.
 ‘But what sort of System do you propose, then?’ repeated Harlow.
 ‘After you’ve got ’em all enlightened - if you don’t believe in sharing out all the money equal, how ARE you goin’ to alter it?’
 ‘I don’t know ’ow ’e’s goin’ to alter it,’ sneered Crass, looking at his watch and standing up, ‘but I do know what the time is - two minits past one!’
 ‘The next lecture,’ said Philpot, addressing the meeting as they all prepared to return to work, ‘the next lecture will be postponded till tomorrer at the usual time, when it will be my painful dooty to call upon Mr Owen to give ’is well-known and most hobnoxious address entitled "Work and how to avoid it." Hall them as wants to be henlightened kindly attend.’
 ‘Or hall them as don’t get the sack tonight,’ remarked Easton grimly.
 
 Chapter 26
 The Slaughter
  During the afternoon, Rushton and Sweater visited the house, the latter having an appointment to meet there a gardener to whom be wished to give instructions concerning the laying out of the grounds, which had been torn up for the purpose of putting in the new drains. Sweater had already arranged with the head gardener of the public park to steal some of the best plants from that place and have them sent up to ‘The Cave’. These plants had been arriving in small lots for about a week. They must have been brought there either in the evening after the men left off or very early in the morning before they came. The two gentlemen remained at the house for about half an hour and as they went away the mournful sound of the Town Hall bell - which was always tolled to summon meetings of the Council - was heard in the distance, and the hands remarked to each other that another robbery was about to be perpetrated.
 Hunter did not come to the job again that day: he had been sent by Rushton to price some work for which the firm was going to tender an estimate. There was only one person who felt any regret at his absence, and that was Mrs White - Bert’s mother, who had been working at ‘The Cave’ for several days, scrubbing the floors. As a rule, Hunter paid her wages every night, and on this occasion she happened to need the money even more than usual. As leaving off time drew near, she mentioned the matter to Crass, who advised her to call at the office on her way home and ask the young lady clerk for the money. As Hunter did not appear, she followed the foreman’s advice.
 When she reached the shop Rushton was just coming out. She explained to him what she wanted and he instructed Mr Budd to tell Miss Wade to pay her. The shopman accordingly escorted her to the office at the back of the shop, and the young lady book-keeper - after referring to former entries to make quite certain of the amount, paid her the sum that Hunter had represented as her wages, the same amount that Miss Wade had on the previous occasions given him to pay the charwoman. When Mrs White got outside she found that she held in her hand half a crown instead of the two shillings she usually received from Mr Hunter. At first she felt inclined to take it back, but after some hesitation she thought it better to wait until she saw Hunter, when she could tell him about it; but the next morning when she saw the disciple at ‘The Cave’ he broached the subject first, and told her that Miss Wade had made a mistake. And that evening when he paid her, he deducted the sixpence from the usual two shillings.
 The lecture announced by Philpot was not delivered. Anxiously awaiting the impending slaughter the men kept tearing into it as usual, for they generally keep working in the usual way, each one trying to outdo the others so as not to lose his chance of being one of the lucky one ...
 Misery now went round and informed all the men with the exception of Crass, Owen, Slyme and Sawkins - that they would have to stand off that night. He told them that the firm had several jobs in view - work they had tendered for and hoped to get, and said they could look round after Christmas and he might - possibly - be able to start some of them again. They would be paid at the office tomorrow - Saturday - at one o’clock as usual, but if any of them wished they could have their money tonight. The men thanked him, and most of them said they would come for their wages at the usual pay-time, and would call round as he suggested, after the holidays, to see if there was anything to do.
 In all, fifteen men - including Philpot, Harlow, Easton and Ned Dawson, were to ‘stand off’ that night. They took their dismissal stolidly, without any remark, some of them even with an affectation of indifference, but there were few attempts at conversation afterwards. The little work that remained to be done they did in silence, every man oppressed by the same terror - the dread of the impending want, the privation and unhappiness that they knew they and their families would have to suffer during the next few months.
 Bundy and his mate Dawson were working in the kitchen fixing the new range in place of the old one which they had taken out. They had been engaged on this job all day, and their hands and faces and clothes were covered with soot, which they had also contrived to smear and dab all over the surfaces of the doors and other woodwork in the room, much to the indignation of Crass and Slyme, who had to wash it all off before they could put on the final coat of paint.
