AVry 
 
 i K, CIO.
 
 Tales of Mean Streets
 
 T 
 
 ALES 
 
 OF 
 
 Mean street 
 
 s 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR MORRISON 
 \ i 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'MARTIN HEWITT INVESTIGATOR' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
 112 Fifth Avenue
 
 CorYRIGHT, 1895 
 
 R. F. FENN'O & COMPANY 
 
 Tales 0/ Mean Street}
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 LlZERUNT 
 
 I. lizer's WOOING . 
 II. lizer's first 
 
 III. A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES 
 
 WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS . 
 TO BOW BRIDGE 
 THAT BRUTE SIMMONS 
 
 BEHIND THE SHADE . * 
 
 THREE ROUNDS . . . 
 
 IN BUSINESS . . * 
 
 THE RED COW GROUP 
 
 ON THE STAIRS . . . 
 
 SQUIRE NAPPER 
 
 " A POOR STICK " . . • 
 
 A CONVERSION . . • 
 
 " ALL THAT MESSUAGE " . . 
 
 21 
 
 38 
 48 
 62 
 70 
 
 83 
 
 93 
 no 
 
 123 
 142 
 150 
 174 
 183 
 196
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A STREET 
 
 This street is in the East End. There is 
 no need to say in the East End of what. The 
 East End is a vast city, as famous in its way 
 as any the hand of man has made. But who 
 knows the East End ? It is down through 
 Cornhill and out beyond Leadenhall Street 
 and Aldgate Pump, one will say ; a shocking 
 place, where he once went with a curate ; an 
 evil plexus of slums that hide human creep- 
 ing things ; where filthy men and women live 
 on penn'orths of gin, where collars and clean 
 shirts are decencies unknown, where every 
 citizen wears a black eye, and none ever 
 combs his hair. The East End is a place, 
 says another, which is given over to the Un- 
 employed. And the Unemployed is a race
 
 8 
 
 whose token is a clay pipe, and whose enemy 
 is soap ; now and again it migrates bodily 
 to Hyde Park with banners, and furnishes 
 adjacent police cpurts 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 peren- 
 nially insolvent, and everybody always wants 
 a day in the country. Many and misty are 
 people's notions of the East End ; and each is 
 commonly but the distorted shadow of a 
 minor feature. Foul slums there are in the 
 East End, of course, as there are in the 
 West; want and misery there are, as wher- 
 ever a host is gathered together to fight for 
 food. But they are not often spectacular in 
 kind. 
 
 Of this street there are about one hundred 
 and fifty yards — on the same pattern all. It 
 is not pretty to look at. A dingy little brick 
 house twenty feet high, with three square 
 holes to carry the windows, and an oblong 
 hole to carry the door, is not a pleasing ob. 
 ject ; and eacjji 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 rect- 
 angular holes ; but they are well known to 
 every denizen, and the chandler goes to 
 church on Sunday and pays for his seat. At 
 the opposite end, turnings lead to streets 
 less rigidly respectable ; some where " Mang- 
 ling done here" stares from windows, and 
 where doors are left carelessly open ; others 
 where squalid women sit on door-steps, and 
 girls go to factories in white aprons. Many 
 such turnings, of as many grades of decency, 
 are set between this and the nearest slum. 
 They are not a very noisy or obtrusive lot in 
 this street. They do not go to Hyde Park 
 with banners, and they seldom fight. It is 
 just possible that one or two among them, at 
 some point in a life of ups and downs, may 
 have been indebted to a coal and blanket 
 fund ; but whosoever these may be, they 
 would rather die than publish the disgrace, 
 and it is probable that they very nearly did 
 so ere submitting to it. 
 
 Some who inhabit this street are in the 
 docks, some in the gasworks, some in one or 
 other of the few shipbuilding yards that yet 
 survive on the Thames. Two families in a 
 house is the general rule, for there are six 
 rooms behind each set of holes ; this, unless 
 " young men lodgers " are taken in, or there
 
 10 
 
 are grown sons paying for bed and board. 
 As for the grown daughters, they marry as 
 soon as may be. Domestic service is a social 
 descent, and little under millinery and dress- 
 making is compatible with self-respect. The 
 general servant may be caught young among 
 the turnings at the end where mangling is 
 done; and the factory girls live still further 
 off, in places skirting slums. 
 
