IS
R
ON
TALES
OF MEAN
STREETS
3 SO
BY
B 2 8 35
ARTHUR
MORRISON


BERKELEY
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
bine
f


1


TALES OF MEAN STREETS





TALES OF MEAN STREETS
LIZERUNT
SQUIRE NAPPER
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
THREE ROUNDS
AND OTHERS
BY
ARTHUR MORRISON
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, STRAND
LONDON
1894


LOAN STACK
6641


PS 24 s
M772
1894
MAIN
TO
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY
312


NOTE.—The greater number of these stories and
studies were first printed in The National Observer;
the introduction, in a slightly different form, in
Macmillan's Magazine ; ' That Brute Simmons'and
'A Conversion' have been published in The Pall
Mall Budget; and “ The Red Cow Group' is new.


INTRODUCTION
A STREET
THIS
HIS street is in the East End. There
is no need to say in the East End
of what. The East End is a vast city, as
famous in its way as any the hand of
man has made. But who knows the East
End? It is down through Cornhill and
out beyond Leadenhall Street and Aldgate
Pump, one will say: a shocking place,
where he once went with a curate; an
evil plexus of slums that hide human
creeping things; where filthy men and


8
INTRODUCTION
none
women live on penn'orths of gin, where
collars and clean shirts are decencies
unknown, where every citizen
citizen wears a
black eye, and
ever combs his
hair. The East End is a place, says
another, which is given over to the Un-
employed. And the Unemployed is a
race whose token is a clay pipe, and
whose enemy is soap: now and again it
migrates bodily to Hyde Park with ban-
ners, and furnishes adjacent police courts
with disorderly drunks. Still another
knows the East End only as the place
whence begging letters come; there are
coal and blanket funds there, all perenni-
ally insolvent, and everybody always wants
a day in the country. Many and misty
are people's notions of the East End;
and each is commonly but the distorted
shadow of a minor feature. Foul slums


INTRODUCTION
9
are
there are in the East End, of course,
as there
in the West; want and
misery there are, as wherever a host is
gathered together to fight for food. But
they are not often spectacular in kind.
Of this street there are about one hun-
dred and fifty yards-on the same pattern
all. It is not pretty to look at. A dingy
little brick house twenty feet high, with
three square holes to carry the windows,
and an oblong hole to carry the door, is not
a pleasing object; and each side of this
street is formed by two or three score of
such houses in a row, with one front wall
in common. And the effect is as of
stables.
Round the corner there are a baker's,
a chandler's, and a beer-shop. They are
not included in the view from any of the
rectangular holes; but they are well known


IO
INTRODUCTION
some
to every denizen, and the chandler goes to
church on Sunday and pays for his seat.
At the opposite end, turnings lead to
streets less rigidly
respectable :
where `Mangling done here' stares from
windows, and where doors are left care-
lessly open; others where squalid women
sit on doorsteps, and girls go to factories
in white aprons. Many such turnings, of
as many grades of decency, are set be-
tween this and the nearest slum.
They are not a very noisy or obtrusive
lot in this street. They do not go to
Hyde Park with banners, and they seldom
fight. It is just possible that one or two
among them, at some point in a life of
ups and downs, may have been indebted
to a coal and blanket fund; but whoso-
ever these may be, they would rather die
than publish the disgrace, and it is prob-


INTRODUCTION
II
ere
able that they very nearly did so
submitting to it.
Some who inhabit this street are in the
docks, some in the gasworks, some in
one or other of the few shipbuilding yards
that yet survive on the Thames. Two
families in a house is the general rule, for
there are six rooms behind each set of
holes: this, unless young men lodgers'
are taken in, or there are grown sons
paying for bed and board. As for the
grown daughters, they marry as soon as
Domestic service is a social
descent, and little under millinery and
dressmaking is compatible with self-respect.
The general servant may be caught young
among the turnings at the end where
mangling is done; and the factory girls
live still further off, in places skirting
slums.
may be.


INTRODUCTION
13
to bang at two knockers three-quarters of
a mile apart, and a hundred others lying
between, all punctually at half-past five.
Wherefore the policeman, to whom the
fourpence is but a perquisite, and who is
content with a smaller round, is rapidly
supplanting the night-watchman, whose
cry of Past nine o'clock,' as he collects
orders in the evening, is now seldom heard.
The knocking and the shouting pass,
and there comes the noise of opening and
shutting of doors, and a clattering away to
the docks, the gasworks and the ship-yards.
Later more door-shutting is heard, and
then the trotting of sorrow-laden little feet
along the grim street to the grim Board
School three grim streets off. Then
silence, save for a subdued sound of scrub-
bing here and there, and the puny squall of
croupy infants. After this, a new trotting


14
INTRODUCTION
of little feet to docks, gasworks, and ship-
yards with father's dinner in a basin and a
red handkerchief, and so to the Board
School again.
More muffled scrubbing
and more squalling, and perhaps a feeble
attempt or two at decorating the blankness
of a square hole here and there by pouring
water into a grimy flower-pot full of dirt.
Then comes the trot of little feet toward
the oblong holes, heralding the slower tread
of sooty artisans; a smell of bloater up
and down; nightfall; the fighting of boys
in the street, perhaps of men at the corner
near the beer - shop; sleep. And this is
the record of a day in this street; and
every day is hopelessly the same.
Every day, that is, but Sunday. On
Sunday morning a smell of cooking floats
round the corner from the half-shut baker's,
and the little feet trot down the street


INTRODUCTION
15
under steaming burdens of beef, potatoes,
and batter pudding - the lucky little feet
these, with Sunday boots on them, when
father is in good work and has brought
home all his money; not the poor little
feet in worn shoes, carrying little bodies in
the thread-bare clothes of all the week,
when father is out of work, or ill,
drunk, and the Sunday cooking may very
easily be done at home--if any there be
or
to do.
On Sunday morning one or two heads
of families appear in wonderful black suits,
with unnumbered creases and wrinklings at
the seams.
At their sides and about their
heels trot the unresting little feet, and
from under painful little velvet caps and
straw hats stare solemn little faces towelled
to a polish Thus disposed and arrayed,
they fare gravely through the grim


16
INTRODUCTION
little streets to a grim Little Bethel where
are gathered together others in like garb
and attendance; and for two hours they
endure the frantic menace of hell-fire.
Most of the men, however, lie in shirt
and trousers on their beds and read the
Sunday paper; while some are driven forth
-for they hinder the housework—to loaf,
and await the opening of the beer-shop
round the corner. Thus goes Sunday in
this street, and every Sunday is the same
as every other Sunday, so that one mono-
tony is broken with another. For the
women, however, Sunday is much as other
days, except that there is rather more work
for them. The break in their round of the
week is washing day.
No event in the outer world makes any
impression in this street.
rise, or may totter in ruin; but here the
Nations may


18
INTRODUCTION
her voice cracked. Then her man died,
and she sang no more. They took away
her home, and with her children about
her skirts she left this street for ever.
The other women did not think much
of her. She was 'helpless.
One of the square holes in this street-
one of the single, ground-floor holes—is
found, on individual examination, to differ
from the others. There has been an at-
tempt to make it into a shop-window. Half
a dozen candles, a few sickly sugarsticks,
certain shrivelled bloaters, some bootlaces,
and a bundle or two of firewood compose a
stock which at night is sometimes lighted by
a little paraffin lamp in a tin sconce, and
sometimes by a candle.
by a candle. A widow lives
here—a gaunt, bony widow, with sunken,
red eyes. She has other sources of income
than the candles and the bootlaces: she


20
INTRODUCTION
ing woman was marketing, from which door
of the pawnshop had she twice met the
widow coming forth ?
This is not a dirty street, taken as a
whole. The widow's house is one of the
cleanest, and the widow's children match
the house. The one house cleaner than
the widow's is ruled by a despotic Scotch-
woman, who drives every hawker off her
whitened step, and rubs her door handle
if a hand have rested on it. The Scotch-
has made several attempts to
accommodate
'
young men lodgers,' but
they have ended in shrill rows.
There is no house without children in
this street, and the number of them grows
ever and ever greater. Nine-tenths of
the doctor's visits are on this account
alone, and his appearances are the chief
matter of such conversation as the women
woman


INTRODUCTION
21
make across the fences. One after an-
other the little strangers come, to live
through lives as flat and colourless as
the day's life in this street. Existence
dawns, and the doctor-watchman's door
knock resounds along the row of rect-
angular holes.
Then a muffled cry an-
nounces that a small new being has come
to trudge and sweat its way in the ap-
pointed groove. Later, the trotting of little
feet and the school; the mid-day play hour,
when love peeps even into this street ;
after that more trotting of little feet-
strange little feet, new little feet-and the
scrubbing, and the squalling, and the barren
flower-pot; the end of the sooty day's work ;
the last home-coming; nightfall; sleep.
When love's light falls into some corner
of the street, it falls at an early hour of
this mean life, and is itself but a dusty


22
INTRODUCTION
a
ray. It ſalls early, because it is the sole
bright thing which the street sees, and is
watched for and counted on. Lads and
lasses, awkwardly arm-in-arm, go pacing
up and down this
street, before the
natural interest in marbles and doll's houses
would have left them in a brighter place.
They are 'keeping company'; the manner
of which proceeding is indigenous — is
custom native to the place. The
young people first 'walk out' in pairs.
There is no exchange of promises, no
troth-plight, no engagement, no love-talk.
They patrol the streets side by side,
usually in silence, sometimes with fatuous
chatter. There are no dances, no tennis,
no water-parties, no picnics to bring them
together : so they must walk out, or be
unacquainted. If two of them
grow
dis-
satisfied with each other's company, nothing


INTRODUCTION
25
satisfied young men lodgers, whose only
preparation for debating and writing is a
fathomless ignorance. For ignorance is
the inevitable portion of dwellers here:
seeing nothing, reading nothing, and con-
sidering nothing.
Where in the East End lies this street ?
Everywhere. The hundred-and-fifty yards is
only a link in a long and a mightily
tangled chain—is only a turn in a tortuous
This street of the square holes is
hundreds of miles long. That it is planned
in short lengths is true, but there is no
other way in the world that can
properly be called a single street, because
of its dismal lack of accent, its sordid uni-
formity, its utter remoteness from delight.
maze.
more


CONTENTS
LIZERUNT
I. LIZER'S WOOING
PAGE
31
II. LIZER'S FIRST
42
III. A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES
52
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
65
TO BOW BRIDGE
85
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
97
BEHIND THE SHADE
115
THREE ROUNDS
.
131
IN BUSINESS
155
THE RED COW GROUP
173
ON THE STAIRS
199
SQUIRE NAPPER
2II
'A POOR STICK'
243
A CONVERSION
255
6
ALL THAT MESSUAGE
273








$
LIZERUNT
I
LIZER'S WOOING
SOMEWHERE in the register was written
was
the name Elizabeth Hunt; but seventeen
years after the entry the spoken name
Lizerunt. Lizerunt worked at a pickle factory,
and appeared abroad in an elaborate and shabby
costume, usually supplemented by a white apron.
Withal she was something of a beauty. That
is to say, her cheeks were very red, her teeth
were very large and white, her nose was small
and snub, and her fringe was long and shiny ;
while her face, new-washed, was susceptible of a
31


32
LIZERUNT
high polish. Many such girls are married at
sixteen, but Lizerunt was belated, and had
never a bloke at all.
Billy Chope was a year older than Lizerunt.
He wore a billycock with a thin brim and a
permanent dent in the crown; he had a bob-
tail coat, with the collar turned up at one side
and down at the other, as an expression of
independence; between his meals he carried his
hands in his breeches pockets ; and he lived with
his mother, who mangled. His conversation with
Lizerunt consisted long of perfunctory nods;
but great things happened this especial Thursday
evening, as Lizerunt, making for home, followed
the fading red beyond the furthermost end of
Commercial Road. For Billy Chope, slouching
in the opposite direction, lurched across the
pavement as they met, and taking the nearer
hand from his pocket, caught and twisted her
arm, bumping her against the wall.
Garn,' said Lizerunt, greatly pleased : 'le'
go!' For she knew that this was love.


LIZERUNT
33
•Where yer auf to, Lizer?,
''Ome, o course, cheeky. Le' go;' and she
snatched-in vain—at Billy's hat.
Billy let go, and capered in front of her. She
feigned to dodge by him, careful not to be too
quick, because affairs were developing.
'I say, Lizer,' said Billy, stopping his dance
and becoming business - like, 'goin' anywhere
Monday ?'
• Not along o' you, cheeky; you go 'long o'
Beller Dawson, like wot you did Easter.'
Blow Beller Dawson; she ain't no good. I'm
goin' on the Flats. Come?'
Lizerunt, delighted but derisive, ended with a
promise to see. The bloke had come at last,
and she walked home with the feeling of having
taken her degree. She had half assured herself
of it two days before, when Sam Cardew threw
an orange peel at her, but went away after a little
prancing on the pavement. Sam was a smarter
fellow than Billy, and earned his own living;
probably his attentions were serious ; but one
с


LIZERUNT
35
selves from the doors of the Holly Tree on
Whit Monday morning. But through hours on
hours of fried fish and half-pints both were con-
scious of a deficiency. For the hat of Lizerunt
was brown and old ; plush it was not, and its
feather was a mere foot long and of a very
rusty black. Now, it is not decent for a factory
girl from Limehouse to go bank-holidaying under
any but a hat of plush, very high in the crown,
of a wild blue or a wilder green, and carrying
withal an ostrich feather, pink or scarlet or what
not; a feather that springs from the fore-part,
climbs the crown, and drops as far down the
shoulders as may be. Lizerunt knew this, and, had
she had no bloke, would have stayed at home.
But a chance is a chance. As it was, only another
such hapless girl could measure her bitter envy
of the feathers about her, or would so joyfully
have given an ear for the proper splendour. Billy,
too, had a vague impression, muddled by but
not drowned in half-pints, that some degree of
plush was condign to the occasion and to his


36
LIZERUNT
own expenditure. Still, there was no quarrel ;
and the pair walked and ran with arms about
each other's necks; and Lizerunt thumped her
bloke on the back at proper intervals; so that
the affair went regularly on the whole: although,
in view of Lizerunt's shortcomings, Billy did not
insist on the customary exchange of hats.
Everything, I say, went well and well enough
until Billy bought a ladies' tormentor and began
to squirt it at Lizerunt. For then Lizerunt went
scampering madly, with piercing shrieks, until
her bloke was left some little way behind, and
Sam Cardew, turning up at that moment and
seeing her running alone in the crowd, threw his
arms about her waist and swung her round him
again and again, as he floundered gallantly
this way and that, among the shies and the
hokey-pokey barrows.
''Ullo, Lizer! Where are y'a-comin' to? ? If I
'adn't laid 'old o’ye- !' But here Billy Chope
arrived to demand what the 'ell Sam Cardew
was doing with his gal. Now Sam was ever


38
LIZERUNT
an air of blamelessness as is practicable with a
damaged eye; while Billy went off unheeded in
an opposite direction.
Lizerunt and her new bloke went the routine of
half-pints and merry-go-rounds, and were soon on
right thumping terms; and Lizerunt was as well
satisfied with the issue as she was proud of the
adventure. Billy was all very well; but Sam was
better. She resolved to draw him for a feathered
hat before next bank holiday. So the sun went
down on her and her bloke hanging on each
other's necks and straggling toward the Romford
Road with shouts and choruses. The rest was
tram-car, Bow Music Hall, half - pints, and
darkness.
Billy took home his wounds, and his mother,
having moved his wrath by asking their origin,
sought refuge with a neighbour. He accomplished
his revenge in two instalments.
Two nights
later Lizerunt was going with a jug of beer;
when somebody sprang from a
from a dark corner,


LIZERUNT
39
landed her under the ear, knocked her sprawling;
and made off to the sound of her lamentations,
She did not see who it was, but she knew; and
next day Sam Cardew was swearing he'd break
Billy's back. He did not, however, for that same
evening a gang of seven or eight fell on him
with sticks and belts. (They were Causeway
chaps, while Sam was a Brady's Laner, which
would have been reason enough by itself, even
if Billy Chope had not been one of them). Sam
did his best for a burst through and a run, but
they pulled and battered him down; and they
kicked him about the head, and they kicked
him about the belly; and they took to their heels
when he was speechless and still.
He lay at home for near four weeks, and when
he stood up again it was in many bandages.
Lizerunt came often to his bedside, and twice
she brought an orange.
On these occasions
there was much talk of vengeance. But the
weeks went on. It was a month since Sam had
left his bed; and Lizerunt was getting a little


40
LIZERUNT
tired of bandages. Also, she had begun to
doubt and to consider bank holiday — scarce a
fortnight off. For Sam was stone broke, and
a plush hat was further away than ever. And
all through the later of these weeks Billy Chope
was harder than ever on his mother, and she,
well knowing that if he helped her by taking
home he would pocket the money at the other
end, had taken to finishing and delivering in his
absence, and, threats failing to get at the money,
Billy Chope was impelled to punch her head
and gripe her by the throat.
There was a milliner's window, with a show
of nothing but fashionable plush-and-feather hats,
and Lizerunt was lingering hereabouts one even-
ing; when someone took her by the waist, and
someone said, 'Which d’yer like, Lizer ?— The
yuller un ??
Lizerunt turned and saw that it was Billy.
She pulled herself away, and backed off, sullen
and distrustful. "Garn,' she said.


LIZERUNT
41
Wot yer
'Straight,' said Billy, 'I'll sport yer one.
No kid, I will
'Garn,' said Lizerunt once more.
gittin' at now?'
But presently, being convinced that bashing
wasn't in it, she approached less guardedly; and
she went away with a paper bag and the reddest
of all the plushes and the bluest of all the
feathers; a hat that challenged all the Flats
the next bank holiday, a hat for which no girl
need have hesitated to sell her soul. As for
Billy, why, he was as good as another; and you
can't have everything; and Sam Cardew, with
his bandages and his grunts and groans, was no
great catch after all.
This was the wooing of Lizerunt: for in a few
months she and Billy married under the blessing
of a benignant rector, who periodically set aside
a day for free weddings, and, on principle, en-
couraged early matrimony. And they lived with
Billy's mother.


LIZERUNT
43
His was the chief reason for rejoicing. For
Lizerunt had always been able to extract ten
shillings a week from the pickle factory, and it
was to be presumed that as Lizer Chope her
earning capacity would not diminish; and the
wages would make a very respectable addition
to the precarious revenue, depending on the
mangle, that Billy extorted from his mother. As
for Lizer, she was married. That was the con-
siderable thing; for she was but a few months
short of eighteen, and that, as you know, is a
little late.
Of course there were quarrels very soon; for
the new Mrs Chope, less submissive at first
than her mother-in-law, took a little breaking
in, and a liberal renewal of the manual treat-
ment once applied in her courting days. But
the quarrels between the women were comfort-
ing to Billy : a diversion and a source of better
service.
As soon as might be Lizer took the way of
womankind. This circumstance brought an un-


44
LIZERUNT
7
expected half-crown from the evangelical rector
who had married the couple gratis ; for recognis-
ing Billy in the street by accident, and being told
of Mrs Chope's prospects, as well as that Billy
was out of work (a fact undeniable), he reflected
that his principles did on occasion lead to dis-
comfort of a material sort. And Billy, to whose
comprehension the half-crown opened a new field
of receipt, would doubtless have long remained
a client of the rector, had not that zealot hastened
to discover a vacancy for a warehouse porter, the
offer of presentation whereunto alienated Billy
Chope for ever. But there were meetings and
demonstrations of the Unemployed ; and it was
said that shillings had been given away; and, as
being at a meeting in a street was at least as
amusing as being in a street where there was no
meeting, Billy often went, on the off chance. But
his lot was chiefly disappointment: wherefore he
became more especially careful to furnish himself
ere he left home.
For certain weeks cash came less freely than ever
1


LIZERUNT
45
from the two women. Lizer spoke of providing
for the necessities of the expected child : a mani-
festly absurd procedure, as Billy pointed out,
since, if they were unable to clothe or feed it,
the duty would fall on its grandmother. That
was law, and nobody could get over it. But
even with this argument, a shilling cost him
many more demands and threats than it had
used, and a deal more general trouble.
At last Lizer ceased from going to the pickle
factory, and could not even help Billy's mother
at the mangle for long. This lasted for near a
week, when Billy, rising at ten with a bad mouth,
resolved to stand no nonsense, and demanded
two shillings.
· Two bob? Wot for?' Lizer asked.
"'Cos I want it. None o' yer lip.'
· Ain't got it,' said Lizer sulkily.
"That's a bleed'n' lie.'
'Lie yerself.'
• I'll break y'in 'arves, ye blasted 'eifer !' He
ran at her throat and forced her back over a


T
1
46
LIZERUNT
chair. I'll pull yer face auf! If y' don't give
me the money, gawblimy, I'll do for ye!'
Lizer strained and squalled. 'Le' go! You'll
kill me an' the kid too!' she grunted hoarsely.
Billy's mother ran in and threw her arms about
him, dragging him away. 'Don't Billy,' she said,
in terror. 'Don't Billy-not now! You'll get in
trouble.
Come away! She might go auf, an'
you'd get in trouble!'
Billy Chope flung his wife over and turned to
his mother. 'Take yer 'ands auf me,' he said:
'go on, or I'll gi' ye somethin' for yerself' And
he punched her in the breast by way of illus-
tration.
'You shall 'ave what I've got, Billy, if it's
money, the mother said. “But don't go angit
yerself in trouble, don't. Will a shillin' do?'
No, it won't. Think I'm a bloomin' kid ? I
mean 'avin' two bob this mornin'.'
'I was a-keepin' it for the rent, Billy, but-'
'Yus; think o' the bleed'n' lan'lord 'fore me
doncher ?' And he pocketed the two shillings.