 ‘You can’t help makin’ a little mess on a job of this kind, you know,’ remarked Bundy, as he was giving the finishing touches to the work, making good the broken parts of the wall with cement, whilst his mate was clearing away the debris.
 ‘Yes; but there’s no need to claw ’old of the bloody doors every time you goes in and out,’ snarled Crass, ‘and you could ’ave put yer tools on the floor instead of makin’ a bench of the dresser.’
 ‘You can ’ave the bloody place all to yerself in about five minutes,’ replied Bundy, as he assisted to lift a sack of cement weighing about two hundredweight on to Dawson’s buck. ‘We’re finished now.’
 When they had cleared away all the dirt and fragments of bricks and mortar, while Crass and Slyme proceeded with the painting, Bundy and Dawson loaded up their hand-cart with the old range and the bags of unused cement and plaster, which they took back to the yard. Meantime, Misery was wandering about the house and pounds like an evil spirit seeking rest and finding none. He stood for some time gloomily watching the four gardeners, who were busily at work laying strips of turf, mowing the lawn, rolling the gravel paths and trimming the trees and bushes. The boy Bert, Philpot, Harlow, Easton and Sawkins were loading a hand-cart with ladders and empty paint-pots to return to the yard. Just as they were setting out, Misery stopped them, remarking that the cart was not half loaded - he said it would take a month to get all the stuff away if they went on like that; so by his directions they placed another long ladder on top of the pile and once more started on their way, but before they had gone two dozen yards one of the wheels of the cart collapsed and the load was scattered over the roadway. Bert was at the same side of the cart as the wheel that broke and he was thrown violently to the ground, where he lay half stunned, in the midst of the ladders and planks. When they got him out they were astonished to find that, thanks to the special Providence that watches over all small boys, he was almost unhurt - just a little dazed, that was all; and by the time Sawkins returned with another cart, Bert was able to help to gather up the fallen paint-pots and to accompany the men with the load to the yard. At the corner of the road they paused to take a last look at the ‘job’.
 ‘There it stands!’ said Harlow, tragically, extending his arm towards the house. ‘There it stands! A job that if they’d only have let us do it properly, couldn’t ’ave been done with the number of ’ands we’ve ’ad, in less than four months; and there it is, finished, messed up, slobbered over and scamped, in nine weeks!’
 ‘Yes, and now we can all go to ’ell,’ said Philpot, gloomily.
 At the yard they found Bundy and his mate, Ned Dawson, who helped them to hang up the ladders in their usual places. Philpot was glad to get out of assisting to do this, for he had contracted a rather severe attack of rheumatism when working outside at the ‘Cave’. Whilst the others were putting the ladders away he assisted Bert to carry the paint-pots and buckets into the paint shop, and while there he filled a small medicine bottle he had brought with him for the purpose, with turpentine from the tank. He wanted this stuff to rub into his shoulders and legs, and as he secreted the bottle in the inner pocket of his coat, he muttered: ‘This is where we gets some of our own back.’
 They took the key of the yard to the office and as they separated to go home Bundy suggested that the best thing they could do would be to sew their bloody mouths up for a few months, because there was not much probability of their getting another job until about March.
 The next morning while Crass and Slyme were finishing inside, Owen wrote the two gates. On the front entrance ‘The Cave’ and on the back ‘Tradesmens Entrance’, in gilded letters. In the meantime, Sawkins and Bert made several journeys to the Yard with the hand-cart.