 Every morning at half-past five there is a 
 curious demonstration. The street resounds 
 with thunderous knockings, repeated upon 
 door after door, and acknowledged ever by 
 a muffled shout from within. These signals 
 are the work of the night-watchman or the 
 early policeman, or both, and they summon 
 the sleepers to go forth to the docks, the gas- 
 works and the ship-yards. To be awakened in 
 this wise costs fourpence a week, and for this 
 fourpencea fierce rivalry rages between night- 
 watchmen and policemen. The night-watch- 
 man — a sort of by-blow of the ancient " Char- 
 ley," and himself a fast vanishing quantity — 
 is the real professional performer ; but he 
 goes to the wall, because a large connection 
 must be worked if the pursuit is to pay at 
 fourpence a knocker. Now, it is not easy to 
 bang at two knockers three-quarters of a 
 mile apart, and a hundred others lying be-
 
 II 
 
 tween, all punctually at half-past five. Where- 
 fore, the policeman, to whom the fourpence 
 is but a perquisite, and who is content with a 
 smaller round, is rapidly supplanting the 
 night-watchman, whose cry of " Past nine 
 o'clock," as he collects orders in the evening, 
 is now seldom heard. 
 
 The knocking and the shouting pass, and 
 there comes the noise of opening and shutting 
 of doors, and a clattering away to the docks, 
 the gasworks and the ship-yards. Later, 
 more door-shutting is heard, and then the 
 trotting of sorrow-laden little feet along the 
 grim street to the grim Board School three 
 grim streets off. Then silence, save for a 
 subdued sound of scrubbing here and there, 
 and the puny squall of croupy infants. After 
 this, a new trotting of little feet to docks 
 gasworks and ship-yards with father's din- 
 ner 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 blank- 
 ness of a square hole here and there by pour- 
 ing 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
 
 12 
 
 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 hope- 
 lessly the same. 
 
 Every day, that is, but Sunday. On Sun- 
 day morning a smell of cooking floats round 
 the corner from the half-shut baker's, and the 
 little feet trot down the street under steaming 
 burdens of beef, potatoes, and batter pudding 
 — the lucky little feet these, with Sunday 
 boots on them, when father is in good work 
 and has brought home all his money ; not 
 the poor little feet in worn shoes, carrying 
 little bodies in the threadbare clothes of all 
 the week, when father is out of work, or ill, 
 or drunk, and the Sunday cooking may very 
 easily be done at home — if there be any 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 toweled to a polish. 
 Thus disposed and arrayed, they fare gravely 
 through the grim little streets to a grim Lit- 
 tle Bethel where are gathered together others 
 in like garb and attendance ; and for two
 
 13 
 
 hours they endure the frantic menace of hell- 
 fire. 
 
 Most of the men, however, lie in shirt and 
 trousers on their beds and read the Sunday- 
 paper ; while some are driven forth — for they 
 hinder the housework — to loaf, and await the 
 opening of the beer-shop round the corner. 
 Thus goes Sunday in this street, and every 
 Sunday is the same as every other Sunday, so 
 that one monotony is broken with another. 
 For the women, however, Sunday is much as 
 other days, except that there is rather more 
 work for them. The break in their round of 
 the week is washing day. 
 
 No event in the outer world makes any 
 impression in this street. Nations may rise, 
 or may totter in ruin ; but here the colorless 
 day will work through its twenty-four hours 
 just as it did yesterday, and just as it will 
 to-morrow. Without there may be party 
 strife, wars and rumors of wars, public rejoic- 
 ings ; but the trotting of the little feet will be 
 neither quickened nor stayed. Those quaint 
 little women, the girl-children of this street, 
 who use a motherly management toward all 
 girl-things younger than themselves, and 
 toward all boys as old or older, with " Bless 
 the child!" or "Drat the children !"— those 
 quaint little women will still go marketing
 
 14 
 
 with big baskets, and will regard the price of 
 bacon as chief among human considerations. 
 Nothing disturbs this street — nothing but a 
 strike. 
 
 Nobody laughs here — life is too serious a 
 tiling; nobody sings. Thei^e was once a 
 woman who sang — a young wife from the 
 country. But she bore children, and her 
 voice cracked. Then her man died, and she 
 sang no more. They took away her home, 
 and with her children about her skirts she 
 left this street forever. The other women 
 did not think much of her. She was " help- 
 less." 
 