LIZERUNT
47
'I ain't settled with you yut, my gal,' he added
to Lizer ; 'mikin' about at ’ome an' 'idin' money.
You wait a bit.'
Lizer had climbed into an erect position, and,
gravid and slow, had got as far as the passage.
Mistaking this for a safe distance, she replied
with defiant railings. Billy made for her with a
kick that laid her on the lower stairs, and, swing-
ing his legs round his mother as she obstructed
him, entreating him not to get in trouble, he
attempted to kick again in a more telling spot.
But a movement among the family upstairs and
a tap at the door hinted of interference, and he
took himself off.
Lizer lay doubled up on the stairs, howling :
but her only articulate cry was,—Gawd 'elp me,
it's comin'!'
Billy went to the meeting of the Unemployed,
and cheered a proposal to storm the Tower of
London, But he did not join the procession
following a man with a handkerchief on a stick,
who promised destruction to every policeman in


48
LIZERUNT
his path: for he knew the fate of such proces-
sions. With a few others he hung about the
nearest tavern for a while, on the chance of the
advent of a flush sailor from St Katharine's, dis-
posed to treat out-o'-workers. Then he went
alone to a quieter beer-house and took a pint
or two at his own expense. A glance down the
music-hall bills hanging in the bar having given
him a notion for the evening, he bethought him-
self of dinner, and made for home.
The front door was open, and in the first room,
where the mangle stood, there were no signs of
dinner. And this was at three o'cock! Billy
pushed into the room behind, demanding why.
' Billy,' Lizer said faintly from her bed, 'look
at the baby!'
Something was moving feebly under a flannel
petticoat. Billy pulled the petticoat aside, and
said,—'That? Well, it is a measly snipe.' It
a blind, hairless homunculus, short of a foot
long, with a skinny face set in a great skull.
There was a black bruise on one side from hip


LIZERUNT
49
6
to armpit. Billy dropped the petticoat and
said, 'Where's my dinner?'
'I dunno,' Lizer responded hazily. Wot's the
time?'
• Time ? Don't try to kid me.
You git up;
go on. I want my dinner.'
• Mother's gittin' it, I think,' said Lizer. 'Doc-
tor had to slap 'im like anythink 'fore 'e'd cry.
’E don't cry now much. 'E— '
'Go on; out ye git. I do’want no more damn
jaw. Git my dinner.'
• I'm a-gittin' of it, Billy,' his mother said, at
the door. She had begun when he first entered.
• It won't be a minute.'
*You come 'ere; y'aint alwis s' ready to do er'
work, are ye? She ain't no call to stop there no
longer, an' I owe 'er one for this mornin'. Will
ye git out, or shall I kick ye?'
'She can't, Billy,' his mother said. And Lizer
snivelled and said, You're a damn brute. Y'ought
to be bleedin' well booted.'
But Billy had her by the shoulders and began
D


50
LIZERUNT
scene.
to haul; and again his mother besought him to
remember what he might bring upon himself. At
this moment the doctor's dispenser, a fourth-year
London Hospital student of many inches, who
had been washing his hands in the kitchen, came
in. For a moment he failed to comprehend the
Then he took Billy Chope by the collar,
hauled him pell-mell along the passage, kicked
him (hard) into the gutter, and shut the door.
When he returned to the room, Lizer, sitting
up and holding on by the bed - frame, gasped
hysterically : 'Ye bleedin' makeshift, I'd 'ave yer
liver out if I could reach ye !
You touch my
’usband, ye long pisenin' 'ound you ! Ow !'
And, infirm of aim, she flung a cracked teacup
at his head. Billy's mother said, “Y'ought to
be ashamed of yourself, you low blaggard. If
'is father was alive 'e'd knock yer 'ead auf. Call
yourself a doctorma passel o' boys—! Git out!
Go out o'my 'ouse or I'll give y'in charge!'
* But - why, hang it, he'd have killed her.'
Then to Lizer_Lie down.'


LIZERUNT
51
'Sha'n't lay down. Keep auf ! if you come near
me I'll corpse ye. You go while ye're safe!'
The dispenser appealed to Billy's mother. 'For
God's sake make her lie down. She'll kill her-
self.
Perhaps the doctor had better
come.' And he went : leaving the coast clear for
Billy Chope to return and avenge his kicking.
I'll go.


III
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES
LIZER was some months short of twenty-
one when her third child was born. The
pickle factory had discarded her some time before,
and since that her trade had consisted in odd jobs
of charing. Odd jobs of charing have a shade
the better of a pickle factory in the matter of re-
spectability, but they are precarious, and they are
worse paid at that. In the East End they are
sporadic and few. Moreover, it is in the house-
hold where paid help is a rarity that the bitter-
ness of servitude is felt. Also, the uncertainty
and irregularity of the returns were a trouble to
Billy Chope. He was never sure of having got
them all. It might be ninepence, or a shilling, or
eighteenpence. Once or twice, to his knowledge,
52


LIZERUNT
53
it had been half-a-crown, from a chance job at a
doctor's or a parson's, and once it was three
shillings. That it might be half-a-crown or three
shillings again, and that some of it was being kept
back, was ever the suspicion evoked by Lizer's
evening homing. Plainly, with these fluctuating
and uncertain revenues, more bashing than ever
was needed to ensure the extraction of the last
copper; empty-handedness called for bashing on
its own account; so that it was often Lizer's hap
to be refused a job because of a black eye.
Lizer's self was scarcely what it had been. The
red of her cheeks, once bounded only by the eyes
and the mouth, had shrunk to a spot in the depth
of each hollow; gaps had been driven in her
big white teeth; even the snub nose had run to
a point, and the fringe hung dry and ragged,
while the bodily outline was as a sack's. At
home, the children lay in her arms or tumbled
at her heels, puling and foul. Whenever she was
near it, there was the mangle to be turned ; for
lately Billy's mother had exhibited a strange


54
LIZERUNT
weakness, sometimes collapsing with a gasp in
the act of brisk or prolonged exertion, and often
leaning on whatever stood hard by and grasping
at her side. This ailment she treated, when she
had twopence, in such terms as made her smell
of gin and peppermint; and more than once this
circumstance had inflamed the breast of Billy her
son, who was morally angered by this boozing
away of money that was really his.
Lizer's youngest, being seven or eight months
old, was mostly taking care of itself, when Billy
made a welcome discovery after a hard and pinch-
ing day. The night was full of blinding wet,
and the rain beat on the window as on a drum.
Billy sat over a small fire in the front room
smoking his pipe, while his mother folded clothes
for delivery. He stamped twice on the hearth,
and then, drawing off his boot, he felt inside it.
It was a nail. The poker-head made a good
anvil, and, looking about for a hammer, Billy
bethought him of a brick from the mangle. He
rose, and, lifting the lid of the weight-box, groped


LIZERUNT
55
about among the clinkers and the other ballast
till he came upon a small but rather heavy paper
parcel. “Ere—wot's this ?' he said, and pulled
it out.
His mother, whose back had been turned,
hastened across the room, hand to breast (it had
got to be her habit). "What is it, Billy?' she
said. "Not that : there's nothing there. I'll get
anything you want, Billy.' And she made a
nervous catch at the screw of paper. But Billy
fended her off, and tore the package open. It
was money, arranged in little columns of farthings,
halfpence, and threepenny pieces, with a few
sixpences, a shilling or two, and a single half-
sovereign. 'O,' said Billy, this is the game,
is it ?—'idin' money in the mangle !
more? And he hastily turned the brickbats.
No, Billy, don't take that-don't !' implored
his mother. *There'll be some money for them
things when they go 'ome—'ave that. I'm savin'
it, Billy, for something partic'ler : s'elp me Gawd,
I am, Billy'
Got any


56
LIZERUNT
«Yus,' replied Billy, raking diligently among
the clinkers, 'savin' it for a good ol' booze. An’
now you won't ’ave one. Bleedin' nice thing,
'idin' money away from yer own son!'
It ain't for that, Billy-s'elp me, it ain't ; it's
case anythink 'appens to me. On'y to put me
away decent, Billy, that's all. We never know,
an' you'll be glad of it t’elp bury me if I should
go any time
' I'll be glad of it now,' answered Billy, who
had it in his pocket; an' I've got it. You ain't
a dyin' sort, you ain't ; an' if you was, the parish
'ud soon tuck you up. P'raps you'll be straighter
about money after this.'
'Let me 'ave some, then--you can't want it all.
Give me some, an' then ’ave the money for the
things. There's ten dozen and seven, and you
can take 'em yerself if ye like.'
"Wot-in this 'ere rain ? Not me! I bet I'd
’ave the money if I wanted it without that. 'Ere
-change these 'ere fardens at the draper's
wen you go out: there's two bob's worth an'a


LIZERUNT
57
penn'orth ; I don't want to bust my pockets wi'
them.'
While they spoke Lizer had come in from the
back room.
But she said nothing: she rather
busied herself with a child she had in her arms.
When Billy's mother, despondent and tearful,
had tramped out into the rain with a pile of
clothes in an oilcloth wrapper, she said sulkily,
without looking up, 'You might 'a' let 'er kep'
that; you git all you want.'
At another time this remonstrance would have
provoked active hostilities; but now, with the
money about him, Billy was complacently dis-
posed. You shutcher 'ead,' he said, I got
this, any'ow. She can make it up out o' my
rent if she likes.' This last remark was a joke,
and he chuckled as he made it. For Billy's rent
was a simple fiction, devised, on the suggestion of a
smart canvasser, to give him a parliamentary vote.
That night Billy and Lizer slept, as usual, in
the bed in the back room, where the two younger
children also were. Billy's mother made a bed-


60
LIZERUNT
more charing jobs—a clear loss of one-third of
his income. And it was not at all certain that
the people who had given their mangling to his
mother would give it to Lizer. Indeed, it was
pretty sure that many would not, because
mangling is a thing given by preference to
widows, and many widows of the neighbourhood
were perpetually competing for it. Widows, more-
over, had the first call in most odd jobs where-
unto Lizer might turn her hand : an injustice
whereon Billy meditated with bitterness.
The inquest was formal and unremarked, the
medical officer having no difficulty in certifying
a natural death from heart disease. The bright
idea of a collection among the jury, which Billy
communicated, with pitiful representations, to the
coroner's officer, was brutally swept aside by that
functionary, made cunning by much experience.
So the inquest brought him naught save dis-
appointment and a sense of injury.
The mangling orders fell away as suddenly


LIZERUNT
61
and completely as he had feared: they were duly
absorbed among the local widows. Neglect the
children as Lizer might, she could no longer leave
them as she had done. Things, then, were bad
with Billy, and neither threats nor thumps could
evoke a shilling now.
It was more than Billy could bear : so that,
''Ere,' he said one night, I've 'ad enough o'
this. You go and get some money; go on.'
'Go an'git it ?' replied Lizer. O yus. That's
easy, ain't it?
" Go an'git it,” says you. 'Ow?'
'Any'ow—I don' care. Go on.'
"Wy,' replied Lizer, looking up with wide eyes,
d'ye think I can go an' pick it up in the
street ?'
Course you can.
Plenty others does, don't
they ??
Gawd, Billy
wot d'ye mean?'
'Wot I say; plenty others does it.
you ain't so bleed'n' innocent as all that. Go
an' see Sam Cardew. Go on-'ook it.'
Lizer, who had been kneeling at the child's
Go on-


62
LIZERUNT
floor-bed, rose to her feet, pale faced and bright
of eye.
'Stow kiddin', Billy,' she said. " You don't
mean that. I'll go round to the fact'ry in the
mornin': p'raps they'll take me on temp’ry.'
• Damn the fact'ry.'
He pushed her into the passage. 'Go on-you
git me some money, if ye don't want yer bleed'n'
'ead knocked auf.'
There was a scuffle in the dark passage, with
certain blows, a few broken words, and a sob.
Then the door slammed, and Lizer Chope was
in the windy street.


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS


:


66
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
1
1
kickings and flingings into docks), had returned
whence they came. So that East London was
very noisy and largely hungry; and the rest of
the world looked on with intense interest, making
earnest suggestions, and comprehending nothing.
Lots of strikers, having no strike pay and find-
ing little nourishment in processions, started off
to walk to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool or
Newcastle, where work might be got. Along the
Great North Road such men might be seen in
silent companies of a dozen or twenty, now and
again singly or in couples. At the tail of one
such gang, which gathered in the Burdett Road
and found its way into the Enfield Road by
way of Victoria Park, Clapton, and Stamford Hill,
walked a little group of three : a voluble young
man of thirty, a stolid workman rather older,
and a pale, anxious little fellow, with a nasty
spasmic cough and a canvas bag of tools.
The little crowd straggled over the footpath
and the road, few of its members speaking, most
of them keeping to their places and themselves.


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
67
As yet there was nothing of the tramp in the
aspect of these mechanics. With their washed
faces and well-mended clothes they might have
been taken for a jury coming from a local in-
quest. As the streets got broken and detached,
with patches of field between, they began to
look about them. One young fellow in front
(with no family to think of), who looked upon
the enterprise as an amusing sort of tour, and
had even brought an accordion, began to rebel
against the general depression, and attempted a
joke about going to the Alexandra Palace. But
in the rear, the little man with the canvas bag,
putting his hand abstractedly into his pocket,
suddenly stared and stopped. He drew out the
hand, and saw in it three shillings.
'S'elp me,' he said, 'the missis is done that-
shoved it in unbeknown when I come away!
An' she's on'y got a bob for 'erself an' the
kids.'
He broke into a sweat of uneasiness.
' I'll 'ave to send it back at the next post-office,
that's all.'


68
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
Send it back? not you!' Thus with deep
scorn the voluble young man at his side. 'She'll
be all right, you lay your life. A woman allus
knows 'ow to look after 'erself. You'll bleed'n'
soon want it, an' bad.
You do as I tell you,
Joey: stick to it. That's right, Dave, ain't it?'
• Matter o' fancy,' replied the stolid man. 'My
missis cleared my pockets out 'fore I got away.
Shouldn't wonder at bein' sent after for leavin'
'er chargeable if I don't soon send some more.
Women's different.'
The march continued, and grew dustier. The
cheerful pilgrim in front produced his accordion.
At Palmer's Green four went straight ahead to
try for work at the Enfield Arms Factory. The
others, knowing the thing hopeless, turned off to
the left for Potter's Bar.
After a long silence, 'Which'll be nearest,
Dave,' asked little Joey Clayton, ‘Newcastle
or Middlesborough ?'
'Middlesborough, said Dave; 'I done it
afore.'


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
69
‘Trampin' ain't so rough on a man, is it, after
all?' asked Joey wistfully. You done all right,
didn't you?'
'Got through. All depends, though it's rough
enough. Matter o' luck. I 'ad the bad weather.'
'If I don't get a good easy job where we're
goin', remarked the voluble young man, I'll
'ave a strike there too.'
''Ave a strike there?' exclaimed Joey. “Ow?
Who'd call 'em out?'
Wy, I would. I think I'm equal to doin' it,
ain't I? An' when workin' men stand idle an'
’ungry in the midst o' the wealth an' the lukshry
an' the igstravagance they've produced with the
sweat of their brow, why, then, feller-workmen,
it's time to act. It's time to bring the nigger-
drivin' bloated capitalists to their knees.'
''Ear, 'ear,' applauded Joey Clayton; tamely,
perhaps, for the words were not new. Good
on yer, Newman!' Newman had a habit of
practising this sort of thing in snatches when-
ever he saw the chance. He had learnt the trick


70
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
a
in a debating society; and Joey Clayton was
always an applausive audience.
There was a
pause, the accordion started another tune, and
Newman tried different
passage of his
harangue.
'In the shop they call me Skulky Newman.
Why? 'Cos I skulk, o' course' ("'Ear, 'ear,'
dreamily – from Dave this
Dave this time). I ain't
ashamed of it, my friends. I'm a miker out
an' out, an' I 'ope I shall always remain a
miker. The less a worker does the more 'as
to be imployed, don't they? An' the more the
toilers wrings out o' the capitalists, don't they?
Very well then, I mike, an' I do it as a sacred
dooty:
'You'll 'ave all the mikin' you want for a week
or two,' said Dave Burge placidly. 'Stow it.'
At Potter's Bar the party halted and sat under
a hedge to eat hunks of bread and cheese (or
hunks of bread and nothing else) and to drink
cold tea out of cans. Skulky Newman, who had
brought nothing, stood in with his two friends.


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
71
As they started anew and turned into the Great
North Road he said, stretching himself and look-
ing slyly at Joey Clayton, 'If I'd got a bob or
two I'd stand you two blokes a pint apiece.'
Joey looked troubled. 'Well, as you ain't, I
suppose I ought to,' he said uneasily, turning
toward the little inn hard by. 'Dave,' he cried
to Burge, who was walking on, 'won't you 'ave
a drink?' And, 'Well, if you are goin' to do the
toff, I ain't proud,' was the slow reply.
Afterward, Joey was inclined to stop at the
post-office to send away at least two shillings.
But Newman wouldn't. He enlarged on the im-
providence of putting out of reach that which
might be required on an emergency, he repeated
his axiom as to a woman's knack of keeping
alive in spite of all things: and Joey determined
not to send—for a day or so at any rate.
The road got looser and dustier ; the symptoms
of the tramp came out stronger and stronger on
the gang. The accordion struck up from time
to time, but ceased toward the end of the after-


72
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
noon.
The player wearied, and some of the
older men, soon tired of walking, were worried
by the noise. Joey Clayton, whose cough was
aggravated by the dust, was especially tortured,
after every fit, to hear the thing drawling
and whooping the tune it had drawled and
whooped a dozen times before; but he said
nothing, scarce knowing what annoyed him.
At Hatfield Station two of the foremost picked
up a few coppers by helping with a heavy trap-
load of luggage. Up Digswell Hill the party
tailed out lengthily, and Newman, who had been
letting off a set speech, was fain to save his
wind. The night came, clear to see and sweet
to smell. Between Welwyn and Codicote the
company broke up to roost in such barns as
they might possess : all but the master of the
accordion, who had stayed at a little public-
house at Welwyn, with the notion of earning a
pot of beer and a stable-corner (or better) by a
tune in the tap-room. Dave Burge lighted on a
lone shed of thatched hurdles with loose hay in it


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
73
and Newman straightway curled in the snuggest
corner on most of the hay. Dave Burge pulled
some from under him, and, having helped Joey
Clayton to build a nest in the best place left, was
soon snoring. But Joey lay awake all night,
and sat up and coughed and turned restlessly,
being unused to the circumstances and appre-
hensive of those months in jail, which it is well
known) are rancorously dealt forth among all
them that sleep in barns.
Luck provided a breakfast next morning at
Codicote: for three bicyclists, going north, stood
cold beef and bread round at The Anchor. The
man with the accordion caught up. He had
made his lodging and breakfast and eightpence:
this had determined him to stay at Hitchin,
and work it for, at least, a day, and then to
diverge into the towns and let the rest go their
way. So beyond Hitchin there was no music.
Joey Clayton soon fell slow. Newman had his
idea; and the three were left behind, and Joey
staggered after his mates with difficulty. He


74
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
lacked sleep, and he lacked stamina. Dave
Burge took the canvas bag, and there were
many rests : when Newman, expressing a resolve
to stick by his fellow-man through thick and
thin, hinted at drinks. Dave Burge made two-
pence at Henlow level crossing by holding an
unsteady horse while a train passed. Joey saw
little of the rest of the day; the road was yellow
and dazzling, his cough tore him, and things were
red sometimes and sometimes blue. He walked
without knowing it, now helped, now lurching on
alone. The others of the party were far ahead
and forgotten. There was talk of a windmill
ahead, where there would be rest; and the three
men camped in an old boathouse by the river
just outside Biggleswade. Joey, sleeping as he
tottered, fell in a heap and lay without moving
from sunset to broad morning.
When he woke Dave Burge was sitting at the
door, but Newman was gone. Also, there was no
sign of the canvas bag.
'No use lookin',' said Dave; "e's done it.'