 Crass - working in the kitchen with Slyme - was very silent and thoughtful. Ever since the job was started, every time Mr Sweater had visited the house to see what progress was being made, Crass had been grovelling to him in the hope of receiving a tip when the work was finished. He had been very careful to act upon any suggestions that Sweater had made from time to time and on several occasions had taken a lot of trouble to get just the right tints of certain colours, making up a number of different shades and combinations, and doing parts of the skirtings or mouldings of rooms in order that Mr Sweater might see exactly - before they went on with it - what it would look like when finished. He made a great pretence of deferring to Sweater’s opinion, and assured him that he did not care how much trouble he took as long as he - Sweater - was pleased. In fact, it was no trouble at all: it was a pleasure. As the work neared completion, Crass began to speculate upon the probable amount of the donation he would receive as the reward of nine weeks of cringing, fawning, abject servility. He thought it quite possible that he might get a quid: it would not be too much, considering all the trouble he had taken. It was well worth it. At any rate, he felt certain that he was sure to get ten bob; a gentleman like Mr Sweater would never have the cheek to offer less. The more he thought about it the more improbable it appeared that the amount would be less than a quid, and he made up his mind that whatever he got he would take good care that none of the other men knew anything about it. HE was the one who had had all the worry of the job, and he was the only one entitled to anything there was to be had. Besides, even if he got a quid, by the time you divided that up amongst a dozen - or even amongst two or three - it would not be worth having.
 At about eleven o’clock Mr Sweater arrived and began to walk over the house, followed by Crass, who carried a pot of paint and a small brush and made believe to be ‘touching up’ and finishing off parts of the work. As Sweater went from one room to another Crass repeatedly placed himself in the way in the hope of being spoken to, but Sweater took no notice of him whatever. Once or twice Crass’s heart began to beat quickly as he furtively watched the great man and saw him thrust his thumb and finger into his waistcoat pocket, but on each occasion Sweater withdrew his hand with nothing in it. After a while, observing that the gentleman was about to depart without having spoken, Crass determined to break the ice himself.
 ‘It’s a little better weather we’re ’avin’ now, sir.’
 ‘Yes,’ replied Sweater.
 ‘I was beginnin’ to be afraid as I shouldn’t be hable to git heverything finished in time for you to move in before Christmas, sir,’ Crass continued, ‘but it’s hall done now, sir.’
 Sweater made no reply.
 ‘I’ve kept the fire agoin’ in hall the rooms has you told me, sir,’ resumed Crass after a pause. ‘I think you’ll find as the place is nice and dry, sir; the honly places as is a bit damp is the kitchen and scullery and the other rooms in the basement, sir, but of course that’s nearly halways the case, sir, when the rooms is partly hunderground, sir.
 ‘But of course it don’t matter so much about the basement, sir, because it’s honly the servants what ’as to use it, sir, and even down there it’ll be hall right hin the summer, sir.’
 One would scarcely think, from the contemptuous way in which he spoke of ‘servants’ that Crass’s own daughter was ‘in service’, but such was the case.
 ‘Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that,’ replied Sweater as he moved towards the door; ‘there’s no doubt it will be dry enough in the summer. Good morning.’
 ‘Good morning to YOU, sir,’ said Crass, following him. ‘I ’opes as you’re pleased with all the work, sir; everything satisfactory, sir.’
 ‘Oh, yes. I think it looks very nice; very nice indeed; I’m very pleased with it,’ said Sweater affably. ‘Good morning.’
 ‘Good morning, sir,’ replied the foreman with a sickly smile as Sweater departed.
 When the other was gone, Crass sat down dejectedly on the bottom step of the stairs, overwhelmed with the ruin of his hopes and expectations. He tried to comfort himself with the reflection that all hope was not lost, because he would have to come to the house again on Monday and Tuesday to fix the venetian blinds; but all the same he could not help thinking that it was only a very faint hope, for he felt that if Sweater had intended giving anything he would have done so today; and it was very improbable that he would see Sweater on Monday or Tuesday at all, for the latter did not usually visit the job in the early part of the week. However, Crass made up his mind to hope for the best, and, pulling himself together, he presently returned to the kitchen, where he found Slyme and Sawkins waiting for him. He had not mentioned his hopes of a tip to either of them, but they did not need any telling and they were both determined to have their share of whatever he got. They eyed him keenly as he entered.
 ‘What did ’e give yer?’ demanded Sawkins, going straight to the point.
 ‘Give me?’ replied Crass. ‘Nothing!’
 Slyme laughed in a sneering, incredulous way, but Sawkins was inclined to be abusive. He averred that he had been watching Crass and Sweater and had seen the latter put his thumb and finger into his waistcoat pocket as he walked into the dining-room, followed by Crass. It took the latter a long time to convince his two workmates of the truth of his own account, but he succeeded at last, and they all three agreed that Old Sweater was a sanguinary rotter, and they lamented over the decay of the good old-fashioned customs.