 One of the square holes in this street — one 
 of the single, ground-floor holes — is found, on 
 individual examination, to differ from the 
 others. There has been an attempt to make 
 it into a shop-window. Half a dozen candles, 
 a few sickly sugar-sticks, certain shriveled 
 bloaters, some boot-laces, and a bundle or two 
 of firewood, compose a stock which at night 
 is sometimes lighted by a little paraflfine lamp 
 in a tin sconce, and sometimes by a candle. 
 A widow lives here — a gaunt, bony widow, 
 with sunken, red eyes. She has other 
 sources of income than the candles and the 
 bootlaces; she washes and chars all day, and 
 she sews cheap shirts at night. Two "young
 
 i5 
 
 men lodgers," moreover, sleep upstairs, and 
 the children sleep in the back room ; she her- 
 self is supposed not to sleep at all. The 
 policeman does not knock here in the morn- 
 ing — the widow wakes the lodgers herself : 
 and nobody in the street behind ever looks 
 out of window before going to bed, no matter 
 how late, without seeing a light in the 
 widow's room where she plies her needle. 
 She is a quiet woman, who speaks little with 
 her neighbors, having other things to do : a 
 woman of pronounced character, to whom it 
 would be unadvisable — even dangerous — to 
 offer coals or blankets. Hers was the strong- 
 est contempt for the helpless woman who 
 sang: a contempt whose added bitterness 
 might be traced to its source. For when the 
 singing woman was marketing, from which 
 door of the pawnshop had she twice met the 
 widow coming forth? 
 
 This is not a dirty street, taken as a whole. 
 The widow's house is one of the cleanest, and 
 the widow's children match the house. The 
 one house cleaner than the widow's is ruled 
 by a despotic Scotchwoman, who drives 
 every hawker off her whitened step, and rubs 
 her door handle if a hand have rested on it. 
 The Scotchwoman has made several attempts
 
 i6 
 
 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 ap- 
 pearances are the chief matter of such con- 
 versation as the women make across the 
 fences. One after another the little stran- 
 gers come, to live through lives as flat and 
 colorless as the day's life in this street. Ex- 
 istence dawns, and the doctor-watchman's 
 door knock resounds along the row of rect- 
 angular holes. Then a muffled cry announces 
 that a small new being has come to trudge 
 and sweat its way in the appointed groove. 
 Later the trotting of little feet and the school ; 
 the 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 ray. It 
 falls early, because it is the sole bright thing 
 which the street sees, and is watched for and
 
 17 
 
 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 com- 
 pany;" the manner of which proceeding is 
 indigenous — is a custom native to the place. 
 The young people first " walk out " in pairs. 
 There is no exchange of promises, no troth- 
 plight, no engagement, no love-talk. They 
 patrol the 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 dissatisfied with each 
 other's company, nothing is easier than to 
 separate and walk out with somebody else. 
 When by these means each has found a fit 
 mate (or thinks so), a ring is bought, and the 
 odd association becomes a regular engage- 
 ment ; but this is not until the walking out 
 has endured for many months. The two 
 stages of courtship are spoken of indiscrimin- 
 ately as " keeping company," but a very care- 
 ful distinction is drawn between them by the 
 parties concerned. Nevertheless, in the 
 walking-out period it would be almost as 
 great a breach of faith for either to walk out
 
 i8 
 
 with more than one, as it would be if the full 
 engagement had been made. And love- 
 making in this street is a dreary thing, when 
 one thinks of love-making in other places. It 
 begins — and it ends — too soon. 
 
 Nobody from this street goes to the theatre. 
 That would mean a long journey, and it 
 would cost money which might buy bread 
 and beer and boots. For those, too, who 
 wear black Sunday suits it would be siniul. 
 Nobody reads poetry or romance. The very 
 words are foreign. A Sunday paper in some 
 few houses provides such reading as this 
 street is disposed to achieve. Now and again 
 a penny novel has been found among the pri- 
 vate treasures of a growing daughter, and 
 has been wrathfully confiscated. For the air 
 of this street is unfavorable to the ideal. 
 
 Yet there are aspirations. There has lately 
 come into the street a young man lodger 
 who belongs to a Mutual Improvement -So- 
 ciety. Membership in this society is re- 
 garded as a sort of learned degree, and at its 
 meetings debates are held and papers smugly 
 read by lamentably self-satisfied young men 
 lodgers, whose only preparation for debating 
 and writing is a fathomless ignorance. For 
 ignorance is the inevitable portion of dwell-
 
 '9 
 
 ers here ; seeing nothing, reading nothing, 
 and considering nothing. 
 
 Where in the East End lies this street? 
 Everywhere. The hundred-and-fifty yards is 
 only a link in a long and a mightily tangled 
 chain — is only a turn in a tortuous maze. 
 This street of the square holes is hundreds 
 of miles long. That it is planned in short 
 lengths is true, but there is no other way in 
 the world that can more properly be called a 
 single street, because of its dismal lack of 
 accent, its sordid uniformity, its utter re- 
 moteness from delight.
 