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
75
· Eh?'
6
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Skulky's 'opped the twig an' sneaked your
tools. Gawd knows where 'e is by now.'
*No-' the little man gasped, sitting up in a
pale sweat. Not sneaked 'em .. is
'e ?
S'elp me, there's a set o' callipers
worth fifteen bob in that bag
'e ain't
gawn
?'
Dave Burge nodded inexorably.
'Best feel in your pockets,' he said, 'p'raps ’e's
bin there.'
He had. The little man broke down. I was
a-goin' to send 'ome that two bob - s'elp me, I
An' what can I do without my
tools? If I'd got no job I could ’a pawned 'em
-an' then I'd 'a sent 'ome the money-s'elp me
I would ... O, it's crool!'
was
The walking, with the long sleep after it, had
left him sore and stiff, and Dave had work to
put him on the road again. He had forgotten
yesterday afternoon, and asked, at first, for the


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
77
feel thankful for an early turnip ; might have
learned, too, just what tramping means in many
ways to a man unskilled both in begging and in
theft, but was never equal to it. He coughed
and worse: holding to posts and gates, and often
spitting blood. He had little to say, but trudged
mechanically, taking note of nothing.
Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he
asked, 'Wasn't there some others?'
*Others ?' said Dave, for a moment taken
aback. O, yes, there was some others. They're
gone on ahead, y'know.'
Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then
he said, 'Expect they're 'avin' a rough time
too.'
'Ah-very like,' said Dave.
For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough.
Then he went on : 'Comes o' not bringing 'cor-
dions with 'em. Everyone ought to take a
'cordion what goes trampin'. I knew a
once that went trampin', an' 'e took a 'cordion.
He done all right. It ain't so rough for them as
man


78
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
plays on the 'cordion.' And Dave Burge rubbed
his cap about his head and stared; but answered
nothing
It was
a bad day. Crusts were begged at
cottages. Every rise and every turn, the eternal
yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them,
flouting their unrest. Joey, now unimpression-
able, endured more placidly than even Dave
Burge. Late in the afternoon, 'No,' he said, 'it
ain't so rough for them as plays the 'cordion.
They 'as the best of it. ... S'elp me,' he added
suddenly, 'we're all 'cordions !' He sniggered
thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that
left him panting. We're nothin' but a bloomin'
lot o''cordions ourselves,' he went on, having got
his breath, 'an' they play any toon they like on
us; and that's 'ow they make their livin'. S'elp
me, Dave, we're all 'cordions.' And he laughed.
'Um-yus,' the other man grunted. And he
looked curiously at his mate; for he had never
heard that sort of laugh before.
But Joey fondled the conceit, and returned to


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
79
9
it from time to time; now aloud, now to himself.
* All 'cordions: playin' any toon as is ordered,
blimy. ... Are we 'cordions? I don't b’lieve
we're as much as that .. no, s'elp me. We're
on'y the footlin' little keys; shoved about to soot
the toon. Little tin keys, blimy ... foot-
lin' little keys.
I've bin played on plenty,
I 'ave...
Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to
talk of other things. But Joey rarely heard him.
' I've bin played on plenty, I 'ave,' he persisted.
I was played on once by a pal : an' my spring
broke.'
At nightfall there was more bad luck. They
were driven from a likely barn by a leather-
gaitered man with a dog, and for some distance
no dormitory could be found. Then it was a cut
haystack, with a nest near the top and steps to
reach it.
In the night Burge was wakened by a clammy
hand upon his face. There was a thick mist.
' It's you, Dave, ain't it?' Clayton was saying.


80
WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
Good Gawd, I thought I'd lawst you. What's all
this 'ere-not the water is it ?_not the dock? I'm
soppin' wet.'
Burge himself was wet to the skin. He made
Joey lie down, and told him to sleep; but a cough-
ing fit prevented that. 'It was them 'cordions
woke me,' he explained when it was over.
So the night put on the shuddering grey of the
fore-dawn. And the two tramps left their perch, and
betook them, shivering and stamping, to the road.
That morning Joey had short fits of dizziness
and faintness. “It's my spring broke,' he would
say after such an attack. 'Bloomin' little tin key
put out o'toon.' And once he added, “I'm up to
one toon, though, now: this 'ere bloomin' Dead
March.'
Just at the outskirts of a town, where he stopped
to cough over a gate, a stout old lady, walking out
with a shaggy little dog, gave him a shilling. Dave
Burge picked it up as it dropped from his incapable
hand, and Joey, 'ere's a bob,' he said, 'a lady give
it you. You come an' git a drop o' beer.'


WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS
81
They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap-room
of a small tavern, and Dave had mild ale himself,
but saw that Joey was served with stout with a
penn'orth of gin in it. Soon the gin and stout
reached Joey's head, and drew it to the table.
And he slept, leaving the rest of the shilling
where it lay.
Dave arose, and stuffed the last of the twopenny
loaf into his pocket. He took a piece of chalk
from the bagatelle board in the corner, and wrote
this on the table : dr. sir. for god sake take him
to the work House.'
Then he gathered up the coppers where they lay,
and stepped quietly into the street.
F





TO BOW BRIDGE





TO BOW BRIDGE.
'HE eleven-five tram-car from Stratford started
THE
for Bow a trifle before its time. The con-
ductor knew what he might escape by stealing a
march on the closing public-houses; as also what
was in store for all the conductors in his wake,
till there were no more revellers left to swarm
the cars.
For it was Saturday night, and many
a week's wages were a-knocking down; and the
publicans this side of Bow Bridge shut their
doors at eleven under Act of Parliament, whereas
beyond the Bridge, which is the county of London,
the law gives them another hour, and a man may
drink many pots therein. And for this, at eleven
every Saturday, there is a great rush westward,
a vast migration over Lea, from all the length
of High Street. From the nearer parts they
85


86
TO BOW BRIDGE
walk, or do their best to walk; but from further
Stratford, by the Town Hall, the Church, and the
Martyrs' Memorial, they crowd the cars. For
one thing, it is a long half-mile, and the week's
work is over. Also, the car being swamped, it
is odds that a man shall save his fare, since no
conductor may fight his way a quarter through
his passengers before Bow Bridge, where the
vehicle is emptied at a rush.
And that means
yet another half-pint.
So the eleven-five car started sooner than it
might have done. As it was spattering with rain,
I boarded it, sharing the conductor's forlorn hope,
but taking care to sit at the extreme fore-end
inside. In the broad street the market clamoured
and flared, its lights and shadows flickering and
fading about the long churchyard and the steeple
in the midst thereof; and toward the distant
lights, the shining road sparkled in long reaches,
like a blackguard river.
A gap fell here and there among the lights
where a publican put his gas out; and at these


TO BOW BRIDGE
87
points the crowds thickened. A quiet mechanic
came in, and sat near a decent woman with children,
a bundle, a basket, and a cabbage. Thirty yards
on the car rumbled, and suddenly its hinder end
was taken in a mass of people—howling, struggling
and blaspheming—who stormed and wrangled in
at the door and up the stairs. There were lads and
men whooping and flushed, there were girls and
women screaming choruses; and in a moment the
seats were packed, knees were taken, and there was
not an inch of standing room. The conductor
cried ‘All full !' and tugged at his bell-strap,
whereunto many were hanging by the hand; but
he was swept from his feet, and made to push hard
for his own place. And there was no more foot-
hold on the back platform nor the front, nor any
vacant step upon the stairway; and the roof was
thronged; and the rest of the crowd was fain to
waylay the next car.
This one moved off slowly, with shrieks and
howls that were racking to the wits. From divers
quarters of the roof came a bumping thunder as


88
TO BOW BRIDGE
of cellar-flapping clogs. Profanity was sluiced
down, as it were by pailfuls, from above, and was
swilled back as it were in pailfuls from below
Blowses in feathered bonnets bawled hilarious
obscenity at the jiggers. A little maid with a
market-basket, hustled and jostled and elbowed
at the far end, listened eagerly and laughed
when she could understand ; and the quiet me-
chanic, whose knees had been invaded by an un-
steady young woman in a crushed hat, tried to look
pleased. My own knees were saved from capture
by the near neigbourhood of an enormous female,
seated partly on the seat and partly on myself,
snorting and gulping with sleep, her head upon the
next man's shoulder. (To offer your seat to a stand-
ing women would, as beseems a foreign antic, have
been visited by the ribaldry of the whole crowd.)
In the midst of the riot the decent woman sat
silent and indifferent, her children on and about her
knees. Further along, two women ate fish with
their fingers and discoursed personalities in voices
which ran strident through the uproar, as the odour


TO BOW BRIDGE
89
of their snack asserted itself in the general fetor.
And opposite the decent woman there sat a
bonnetless drab, who said nothing, but looked at
the decent woman's children as a shoeless brat
looks at the dolls in a toyshop window.
'So I ses to 'er, I ses '--this from the snacksters
- I'm a respectable married women, I ses.
More'n
you can say, you barefaced hussey, I ses—’
Then a shower of curses, a shout, and a roar of
laughter; and the conductor, making slow and
laborious progress with the fares nearest him,
turned his head. A man had jumped upon the
footboard and a passenger's toes. A scuffle and
a fight, and both had rolled off into the mire,
and got left behind. 'Ain't they fond o one
another ?' cried a girl. “They're a-goin' for a
walk together;' and there was a guffaw. “The
silly bleeders 'll be too late for the pubs,' said
a male voice; and there was another, for the
general understanding was touched.
Then an effect of sympathy, perhaps
scuffle broke out on the roof. But this dis-
a


90
TO BOW BRIDGE
turbed not the insides. The conductor went
on his plaguy task: to save time, he passed
over the one or two that, asked now or not,
seemed likely to pay at the journey's end.
The snacking women resumed their talk, the
choristers their singing; the rumble of the
wheels was lost in a babel of vacant ribaldry;
the enormous woman choked and gasped and
snuggled lower down upon her neighbour's
shoulder; and the shabby strumpet looked at
the children.
A man by the door vomited his liquor :
whereat was more hilarity, and his neighbours,
with many yaups, shoved further up the middle.
But one of the little ones, standing before her
mother, was pushed almost to falling; and the
harlot, seeing her chance, snatched the child
upon her knee. The child looked up, some-
thing in wonder, and smiled; and the woman
leered as honestly as she might, saying a hoarse
word or two.
Presently the conflict overhead, waxing and


TO BOW BRIDGE
91
waning to an accompaniment of angry shouts,
afforded another brief diversion to those within,
and something persuaded the standing passengers
to shove toward the door, The child had fallen
asleep in the street-walker's arms. “Jinny!”
cried the mother, reaching forth and shaking
her. "Jinny! wake up now-you mustn't go
to sleep.' And she pulled the little thing from
her perch to where she had been standing.
The bonnetless creature bent forward, and, in
her curious voice (like that of one sick with
shouting), 'She can set on my knee, m'm, if
she likes,' she said: 'she's tired.'
The mother busied herself with a jerky adjust-
ment of the child's hat and shawl. “She mustn't
go to sleep,' was all she said ; sharply, and with-
out looking up.
The hoarse woman bent further forward, with
a propitiatory grin. ''Ow old is she? .. I'd
like to give 'er a penny.'
The mother answered nothing; but drew the
child close by the side of her knee, where a
.


92
TO BOW BRIDGE
younger one was sitting, and looked steadily
through the fore windows.
The hoarse woman sat back, unquestioning
and unresentful, and turned her eyes upon them
that were crowding over the conductor; for the
car was rising over Bow Bridge. Front and
back they surged down from the roof, and the
insides made for the door as one man.
The big
woman's neighbour rose, and let her fall over on
the seat, whence, awaking with a loud grunt and
an incoherent curse, she rolled after the rest.
The conductor, clamant and bedevilled, was
caught between the two pell-mells and, demand-
ing fares and gripping his satchel, was carried
over the footboard in the rush. The stramash
overhead came tangled and swearing down the
stairs, gaining volume and force in random
punches as it came; and the crowd on the
pavement streamed vocally toward a brightness
at the bridge foot~the lights of the Bombay
Grab.
The woman with the children waited till the


TO BOW BRIDGE
93
footboard was clear, and then, carrying one child
and leading another (her marketings attached
about her by indeterminate means), she set the
two youngsters on the pavement, leaving the
third on the step of the car. The harlot, linger-
ing, lifted the child again—lifted her rather high
--and set her on the path with the others. Then
she walked away toward the Bombay Grab. A
man in a blue serge suit was footing it down
the turning between the public-house and the
bridge with drunken swiftness and an inter-
mittent stagger; and, tightening her shawl, she
went in chase.
The quiet mechanic stood and stretched him-
self, and took a corner seat near the door ; and
the tram-car, quiet and vacant, bumped on west-
ward.





THAT BRUTE SIMMONS


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
SIMMONS'S infamous behaviour toward his
IMMONS'S infamous behaviour toward his
wife is still matter for profound wonder-
ment among the neighbours. The other women
had all along regarded him as a model husband,
and certainly Mrs Simmons was a most conscien-
tious wife. She toiled and slaved for that man,
as any woman in the whole street would have
maintained, far more than any husband had a right
to expect. And now this was what she got for it.
Perhaps he had suddenly gone mad.
Before she married Simmons, Mrs Simmons had
been the widowed Mrs Ford. Ford had got a
berth as donkeyman on a tramp steamer, and
that steamer had gone down with all hands off
the Cape : a judgment, the widow woman feared,
for long years of contumacy which had culminated
G


98
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
in the wickedness of taking to the sea, and taking
to it as a donkeyman-an immeasurable fall for
a capable engine-fitter. Twelve years as Mrs Ford
had left her still childless, and childless she re-
mained as Mrs Simmons.
As for Simmons, he, it was held, was fortun-
ate in that capable wife. He was a moderately
good carpenter and joiner, but no man of the
world, and he wanted one. Nobody could tell
what might not have happened to Tommy Sim-
mons if there had been no Mrs Simmons to take
care of him.
He was a meek and quiet man,
with a boyish face and sparse, limp whiskers.
He had no vices (even his pipe departed him
after his marriage), and Mrs Simmons had en-
grafted on him divers exotic virtues. He went
solemnly to chapel every Sunday, under a tall
hat, and put a penny-one returned to him for
the purpose out of his week's wages-in the
plate. Then, Mrs Simmons overseeing, he took
off his best clothes and brushed them with solici-
tude and pains. On Saturday afternoons he


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
99
cleaned the knives, the forks, the boots, the
kettles and the windows, patiently and conscien-
tiously. On Tuesday evenings he took the clothes
to the mangling. And on Saturday nights he at-
tended Mrs Simmons in her marketing, to carry
the parcels.
Mrs Simmons's own virtues were native and
numerous. She was a wonderful manager. Every
penny of Tommy's thirty-six or thirty-eight shil-
lings a week was bestowed to
was bestowed to the greatest
advantage, and Tommy never ventured to guess
how much of it she saved. Her cleanliness in
housewifery was distracting to behold. She met
Simmons at the front door whenever he came
home, and then and there he changed his boots
for slippers, balancing himself painfully on alter-
nate feet on the cold flags. This was because
she scrubbed the passage and doorstep turn
about with the wife of the downstairs family,
and because the stair-carpet was her own.
She
vigilantly supervised her husband all through
the process of 'cleaning himself' after work,


Іоо
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
so as to come between her walls and the pos-
sibility of random splashes; and if, in spite of
her diligence a spot remained to tell the tale,
she was at pains to impress the fact on Sim-
mons's memory, and to set forth at length all
the circumstances of his ungrateful selfishness.
In the beginning she had always escorted him to
the ready-made clothes shop, and had selected and
paid for his clothes : for the reason that men
are such perfect fools, and shopkeepers do as
they like with them. But she presently improved
on that. She found a man selling cheap rem-
nants at a street corner, and straightway she
conceived the idea of making Simmons's clothes
herself. Decision was one of her virtues, and a
suit of uproarious check tweeds was begun that
afternoon from the pattern furnished by an old
one. More : it was finished by Sunday; when
Simmons, overcome by astonishment at the feat,
was indued in it, and pushed off to chapel ere
he could recover his senses. The things were
not altogether comfortable, he found: the trousers


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
IOI
clung tight against his shins, but hung loose
behind his heels; and when he sat, it was on
a wilderness of hard folds and seams. Also his
waistcoat collar tickled his nape, but his coat
collar went straining across from shoulder to
shoulder; while the main garment bagged gen-
erously below his waist. Use made a habit of
his discomfort, but it never reconciled him to
the chaff of his shopmates; for as Mrs Simmons
elaborated successive suits, each one modelled
on the last, the primal accidents of her design
developed into principles, and grew even bolder
and more hideously pronounced. It was vain
for Simmons to hint-as hint he did—that he
shouldn't like her to overwork herself, tailoring
being bad for the eyes, and there was a new
tailor's in the Mile End Road, very cheap, where
.. 'Ho yus,' she retorted, 'you're very con-
sidrit I dessay sittin' there actin' a livin' lie
before your own wife Thomas Simmons
though I couldn't see through you like a book.
A lot you care about overworkin' me as long as
as


IO2
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
your turn's served throwin' away money like
dirt in the street on a lot o' swindlin' tailors
an' me workin' an' slavin' 'ere to save a 'apenny
an' this is my return for it anyone 'ud think
you could pick up money in the 'orseroad an'
I b'lieve I'd be thought better of if I laid in
bed all day like some would that I do.' So
that Thomas Simmons avoided the subject, nor
even murmured when she resolved to cut his hair.
So his placid fortune endured for years. Then
there came a golden summer evening when Mrs
Simmons betook herself with a basket to do
some small shopping, and Simmons was left at
home. He washed and put away the tea-things,
and then he fell to meditating on a new pair of
trousers, finished that day and hanging behind
the parlour door. There they hung, in all their
decent innocence of shape in the seat, and they
were shorter of leg, longer of waist, and wilder
of pattern than he had ever worn before. And
as he looked on them the small devil of Original
Sin awoke and clamoured in his breast. He was


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
103
ashamed of it, of course, for well he knew the
gratitude he owed his wife for those same trousers,
among other blessings. Still, there the small
devil was, and the small devil was fertile in base
suggestions, and could not be kept from hinting
at the new crop of workshop gibes that would
spring at Tommy's first public appearance in
such things.
Pitch 'em in the dustbin !' said the small devil
at last; 'it's all they're fit for.'
Simmons turned away in sheer horror of his
wicked self, and for a moment thought of wash-
ing the tea-things over again by way of disci-
pline. Then he made for the back room, but
saw from the landing that the front door was
standing open, probably by the fault of the child
downstairs. Now a front door standing open was
a thing that Mrs Simmons would not abide: it
looked low. So Simmons went down, that she
might not be wroth with him for the thing when
she came back; and, as he shut the door, he
looked forth into the street.


104
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
A man was loitering on the pavement, and
prying curiously about the door. His face was
tanned, his hands were deep in the pockets of
his unbraced blue trousers, and well back on his
head he wore the high-crowned peaked cap
topped with a knob of wool, which is affected
by Jack ashore about the docks. He lurched a
step nearer to the door and, Mrs Ford ain't in,
is she?' he said.
Simmons stared at him for a matter of five
seconds, and then said, “ Eh?'
• Mrs Ford as was, then-Simmons now, ain't
it?'
He said this with a furtive leer that Simmons
6
neither liked nor understood.
No,' said Simmons, she ain't in now.'
• You ain't her 'usband, are ye?'
· Yus.'
The man took his pipe from his mouth, and
grinned silently and long. Blimy,' he said at
length, ‘you look the sort o' bloke she'd like,'—
and with that he grinned again. Then, seeing


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
105
that Simmons made ready to shut the door,
he put a foot on the sill and a hand against
the panel. 'Don't be in a 'urry, matey,' he said,
I come 'ere t’ave a little talk with you, man
to man, d’ye see?' And he frowned fiercely.
Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable, but the
door would not shut, so he parleyed.
. Wot-
jer want?' he asked. I dunno you.'
' Then if you'll excuse the liberty, I'll inter-
dooce meself, in a manner of speaking.' He
touched his cap with a bob of mock humility.
* I'm Bob Ford,' he said, 'come back out o'
kingdom-come, so to say. Me as went down
with the Mooltan-safe dead five year gone. I
come to see my wife.'
During this speech Thomas Simmons's jaw
was dropping lower and lower. At the end of
it he poked his fingers up through his hair,
looked down at the mat, then up at the fan-
light, then out into the street, then hard at his
visitor. But he found nothing to say.
Come to see my wife,' the man repeated.