 ‘Why, at one time o’ day,’ said Crass, ‘only a few years ago, if you went to a gentleman’s ’ouse to paint one or two rooms you could always be sure of a bob or two when you’d finished.’
 By half past twelve everything was squared up, and, having loaded up the hand-cart with all that remained of the materials, dirty paint-pots and plant, they all set out together for the yard, to put all the things away before going to the office for their money. Sawkins took the handle of the cart, Slyme and Crass walked at one side and Owen and Bert at the other. There was no need to push, for the road was downhill most of the way; so much so that they had all to help to hold back the cart, which travelled so rapidly that Bert found it difficult to keep pace with the others and frequently broke into a trot to recover lost ground, and Crass - being fleshy and bloated with beer, besides being unused to much exertion - began to perspire and soon appealed to the others not to let it go so fast - there was no need to get done before one o’clock.
 
 Chapter 27
 The March of the Imperialists
  It was an unusually fine day for the time of year, and as they passed along the Grand Parade - which faced due south - they felt quite warm. The Parade was crowded with richly dressed and bejewelled loafers, whose countenances in many instances bore unmistakable signs of drunkenness and gluttony. Some of the females had tried to conceal the ravages of vice and dissipation by coating their faces with powder and paint. Mingling with and part of this crowd were a number of well-fed-looking individuals dressed in long garments of black cloth of the finest texture, and broad-brimmed soft felt hats. Most of these persons had gold rings on their soft white fingers and glove-like kid or calfskin boots on their feet. They belonged to the great army of imposters who obtain an easy living by taking advantage of the ignorance and simplicity of their fellow-men, and pretending to be the ‘followers’ and ‘servants’ of the lowly Carpenter of Nazareth - the Man of Sorrows, who had not where to lay His head.
 None of these black-garbed ‘disciples’ were associating with the groups of unemployed carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, and painters who stood here and there in the carriage-way dressed in mean and shabby clothing and with faces pale with privation. Many of these latter were known to our friends with the cart, and nodded to them as they passed. Now and then some of them came over and walked a little distance by their side, inquiring whether there was any news of another job at Rushton’s.
 When they were about half-way down the Parade, just near the Fountain, Crass and his mates encountered a number of men on whose arms were white bands with the word ‘Collector’ in black letters. They carried collecting boxes and accosted the people in the street, begging for money for the unemployed. These men were a kind of skirmishers for the main body, which could be seen some distance behind.
 As the procession drew near, Sawkins steered the cart into the kerb and halted as they went past. There were about three hundred men altogether, marching four abreast. They carried three large white banners with black letters, ‘Thanks to our Subscribers’ ‘In aid of Genuine Unemployed’, ‘The Children must be Fed’. Although there were a number of artisans in the procession, the majority of the men belonged to what is called the unskilled labourer class. The skilled artisan does not as a rule take part in such a procession except as a very last resource ... And all the time he strives to keep up an appearance of being well-to-do, and would be highly indignant if anyone suggested that he was really in a condition of abject, miserable poverty. Although he knows that his children are often not so well fed as are the pet dogs and cats of his ‘betters’, he tries to bluff his neighbours into thinking that he has some mysterious private means of which they know nothing, and conceals his poverty as if it were a crime. Most of this class of men would rather starve than beg. Consequently not more than a quarter of the men in the procession were skilled artisans; the majority were labourers.
 There was also a sprinkling of those unfortunate outcasts of society - tramps and destitute, drunken loafers. If the self-righteous hypocrites who despise these poor wretches had been subjected to the same conditions, the majority of them would inevitably have become the same as these.
 Haggard and pale, shabbily or raggedly dressed, their boots broken and down at heel, they slouched past. Some of them stared about with a dazed or half-wild expression, but most of them walked with downcast eyes or staring blankly straight in front of them. They appeared utterly broken-spirited, hopeless and ashamed ...
 ‘Anyone can see what THEY are,’ sneered Crass, ‘there isn’t fifty genuine tradesmen in the whole crowd, and most of ’em wouldn’t work if they ’ad the offer of it.’
 ‘That’s just what I was thinkin’,’ agreed Sawkins with a laugh.
 ‘There will be plenty of time to say that when they have been offered work and have refused to do it,’ said Owen.