 LIZERUNT 
 
 LIZER S WOOING 
 
 Somewhere in the register was written 
 the name Elizabeth Hunt ; but seventeen 
 years after the entry the spoken name was 
 Lizerunt. Lizerunt worked at a pickle fac- 
 tory, and appeared abroad in an elaborate 
 and shabby costume, usually supplemented 
 by a white apron. Withal she was some- 
 thing of a beauty. That is to say, her cheeks 
 were very red, her teeth were very large and 
 white, her nose was small and snub, and her 
 fringe was long and shiny ; while her face, 
 new-washed, was susceptible of a high polish. 
 Many such girls are married at sixteen, but 
 Lizerunt was belated, and had never a bloke 
 at all. 
 
 Billy Chope was a year older than Lizej- 
 
 [21]
 
 22 
 
 unt. He wore a billycock with a thin brim 
 and a permanent dent in the crown ; he had 
 a bobtail coat, with the collar turned up at 
 one side and down at the other, as an expres- 
 sion 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 fad- 
 ing red beyond the furthermost end of Com- 
 mercial 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. 
 
 " Gain," said Lizerunt, greatly pleased ; 
 " le' go !" For she knew that this was love. 
 
 " Where yer auf to, Lizer ?" 
 
 " 'Ome, o' course, cheeky. Le' go ;" and 
 she snatched — in vain — at Billy's hat. 
 
 Billy let go, and capered in front of her. 
 She feigned to dodge by him, careful not to 
 be too quick, because affairs were develop- 
 ing. 
 
 " I say, Lizer," said Billy, stopping his 
 dance and becoming business-like, "goin' any- 
 where Monday ?"
 
 23 
 
 " Not along o' you, cheeky ; you go 'long 
 o' Beller Dawson, like wot you did Easter." 
 
 " Blow, Beller Dawson ; she ain't no good. 
 I'm goin' on the Flats. Come?" 
 
 Lizerunt, delighted but derisive, ended 
 with a promise to " see." The bloke had come 
 at last, and she walked home with the feeling 
 of having taken her degree. She had half 
 assured herself of it two days before, when 
 Sam Cardew threw an orange peel at her, 
 but went away after a little prancing on the 
 pavement. Sam was a smarter fellow than 
 Billy, and earned his own living ; probably 
 his attentions were serious ; but one must 
 prefer the bird in hand. As for Billy Chope, 
 he went his way, resolved himself to take 
 home what mangling he should find his 
 mother had finished, and stick to the money ; 
 also, to get all he could from her by bland- 
 ishing and bullying, that the jaunt to Wan- 
 stead Flats might be adequately done. 
 
 There is no other fair like Whit Monday's 
 on Wanstead Flats. Here is a square mile 
 and more of open land where you may howl 
 at large ; here is no danger of losing yourself 
 as in Epping Forest ; the public houses are 
 always with you ; shows, shies, swings, 
 merry-go-rounds, fried fish stalls, donkeys
 
 24 
 
 are packed closer than on Hampstead 
 Heath ; the ladies' tormentors are larger, and 
 their contents smell worse than at any other 
 fair. Also, yon may be drunk and disorderly 
 without being- locked up, — for the stations 
 won't hold everybody, — and when all else 
 has palled, you may set fire to the turf. 
 Hereinto Billy and Lizerunt projected them- 
 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 
 conscious of a deficiency. For the hat of 
 Lizerunt was brown and old ; plush it was 
 not, and its feather was a mere foot long and 
 of a very rusty black. Now, it is not decent 
 for a factory girl from Limehouse to go 
 bank-holidaying - under any but a hat of 
 plush, very high in the crown, of a wild blue 
 or a wilder green, and carrying withal an 
 ostrich feather, pink or scarlet or what not; 
 a feather that springs from the fore-part, 
 climbs the crown, and drops as far down the 
 shoulders as may be. Lizerunt knew this, 
 and, had she had no bloke, would have 
 stayed at home. But a chance is a chance. 
 As it was only another such hapless girl 
 could measure her bitter envy of the feathers 
 about her, or. would so joyfully have given 
 an ear for the proper splendor. Billy, too,
 
 25 
 
 had a vague impression, muddled by but not 
 drowned in half-pints, that some degree of 
 plush was condign to the occasion and to 
 his own expenditure. Still, there was no 
 quarrel ; and the pair walked and ran with 
 arms about each other's necks ; and Lizerunt 
 thumped her bloke on the back at proper 
 intervals; so that the affair went regularly 
 on the whole, although, in view of Lizerunt's 
 shortcomings, Billy did not insist on the 
 customary exchange of hats. 
 