106
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
"So now
we
can talk it over
as
man to
man.'
man
was
Simmons slowly shut his mouth, and led the
way upstairs mechanically, his fingers still in
his hair. A sense of the state of affairs sank
gradually into his brain, and the small devil
woke again.
Suppose this
Ford ?
Suppose he did claim his wife ? Would it be a
knock-down blow? Would it hit him out ?-or
not? He thought of the trousers, the tea-
things, the mangling, the knives, the kettles and
the windows; and he thought of them in the
way of a backslider.
On the landing Ford clutched at his arm,
and asked in a hoarse whisper: ''Ow long 'fore
she's back?'
''Bout a hour, I expect,' Simmons replied,
having first of all repeated the question in his
own mind. And then he opened the parlour
door.
* Ah, said Ford, looking about him, 'you've
bin pretty comftable. Them chairs an' things-


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
107
jerking his pipe toward them—was hers-mine
that is to say, speaking straight, and man to
man.' He sat down, puffing meditatively at his
pipe, and presently: 'Well,' he continued, ''ere
I am agin, ol' Bob Ford dead an' done for-
gawn down in the Mooltan. On'y I ain't done
for, see?'--and he pointed the stem of his pipe
at Simmons's waistcoat-'I ain't done for, 'cause
why? Cons'kence o' bein' picked up by a ol'
German sailin'-'utch an' took to 'Frisco 'fore
the mast. I've 'ad a few years o' knockin'
about since then, an' now'-looking hard at
Simmons— I've come back to see my wife.'
'She-she don't like smoke in 'ere, said
Simmons, as it were at random.
• No, I bet she don't, Ford answered, taking
his pipe from his mouth, and holding it low in
his hand. I know 'Anner. ’Ow d'you find
'er? Do she make ye clean the winders ?'
'Well, Simmons admitted uneasily, 'I-I do
’elp 'er sometimes, o' course.'
Ah. An' the knives too, I bet, an' the


108
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
bloomin' kittles. I know. Wy—'he rose and bent
to look behind Simmons's head—' s'elp me, I
b'lieve she cuts yer 'air ! Well, I'm damned !
Jes' wot she would do, too.'
He inspected the blushing Simmons from
divers points of vantage.
Then he lifted a leg
of the trousers hanging behind the door. I'd
bet a trifle,' he said, she made these 'ere trucks.
Nobody else 'ud do 'em like that. Damme-
they're wuss'n wot you're got on.'
The small devil began to have the argument
all its own way.
If this man took his wife
back perhaps he'd have to wear those trousers.
*Ah !' Ford pursued, she ain't got no milder.
An' my davy, wot a jore !'
Simmons began to feel that this was no longer
his business. Plainly, 'Anner was this other
man's wife, and he was bound in honour to
acknowledge the fact. The small devil put it to
him as a matter of duty.
'Well,' said Ford suddenly, time's short an'
this ain't business, I won't be 'ard on you,


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
109
matey. I ought prop’ly to stand on my rights,
but seein' as you're a well-meanin' young man,
so to speak, an' all settled an' a-livin' 'ere quiet
an' matrimonual, I'll'—this with a burst of gener-
osity—'damme, yus, I'll compound the felony,
an' take me 'ook. Come, I'll name a figure, as
man to man, fust an' last, no less an' no more.
Five pound does it.'
Simmons hadn't five pounds-he hadn't even
five pence—and he said so. An' I wouldn't think
for to come between a man an' 'is wife,' he added
'not on no account. It may be rough on me, but
it's a dooty. I'll’ook it.'
'No,' said Ford hastily, clutching Simmons by
the arm, ‘don't do that. I'll make it a bit cheaper.
Say three quid—come, that's reasonable, ain't it?
Three quid ain't much compensation for me goin'
away for ever—where the stormy winds do blow, so
to say—an' never as much as seein' me own wife agin
for better nor wuss.
Between man an' man now
-three quid ; an' I'll shunt. That's fair, ain't it?'
Of course it's fair,' Simmons replied effusively.


IIO
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
She's your
• It's more'n fair : it's noble-downright noble, I call
it. But I ain't goin' to take a mean advantage
o'your good-'artedness, Mr Ford.
wife, an' I oughtn't to 'a' come between you.
I apologise. You stop an' 'ave yer proper rights.
It's me as ought to shunt, an' I will.' And he
made a step toward the door.
''Old on,' quoth Ford, and got between Simmons
and the door; 'don't do things rash. Look wot a
loss it'll be to you with no 'ome to go to, an'
nobody to look after ye, an' all that. It'll be
dreadful. Say a couple—there, we won't quarrel,
jest a single quid, between man an' man, an' I'll
stand a pot out o' the money. You can easy raise
a quid—the clock 'ud pretty nigh do it. A quid
does it; an' I'll
There was a loud double-knock at the front door.
In the East End a double-knock is always for the
upstairs lodgers.
Oo's that?' asked Bob Ford apprehensively.
• I'll see,' said Thomas Simmons in reply, and he
made a rush for the staircase.


THAT BRUTE SIMMONS
III
Bob Ford heard him open the front door. Then
he went to the window, and, just below him, he
saw the crown of a bonnet. It vanished, and borne
to him from within the door there fell upon his
ear the sound of a well-remembered female voice.
'Where ye goin' now with no 'at?' asked the
voice sharply.
* Awright, 'Anner-there's—there's somebody
upstairs to see you,' Simmons answered. And, as
Bob Ford could see, a man went scuttling down the
street in the gathering dusk. And behold, it was
Thomas Simmons.
Ford reached the landing in three strides. His
wife was still at the front door, staring after
Simmons. He flung into the back room, threw
open the window, dropped from the wash-house roof
into the back-yard, scrambled desperately over the
fence, and disappeared into the gloom. He was
seen by no living soul. And that is why Simmons's
base desertion-under his wife's very eyes, too-is
still an astonishment to the neighbours.





BEHIND THE SHADE
H


1
1
1


BEHIND THE SHADE
'HE street was the common East End street
THE
-two parallels of brick pierced with win-
dows and doors. But at the end of one, where the
builder had found a remnant of land too small
for another six-roomer, there stood an odd box
of a cottage, with three rooms and a wash-house.
It had a green door with a well-blacked knocker
round the corner; and in the lower window in
front stood a 'shade of fruit' -a cone of waxen
grapes and apples under a glass cover.
Although the house was smaller than the others,
and was built upon a remnant, it was always a
house of some consideration. In a street like this
mere independence of pattern gives distinction.
And a house inhabited by one sole family makes
115


116
BEHIND THE SHADE
a figure among houses inhabited by two or more,
even though it be the smallest of all. And here
the seal of respectability was set by the shade of
fruit—a sign accepted in those parts. Now, when
people keep a house to themselves, and keep it
clean; when they neither stand at the doors nor
gossip across back-fences; when, moreover, they
have a well-dusted shade of fruit in the front
window; and, especially, when they are two
women who tell nobody their business : they are
known at once for well-to-do, and are regarded
with the admixture of spite and respect that is
proper to the circumstances. They are also
watched.
Still, the neighbours knew the history of the
Perkinses, mother and daughter, in its main
features, with little disagreement: having told it
to each other, filling in the details when occasion
seemed to serve. Perkins, ere he died, had been
a shipwright; and this was when the shipwrights
were the aristocracy of the work-shops, and he
that worked more than three or four days a week


BEHIND THE SHADE
117
was counted a mean slave: it was long (in fact)
before depression, strikes, iron plates, and collec-
tive blindness had driven shipbuilding to the
Clyde. Perkins had laboured no harder than his
fellows, had married a tradesman's daughter, and
had spent his money with freedom; and some
while after his death his widow and daughter came
to live in the small house, and kept a school for
tradesmen's little girls in a back room over the
wash-house. But as the School Board waxed in
power, and the tradesmen's pride in regard there-
unto waned, the attendance, never large, came
down to twos and threes. Then Mrs Perkins met
with her accident. A dweller in Stidder's Rents
overtook her one night, and, having vigorously
punched her in the face and the breast, kicked
her and jumped on her for five minutes as she
lay on the pavement. (In the dark, it afterwards
appeared, he had mistaken her for his mother.)
The one distinct opinion the adventure bred in
the street was Mrs Webster's, the Little Bethelite,
who considered it a judgment for sinful pride


118
BEHIND THE SHADE
—for Mrs Perkins had been a Church-goer. But
the neighbours never saw Mrs Perkins again.
The doctor left his patient 'as well as she ever
would be,' but bed-ridden and helpless. Her
daughter was a scraggy, sharp-faced woman of
thirty or so, whose black dress hung from her
hips as from a wooden frame; and some people
got into the way of calling her Mrs Perkins,
seeing no other thus to honour. And meantime,
the school had ceased, although Miss Perkins
essayed a revival, and joined a Dissenting chapel
to that end.
Then, one day, a card appeared in the window,
over the shade of fruit, with the legend Piano-
forte Lessons.' It was not approved by the
street. It was a standing advertisement of the
fact that the Perkinses had a piano, which others
had not. It also revealed a grasping spirit on
the part of people able to keep a house to
themselves, with red curtains and a shade of
fruit in the parlour window; who, moreover, had
been able to give up keeping a school because


BEHIND THE SHADE
119
of ill-health. The pianoforte lessons were eight-
and-sixpence a quarter, two a week.
a week. Nobody
was ever known to take them but the relieving
officer's daughter, and she paid sixpence a lesson,
to see how she got on, and left off in three weeks.
The card stayed in the window a fortnight longer,
and none of the neighbours saw the cart that
came in the night and took away the old cabinet
piano with the channelled keys, that had been
fourth-hand when Perkins bought it twenty years
ago. Mrs Clark, the widow who sewed far into
the night, may possibly have heard a noise and
looked; but she said nothing if she did. There
was no card in the window next morning, but the
shade of fruit stood primly respectable as ever.
The curtains were drawn a little closer across,
for some of the children playing in the street were
used to flatten their faces against the lower panes,
and to discuss the piano, the stuff-bottomed chairs,
the antimacassars, the mantelpiece ornaments, and
the loo table with the family Bible and the album
on it.


I 20
BEHIND THE SHADE
It was soon after this that the Perkinses alto-
gether ceased from shopping-ceased, at any rate,
in that neighbourhood. Trade with them had
already been dwindling, and it was said that Miss
Perkins was getting stingier than her mother-
who had been stingy enough herself. Indeed, the
Perkins demeanour began to change for the worse,
to be significant of a miserly retirement and an
offensive alienation from the rest of the street.
One day the deacon called, as was his practice
now and then; but, being invited no further than
the doorstep, he went away in dudgeon, and did
not return. Nor, indeed, was Miss Perkins seen
again at chapel.
Then there was a discovery. The spare figure
of Miss Perkins was seldom seen in the streets,
and then almost always at night; but on these
occasions she was observed to carry parcels, of
varying wrappings and shapes. Once, in broad
daylight, with a package in newspaper, she made
such haste past a shop-window where stood Mrs
Webster and Mrs Jones, that she tripped on the


BEHIND THE SHADE
I 21
broken sole of one shoe, and fell headlong. The
newspaper broke away from its pins, and
although the woman reached and recovered her
parcel before she rose, it was plain to see that
it was made up of cheap shirts, cut out ready for
the stitching. The street had the news the same
hour, and it was generally held that such a
taking of the bread out of the mouths of them
that wanted it by them that had plenty was
a scandal and a shame, and ought to be put
a stop to. And Mrs Webster, foremost in the
setting right of things, undertook to find out
whence the work came, and to say a few plain
words in the right quarter.
All this while nobody watched closely enough
to note that the parcels brought in were fewer
than the parcels taken out. Even a hand-truck,
late one evening, went unremarked : the door
being round the corner, and most people within.
One morning, though, Miss Perkins, her best foot
foremost, was venturing along a near street with
outgoing parcel-large and triangular and
an


I 22
BEHIND THE SHADE
wrapped in white drugget-when the relieving
officer turned the corner across the way.
The relieving officer was a man in whose
system of etiquette the Perkinses had caused
some little disturbance. His ordinary female
acquaintances (not, of course, professional) he was
in the habit of recognising by a gracious nod.
When he met the minister's wife he lifted his
hat, instantly assuming an intense frown, in the
event of irreverent observation. Now he quite
felt that the Perkinses were entitled to some
advance upon the nod, although it would be
absurd to raise them to a level with the
minister's wife. So he had long since established
a compromise: he closed his finger and thumb
upon the brim of his hat, and let his hand fall
forthwith. Preparing now to accomplish this
salute, he astounded to see that Miss
Perkins, as
she aware of his
approach, turned her face, which was rather
flushed, away from him, and went hurrying
onward, looking at the wall on her side of the
was
soon
as
was


BEHIND THE SHADE
123
street. The relieving officer, checking his hand
on its way to his hat, stopped and looked after
her as she turned the corner, hugging her parcel
on the side next the wall. Then he shouldered
his umbrella and pursued his way, holding his
head high, and staring fiercely straight before
him ; for a relieving officer is not used to being
cut.
It was a little after this that Mr Crouch, the
landlord, called. He had not been calling regu-
larly, because of late Miss Perkins had left her
five shillings of rent with Mrs Crouch every
Saturday evening. He noted with satisfaction
the whitened sills and the shade of fruit, behind
which the curtains were now drawn close and
pinned together. He turned the corner and
lifted the bright knocker. Miss Perkins half
opened the door, stood in the opening, and
began to speak.
His jaw dropped. “Beg pardon-forgot some-
thing. Won't wait-call next week-do just as
well'; and he hurried round the corner and


I 24
BEHIND THE SHADE
down the street, puffing and blowing and
staring. 'Why, the woman frightened me,' he
afterward explained to Mrs Crouch. • There's
something wrong
with her
eyes, and she
looked like a corpse.
The rent wasn't ready
-I could see that before she spoke; so I
cleared out.'
P'r’aps something's happened to the old lady,'
suggested Mrs Crouch. * Anyhow, I should
think the rent 'ud be all right.' And he
thought it would,
Nobody saw the Perkinses that week. The
shade of fruit stood in its old place, but was
thought not to have been dusted after Tuesday.
Certainly the sills and the doorstep were
neglected. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were
swallowed up in a choking brown fog, wherein
men lost their bearings, and fell into docks, and
stepped over embankment edges.
It was
though a great blot had fallen, and had obliter-
ated three days from the calendar. It cleared
on Monday morning, and, just as the women in
as


BEHIND THE SHADE
125
was
was
no
He gave
see
the street were sweeping their steps, Mr Crouch
seen at the
green
door. He lifted the
knocker, dull and sticky now with the foul
vapour, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There
answer. He knocked again, a little
louder, and waited, listening. But there was
neither voice nor movement within.
three heavy knocks, and then came round to
the front window. There was the shade of fruit,
the glass a little duller on the top, the curtains
pinned close about it, and nothing to
beyond them. He tapped at the window with
his knuckles, and backed into the roadway to
look at the one above. This was a window
with a striped holland blind and a short net
curtain ; but never a face was there.
The sweepers stopped to look, and one from
opposite came and reported that she had seen
nothing of Miss Perkins for a week, and that
certainly nobody had left the house that morn-
ing. And. Mr Crouch grew excited, and
bellowed through the keyhole.


126
BEHIND THE SHADE
In the end they opened the sash-fastening
with a knife, moved the shade of fruit, and got
in.
The room was bare and empty, and their
steps and voices resounded as those of people in
an unfurnished house. The washhouse was vacant,
but it was clean, and there was a little net
curtain in the window. The short passage and
the stairs were bare boards. In the back room
by the stair-head was a drawn window-blind,
and that was all. In the front room with the
striped blind and the short curtain there was
a bed of rags and old
newspapers ;
also
wooden box; and on each of these was
a
a
dead woman.
Both deaths, the doctor found, were from
syncope, the result of inanition; and the better-
nourished woman-she on the bed—had died the
sooner; perhaps by a day or two. The other
case was rather curious; it exhibited a degree of
shrinkage in the digestive organs unprecedented
in his experience. After the inquest the street
had an evening's fame: for the papers printed


BEHIND THE SHADE
127
coarse drawings of the house, and in leader-
ettes demanded the abolition of something.
Then it became its wonted self. And it was
doubted if the waxen apples and the curtains
fetched enough to pay Mr Crouch his fortnight's
rent.


1


THREE ROUNDS
I





THREE ROUNDS
T six o'clock the back
streets were dank
AT
and black; but once in the Bethnal Green
Road, blots and flares of gas and naphtha shook
and flickered till every slimy cobble in the cart-
way was silver-tipped. Neddy Milton was not
quite fighting-fit. A day's questing for an odd
job had left him weary in the feet; and a lad
of eighteen cannot comfortably go unfed from
breakfast to night-fall. But box he must, for
the shilling was irrecoverable, and so costly a
chance must not be thrown away. It was by
a bout with the gloves that he looked to mend
his fortunes.
That was his only avenue of
advancement. He could read and write quite
decently, and in the beginning might even have
131


132
THREE ROUNDS
been an office-boy, if only the widow his mother,
had been able to give him a good send-off in
the matter of clothes. Also, he had had one
chance of picking up a trade, but the firm
already employed as many boys as the union was
disposed to allow. So Neddy had to go, and
pick up such stray jobs as he might.
It had been a bad day, without a doubt.
Things were bad generally. It was nearly a
fortnight since Ned had lost his last job, and
there seemed to be no other in the world. . His
mother had had no slop-waistcoat finishing to
do for three or four days, and he distinctly
remembered that rather less than half a loaf was
left after breakfast; so that it would never do
to go home, for at such a time the old woman
had a trick of pretending not to be hungry,
and of starving herself. He almost wished that
shilling of entrance-money back in his pocket.
There is a deal of stuff to be bought for a
shilling: fried fish, for instance, whereof the
aromas, warm and rank, met him thrice in a


THREE ROUNDS
133
hundred yards, and the frizzle, loud or faint, sang
in his ears all along the Bethnal Green Road.
His shilling had been paid over but two days
before the last job gave out, and it would be use-
ful now.
Still, the investment might turn out a
gold mine. Luck must change. Meanwhile, as
to being hungry-well, there was always another
hole in the belt!
The landlord of the Prince Regent public
house had a large room behind his premises,
which, being moved by considerations of sport
and profit in doubtful proportions, he devoted
two nights a week to the uses of the Regent
Boxing Club. Here Neddy Milton, through a
long baptism of pummellings, had learned the
trick of a straight lead, a quick counter, and a
timely duck; and here, in the nine-stone com-
petition to open this very night, he might
perchance punch wide the gates of Fortune. For
some sporting publican, or discriminating book-
maker from Bow, might see and approve his
sparring, and start him fairly, with money behind


134
THREE ROUNDS
was
now
him-a professional. That would mean a match
in six or eight weeks' time, with good living in
the meanwhile: a match that would have to be
won, of course. And after that ...!
Twice before he had boxed in a competition.
Once he won his bout in the first round, and was
beaten in the second; and once he was beaten
in the first, but that was by the final winner,
Tab Rosser, who
matched for
a hundred a side, sparred exhibition bouts up
west, wore a light Newmarket coat, and could
stand whisky and soda with anybody. To be
'taken up'on the strength of these early perform-
than he could reasonably
expect. There might be luck in the third trial ;
but he would like to feel a little fitter. Break-
fast (what there was of it) had been ten hours
ago, and since there had been but a half-pint
of four-ale. It was the treat of a well-meaning
friend, but it lay cold on the stomach for want
ances
was
more
of solid company.
Turning into Cambridge Road, he crossed, and


THREE ROUNDS
135
went on among the by-streets leading toward
Globe Road. Now and again a slight aspersion
of fine rain came down the gusts, and further
damped his cap and shoulders and the ragged
hair that hung over his collar. Also a cold spot
under one foot gave him fears of a hole in his
boot-sole as he tramped in the chilly mud.
In the Prince Regent there were many at
the bar, and the most of them knew Neddy.
'Wayo, Ned,' said one lad with a pitted face,
'you don't look much of a bleed'n' champion.
’Ave a drop o’ beer.'
Ned took a sparing pull at the pot, and wiped
his mouth on his sleeve. A large man behind
him guffawed, and Neddy reddened high. He
had heard the joke. The man himself was one
of the very backers that might make one's for-
tune, and the man's companion thought it would
be unsafe to back Neddy to fight anything but
a beefsteak.
You're drawed with Patsy Beard,' one of


136
THREE ROUNDS
Ned's friends informed him. "You'll 'ave to
buck up.'
This was bad. Patsy Beard, on known form,
stood best chance of winning the competition,
and to have to meet him at first set-off was
ill luck, and no mistake. He was a thickset
little butcher, and there was just the ghost of
a hope that he might be found to be a bit over
the weight.
A lad by the bar looked inquiringly in Ned's
face and then came toward him, shouldering him
quietly out of the group.
It was Sam Young,
whom Neddy had beaten in an earlier competi-
tion. “Ungry, Neddy?' he asked, in a corner,
It was with a shamed face that Neddy confessed ;
for among those in peril of hunger it is disgraceful
to be hungry. Sam unpocketed a greasy paper,
enveloping a pallid sausage-roll. ''Ave 'alf o'
this,' he said. It was a heavy and a clammy
thing, but Ned took it, furtively swallowed a large
piece, and returned the rest with sheepish thanks.
He did not turn again toward the others, but