 ‘This sort of thing does the town a lot of ’arm,’ remarked Slyme; ‘it oughtn’t to be allowed; the police ought to stop it. It’s enough to drive all the gentry out of the place!’
 ‘Bloody disgraceful, I call it,’ said Crass, ‘marchin’ along the Grand Parade on a beautiful day like this, just at the very time when most of the gentry is out enjoyin’ the fresh hair.’
 ‘I suppose you think they ought to stay at home and starve quietly,’ said Owen. ‘I don’t see why these men should care what harm they do to the town; the town doesn’t seem to care much what becomes of THEM.’
 ‘Do you believe in this sort of thing, then?’ asked Slyme.
 ‘No; certainly not. I don’t believe in begging as a favour for what one is entitled to demand as a right from the thieves who have robbed them and who are now enjoying the fruits of their labour. From the look of shame on their faces you might think that they were the criminals instead of being the victims.’
 ‘Well you must admit that most of them is very inferior men,’ said Crass with a self-satisfied air. ‘There’s very few mechanics amongst em.’
 ‘What about it if they are? What difference does that make?’ replied Owen. ‘They’re human beings, and they have as much right to live as anyone else. What is called unskilled labour is just as necessary and useful as yours or mine. I am no more capable of doing the "unskilled" labour that most of these men do than most of them would be capable of doing my work.’
 ‘Well, if they was skilled tradesmen, they might find it easier to get a job,’ said Crass.
 Owen laughed offensively.
 ‘Do you mean to say you think that if all these men could be transformed into skilled carpenters, plasterers, bricklayers, and painters, that it would be easier for all those other chaps whom we passed a little while ago to get work? Is it possible that you or any other sane man can believe anything so silly as that?’
 Crass did not reply.
 ‘If there is not enough work to employ all the mechanics whom we see standing idle about the streets, how would it help these labourers in the procession if they could all become skilled workmen?’
 Still Crass did not answer, and neither Slyme nor Sawkins came to his assistance.
 ‘If that could be done,’ continued Owen, ‘it would simply make things worse for those who are already skilled mechanics. A greater number of skilled workers - keener competition for skilled workmen’s jobs - a larger number of mechanics out of employment, and consequently, improved opportunities for employers to reduce wages. That is probably the reason why the Liberal Party - which consists for the most part of exploiters of labour - procured the great Jim Scalds to tell us that improved technical education is the remedy for unemployment and poverty.’
 ‘I suppose you think Jim Scalds is a bloody fool, the same as everybody else what don’t see things YOUR way?’ said Sawkins.
 ‘I should think he was a fool if I thought he believed what he says. But I don’t think he believes it. He says it because he thinks the majority of the working classes are such fools that they will believe him. If he didn’t think that most of us are fools he wouldn’t tell us such a yarn as that.’
 ‘And I suppose you think as ’is opinion ain’t far wrong,’ snarled Crass.
 ‘We shall be better able to judge of that after the next General Election,’ replied Owen. ‘If the working classes again elect a majority of Liberal or Tory landlords and employers to rule over them, it will prove that Jim Scalds’ estimate of their intelligence is about right.’
 ‘Well, anyhow,’ persisted Slyme, ‘I don’t think it’s a right thing that they should be allowed to go marchin’ about like that - driving visitors out of the town.’
 ‘What do you think they ought to do, then?’ demanded Owen.
 ‘Let the b—rs go to the bloody workhouse!’ shouted Crass.
 ‘But before they could be received there they would have to be absolutely homeless and destitute, and then the ratepayers would have to keep them. It costs about twelve shillings a week for each inmate, so it seems to me that it would be more sensible and economical for the community to employ them on some productive work.’
 They had by this time arrived at the yard. The steps and ladders were put away in their places and the dirty paint-pots and pails were placed in the paint-shop on the bench and on the floor. With what had previously been brought back there were a great many of these things, all needing to be cleaned out, so Bert at any rate stood in no danger of being out of employment for some time to come.
 When they were paid at the office, Owen on opening his envelope found it contained as usual, a time sheet for the next week, which meant that he was not ‘stood off’ although he did not know what work there would be to do. Crass and Slyme were both to go to the ‘Cave’ to fix the venetian blinds, and Sawkins also was to come to work as usual.