 Everything, I say, went well and well 
 enough until Billy bought a ladies' tormentor 
 and began to* squirt it at Lizerunt. For then 
 Lizerunt went scampering madly, with pierc- 
 ing shrieks, until her bloke was left some 
 little way behind, and Sam Cardew, turning 
 up at that moment and seeing her running 
 alone.jn the crowd, threw his arms about her 
 wais^sand 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 readier for a fight than Billy was; 
 but the sum of Billy's half pints was large ;
 
 26 
 
 wherefore the fight began. On the skirt of 
 an hilarious ring, Lizcrunt, after some small 
 outcry, triumphed aloud. Four days before, 
 she had no bloke ; and here she stood with 
 two, and those two fighting for her ! Here 
 in the public gaze, on the Flats! For almost 
 five minutes she was Helen of Troy. 
 
 And in much less time Billy tasted repent- 
 ance. The haze of half-pints was dispelled, 
 and some teeth went with it. Presently, 
 whimpering and with a bloody muzzle, he 
 rose and made a running kick at the other. 
 Then, being thwarted in a bolt, he flung him- 
 self down ; and it was like to go hard with 
 him at the hands of the crowd. Punch you 
 may on Wanstead Flats, but execration and 
 worse is your portion if you kick anybody 
 except your wife. But, as the ring closed, 
 the helmets of two policemen were seen to 
 be working in over the surrounding heads 
 and Sam Cardew, quickly assuming his coat, 
 turned away with such an air of blameless- 
 ness 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
 
 2/ 
 
 issue as she was proud of the adventure. 
 Billy was all very well ; but Sam was better. 
 She resolved to draw him for a feathered 
 hat before next bank holiday. So the sun 
 went down on her and her bloke hanging on 
 each other's necks and straggling toward 
 the Romford Road with shouts and choruses. 
 The rest was tram-car, Bow Music Hall, 
 half-pints, and darkness. 
 
 Billy took home his wounds, and his 
 mother, having moved his wrath by asking 
 their origin, sought refuge with a neighbor. 
 He accomplished his revenge in two install- 
 ments. Two nights later Lizerunt was going 
 with a jug of beer ; when somebody sprang 
 from a dark corner, landed her under the ear, 
 knocked her sprawling, and made off to the 
 sound of her lamentations. She did not see 
 who it was, but she knew ; and next day Sam 
 Cardew was swearing he'd break Billy's 
 back. He did not, however, for that same 
 evening a gang of seven or eight fell on him 
 with sticks and belts. (They were Cause- 
 way chaps, while Sam was a Brady's Laner, 
 which would have been reason enough by it- 
 self, 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
 
 28 
 
 down ; and they kicked him about the head, 
 and they kicked him about the bell}- ; and 
 the} 7 took to their heels when he was speech- 
 less and still. 
 
 He lay at home for near four weeks, and 
 when he stood up again it was in many ban- 
 dages. Lizerunt came often to his bedside, 
 and twice she brought an orange. On these 
 occasions there was much talk of vengeance. 
 But the weeks went on. It was a month 
 since Sam had left his bed ; and Lizerunt was 
 getting a little tired of bandages. Also, she 
 had begun to doubt and to consider bank 
 holiday — scarce a fortnight off. For Sam 
 was stone broke, and a plush hat was further 
 away than ever. And all through the later 
 of these weeks Billy Chope was harder than 
 ever on his mother, and she, well knowing 
 that if he helped her by taking home he 
 would pocket the money at the other end, 
 had taken to finishing and delivering in his 
 absence, and, threats failing to get at the 
 money, Billy Chope was impelled to punch 
 her head and gripe her by the throat. 
 
 There was a milliner's window, with a show 
 of nothing but fashionable plush-and-feather 
 hats, and Lizerunt was lingering hereabouts 
 one evening, when some one took her by
 
 2 9 
 
 the waist, and some one said, " Which d'yer 
 like, Lizer? — The yullerun?" 
 
 Lizerunt turned and saw that it was Billy. 
 She pulled herself away, and backed off, sul- 
 len and distrustful. " Garn," she said. 
 
 " Straight," said Billy, " I'll sport yer one. 
 ... No kid, I will." 
 
 " Garn," said Lizerunt once more. " Wot 
 yer gittin' at now ?" 
 