THREE ROUNDS
137
went through to the room where the ring was
pitched.
The proceedings began. First there were exhi-
bition bouts, to play in the company. Neddy
fidgeted. Why couldn't they begin the competi-
tion at once? When they did, his bout would
be number five. That would mean at least an
hour of waiting; and the longer he waited the
less fit he would feel.
In time the exhibition sparring was ended,
and the real business began. He watched the
early bouts feverishly, feeling unaccountably
anxious. The lads looked strong and healthy.
Patsy Beard was as strong as any of them, and
heavy. Could he stand it? This excited nerv-
ousness
new and difficult to understand.
He had never felt like it before. He was al-
most trembling; and that lump of sausage-roll
had stuck half-way, and made breathing painful
work Patsy Beard was at the opposite corner,
surrounded by admirers. He was red-faced,
well-fed, fleshy, and confident. His short hair
was


138
THREE ROUNDS
nose.
But the pace
clung shinily about his bullet head. Neddy noted
a small piece of court-plaster at the side of his
Plainly there was a tender spot, and it
must be gone for, be it cut, or scratch, or only
pimple. On the left side, too, quite handy.
Come, there was some comfort in that.
He fell to watching the bout. It was a hard
fight, and both the lads were swinging the right
again and again for a knock-out.
was too hot, and they were soon breathing like
men about to sneeze, wearily pawing at each
other, while their heads hung forward. Some-
body jogged him in the back, and he found
he must get ready. His dressing was simple.
All ill-conditioned old pair of rubber gym-
nasium shoes replaced his equally ill-conditioned
bluchers, and a cotton singlet his shirt; but
his baggy corduroys, ragged at the ankles and
doubtful at the seat, remained.
Presently the last pair of boxers was brought
into the dressing-room, and one of the seconds,
a battered old pug with one eye, at once seized


THREE ROUNDS
139
Neddy. 'Come along, young ’un,' he said. "I'm
your bloke. Got no flannels ? Awright. Jump
on the scales.'
There was no doubt as to the weight. He
had scaled at eight stone thirteen; now it was
eight stone bare. Patsy Beard, on the other
hand, weighed the full nine, without an ounce
to spare.
• You're givin' 'im a stone,' said the old pug ;
all the more credit 'idin' of 'im. ’Ere, let's
shove 'em on. Feel 'em.' He grinned and
blinked his solitary eye as he pulled on Neddy's
hand one of a very black and long-worn pair
of boxing-gloves. They were soft and flaccid ;
Neddy's heart warmed toward the one - eyed
man, for well he knew from many knocks that
the softer the glove the harder the fist feels
through it. 'Sawftest pair in the place, s’elp
me,' grunted the second, with one glove hanging
from his teeth. 'My lad 'ad 'em last time.
Come on.'
He snatched a towel and a bottle of water,


140
THREE ROUNDS
and hurried Neddy from the dressing-room to
the ring. Neddy sat in his chair in the ring-
corner, and spread his arms on the ropes : while
his second, arms uplifted, stood before him and
ducked solemnly forward and back with the
towel flicking overhead. While he was
fann-
ing, Neddy was still conscious of the lump of
sausage-roll in his chest.
Also he fell to won-
dering idly why they called Beard Patsy, when
his first name
was Joe. The same reflection
applied to Tab Rosser, and Hocko Jones, and
Tiggy Magson. But certainly he felt hollow and
sick in the belly. Could he stand punching? It
would never do to chuck it half through. Still-
'Ready!' sang the timekeeper.
The old pug threw the towel over his arm.
“'Ave a moistener,' he said, presenting the water-
bottle to Neddy's mouth. 'Don't swaller any,'
he added, as his principal took a large gulp.
'Spit it out.'
Seconds out of the ring!!
The old prize-fighter took his bottle and climbed


THREE ROUNDS
141
through the ropes. “Don't go in- fightin', he
whispered from behind. 'Mark 'im on the stick-
in'-plaster; an’ if you don't give 'im a 'idin', bli’
me, I'll give you one!'
"Time!'
The seconds seized the chairs and dragged
them out of the ring, as the lads advanced and
shook hands. Patsy Beard flung back his right
foot, and made a flashy prance with his left
knee as they began to spar for an opening : it
was Patsy's way. All Neddy's anxiety was
gone. The moment his right foot dropped be-
hind his left, and his left hand rocked, knuckles
up, before him, he was a competent workman,
with all his tools in order. Even the lump of
dough on his chest he felt no more.
‘Buy, buy!' bawled a wag in the crowd, as a
delicate allusion to Beard's more ordinary occu-
pation. Patsy grinned at the compliment, but
Neddy confined his attention to business. He
feinted with his left, and got back; but Patsy
was not to be drawn. Then Neddy stepped in


144
THREE ROUNDS
against the ropes, another in the ribs almost
through them. But a desperate, wide whirl of
his right brought it heavily on Patsy's tender
spot, and tore open the cut. Patsy winced,
and-
Time!'
1
Neddy was grabbed at the waist and put in
his chair. Good lad!' said the one-eyed pug
in his ear
as he sponged his face. Nothink
like pluck.
But you mustn't go to pieces 'alf
through the round. Was it a awk'ard poke
upsetcher ?'
Neddy, lying back and panting wildly, shook
his head as he gazed at the ceiling.
* Awright; try an' save yourself a bit. Keep
yer left goin'-you roasted 'im good with that;
'e'll want a yard o' plaster to-night. An' when
'e gits leadin' loose, take it auf an' give him the
right straight from the guard—if you know the
trick. Point o' the jaw that's for, mind. 'Ave
a cooler.' He took a mouthful of water and
blew it in a fine "spray in Neddy's face, wiped


THREE ROUNDS
147
this time !'-came from some other building
close by, where somebody was getting a bad
licking. Somebody with no control of his legs,
and no breath to spit away the blood from his
nose as it ran and stuck over his lips. Some-
body praying for the end of the three minutes
that seemed three hours, and groaning inwardly
because of a lump of cold lead in his belly that
had once been sausage-roll. Somebody to whom
a few called still in the other building — Chuck
it, Neddy ; it's no good. Why don'cher chuck it ?'
while others said, 'Take 'im away, tyke 'im
away!' Then something hit him between the
eyes, and some other thing behind the head ;
that was one of the posts. He swung an arm,
but it met nothing ; then the other, and it struck
somewhere; and then there was a bang that
twisted his head, and hard boards were against
his face. O it was bad, but it was a rest.
Cold water was on his face, and somebody
spoke. He was in his chair again, and the one.
eyed man was sponging him. “It was the call


148
THREE ROUNDS
1
o'time as saved ye then,' he said ; 'you'd
never 'a' got up in the ten seconds. Y'aint
up to another round, are ye? Better chuck it.
It's no disgrace, after the way you've stood
up. But Neddy shook his head. He had got
through two of the three rounds, and didn't
mean throwing away a chance of saving the
bout.
'Awright, if you won't, his Mentor said.
'Nothink like pluck. But you're no good on
points—a knock-out's the on'y chance. Nurse
yer right, an' give it 'im good on the point.
'E's none so fresh 'isself; 'e's blowed with the
work, an' you pasted 'im fine when you did 'it.
Last thing, just before 'e sent ye down, ye
dropped a 'ot 'un on 'is beak.
Didn't see
it, didjer?' The old bruiser rubbed vigorously
at his arms, and gave him a small, but wel-
come, drink of water.
Seconds out of the ring !'
The one-eyed man was gone once more, but
again his voice came from behind. · Mind-


THREE ROUNDS
149
nose
give it 'im 'ard and give it 'im soon, an' if you
feel groggy, chuck it d'reckly. If ye don't, I'll
drag ye out by the slack o' yer trousis an'
disgrace ye.'
"Time!'
Neddy knew there was little more than half
a minute's boxing left in him-perhaps not so
much. He must do his best at once. Patsy
was showing signs of hard wear, and still
blew a little:
his was encouragingly
crimson at the nostrils, and the cut was open
and raw.
He rushed in with a lead which
Neddy ducked and cross-countered, though
ineffectually. There were a few vigorous ex-
changes, and then Neddy staggered back from
a straight drive on the mouth.
There was a
shout of ‘Patsy!' and Patsy sprang in, right
elbow all a-jerk, and Aung in the left. Neddy
guarded wildly, and banged in the right from
the guard. Had he hit? He had felt
shock, but there was Patsy, lying on his face.
The crowd roared and roared again. The
no


150
THREE ROUNDS
old pug stuffed his chair hastily through the
ropes, and Neddy sank into it, panting, with
bloodshot eyes.
Patsy lay still. The time-
keeper watched the seconds-hand pass its ten
points, and gave the word, but Patsy only
moved a leg. Neddy Milton had won.
'Brayvo, young 'un,' said the old fighter, as he
threw his arm about Neddy's waist, and helped
him to the dressing-room.
Cleanest knock-
out I ever see-smack on the point o' the jaw.
Never thought you'd 'a' done it. I said there
was nothink like pluck, did'n' I? 'Ave a wash
now, an' you'll be all the better for the exercise.
Give us them gloves- I'm off for the next bout.'
And he seized another lad, and marched him
out.
''Ave a drop o' beer,' said one of Neddy's
new-won friends, extending a
tankard. He
took it, though he scarcely felt awake. He
was listless and weak, and would not have
moved for an hour had he been left alone.
But Patsy was brought to, and sneezed loudly,


THREE ROUNDS
151
and Neddy was hauled over to shake hands
with him.
You give me a 'ell of a doin',' said Neddy,
I never thought I'd beat you.'
' Beat me? well you ain't, ’ave you? 'Ow?'
'Knock-out,' answered several at once.
*Well I'm damned,' said Patsy Beard. ...
6
In the bar, after the evening's business,
Neddy sat and looked wistfully at the stout
red-faced men who smoked fourpenny cigars
and drank special Scotch; but not one noticed
him. His luck had not come after all. But
there was the second round of bouts, and the
final, in a week's time--perhaps it would come
then. If he could only win the final—then
it inust come.
Meanwhile he was sick and
faint, and felt doubtful about getting home.
Outside it was raining hard. He laid his head
on the bar table at which he was sitting, and
at closing time there they found him asleep.


1


1


IN BUSINESS
THERE
HERE was a great effervescence of rumour
in Cubitt Town when Ted Munsey came
into money. Ted Munsey, commonly alluded to
as Mrs Munsey's 'usband, was a moulder with a
regular job at Moffat's: a large, quiet man of
forty-five, the uncomplaining appurtenance of his
wife. This was fitting, for she had married be-
neath her, her father having been a dock time-
keeper.
To come into money is an unusual feat in
Cubitt Town; a feat, nevertheless, continually
contemplated among possibilities by all Cubitt
Towners; who find nothing else in the Sunday
paper so refreshing as the paragraphs headed
Windfall for a Cabman' and 'A Fortune for a
155


156
IN BUSINESS
Pauper,' and who cut them out to pin over the
mantelpiece. The handsome colouring of such
paragraphs was responsible for many bold flights
of fancy in regard to Ted Munsey's fortune :
Cubitt Town, left to itself, being sterile soil for
the imagination. Some said that the Munseys
had come in for chests packed with bank notes,
on the decease of one of Mrs Munsey's relations,
of whom she was wont to hint. Others put it
at a street full of houses, as being the higher
ideal of wealth. A few, more romantically
given, imagined vaguely of ancestral lands and
halls, which Mrs Munsey and her forebears
had been done out of' for many years, by
the lawyers. All which Mrs Munsey, in her
hour of triumph, was at little pains to dis-
count, although, in simple fact, the fortune was
more than a legacy of a hundred pounds
from Ted's uncle, who had kept a public-house
in Deptford.
Of the hundred pounds Mrs Munsey took
immediate custody. There was no guessing
no


158
IN BUSINESS
for Mrs Munsey was not wont to shilly-shally.
An empty shop was found in Bromley, was
rented, and was stocked as far as possible.
Tickets were hung upon everything, bearing a
very large main figure with a very small three-
farthings beside it, and the thing was done.
The stain of moulding was washed from the
scutcheon; the descent thereunto from dock
timekeeping was redeemed five-fold; dock time-
keeping itself was left far below, with carpen-
tering, shipwrighting, and engine-fitting. The
Munseys were in business.
Ted Munsey stood about helplessly and stared,
irksomely striving not to put his hands in his
pockets, which was low; any lapse being in-
stantly detected by Mrs Munsey, who rushed
from all sorts of unexpected places and cor-
rected the fault vigorously.
'I didn't go for to do it, Marier,' he ex-
plained penitently. “It's 'abit. I'll get out of
it soon. It don't look well, I know, in a busi-
ness; but it do seem a comfort, somehow.'


IN BUSINESS
159
O you an' your comfort !
comfort! A lot you study
my comfort, Hedward !'--for he was Ted no
more — 'a-toilin' an'a-moilin' with everything
to think of myself while you look on with your
'ands in your pockets. Do try an' not look like
a stuck ninny, do!' And Hedward, whose every
attempt at help or suggestion had been severely
repulsed, slouched uneasily to the door, and
strove to look as business-like as possible.
'There you go again, stickin' in the doorway
and starin' up an' down the street, as though
there was no business doin''—there was none,
but that might not be confessed. 'D'y' expect
people to come in with you a-fillin' up the
door? Do come in, do! You'd be better out
o' the shop altogether.'
Hedward thought so too, but said nothing.
He had been invested with his Sunday clothes
of lustrous black, and brought into the shop to
give such impression of a shop-walker as he
might. He stood uneasily on alternate feet, and
stared at the ceiling, the floor, or the space


160
IN BUSINESS
on
before him, with an unhappy sense of being on
show and not knowing what was expected of
him. He moved his hands purposelessly, and
knocked things down with his elbows; he rubbed
his hair all up behind, and furtively wiped the
resulting oil from his hand his trousers :
never looking in the least degree like a shop-
walker.
The first customer was a very small child who
came for a ha'porth of pins, and on whom
Hedward gazed with much interest and respect,
while Mrs Munsey handed over the purchase :
abating not a jot of his appreciation when
the child returned, later, to explain that what
she really wanted was sewing cotton. Other
customers were disappointingly few. Several
old neighbours came in from curiosity, to talk
and buy nothing. One woman, who looked at
many things without buying, was discovered
after her departure to have stolen a pair of
stockings; and Hedward was duly abused for
not keeping a sharp look-out while his wife's


162
IN BUSINESS
first day's record was never exceeded. But on
the fifth day a customer bought nearly seven
shillings' worth all at once. Her husband had
that day returned from sea with money, and
she, after months of stint, indulged in an orgie
of haberdashery at the
the nearest shop. Mrs
Munsey was reassured. Trade was increasing ;
perhaps an assistant would be needed soon, in
addition to the two girls.
Only the younger of the girls, by-the-bye, had
as yet taken any active interest in the business :
Emma, the elder, spending much of her time in
a bedroom, making herself unpresentable by
inordinate blubbering. This was because of Mrs
Munsey's prohibition of more company-keeping
with Jack Page. Jack was a plumber, just out
of his time-rather a catch for a moulder's
daughter, but impossible, of course, for the
daughter of people in business, as Emma should
have had the proper feeling to see for herself.
This Emma had not: she wallowed in a luxury
of woe, exacerbated on occasions to poignancy by


164
IN BUSINESS
transactions with him: three months' credit was
the regular thing with any respectable, well-estab-
lished business concern, and in three months
one would certainly sell all the fancy aprons
and lace bows of this especial kind and price
that one had room for. And he need scarcely
remind a lady of Mrs Munsey's business experi-
ence that fancy aprons and lace bows-of the
right sort-were by far the most profitable goods
known to the trade. Everybody knew that.
Should they say a gross of each, just to go on
with ? No? Well, then half a gross. These
prices were cut so near that it really did not pay
to split the gross, but this time, to secure a good
customer, he would stretch a point. Mrs Munsey
was enlightened. Plainly the secret of success
in business was to buy advantageously, in the
way the polite young man suggested, sell at a
good price, and live on the profits: merely
paying over the remainder at the end of three
months. Nothing could be simpler. So she
began the system forthwith. Other polite young


IN BUSINESS
165
men called, and further certain profits were
arranged for on similar terms.
The weak spot in the plan was the absence
of any binding arrangement with the general
public; and this was not long in discovering
itself. Nobody came to buy the fancy aprons
and the lace bows, tempting as they might seem.
Moreover, after they had hung a week or more,
Alice reported that a large shop in the Com-
mercial Road was offering, by retail, aprons and
bows of precisely the same sort at a less price
than the polite young man had charged for a
wholesale purchase. Mrs Munsey grew desperate,
and Hedward's life became a horror unto him.
He was set to stand at the door with a fancy
apron in one hand and a lace bow in the other,
and capture customers as they passed : a function
wherein he achieved detestable failure; alarming
passing women (who considered him dangerously
drunk) as greatly as his situation distressed him-
self.
Mrs Munsey grew more desperate, and drove


166
IN BUSINESS
Hedward to the rear of the house, with bitter
revilings. Money must be got out of the stock
somehow. That a shop could in any circum-
stances be unremunerative puzzled as much as
it dismayed her. The goods were marked down
to low prices—often lower than cost. Still Mrs
Munsey had the abiding conviction that the
affair must pay, as others did, if only she might
hold out long enough. Hedward's suggestion
that he should return to the moulding, coming
and going as little in sight as possible, she
repelled savagely. "A nice notion you've got
o' keepin' up a proper position. You ain't con-
tent with disgracin' me and yourself too, playin'
the fool in the shop till trade's ruined an' no-
body won't come near the place-an' I don't
wonder at it. ... You're a nice sort of 'usband,
I must say.
What are you goin' to do now,
with the business in this pretty mess, an' your
wife an' children ready to starve ?
What are
you goin' to do?
Where are you goin' to
turn? That's what I want to know.'


IN BUSINESS
167
'Well, I'm a-thinkin' it out, Marier, in a legal
point. P'r'aps, you know, my dear-'
‘Oh, don't dear me. I 'ate a fool.'
Marked as low as they might be, none of the
aprons nor the bows nor the towels nor the
stockings nor any other of the goods were
bought-never a thing beyond a ha'porth of
thread or a farthing bodkin. Rent had to be
paid, and even food cost money.
There was a
flavour of blank disappointment about Saturday
-the pay day of less anxious times; and quarter-
day, when all these polite young men would
demand the money that was not—that day was
coming, black and soon. Mrs Munsey grew
more desperate than ever; sharp of feature,
and aged. Alone, she would probably have wept.
Having Hedward at hand, she poured forth her
bitterness of spirit upon him; till at last he
was nagged out of his normal stolidity, and there
came upon his face the look of a bullock that is
harried on all hands through unfamiliar streets.
On a night when, from sheer weariness of


168
IN BUSINESS
soul, she fell from clatter toward sleep, of
a sudden Hedward spoke. 'Marier-' he said.
Well?'
"You ain't give me a kiss lately. Kiss me
now.'
• Don't be a fool. I'm sick an' tired. Go
to sleep, if you can sleep, with everything-
* Kiss me, I tell you !' He had never com-
manded like that before. She marvelled, feared
a little, and obeyed.
In the morning, when she awoke, he had
already gone downstairs.
This was
usual.
When she followed, however, he was not to be
found in the house. The shop shutters had
been taken down, and the windows carefully
cleaned, although it was not the regular window-
cleaning day; but the door was shut. On the
sitting-room table were two papers, one within
the other. The first was written with many
faults and smudges, and this was how it ran :
as
the deed and testiment of Ed. Munsey this


IN BUSINESS
169
is to cirtiffy that i make over all my propperty
to my belove wife stock bisness and furnitur
so help me god all detts i keep to pay myself
and my wife is not ansrable for them and
certiffy that I OU Minchin and co 9 pound
4/71 Jones and son 6 pound 13/2 and settrer
all other detts me and not my wife I O U
Ed. Munsey'
The other was a letter :
'my dear wife i have done this legle docker-
ment after thinking it out it will make you
alrite having all made over and me still oawe
the detts not you as you can pull round the
bisness as you said with time and if you do
not see me again will you pay the detts when
it is pull round we have been allways
honnest and straght i should wish for Emma
to keep co with Jhon Page if can be mannaged
he might be shop walker and you will soon all
be rich swels i know so no more from yours
affec husband Ed. Munsey
as


170
IN BUSINESS
love to Emma and Alice this one must be
burnt keep the other'
Near the papers lay Ted Munsey's large
silver watch and chain, the silver ring that he
used to fasten his best tie, three keys, and a
few coppers. Upstairs the girls began to move
about. Mrs Munsey sat with her frightened face
on the table.