 But presently, being convinced that bash- 
 ing wasn't in it, she approached less guard- 
 edly ; 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 chal- 
 lenged all the Flats the next bank holiday, a 
 hat for which no girl need have hesitated to 
 sell her soul. As for Bill}'', why, he was as 
 good as another ; and you can't have every- 
 thing ; 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 periodi- 
 cally set aside a day for free weddings, and, 
 on principle, encouraged early matrimony. 
 And they lived with Billy's mother.
 
 II 
 
 lizer's first 
 
 When Billy Chope married Lizerunt 
 there was a small rejoicing. There was no 
 wedding-party ; because it was considered 
 that what there might be to drink would be 
 better in the family. Lizerunt's father was 
 not, and her mother felt no interest in the 
 affair ; not having seen her daughter for a 
 year, and happening, at the time, to have a 
 month's engagement in respect of a drunk 
 and disorderly. So that there were but 
 three of them ; and Billy Chope got exceed- 
 ingly tipsy early in the day ; and in the 
 evening his bride bawled a continual chorus, 
 while his mother, influenced by that unwonted 
 quartern of gin the occasion sanctioned, wept 
 dismally over her boy, who was much too far 
 gone to resent it. 
 
 His was the chief reason for rejoicing. 
 For Lizerunt had always been able to extract 
 
 [30]
 
 3i 
 
 ten shillings a week from the pickle factory, 
 and it was to be presumed that as Lizer 
 Chope her earning capacity would not dimin- 
 ish ; and the wages would make a very 
 respectable addition to the precarious rev- 
 enue, depending on the mangle, that Billy 
 extorted from his mother. As for Lizer, she 
 was married. That was the considerable 
 thing ; for she was but a few months short 
 of eighteen, and that, as you know, is a little 
 late. 
 
 Of course there were quarrels very soon ; 
 for the new Mrs. Chope, less submissive at 
 first than her mother-in-law, took a little 
 breaking in, and a liberal renewal of the 
 manual treatment once applied in her court- 
 ing days. But the quarrels between the 
 women were comforting to Billy ; a diver- 
 sion and a source of better service. 
 
 As soon as might be Lizer took the way of 
 womankind. This circumstance brought an 
 unexpected half-crown from the evangelical 
 rector who had married the couple gratis ; 
 for recognizing Billy in the street by acci- 
 dent, and being told of Mrs. Chope's pros- 
 pects, as well as that Billy was out of work 
 (a fact undeniable), he reflected that his 
 principles did on occasion lead to discomfort 
 of a material sort. And Billy, to whose com-
 
 32 
 
 prehension the half-crown opened a new field 
 of receipt, would doubtless have long re- 
 mained a client of the rector, had not that 
 zealot hastened to discover a vacancy for a 
 warehouse porter, the offer of presentation 
 whereunto alienated Billy Chope forever. 
 But there were meetings and demonstrations 
 of the Unemployed ; and it was said that 
 shillings had been given away ; and, as being 
 at a meeting in a street was at least as amus- 
 ing as being in a street where there was no 
 meeting, Bill}' often went, on the off chance. 
 But his lot was chiefly disappointment, 
 wherefore he became more especially careful 
 to furnish himself ere he left home. 
 
 For certain weeks cash came less freely 
 than ever from the two women. Lizer spoke 
 of providing for the necessities of the ex- 
 pected child ; a manifestly absurd proced- 
 ure, 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
 
 33 
 
 for near a week, when Billy, rising at ten 
 with a bad mouth, resolved to stand no 
 nonsense, and demanded two shillings. 
 
 " Two bob ? Wot for ?" Lizer asked. 
 
 " ' Cos I want it. None o' yer lip." 
 
 " Ain't got it," said Lizer sulkily. 
 
 " That's a bleed'n' lie." 
 
 " Lie yerself." 
 
 "I'll break y'in 'arves, ye blasted 'eifer!" 
 He ran at her throat and forced her back 
 over a chair. " I 11 pull yer face auf ! If y' 
 don't give me the money, gawblimy, I'll 
 do for ye !" 
 
 Lizer strained and squalled. " Le' go'. 
 You'll kill me an' the kid too !" she grunted 
 hoarsely. Billy's mother ran in and threw 
 her arms about him, dragging him away. 
 " Don't Billy," she said, in terror. " Don't 
 Billy — not now ! You'll get in trouble. 
 Come away! She might go auf, an' you'd 
 get in trouble !" 
 
 Billy Chope flung his wife over and turned 
 to his mother. " Take yer 'ands auf me," he 
 said; "go on, or I'll gi' ye somethin' for 
 yerself." And he punched her in the breast 
 by way of illustration. 
 
 "You shall 'ave what I've got, Billy, if it's 
 money," the mother said. " But don't go an'
 
 34 
 
 git ycrself in trouble, don't. Will a 
 shillin' do ?" 
 
 "No, it won't. Think I'm a bloomin' kid p 
 I mean 'avin' two bob this mornin'." 
 
 "I was a-keepin' it for the rent, Billy, 
 but—" 
 
 " Yus ; think o' the bleed'n' lan'lord 'fore 
 me, doncher ?" And he pocketed the two 
 shillings. " I ain't settled with you yut, my 
 gal," he added to Lizer ; "mikin* about at 
 'ome an' 'idin' money. You wait a bit." 
 
 Lizer had climbed into an erect position, 
 and, gravid and slow, had got as far as the 
 passage. Mistaking this for a safe distance, 
 she replied with defiant railings. Billy made 
 for her with a kick that laid her on the lower 
 stairs, and, swinging his legs round his 
 mother as she obstructed him, entreating 
 him not to get in trouble, he attempted to 
 kick again in a more telling spot. But a 
 movement among the family upstairs and a 
 tap at the door hinted of interference, and he 
 took himself off. 
 
 Lizer lay doubled up on the stairs, howl- 
 ing ; but her only articulate cry was, — "Gawd 
 'elp me, it's comin' !" 
 
 Billy went to the meeting of the Unem- 
 ployed, and cheered a proposal to storm the 
 Tower of London. But he did not join the
 
 35 
 
 procession following a man with a handker- 
 chief on a stick, who promised destruction to 
 every policeman in his path, for he knew the 
 fate of such processions. With a few others 
 he hung about the nearest tavern for a while, 
 on the chance of the advent of a flush sailor 
 from St. Katharine's, disposed to treat out-o'- 
 workers. Then he went alone to a quieter 
 beer-house and took a pint or two at his own 
 expense. A glance down the music-hall bills 
 hanging in the bar having given him a notion 
 for the evening, he bethought himself of 
 dinner, and made for home. 
 
 The front door was open, and in the first 
 room, where the mangle stood, there were no 
 signs of dinner. And this was at three 
 o'clock! Billy pushed into the room behind, 
 demanding why. 
 
 " Billy," Lizer said faintly from her bed, 
 " look at the baby!" 
 
 Something was moving feebly under a 
 flannel petticoat. Billy pulled the petticoat, 
 aside, and said, — " That ? Well, it is a measly 
 snipe." It was a blind, hairless homunculus, 
 short of a foot long, with a skinny face set in 
 a great skull. There was a black bruise on 
 one side from hip to armpit. Billy dropped 
 the petticoat and said : " Where's my din- 
 ner?"
 
 3<5 
 
 " 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 git tin' it, I think," said Lizer. 
 " Doctor had to slap 'im like anythink 'fore 
 'e'd cry. 'E don't cry now much. 'E — " 
 
 " Go on ; out ye git. I do' want no more 
 damn jaw. Git my dinner." 
 
 " I'm a-gittin' of it, Billy," his mother said, 
 at the door. She had begun when he first 
 entered. " It won't be a minute." 
 
 " You come 'ere; y'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 morning.' Will ye git out, or shall I 
 kick ye ?" 
 
 " She can't, Bill)'," his mother said. And 
 Lizer sniveled and said : " You're a damn 
 brute. Y'onght to be bleedin' well booted." 
 
 But Billy had her by the shoulders and 
 began to haul ; and again his mother besought, 
 him to remember what he might bring upon 
 himself. At this moment the doctor's dis- 
 penser, a fourth-year London Hospital stu- 
 dent of many inches, who had been washing 
 his hands in the kitchen, came in. For a 
 moment he failed to comprehend the scene. 
 Then he took Billy Chope by the collar,
 
 37 
 
 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 tea-cup at his head. Billy's mother 
 said : " Y'ought to be ashamed of yourself, 
 you low blaggard. If 'is father was alive 'e'd 
 knock yer 'ead auf. Call yourself a doctor — 
 a passel o' boys ! Git out ! Go out o* my 
 'ouse or I'll give y'in charge !" 
 
 "But — why, hang it, he'd have killed her." 
 Then to Lizer : " Lie down." 
 
 " Sha'n't lay down. Keep auf ! if you 
 come near me I'll corpse ye. You go while 
 ye're safe ?" 
 