THE RED COW GROUP





THE RED COW GROUP
THE
HE Red Cow Anarchist Group no longer
exists. Its leading spirit appears no more
among his devoted comrades, and without him
they are ineffectual.
He was but a young man, this leading spirit,
(his name, by-the-bye was Sotcher), but of his
commanding influence among the older but un-
lettered men about him, read and judge. For
themselves, they had long been plunged in a beery
apathy, neither regarding nor caring for the fear-
ful iniquities of the social system that oppressed
them. A Red Cow group they had always been,
before the coming of Sotcher to make Anarchists
of them: foregathering in a remote compart-
173


THE RED COW GROUP
175
never
they joined Old Baker, and they filled their
snuggery.
Their talk was rarely of politics, and
of 'social problems': present and immediate
facts filled their whole field of contemplation.
Their accounts were kept, and their references to
pecuniary matters were always stated, in terms
of liquid measure. Thus, fourpence was never
spoken of in the common way: it was a quart,
and a quart was the monetary standard of the
community. Even as twopence was a pint, and
eightpence was half-a-gallon.
It was Snorkey who discovered Sotcher, and
it was with Snorkey that that revolutionary
appeared before the Red Cow group with his
message of enlightenment. Snorkey (who was
christened something else that nobody knew or
cared about) had a trick of getting into extra-
ordinary and unheard of places in his daily
quest of quarts, and he had met Sotcher in a
loft at the top of a house in Berners Street,
Shadwell. It was a loft where the elect of Anarch-


THE RED COW GROUP
177
had an audience, an audience that did not lec-
ture on its own account, a crude audience that
might take him at his own valuation. So he
gave it to that crude audience, hot and strong.
They (and he) were the salt of the earth,
bullied, plundered and abused. Down with
everything that wasn't down already.
And so
forth and so on.
His lectures were continued. Every night it
was the same as every other, and each several
chapter of his discourse was a repetition of the
one before. Slowly the Red Cow group came
round. Plainly other people were better off
than they; and certainly each man found it
hard to believe that anybody else was more de-
serving than himself.
Wy are we pore?' asked Sotcher, leaning
forward and jerking his extended palm from
one to another, as though attempting a hasty
collection. 'I ask you straight, wy are
Why is it, my frien's that awften and
awften you find you ain't got a penny in yer
M
6
we
pore?


178
THE RED COW GROUP
on
pocket, not for to git a crust o' bread or 'alf
a pint o reasonable refreshment ? 'Ow is it
that 'appens ? Agin I ask, 'ow ?'
Snorkey, with a feeling that an answer was
expected from somebody, presently murmured
,No mugs,' which encouraged Gunno Polson
to suggest 'Backers all stony-broke.' Jerry
Shand said nothing, but reflected the
occasional result of a day on the loose. Old
Baker neither spoke nor thought.
'I'll tell you, me frien's. It's 'cos o' the
rotten state o' s'ciety. Wy d'you allow the lazy,
idle, dirty, do- nothing upper classes, as they
call 'emselves, to reap all the benefits o' your
toil wile you slave an' slave to keep 'em in
lukshry an' starve yerselves? Wy don't you go
an' take your shares o' the wealth lyin' round
you?'
was
There
another pause.
Gunno Polson
looked at his friends one after another, spat em-
phatically, and said 'Coppers.'
'Becos o' the brute force as the privileged


180
THE RED COW GROUP
Old Baker looked a little alarmed, and for a
moment paused in his smoking.
'Two hours a day at most, that's all ; an' all
yer wants provided for, free an' liberal.' Some
of the group gave a lickerish look across the
bar. 'No a'thority, no gover'ment, no privi-
lege, an' nothink to interfere. Free contrack
between man an' man, subjick to free revision
an' change.'
*Wot's that?' demanded Jerry Shand, who
was the slowest convert.
"Wy, that,' Sotcher explained, 'means that
everybody can make wot arrangements with 'is
feller-men 'e likes for to carry on the business
of life, but nothink can't bind you. You chuck
over the arrangement if it suits best.'
“Ah,' said Gunno Polson musingly, rotating
his pot horizontally before him to stir the beer;
‘that 'ud be 'andy sometimes. They call it
welshin' now.'
The light spread fast and free, and in a few


THE RED COW GROUP
181
nights the Red Cow group was a very promising
little bed of anarchy. Sotcher was at pains to
have it reported at two places west of Totten-
ham Court Road and at another in Dean Street,
Soho, that at last a comrade had secured an
excellent footing with a party of the proletariat
of East London, hitherto looked on as hopeless
material. More: that an early manifestation of
activity might be expected in that quarter. Such
activity had been held advisable of late, in view
of certain extraditions.
And Sotcher's discourse at the Red Cow
turned, lightly and easily, toward the question
of explosives. Anybody could make them, he
explained; nothing simpler, with care. And here
he posed at large in the character of mysterious
desperado, the wonder and admiration of all
the Red Cow group. They should buy nitric
acid, he said, of the strongest sort, and twice
as much sulphuric acid. The shops where they
sold photographic materials best and
cheapest for these things, and no questions
were


182
THE RED COW GROUP
were asked. They should mix the acids, and
then
add gently, drop by drop, the best
glycerine, taking care to keep everything cool.
After which the whole lot must be poured into
water, to stand for an hour. Then a thick,
yellowish, oily stuff would be found to
to have
sunk to the bottom, which must be passed
through several pails of water to be cleansed :
and there it was, a terrible explosive. You
handled it with care, and poured it on brick-dust
or dry sand, or anything of that sort that would
soak it up, and then it could be used with
safety to the operator.
The group listened with rapt attention, more
than one pot stopping half way on its passage
mouthwards. Then Jerry Shand wanted to
know if Sotcher had ever blown up anything
or anybody himself.
The missionary admitted that that glory had
not been his. I'm one o' the teachers, me
frien's—one o' the pioneers that goes to show
the way for the active workers like you. I


THE RED COW GROUP
183
on'y come to explain the principles an' set you
in the right road to the social revolution, so
as you may get yer rights at last. It's for you
to act.'
Then he explained that action might be taken
in two ways: either individually or by mutual
aid in the group.
Individual work was much
to be preferred, being safer; but a particular
undertaking often necessitated co-operation.
But that was for the workers to settle as the
occasion arose. However, one thing must be
remembered. If the group operated, each man
must be watchful of the rest; there must be
no half measures, no timorousness; any com-
rade wavering, temporising, or behaving in any
way suspiciously, must
be straightway sup-
pressed. There must be
be no mistake about
that. It was desperate and glorious work, and
there must be desperate and rapid methods
both of striking and guarding. These things
he made clear in his best conspirator's manner :
with nods and scowls and a shaken fore-


184
THE RED COW GROUP
finger, as of one accustomed to oversetting
empires.
The men of the Red Cow group looked at
each other, and spat thoughtfully. Then a com-
rade asked what had better be blown up first.
Sotcher's opinion was that there was most glory
in blowing up people, in a crowd or at a
theatre. But a building was safer, as there
was more chance of getting away. Of buildings,
a public office was probably to be preferred
-something in Whitehall, say. Or a bank-
nobody seemed to have tried bank: he
offered the suggestion now. Of course there
were not many public buildings in the East
End, but possibly the group would like to
act in their own neighbourhood: it would be
a novelty, and would attract notice ; the
question
for their
decision,
independent freedom of judgment being the
right thing in these matters. There
churches, of course, and the factories of the
bloated capitalist. Particularly, he might
a
was
one
own
were


THE RED COW GROUP
185
was
a
were
suggest the gas-works close by.
There was a
large gasometer abutting on the street, and
probably an explosion there would
prove
tremendously effective, putting the lights out
everywhere, and attracting great attention in
the papers. That was glory.
Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the
lives of the men in the gas-works; but Sotcher
explained that that
trivial matter.
Revolutions never 'accomplished without
bloodshed, and a few casual lives were not to
be weighed in the balance against the glorious
consummation of the social upheaval.
peated his contention, when some weaker comrade
spoke of the chance of danger to the operator,
and repeated it with a proper scorn of the soft-
handed pusillanimity that shrank from danger to
life and limb in the cause. Look at the glory,
and consider the hundred-fold vengeance on
the enemy in the day to come! The martyr's
crown was his who should die at the post of
duty.
He re-


186
THE RED COW GROUP
no more.
His eloquence prevailed: there were murmurs
''Ere, tell us the name of the stuff
agin,' broke out Gunno Polson, resolutely, feel-
ing for a pencil and paper. Blimy, I'll make
some to-morrer.'
He wrote down the name of the ingredients
with much spelling 'Thick, yuller, oily stuff,
ain't it, wot you make?' he asked.
'Yus-an' keep it cool.'
The group broke up, stern and resolute, and
Sotcher strode to his home exultant, a man
of power.
no
For the next night or two the enthusiasm
at the Red Cow was unbounded. There was
longer any questioning of principles or
action
every man was an eager anarchist
strong and devoted in the cause. The little
chemical experiment was going on well, Gunno
Polson reported, with confident nods and winks,
Sotcher repeated his discourse, as a matter
of routine, to maintain the general ardour,


THE RED COW GROUP
187
which had, however, to endure a temporary check
as the result of a delicate inquiry of Snorkey's,
as to what funds might be expected from head-
quarters. For there were no funds, said Sotcher,
somewhat surprised at the question.
•Wot?' demanded Jerry Shand, opening his
mouth and putting down his pipe: 'ain't we
goin' to get nothink for all this?'
They would get the glory, Sotcher assured
him, and the conciousness of striking a mighty
blow at this, and that, and the other; but
that was all. And instantly the faces of the
group grew long.
* But,' said Old Baker, 'I thought all you
blokes always got somethink from the — the
committee ?'
There was no committee, and no funds : there
was nothing but glory, and victory, and triumph,
and the social revolution, and things of that kind.
For a little, the comrades looked at each other
awkwardly, but they soon regained their cheerful-
ness, with zeal no whit abated. The sitting


188
THE RED COW GROUP
closed with promises of an early gathering for
the next night.
But when the next night came Sotcher was
later than usual. "'Ullo,' shouted Gunno Pol-
son, as he entered, ''ere you are at last.
We've 'ad to do important business without
you. See,' he added in a lower tone, ''ere's
the stuff!' And he produced an old physic-
bottle nearly full of a thick, yellowish fluid.
Sotcher started back half a pace, and slightly
paled. “Don't shake it,' he whispered hoarsely.
' Don't shake it, for Gawd's sake! ... Wot-
wotjer bring it 'ere for, like that? It's—it's
awful stuff, blimy.' He looked uneasily about
the group, and wiped his forehead with the
back of his hand. 'I-I thought you'd git the
job over
the stuff was ready.
'Ere, my Gawd !' he squeaked under his breath,
'don't put it down 'ard on the table like that.
It's sich—sich awful stuff. He wiped his fore-
head again, and, still standing, glanced once more
apprehensively round the circle of impassive
soon
as


THE RED COW GROUP
189
faces. Then after a pause, he asked, with an
effort: 'Wot-wotjer goin' to do now?'
* Blow up the bleed'n' gas-works, o' course,'
answered Gunno Polson complacently. “'Ere's
a penn'orth o'silver sand, an' a 'bacca canister,
an' some wire, an' a big cracker with a long
touch-paper, so as to stick out o' the canister-
lid. That ought to set it auf, oughtn't it?
'Ere, you
pour the stuff
over the sand,
doncher?' And he pulled out the cork and
made ready to mix.
•'Old on-'old on-don't! Wait a bit, for
Gawd's sake!' cried Sotcher in a sweat of
terror. 'You-you dunno wot awful stuff it is
-s'elp me, you don't! You-you'll blow us all
up if you don' keep it still. Y-you'll want
some-other things. I'll go an'—'
But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the
door. This 'ere conspiracy 'll 'ave to be gawn
through proper,' he said. "We can't 'ave no
waverers nor blokes wot want to clear out in
the middle of it, and p'r’aps go an' tell the


190
THE RED COW GROUP
we
p'lice. Them sort 'as to suppress, see?
There's all the stuff there, me lad, an' you know
it. Wot's more, it's you as is got to put it up
agin the gas-works an' set it auf.'
The hapless Sotcher turned a yellower pallor
and asked faintly : 'Me? Wy me?'
‘All done reg'lar and proper, Jerry replied,
''fore you come. We voted it-by ballot, all
square. If you'd 'a' come earlier you'd 'a' 'ad a
vote yerself.'
Sotcher pushed at Jerry's shoulder despair-
ingly. 'I won't, I won't !' he gasped. ‘Lemme
go-it ain't fair— I wasn't 'ere—lemme go!'
'None o' yer shovin', young man,' said Jerry
severely. 'None o yer shovin', else I'll ’ave to
punch you on the jore. You're a bleed'n' nice
conspirator, you are. Its pretty plain we can't
depend on you, an' you know wot that means,
-eh? Doncher? You're one o' the sort as 'as
to be suppressed, that's wot it means. 'Ere,
’ave a drink o'this 'ere beer, an' see if that
can't put a little 'art in ye. You got to do it,


192
THE RED COW GROUP
ain't. I-I might do it wrong-an-an'— I'm
a—a teacher—a speaker; not the active branch,
s'elp me. Put it auf-for to-night-wait till to-
morrer. I ain't well an'-an' you're very 'ard
on me!'
'Desp'rit work, desp'rit ways' Jerry replied
laconically.
"You're be’avin' very suspicious,
an' you're rebellin' agin the orders o' the group.
There's only one physic for that, ain't there,
in the rules? You're got to be suppressed.
Question is 'ow. We'll 'ave to kill 'im quiet
somehow,' he proceeded, turning to the group.
'Quiet an' quick. It's my belief 'e's spyin'
for the p'lice, an’ wants to git out to split on
us. Question is ’ow to do for 'im ?'
Sotcher rose, a staring spectre. He opened
his mouth to call, but there came forth from it
only a dry murmur. Hands were across his
mouth at once, and he was forced back into
the corner.
One suggested a clasp-knife at the
throat, another a stick in his neckerchief, twisted
to throttling-point. But in the end it was settled
1


THE RED COW GROUP
193
no
use
that it would be simpler, and would better
destroy all traces, to despatch him in the
explosion—to tie him to the canister, in fact.
A convulsive movement under the men's hands
decided them to throw more beer on Sotcher's face,
for he seemed to be fainting. Then his pockets
were invaded by Gunno Polson, who turned
out each in succession. You won't 'ave no
use for money where you're goin', he observed
callously ; 'besides, it 'ud be blowed to bits an'
to nobody Look at the bloke at
Greenwich, 'ow 'is things was
blowed away.
'Ullo! 'ere's two 'arf-crowns an' some tanners.
Seven an' thrippence altogether with the
browns. This is the bloke wot 'adn't got no
funds. This'll be divided on free an' equal
principles to 'elp pay for that beer you're wasted.
'Old up, ol' man! Think o' the glory. P'raps
you're all right, but it's best to be on the safe
side, an' dead blokes can't split to the coppers.
An' you mustn't forget the glory. You ’ave to
shed blood in a revolution, an' a few odd lives
N


THE RED COW GROUP
195
fate. Presently the policeman on that beat heard
a sudden report from the neighbourhood of the
gas-works, and ran to see what it might mean.
was
a
The next morning Alfred Sotcher
charged at the Thames Police Court as
drunk and incapable. He had been found in
a helpless state near the gas-works, and appeared
to have been tied at the elbows and ankles
by mischievous boys, who had also, it seemed,
ignited a cracker near by where he lay. The
divisional surgeon stated that he was called to
the prisoner, and found him tearful and inco-
herent, and smelling strongly of drink. He com-
plained of having been assaulted in a public-
house, but could give no intelligible account of
himself. A canister found by his side appeared
to contain a mixture of sand and castor oil,
but prisoner could not explain how it came there.
The magistrate fined him five shillings, with the
alternative of seven days, and as he had no
money he was removed to the cells.


|


ON THE STAIRS





ON THE STAIRS
THE
'HE house had been 'genteel. When trade
was prospering in the East End, and the
ship-fitter or block-maker thought it no shame
to live in the parish where his workshop lay,
such a master had lived here. Now, it was a
tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and
paintless in the joinery, cracked and patched in
the windows: where the front door stood open
all day long; and the womankind sat on the
steps, talking of sickness and deaths and the cost
of things; and treacherous holes lurked in the
carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the
passage. For when eight families live in a
house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the street
was one of those streets that are always muddy.
199


200
ON THE STAIRS
woman
It smelt, too, of many things, none of them
pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all that
it was not a slum.
Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare
forearms stayed on her way to listen at a door
which, opening, let out a warm, fetid waft from
a close sick-room. A bent and tottering old
stood on the threshold, holding the
door behind her.
* An' is 'e no better now, Mrs Curtis ?' the
gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the opening.
The old woman shook her head, and pulled
the door closer. Her jaw waggled loosely in
her withered chaps : Nor won't be; till 'e's
gone.' Then after a certain pause, “E's goin','
she said.
* Don't doctor give no 'ope?'
'Lor' bless ye, I don't want to ast no doctors,'
Mrs Curtis replied, with something not unlike
a chuckle. I've seed too many on 'em. The
boy's a-goin', fast; I can see that. An' then'
- she gave the handle
another tug, and


ON THE STAIRS
20I
whispered — 'he's been called.' She nodded
amain. "Three seprit knocks at the bed-head
las' night; an' I know what that means !'
The gaunt woman raised her brows, and
nodded. “Ah, well,' she said, 'we all on us
comes to it some day, sooner
or later.
An'
it's often a 'appy release.'
The two looked into space beyond each other,
the elder with a nod and a croak. Presently
the other pursued, 'E's been a very good son,
ain't 'e?'
'Ay, ay,—well enough son to me,' responded
the old woman, a little peevishly; 'an' i'll 'ave
'im put away decent, though there's only the
Union for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd !'
she added, meditatively, as chin on fist she
stared into the thickening dark over the stairs.
'When I lost my pore 'usband,' said the
gaunt woman, with a certain brightening, 'I
give 'im a 'ansome funeral. 'E was a Odd-feller,
an' I got twelve pound. I 'ad a oak caufin an'
a open 'earse.
There was a kerridge for the


202
ON THE STAIRS
1
fam'ly an' one for 'is mates—two 'orses cach,
an' feathers, an' mutes; an' it went the furthest
way round to the cimitry. “Wotever 'appens,
Mrs Manders,” says the undertaker, "you'll feel
as you're treated
treated 'im proper; nobody can't
reproach you over that.” An' they couldn't. 'E
was a good 'usband to me, an' I buried 'im
respectable.'
The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old
story of Manders's funeral fell upon the other
one's ears with a freshened interest, and she
mumbled her gums ruminantly. . Bob'll 'ave
a 'ansome buryin', too,' she said. I can make
it up, with the insurance money, an' this, an'
that. On'y I dunno about mutes.
It's a ex-
pense.'
In the East End, when a woman has not
enough money to buy a thing much desired,
she does not say so in plain words; she says
the thing is an 'expense,' or a 'great expense.'
It means the same thing, but it sounds better.
Mrs Curtis had reckoned her resources, and


ON THE STAIRS
203
woman
found that mutes would be an expense. At
a cheap funeral mutes cost half-a-sovereign and
their liquor. Mrs Manders said as much.
'Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign,' the old
assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat
the floor with a stick. 'I'm a-comin,' she cried
shrilly; 'yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it's a lot,
an' I don't see 'ow I'm
'ow I'm to do it-not at
present.' She reached for the door handle
again, but stopped and added, by after-thought,
'Unless I don't 'ave no plooms.'
'It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. I 'ad '
There were footsteps on the stairs : then a
stumble and a testy word. Mrs Curtis peered
over into the gathering dark. 'Is it the doctor,
sir ?' she asked. It was the doctor's assistant;
and Mrs Manders tramped up to the next
landing as the door of the sick - room took
him in.
For five minutes the stairs were darker than
ever. Then the assistant, a very young man,
came out again, followed by the old woman


204
ON THE STAIRS
upper dark.
a
with a candle. Mrs Manders listened in the
'He's sinking fast, said the
assistant. · He must have stimulant. Dr
Mansell ordered port wine. Where is it?'
Mrs Curtis mumbled dolorously. I tell you
he must have it,' he averred with unprofessional
emphasis (his qualification was only a month
old). "The man can't take solid food, and
his strength must be kept up somehow. Another
day may make all the difference. Is it because
you can't afford it?' 'It's a expense—sich a
expense, doctor,' the old woman pleaded. “An'
wot with 'arf-pints o' milk an' She grew
inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.
‘But he must have it, Mrs Curtis, if it's your
last shilling : it's the only way. If you mean
you absolutely haven't the money-' And he
paused a little awkwardly. He was not a
wealthy young man—wealthy young
men do
not devil for East End doctors—but he was
conscious of a certain haul of sixpences at
nap the night before ; and, being inexperienced,


206
ON THE STAIRS
The door was shut, and the stair a pit of
blackness, Twice a lodger passed down, and
up and down, and still it did not open. Men
and women walked on the lower flights, and
out at the door, and in again. From the
street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated
up the pit. On the pavement footsteps rang
crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage
there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A
demented old clock buzzed divers hours at
random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes
by the regular tread of a policeman on his beat.
Finally, somebody shut the street-door with a
great bang, and the street was muffled. A key
turned inside the door on the landing, but that
was all. A feeble light shone for hours along
the crack below, and then went out. The crazy
old clock went buzzing on, but nothing left
that room all night. Nothing that opened
the door.
When next the key turned, it was to Mrs
Manders's knock, in the full morning; and soon


ON THE STAIRS
207
on
the two women came out the landing
together, Mrs Curtis with a shapeless clump
of bonnet.
Ah, 'e's
a lovely corpse,' said
Mrs Manders.
* Like wax.
So was my 'usband.'
'I must be stirrin',' croaked the old woman,
'an' go about the insurance an' the measurin'
an' that. There's lots to do.'
* Ah, there is. 'Oo are you goin' to 'ave, --
Wilkins ? I 'ad Wilkins. Better than Kedge,
I think : Kedge's mutes dresses rusty, an' their
trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin' of 'avin'
mutes-
'Yus, yus,'—with a palsied nodding— I'm a-
goin' to 'ave mutes : I can do it respectable,
thank Gawd!'
"And the plooms?'
'Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain't
sich a great expense, after all.'


SQUIRE NAPPER
()


|


SQUIRE NAPPER
I
BILL
ILL NAPPER was a heavy man of some-
thing between thirty-five and forty. His
moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees,
and he wore his coat loose on his back, with
the sleeves tied across his chest. The casual
observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs Napper
punctiliously made it known that he was in
the paving'; which meant that he was a pavior.
He lived in Canning Town, and was on a foot-
path job at West Ham (Allen was the con-
tractor) when he won and began to wear the
nickname 'Squire.'
Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neigh-
bouring church, Bill Napper's mates let drop
211


2 1 2
SQUIRE NAPPER
rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and turned
toward a row of basins, tied in blue-and-red
handkerchiefs, and accompanied of divers tin
cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked
toward the street corner for the punctual Polly
bearing his own dinner fresh and hot; for
home was not far, and Polly, being thirteen,
had no school now.
One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late.
Bill, at first impatient, grew savage, and thought
wrathfully on the strap on its nail by the
kitchen - dresser. But at the end of the ten
minutes Polly came, bringing a letter as well
as the basin-load of beef and cabbage. A
young man had left it, she said, after asking
many ill-mannered questions. The letter was
addressed W. Napper, Esq.,' with a flourish;
the words, “By hand,' stood in the corner of
the envelope; and on the flap at the back were
the embossed characters ‘T. & N. These things
Bill Napper noted several times over, as he
turned the letter about in his hand.


SQUIRE NAPPER
213
'Seems to me you'll ’ave to open it after all,'
said one of Bill's mates; and he opened it,
setting back his hat as a preparation to serious
study. The letter was dated from Old Jewry,
and ran thus :-
're B. NAPPER deceased.
'DEAR SIR,-We have a communication in this
matter from our correspondents at Sydney, New
South Wales, in respect to testamentary dis-
positions under which you benefit. We shall
be obliged if you can make it convenient to
call at this office any day except Saturday
between two and four.---Your obedient servants,
"TIMS & NORTON.'
The dinner hour had gone by before the full
inner meaning had been wrested from this letter.
'B. Napper deceased' Bill accepted, with a little
assistance, as an announcement of the death of
his brother Ben, who had gone to Australia
nearly twenty years ago, and had been forgotten.


214
SQUIRE NAPPER
'Testamentary dispositions' nobody would tackle
with confidence, although its distinct suggestion
of biblical study was duly remarked. * Benefit'
was right enough, and led one of the younger
men, after some thought, to the opinion that Bill
Napper's brother might have left him something :
a theory instantly accepted as the most probable,
although some thought it foolish of him not to
leave it direct instead of authorising the interfer-
ence of a lawyer, who would want to do Bill
out of it.
Bill Napper put up his tools, and went home.
There the missis put an end to doubt by re-
peating what the lawyer's clerk said: which
was nothing more definite than that Bill had
been left a bit’; and the clerk only acknow-
ledged so much when he had satisfied himself,
by sinuous questionings, that he had found the
real legatee.
He further advised the bringing
of certain evidence on the visit to the office.
Thus it was plain that the Napper fortunes
were in good case, for, as 'a bit' means money


SQUIRE NAPPER
215
all the world over, the thing was clearly no
worthless keepsake.
II
On the afternoon of the next day, Bill Napper,
in clean moleskins and black coat, made for
Old Jewry. On mature consideration he had
decided to go through it alone. There was not
merely one lawyer, which would be bad enough,
but two of them in a partnership; and to take
the missis, whose intellects, being somewhat flighty,
were quickly divertible by the palaver of which
a lawyer was master, would be to distract and
impede his own faculties. A male friend might
not have been so bad, but Bill could not call
to mind one quite cute enough to be of any
use, and in any case such a friend would have
to be paid for the loss of his day's work. More-
over, he might imagine himself to hold a sort of


216
SQUIRE NAPPER
interest in the proceeds. So Bill Napper went
alone.
Having waited the proper time without the
bar in the clerk's office, he was shown into a
room where a middle-aged man sat at a writing-
table. There was no other lawyer to be seen.
This was a stratagem for which Bill Napper was
not prepared. He looked suspiciously about
the room, but without discovering anything
that looked like a hiding-place. Plainly there
were two lawyers, because their names were on
the door and on the letter itself; and the letter
said we. Why one should hide it was hard to
guess, unless it were to bear witness to some
unguarded expression. Bill Napper resolved to
speak little, and not loud.
The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting
him to sit. Then he asked to see the papers
that Bill had brought. These were an old testi-
monial reciting that Bill had been employed
with his brother Benjamin' as a boy in a
brick-field, and had given satisfaction ; a letter
6


218
SQUIRE NAPPER
is sometimes an arrangement for the amount to
be paid a little at a time as required; that,
however, I judge, would not be an arrangement
to please you. I hope, at any rate, you will
be able to invest the money in a profitable
way. I will draw a cheque.'
Three hundred pounds was
beyond Bill
Napper's wildest dreams. But he would not
be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the
lawyer tore the cheque from the book and
pushed it across the table with another paper.
He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other
hand at the bottom of the second paper, and
saying, “This is the receipt. Sign just there,
please.'
Bill took up the cheque, but made no move-
ment toward the pen. “Receipt ?' he grunted
soſtly; 'receipt wot for? I ain't 'ad no money.'
*There's the cheque in your hand—the same
thing. It's an order to the bank to hand you
the amount—the usual way of paying money
in business affairs. If you would rather have


220
SQUIRE NAPPER
the clerk's advice to take the money chiefly
in notes, which instantly confirmed Bill in a
determination to accept nothing but gold. When
all was done, and the three hundred sovereigns,
carefully counted over for the third and fourth
time, were stowed in small bags about his
person, Bill, much relieved after his spell of
watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk a
drink.
*Ah,' he said, "all you City lawyers an'clurks
are pretty bleed'n' sharp, I know, but you ain't
done me, an' I don't bear no malice. 'Ave wot
you like-'ave wine or a six o' Irish-I ain't
goin' to be stingy. I'm goin' to do it open
an'free, I am, an' set a example to
to men o'
property
III
Bill Napper went home in a hansom, order-
ing a barrel of beer on the way. One of the
chief comforts of affluence is that you may


SQUIRE NAPPER
221
have beer in by the barrel ; for then Sundays
and closing times vex not, and you have but
to reach the length of your arm for another pot
whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in Canning
Town had beer by the barrel except the trades-
men, and for that Bill had long envied the man
who kept shop. And now, at his first oppor-
tunity, he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons.
Once home with the news, and Canning
Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had come in for
three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred
thousand—any number of thousands that were
within the compass of the gossip's command of
enumeration. Bill Napper was called 'W. Nap-
per, Esq.'—he was to be knighted—he was a long-
lost baronet-anything. Bill Napper came home
in a hansom-a brougham-a state coach.
Mrs Napper went that very evening to the
Grove at Stratford to buy silk and satin, green,
red and yellow-cutting her neighbours dead,
right and left. And by the next morning trades-
men had sent circulars and samples of goods.


224
SQUIRE NAPPER
fancied, something was not done as it should have
been done from the point of view of the work-
shop, and there was a strike, picketing, and
bashing. Now, the worst thing that could have
happened to the guv'nor at this moment was one
of those tiny, unrecorded strikes that were bursting
out weekly and daily about him, with the picket-
ing of his two or three jobs. Furious, therefore,
as he was, he dared not discharge every man
on the spot. So he stood in the door, and said:
'Look here, I won't stand this sort of thing-
it's a damn robbery. I'll—'
'That's all right, oľ cock, roared Bill Napper,
reaching toward the guv'nor. “You come 'an 'ave
a tiddley. I'm a bleed'n' millionaire meself now,
but I ain't proud. What, you won't?'--for the
guv'nor, unenthusiastic, remained at the door-
'You're a sulky old bleeder. These 'ere friends o'
mine are 'avin' 'arf a day auf at my expense :
unnerstand? My expense. I'm a-payin' for their
time, if you dock 'em; an' I can give you a
bob, me fine feller, if you're 'ard up. See?'


SQUIRE NAPPER
225
The guy'nor addressed himself to the fore-
man, 'What's the meaning o' this, Walker?'
he said. "What game d'ye call it?'
Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots
had made uproarious, slapped the foreman
violently on the shoulder. "This 'ere's the
gaffer,' he shouted "E's all right. 'E come 'ere
'cos 'e couldn't 'elp 'isself. I made 'im come,
forcible. Don't you bear no spite agin' the
gaffer, d'y'ear? 'E's my mate, is the gaffer; an'
I could buy you up, forty times, s'elp me-but
I ain't proud. An' you're a bleed'n' gawblimy
slackbaked ...
'Well,' said the guv'nor to the assembled com-
pany, but still ignoring Bill, 'don't you think
there's been about enough of this ?'
A few of the men glanced at one another,
or two rose. ‘Awright, guv'nor,' said
one, 'we're auf.' And two more echoed, 'Aw-
right, guv'nor,' and began to move away.
*Ah!' said Bill Napper, with disgust, as he
turned to finish his pot, 'you're a blasted nigger-
and one
6
P


226
SQUIRE NAPPER
driver, you are. An' a sulky beast,' he added
as he set the pot down. 'Never mind,' he
pursued, 'I'm awright, an' I ain't a 'arf-paid
kerb-whacker no more, under you.'
'You was a damn sight better kerb-whacker
than you are a millionaire,' the guv'nor retorted,
feeling safer now that his men were getting
back to work.
‘None o' your lip,' replied Bill, rising and
reaching for a pipe-spill: ‘none o' your lip, you
work'us stone-breaker.' Then, turning with a
sudden access of fury, 'I'll knock yer face off,
blimy!' he shouted, and raised his fist.
'Now, then, none o' that here, please,' cried
the landlord from behind the bar; unto whom
Bill Napper, with all his wonted obedience in
that quarter, answered only, 'All right, guv'nor,
and subsided.
Left alone, he soon followed the master-pavior
and his men through the swing doors, and so
went home. In his own street, observing two
small boys in the prelusory stages of a fight, he


SQUIRE NAPPER
227
put up sixpence by way of stakes, and super-
vised the battle from the seat afforded by a
convenient window-sill. After that he bought a
morning paper, and lay upon his bed to read it,
with a pipe and a jug; for he was beginning a
life of leisure and comfort, wherein every day
should be a superior Sunday.
IV
Thus far the outward and visible signs of the
Napper wealth were these: the separate house;
the barrel of beer; a piano—not bought as a
musical instrument, but as one of the visible
signs; a daily paper, also primarily a sign; the
bonnets and dresses of the missis; and the
perpetual possession of Bill Napper by a vary-
ing degree of fuddlement. An inward and
dissembled sign was a regiment, continually rein-
forced, of mostly empty bottles, in a cupboard


SQUIRE NAPPER
229
in the City. A public-house, suggested by one
of his old mates on the occasion of wetting it,
was out of the question. There was tick, and
long hours, and a sharp look-out, and all kinds
of trouble, which a man with money would
be a fool to encounter. Altogether, perhaps,
Land seemed to be the thing : although there
was no need to bother now, and plenty of time
to turn things over, even
if the matter were
worth pondering at all, when it was so easy
for a man to live on his means. After all, to
take your boots off, and lie on the bed with
a pipe and a pot and the paper was very com-
fortable, and you could always stroll out and
meet a mate, or bring him in when so disposed.
of an evening the Albert Music Hall was
close at hand, and the Queen's not very far away.
And on Sundays and Saturday afternoons Bill
would often take a turn down by the dock
gates, or even in Victoria Park, or Mile End
Waste, where there were speakers of all sorts.
At the dock gates it was mostly Labour and


SQUIRE NAPPER
231
always denouncing something somewhere, and
was ever in a crisis that demanded the circula-
tion of a hat. Bill esteemed this speaker for
his versatility as well as for the freshness of
his abuse, and Bill's sudden notion was to en-
gage him for private addresses.
The orator did not take kindly to the pro-
posal at first, strongly suspecting something in
the nature of 'guy' or 'kid'; but a serious
assurance of a shilling for an occasional hour
and the payment of one in advance brought him
After this Squire Napper never troubled
to go to Mile End Waste. He sat at ease in his
parlour, with his pot on the piano, while the
orator, with another pot on the mantelpiece,
stood up and denounced to order. “Tip us the
Teetotal an' Down - with - the - Public-'Ouse,' Bill
would request, and the orator (his name was
Minns) would oblige in that line till most of
the strong phrases had run out, and had
begun to recur. Then Bill would say, "Now
come the Rights o' Labour caper.' Whereupon
over.


232
SQUIRE NAPPER
Minns would take a pull at the pot, and pro-
ceed to denounce Capital, Bill Napper applaud-
ing or groaning at the pauses provided for those
purposes. And so on with whatever subjects ap-
pealed to the patron's fancy. It was a fancy that
sometimes put the orator's invention to grievous
straits; but for Bill the whole performance was
peculiarly privileged and dignified. For to have
an orator gesticulating and speechifying all to
oneself, on one's own order and choice of sub-
ject, is a thing not given to all men.
One day Minns turned up (not having been
invited) with a friend. Bill did not take to
the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a
shifty eye, who smiled as he spoke, and showed
a top row of irregular and dirty teeth. This
friend, Minns explained, was a journalist -- a
writer of newspapers; and between them they
had an idea, which idea the friend set forth.
Everybody, he said, who knew the history of
Mr Napper admired his sturdy independence
and democratic simplicity. He was of the people


234
SQUIRE NAPPER
vast fortune in that paper alone, besides the
glory and satisfaction of striking the great blow
that should pave the way to the emancipation
of the Masses and the destruction of the vile
system of society whose whole and sole effect was
the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the
Grasping Few. Being professionally disengaged
at present, he (the speaker), in conjunction
with his friend Minns, had decided to give
Mr Napper the opportunity of becoming its pro-
prietor.
Bill was more than surprised: he was also a
little bewildered. What,' he said, after two
draws of his pipe, 'd'ye mean you want me to
go in the printin' line?'
That was not at all necessary. The printing
would be done by contract. Mr Napper would
only have to find the money. The paper, with
a couple of thousand pounds behind it -- or
even one thousand (Minns's friend read a diffi-
culty in Bill's face)—would be established for
Even five hundred would do, and many
ever.


SQUIRE NAPPER
235
no
successful papers had been floated with
more than a couple of hundred or so. Suppose
they said just a couple of hundred to go on
with, till the paper found its legs and began
to pay? How would that do?
Bill Napper smoked a dozen whiffs. Then
he said: 'An' what should I 'ave to do with
the two 'undred pound? Buy anythink?'
Not directly that, the promoters explained.
It would finance the thing—just finance it.
''Oo'd 'ave the money then?'
That was perfectly simple. It would simply be
handed over to Minns and his friend, and they
would attend to all the details.
Bill Napper continued to smoke. Then, be-
ginning with a slight chuckle at the back of his
throat, he said: “W'en I got my money, I went
to a lawyer's for it. There was two lawyers-
one layin' low. There was two fust-rate lawyers
an' a lot o'clurks—City clurks-an' a bank an'
all. An' they couldn't 'ave me, not for a single
farden-not a farden, try an' fiddle as they would.


236
SQUIRE NAPPER
Well, arter that, it ain't much good you
a-tryin' it on, is it?' And he chuckled again,
louder.
Minns was indignant, and Minns's friend
was deeply hurt. Both protested. Bill Napper
laughed aloud. ‘Awright, you'll do,' he said;
'you'll do. My ’abits may be simple, but they
ain't as simple as all that. Ha-ha! 'Ere, 'ave
a drink-you ain't done no 'arm, an' I ain't
spiteful. Ha-ha!'
It was on an evening a fortnight after this that,
as Bill Napper lay, very full of beer and rather
sleepy, on the bed—the rest of his household
being out of doors--a ladder was quietly planted
against the outer wall from the back - yard.
Bill heard nothing until the window, already
a little open, was slowly pushed up, and from
the twilight outside a head and an arm plunged
into the thicker darkness of the room, and a hand
went feeling along the edge of the chest of
drawers by the window. Bill rolled over on the


SQUIRE NAPPER
237
bed, and reached from the floor one of a pair
of heavy iron-set boots. Taking the toe in his
right hand, and grasping the footrail of the bed-
stead with his left, he raised himself on his knees,
and brought the boot-heel down heavily on the
intruding head. There was a gasp, and the first
breath of a yell, and head, arm, shoulders, and
body vanished with a bump and a rattle. Bill
Napper let the boot fall, dropped back on the
bed, and took no further heed.
Neither Minns nor his friend ever came back
again, but for some time after, at Victoria Park,
Minns, inciting an outraged populace to rise and
sweep police and army from the earth, was able
to point to an honourable scar on his own fore-
head, the proof and sign of a police bludgeoning
at Tower Hill-or Trafalgar Square.
V
Things went placidly on for near ten months.


238
SQUIRE NAPPER
Many barrels of beer had come in full and
been sent empty away. Also the missis had got
a gold watch and divers new bonnets and gowns,
some by gift from Bill, some by applying privily
to the drawer. Her private collection of bottles,
too, had been cleared out twice, and was re-
spectable for the third time. Everybody was
not friendly with her, and one bonnet had been
torn off her head by a neighbour who disliked
her airs.
So it stood when, on a certain morning, Bill,
being minded to go out, found but two shillings in
his pocket. He called upstairs to the missis, as
was his custom in such a pass, asking her to fetch
a sovereign or two when she came down; and,
as she was long in coming, he went up himself.
The missis left the room hurriedly, and Bill, after
raking out every corner of the drawer (which he
himself had not opened for some time) saw
not a single coin. The missis had no better
explanation than that there must have been
thieves in the house some time lately: a sug-


SQUIRE NAPPER
239
gestion deprived of some value by the subsequent
protest that Bill couldn't expect money to last
for ever, and that he had had the last three
days ago
In the end there was a vehement
row, and the missis was severely thumped.
The thumping over, Bill Napper conceived
a great idea. Perhaps after all the lawyers
had done him by understating the amount his
brother had left. It might well have been five
hundred pounds-a thousand pounds—anything.
Probably it was, and the lawyers had had the
difference. Plainly, three hundred pounds was
a suspiciously small sum to inherit from a well-
to-do brother. He would go to the lawyers
and demand the rest of his money. He would
not reveal his purpose till he saw the lawyers
face to face, and then he would make his demand
suddenly, so that surprise and consternation
should overwhelm and betray them. He would
give them to understand that he had complete
evidence of the whole swindle. In any case he
could lose nothing. He went, after carefully


240
SQUIRE NAPPER
preparing his part, and was turned out by a
policeman.
*After that, mused Squire Napper, going
home, 'I suppose I'd better see about getting
a job at Allen's again. He can't but make me
gaffer, considering I've been a man of property.'


'A POOR STICK'
245
a
brought in much beer, which he and the woman
shared, while Bob was at work. To carry the
tale to Bob would have been a thankless errand,
for he would have none of anybody's sympathy,
even in regard to miseries plain to his eye.
But the thing got about in the workshop, and
there his days were made bitter.
At home things grew worse.
To return at
half-past five, and find the children still un-
dressed, screaming, hungry and dirty, was
matter of habit: to get them food, to wash
them, to tend the cuts and bumps sustained
through the day of neglect, before lighting a fire
and getting tea for himself, were matters of daily
duty. 'Ah,' he said to his sister, who came at
intervals to say plain things about Mrs Jennings,
'you shouldn't go for to set a man agin 'is wife,
Jin. Melier do'n' like work, I know, but that's
nach'ral to 'er. She ought to married a swell
'stead o' me; she might 'a' done easy if she
liked, bein' sich a fine gal; but she's good-'arted,
is Melier; an' she can't ’elp bein' a bit thought-


246
"A POOR STICK
never
less.' Whereat his sister called him a fool (it
was her customary good-bye at such times), and
took herself off.
Bob Jennings's intelligence was sufficient for
his common needs, but it was
a vast
intelligence. Now, under a daily burden of dull
misery, it clouded and stooped. The base wit
of the workshop he comprehended less, and
realised more slowly, than before; and the gaffer
cursed him for a sleepy dolt.
Mrs Jennings ceased from any pretence of
housewifery, and would sometimes sit—perchance
not quite sober-while Bob washed the children
in the evening, opening her mouth only to
express her contempt for him and his establish-
ment, and to make him understand that she was
sick of both. Once, exasperated by his quiet-
ness, she struck at him, and for a moment
he was another man. ‘Don't do that, Melier,'
he said, 'else I might forget myself.' His
manner surprised his wife: and it was such that
she never did do that again.


248
"A POOR STICK'
doubt and perplexity, Bob found himself at the
front door, staring up and down the street.
Divers women-neighbours stood at their doors,
and eyed him curiously; for Mrs Webster,
moralist, opposite, had not watched the day's
proceedings (nor those of many other days) for
nothing, nor had she kept her story to herself.
He turned back into the house, a vague notion
of what had befallen percolating feebly through his
bewilderment. 'I dunno-I dunno,' he faltered,
rubbing his ear. His mouth was dry, and he
'moved his lips uneasily, as he gazed with aimless
looks about the walls and ceiling. Presently his
eyes rested on the child, and 'Milly,' he said
decisively, 'come an' 'ave yer face washed.'
He put the children to bed early, and went
out. In the morning, when his sister came,
because she had heard the news in common
with everybody else, he had not returned. Bob
Jennings had never lost more than two quarters
in his life, but he was not seen at the workshop
all this day. His sister stayed in the house, and


250
•A POOR STICK'
and even protested against. But the ill-con-
ditioned kept their way, till, at the cry of 'Bell
O!' when all were starting for dinner, one of
the worst shouted the cruellest gibe of all. Bob
Jennings turned on him and knocked him over
a scrap-heap.
A shout went up from the hurrying workmen,
with a chorus of 'Serve ye right,' and the fallen
joker found himself awkwardly confronted by
the shop bruiser. But Bob had turned to a
corner, and buried his eyes in the bend of his
arm, while his shoulders heaved and shook.
He slunk away home, and stayed there: walk-
ing restlessly to and fro, and often peeping down
the street from the window. When, at twilight,
his sister came again, he had become almost
cheerful, and said with some briskness: 'I'm
agoin' to meet 'er, Jin, at seven. I know where
she'll be waitin':'
He went upstairs, and after a little while
came down again in his best black coat, care-
fully smoothing a tall hat of obsolete shape


"A POOR STICK'
251
with his pocket-handkerchief. I ain't wore it
for years,' he said. 'I ought to 'a' wore it-it
might 'a' pleased 'er. She used to say she
wouldn't walk with me in no other-when I
used to meet 'er in the evenin', at seven o'clock.'
He brushed assiduously, and put the hat on.
“I'd better 'ave a shave round the corner as I
go along,' he added, fingering his stubbly
chin.
He received as one not comprehending his
sister's persuasion to remain at home; but when
he went she followed at a little distance. After
his penny shave he made for the main road,
where company-keeping couples walked up and
down all evening. He stopped at a church, and
began pacing slowly to and fro before it, eagerly
looking out each way as he went.
His sister watched him for nearly half an
hour, and then went home. In two hours more
she came back with her husband.
Bob was
still there, walking to and fro.
''Ullo, Bob,' said his brother - in - law; 'come


A CONVERSION


A CONVERSION
THE
HERE are some poor criminals that never
have a chance: circumstances are against
them from the first, as they explain, with tears,
to sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances
had always been against Scuddy Lond, the gun.
The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly
synonym for thief.
His first name was properly James, but that
had been long forgotten. Scuddy' meant
nothing in particular, was derived from nothing,
and was not, apparently, the invention of any
distinct person. Still, it was commonly his only
name, and most of his acquaintances had also
nicknames of similarly vague origin. Scuddy
was a man of fine feelings, capable of a most
255


A CONVERSION
259
comfortable living, free from injurious over-
work, in the several branches of lob - crawling
and peter-claiming, with an occasional deviation
into parlour-jumping. It is true that this last
did sometimes involve unpleasant exertion when
the window was high and the boy heavy to bunk
up; and it was necessary, at times, to run. But
Scuddy was out of work, and hunger drove him
to anything, so long as it was light and not too
risky. And it is marvellous to reflect how much
may be picked up in the streets and at the
side-doors of London and the suburbs without
danger or vulgar violence. And so Scuddy's
life went on, with occasional misfortunes in
the way of a moon, or another drag, or perhaps
a sixer.
And the mission - readers never de-
spaired, because the real was always
hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden tempta-
tion, or something quite exceptional-never any-
thing like real, hardened, unblushing wicked-
ness; and the man himself was always truly
penitent. He made such touching references to
cause


260
A CONVERSION
was
his innocent childhood, and was so grateful for
good advice or anything else you might give him.
One bold attempt Scuddy made to realise
his desire for better things. He resolved to
depart from his evil ways and to become a
nark—a copper's nark—which is a police spy,
or informer. The work was not hard, there
no imprisonment, and he would make
amends for the past. But hardly had he begun
his narking when some of the Kate Street mob
dropped on him in Brick Lane, and bashed him
full sore. This would never do: so once more
implacable circumstance drove him to his old
And there was this added discomfort :
that no boy would parlour-jump nor dip the lob
for him. Indeed they bawled aloud, 'Yah,
Scuddy Lond the copper's nark!' So that the
hand of all Flower and Dean
Dean Street
against him. Scuddy grew very sad.
These and other matters were heavy upon
his heart on an evening when, with nothing in
his pockets but the piece of coal that he carried
courses.
was


A CONVERSION
263
He crossed the road, and took a turning. A
lame old woman sat in a recess selling trotters,
where a dark passage led back to a mission-
hall. About the opening a man hovered—fervent,
watchful,—and darted forth on passers-by. He
laid his hand on Scuddy's shoulder, and said:
My dear friend, will you come in an' 'ear the
word of the Lord Jesus Christ?'
Scuddy turned: the sound of an harmonium
and many strenuous voices came faintly down
It was his mood. Why not give
his fine feelings another little run? He would :
he would go in.
• Trotters !' quavered the lame old woman,
looking up wistfully. “Two a penny! Two a
penny!' But no: he went up the passage, and
she turned patiently to her board.
Along the passage the singing grew louder,
and burst on his ears unchecked as he pushed
open the door at the end :
the passage.
6
' -'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will,
Send the proclamation over vale an''ill;


266
A CONVERSION
began his discourse: quietly at first, and then,
though in a different way, with all the choking
fervour of the man who had prayed. For the
preacher was fluent as well as zealous, and
his words, except when emotion stayed them,
poured in a torrent. He preached faith-salva-
tion in faith-declaiming, beseeching, command-
ing. Come-come! Now is the appointed
time! Only believe-only come! Only_only
come!' To impassioned, broken entreaty he
added sudden command and the menace of
eternity, but broke away pitifully again in
urgent pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above,
spreading his arms abroad, stretching them forth
imploringly. Come, only come!
Sobs broke out in more than one place. A
woman bowed her head and rocked, while her
shoulders shook again. Brother Spyers's face was
alight with joy. A tremor, a throe of the senses
ran through the assembly as through a single
body.
The preacher, nearing his peroration, rose to


268
A CONVERSION
feelings. There was a short prayer of thanks,
and then a final hymn :
'Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day,
For a soul returnin' from the wild!'
Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of
spirits—a serene cheerfulness. His emotional
orgasm was spent, and in its place was a numb
calm, pleasant enough.
'-Glory! glory! 'ow the angels sing-
Glory! glory! ’ow the loud'arps ring!
'Tis the ransomed army, like a mighty sea,
Pealin' forth the anthem of the free!'
The service ended. The congregation trooped
forth into the evening ; but Scuddy sat where he
was, for the preacher wanted a few words with
his converts ere he would let them go. He shook
hands with Scuddy Lond, and spoke with grave,
smiling confidence about his soul. Brother Spyers
also shook hands with him and bespoke his return
on Sunday.
In the cool air of the empty passage, Scuddy's
ordinary faculties began to assort themselves;


A CONVERSION
269
still in an atmosphere of calm cheer. Fine
feelings—fine. And as he turned the piece
of coal in his pocket, he reflected that, after
all, the day had not been altogether unlucky
--not in every sense a blank. Emerging into
the street, he saw that the lame old woman,
who was almost alone in view, had risen on
her crutch and turned her back to roll her -
white cloth over her remaining trotters. On the
ledge behind stood her little pile of coppers, just
reckoned. Scuddy Lond's practised eye took the
case in a flash. With two long tip-toed steps he
reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and
hurried away up the street. He did not run,
for the woman was lame and had not heard
him.
No: decidedly the day had not been
blank. For here was a hot supper.





ALL THAT MESSUAGE'





*ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
I
ALL
LL that
messuage dwelling-house and
premises now standing on part of the
said parcel of ground' was the phrase in the
assignment of lease, although it only meant
Number Twenty-seven Mulberry Street, Old
Ford, containing five rooms and a wash-house,
and sharing a dirty front wall with the rest of
the street on the same side. The phrase was a
very fine one, and, with others more intricate,
lent not a little to the triumph and the per-
plexity the transaction filled old Jack Randall
withal. The business a conjunction of
purchase and mortgage, whereby old Jack Ran-
dall, having thirty pounds of his own, had,
S
was


274
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
after half-an-hour of helpless stupefaction in a
solicitor's office in Cornhill, bought a house
for two hundred and twenty pounds, and paid
ten pounds for stamps and lawyer's fees. The
remaining two hundred pounds had been fur-
nished by the Indubitable Perpetual Building
Society, on the security of a mortgage ; and
the loan, with its interest, was to be repaid in
monthly instalments of two pounds and four-
pence during twelve years. Thus old Jack
Randall designed to provide for the wants and
infirmities of age ; and the outright purchase,
he argued, was a thing of mighty easy accom-
plishment
For the house let at nine shillings
a week, which as twenty-three pounds eight
shillings a year; and the mortgage instalments,
with the ground rent of three pounds a year,
only came to twenty-seven pounds four, leav-
ing a difference of three pounds sixteen, which
would be more than covered by a saving of
eighteenpence a week : certainly not
a diffi-
cult saving for a man with a regular job and


'ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
275
no young family, who had put by thirty pounds
in little more than three years. Thus on many
evenings old Jack Randall and his wife would
figure out the thing, wholly forgetting rates
and taxes and repairs.
Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill,
and stared at the traffic. When he remembered
that Mrs Randall was by his side he said,
'Well, mother, we done it;' and his wife replied,
‘Yus, fa', you're a lan'lord now.' Hereat he
chuckled, and began to walk eastward. For to
be a landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is
no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you are
a landlord; and there is no work.
You just
walk round on Monday mornings (or maybe
you even drive in a trap), and you collect your
rents: eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten
shillings, as the case may be.
And there you
are! It is better than shopkeeping, because the
money comes by itself; and it is infinitely more
genteel. Also, it is better than having money
in a bank and drawing interest; because the


276
'ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
house cannot run away as is the manner of
directors, nor dissolve into nothingness as is the
way of banks. And here was he, Jack Randall,
walking down Leadenhall Street a landlord. He
mounted a tramcar at Aldgate, and all things
were real.
II
Old Jack had always been old Jack since at
fourteen young Jack had come 'prentice in the
same engine-turner's shop. Young Jack was a
married man himself now, at another shop; and
old Jack was near fifty, and had set himself to-
ward thrift. All along Whitechapel Road, Mile
End Road, and Bow Road he considered the
shops and houses from the tram-roof, madly esti-
mating rents and values. Near Bow Road end
he and his wife alighted, and went inspecting
Twenty-seven Mulberry Street once more.
Old


"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
279
a caufin.'
(It was heavy and polished and
beset with bright fittings.) 'Ah, sighed his
missis, ‘ain't it lovely!'
The hearse drew up at the chapel door, where
the undertaker turned to the right-about and
placidly surveyed the movements of his forces.
Mrs Randall murmured again : ‘Lovely-
lovely!' and kept her eyes on the coffin. Then
she edged gently up to the undertaker, and
whispered: “What would that kind o' caufin be
called, mister?'
The undertaker looked at her from the sides
6
6
of his eyes and answered briskly: 'Two-inch
polished oak solid extry brass fittin's.' Mrs
Randall returned to old Jack's side and repeated
the words. 'That must cost a lot,' she said.
'What a thing, though, to be certain you won't
be buried in a trumpery box like that other !
Ah, it's well to be rich.'
Old Jack gazed on the coffin, and thought.
Surely a landlord, if anybody, was entitled to
indulge in an expensive coffin? All day he


282
*ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
a
Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half
a sovereign, but succeeded only to the extent
of five shillings: work was slack with him,
and three days of it was all he had had that
week. This had happened before, and he had
got on as best he could; but now, with a father
buying house-property, it was absurd to econo-
mise for lack of half a sovereign. When
he brought the five shillings home, his wife
asked why he had not thrown them at his
father's head:
course of
of procedure which,
young Jack confessed, had never occurred to
his mind.
'Stingy old ’unks!' she scolded.
‘A-goin' about buyin' 'ouses, an' won't lend
'is own son ten shillin's! Much good may all
'is money do 'im with 'is 'ateful mean ways!'
This was the beginning of old Jack's estrange-
ment from his relatives. For young Jack's
missis expressed her opinion in other places,
and young Jack was soon ready to share it :
rigidly abstaining from another attempt at a
loan, though he never repaid the five shillings.


284
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
same time the rent-book to sign and a slip of
written paper. This last was a week's notice to
terminate the tenancy.
'We're very well satisfied with the 'ouse,' the
tenant's wife said (she was a painfully clean,
angular woman, with a notable flavour of yellow
soap and scrubbing-brush about her), but my
’usband finds it too far to get to an' from
Albert Docks mornin' and night. So we're goin'
to West 'Am.' And she politely ejected her
visitors by opening the door and crowding them
through it.
The want of a tenant was a contingency that
old Jack had never contemplated. As long as
it lasted it would necessitate the setting by of
ten and sixpence a week for the building society
payments and the ground - rent, . This
serious: it meant knocking off some of the
butcher's meat, all the beer and tobacco, and
perhaps a little firing. Old Jack resolved to
waste no more half - days in collecting, but to
send his missis. On the following Monday,
was


•ALL THAT MESSUAGEY
285
therefore, while the tenant's wife kept a sharp
eye on the man who was piling a greengrocer's
van with chairs and tables, Mrs Randall fixed
a "To Let' bill in the front window. In the
leaves of the rent-book she found another thing
of chagrin : to wit, a notice demanding payment
of poor, highway, and general rates to the
amount of one pound eighteen and sevenpence.
Now, no thought of rates and taxes had ever
vexed the soul of old Jack. Of course, he might
have known that his own landlord paid the
rates for his house; but, indeed, he had never
once thought of the thing, being content with
faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no more
about it. That night was one of dismal wake-
fulness for old Jack and his missis. If he had
understood the transaction at the lawyer's office,
he would have known that a large proportion
of the sum due had been allowed him in the
final adjustment of payment to the day; and
if he had known something of the ways of rate-
collecting, he would have understood that pay-


286
'ALL THAT MESSUAGE:
ment was not expected for at least a month.
As it was, the glories of lease-possession grew
diin in his eyes, and a landlord seemed a poor
creature, spending his substance to keep roofs
over the heads of strangers.
V
On Wednesday afternoon a man called about
taking the house, and returned in the evening,
when old Jack was home. He was a large-
featured, quick-eyed man, with a loud, harsh
voice and a self-assertive manner. Quickly old
Jack recognised him as a speaker he had heard
at certain street-corners: a man who was secre-
tary, or delegate, or that sort of thing, to some-
thing that old Jack had forgotten.
He began with the announcement: 'I am
Joe Parsons :' delivered with a stare for emphasis,
and followed by a pause to permit assimilation.


"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
287
Old Jack had some recollection of the name,
but it was indefinite. He wondered whether or
not he should address the man as 'sir,' consider-
ing the street speeches, and the evident import-
ance of the name. But then, after all, he was
a landlord himself. So he only said “Yus?'
'I am Joe Parsons,' the man repeated; 'and
I'm looking for a 'ouse.'
There was another pause, which lasted till
old Jack felt obliged to say something. So
he said Yus?' again.
' I'm looking for a 'ouse,' the man repeated,
and if we can arrange things satisfactory, I
might take yours.'
Mr Joe Parsons was far above haggling about
the rent, but he had certain ideas as to paint-
ing and repairs that looked expensive. In the
end old Jack promised the paint a touch-up,
privily resolving to do the work himself in his
evenings. And on the whole, Mr Joe Parsons
was wonderfully easy to come to terms with,
considering his eminent public character. And


288
‘ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
anything in the nature of a reference in his case
would have been absurd. As himself observed,
his name was enough for that.
VI
new
Old Jack did the painting, and the
tenant took possession. When Mrs Randall
called for the first week a draggle-tailed little
woman with a black eye meekly informed her
that Mr Parsons was not at home, and had left
no money nor any message as to the rent. This
was awkward, because the first building society
instalment would be due before next rent-day
-to say nothing of the rates. But it would
never do to offend Mr Parsons. So the money
was scraped together by heroic means (the
missis produced an unsuspected twelve and six-
pence from a gallipot on the kitchen dresser),
and the first instalment was paid.


"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
291
seven.
know when to expect him. At last, finding this
ineffectual, she produced four and sixpence:
begging him with increasing agitation to take
that on account and call again.
Old Jack took the money, and called again
at
Custom or law or what-not, he
would wait for no Monday morning now.
The
door was open, and a group of listening children
stood about it. From within came a noise of
knocks and thuds and
and curses—sometimes a
gurgle. Old Jack asked a small boy, whose
position in the passage betokened residence,
what was going forward. “It's the man down-
stairs,' said the boy, 'a-givin' of it to 'is wife for
payin' awy the lodgers' rent.'
At this moment Mr Joe Parsons appeared in
the passage. The children, who had once or
twice commented in shouts, dispersed. “I've
come for my rent,' said old Jack.
Mr Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he said,
'Rent? Ain't you 'ad it? I don't bother about
things in the 'ouse. Come again when my wife's in.'


292
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
own
'She is in,' rejoined old Jack, 'an' you've been
a-landin' of 'er for payin' me what little she 'as.
Come, you pay me what you owe me, and take
a week's notice now. I want my house kep'
respectable.'
Mr Joe Parsons had no other shift. 'You be
damned,' he said. "Git out.'
"What?' gasped old Jack-for to tell a land-
lord to get out of his house!..
• What?'
'Why git out. Y'ought to know better than
comin' 'ere askin' for money you ain't earnt.'
'Ain't earnt? What d'ye mean?'
• What I say.
Y'aint earnt it.
blasted lan'lords sucks the blood o' the
workers. You go an' work for your money.'
Old Jack was
confounded. 'Why-what-
how d'ye think I can pay the rates, an' every-
think?'
"I don't care. You'll ’ave to pay 'em, an' I
wish they was 'igher. They ought to be the
same as the rent, 'an that 'ud do away with
It's you
as


6
293
ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
fellers like you.
Go on: you do your damdest
an' get your rent best way you can.'
‘But what about upstairs? You're lettin' it
out an' takin' the rent there. 1-'
'That's none o' your business. Git out, will
ye?' They had gradually worked over the
doorstep, and Randall was on the pavement.
'I sha'n't pay, an' I sha'n't go, an' ye can do
what ye like; so it's no good your stoppin' —
unless you want to fight. Eh-do ye?' And
Mr Parsons put a foot over the threshold.
Old Jack had not fought for many years. It
was low. For a landlord outside his own house
it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was quite
dark now, and there was scarcely a soul in the
street. Perhaps nobody would know, and this
man deserved something for himself. He looked
up the street again, and then, 'Well, I ain't so
young as I was,' he said, 'but I won't disappoint
ye. Come on.'
Mr Joe Parsons stepped within and slammed
the door.


294
"ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
VIII
on
Old Jack went home less happy than ever.
He had no notion what to do. Difficulties of
private life were often discussed and argued out
in the workshop, but there he had become too
unpopular to ask for anything in the nature
of sympathy or advice. Not only would he
lend no money, but he refused to stand treat
rent days. Also, there was a collection
on behalf of men on strike at another factory, to
which he gave nothing; and he had expressed
the strongest disapproval of an
of an extension of
that strike, and his own intention to continue
working if it happened. For what would be-
come of all his plans and his savings if his
Wherefore there was
no other
man in the shop so unpopular as old Jack,
and in a workshop unpopularity is a bad thing.
He called on a professional rent-receiver and
seller-up. This man knew Mr Joe Parsons very
wages ceased ?


‘ALL THAT MESSUAGE'
297
that things were in order, old Jack stayed :
making his comings and goings late to dodge
the pickets, and approaching subtly by a rail-
way-arch stable and a lane thereunto.
It was
not as yet a very great strike, and with care
these things could be done. Still, he was
sighted and chased twice, and he knew that if
the strike lasted, and feeling grew hotter, he
would be attacked in his own house. If only
he could hold on through the strike, and by
hook or crook keep the outgoings paid, he
would attend to Mr Parsons afterward.
x
One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs Randall was
buying greens and potatoes, old Jack, waiting
without, strolled toward a crowd standing about
a speaker. A near approach discovered the


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