 The dispenser appealed to Billy's mother. 
 " For God's sake make her lie down. She'll 
 kill herself. I'll go. Perhaps the doctor 
 had better come." And he went, leaving the 
 coast clear for Billy Cho.pe to return and 
 avenge his kicking.
 
 Ill 
 
 A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES 
 
 LlZER was some months short of twenty- 
 one when her third child was born. The 
 pickle factory had discarded her some time 
 before, and since that her trade had consisted 
 in odd jobs of charing. Odd jobs of charing 
 have a shade the better of a pickle factory in 
 the matter of respectability, but they are 
 precarious, and they are worse paid at that. 
 In the East End they are sporadic and few. 
 Moreover, it is in the household where paid 
 help is a rarity that the bitterness of serv- 
 itude is felt. Also, the uncertainty and ir- 
 regularity 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 eighteen pence. Once or twice, 
 to his knowledge, it had been half a crown, 
 from a chance job at a doctor's or a parson's, 
 and once it was three shillings. That it 
 
 [38]
 
 39 
 
 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 bash- 
 ing than ever was needed to insure the ex- 
 traction of the last copper; empty-handed- 
 ness called for bashing on its own account ; 
 so that it was often Lizer's hap to be refused a 
 job because of a black eye. 
 
 Lizer's self was scarcely what it had been. 
 The red of her cheeks, once bounded only by 
 the eyes and the mouth, had shrunk to a spot 
 in the depth of each hollow ; gaps had been 
 driven in her big white teeth ; even the snub 
 nose had run to a point, and the fringe hung 
 dry and ragged, while the bodily outline was 
 as a sack's. At home, the children lay in her 
 arms or tumbled at her heels, puling and foul. 
 Whenever she was near it, there was the 
 mangle to be turned ; for lately Billy's 
 mother had exhibited a strange weakness, 
 sometimes collapsing with a gasp in the act 
 of brisk or prolonged exertion, and often 
 leaning on whatever stood hard by and grasp- 
 ing 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 in-
 
 40 
 
 flamed the breast of Billy her son, who was 
 morally angered by this boozing away of 
 money that was really his. 
 
 Lizer's youngest, being seven or eight 
 months old, was mostly taking care of itself, 
 when Billy made a welcome discovery after 
 a hard and pinching day. The night was 
 full of blinding wet, and the rain beat on the 
 window as on a drum. Billy sat over a small 
 fire in the front room smoking his pipe, while 
 his mother folded clothes for delivery. He 
 stamped twice on the hearth, and then, draw- 
 ing 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 be- 
 thought him of a brick from the mangle. He 
 rose, and, lifting the lid of the weight-box, 
 groped about among the clinkers and the 
 other ballast till he came upon a small but 
 rather heavy paper parcel. 
 
 "'Ere — wot's this ?" he said, and pulled it 
 out. 
 
 His mother, whose back had been turned, 
 hastened across the room, hand to breast (it 
 had got to be her habit). 
 
 " What is it, Billy ?" she said. " Not that ; 
 there's nothing there. I'll get anything you 
 want, Billy." 
 
 And she made a nervous catch at the screw
 
 41 
 
 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. 
 
 "Oh," said Billy, "this is the game, is it? 
 'idin' money in the mangle ! Got any 
 more?" And he hastily turned the brick- 
 bats. 
 
 "No, Billy, don't take that— don't !" im- 
 plored his mother. " There'll be some money 
 for them things when they go 'ome — 'ave 
 that. I'm savin' it, Billy, for something par- 
 tic'ler ; s'elp me Gawd, I am, Billy." 
 
 " Yus," replied Billy, raking diligently 
 among the clinkers, " savin' it for a good ol' 
 booze. An' now you won't 'ave one. Bleed- 
 in' nice thing, 'idin' money away from your 
 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 jew up. P'raps 
 you'll be straighter about money after this."
 
 42 
 
 " Let me 'ave some, then — you can't want 
 it all. Give me some, an' then 'avc the 
 money for the things. There's ten dozen and 
 seven, and you can take 'em yerself if ye 
 like." 
 
 " Wot, in this 'ere rain ? Not me ! I bet 
 I'd 'ave the money if I wanted it without that. 
 'Ere, change these 'ere fardens at the draper's 
 wen you go out ; there's two bob's worth an' 
 a penn'orth ; I don't want to bust my pockets 
 wi' them." 
 
 While they spoke Lizer had come in from 
 the back room. But she said nothing; she 
 rather busied herself with a child she had in 
 her arms. When Billy's mother, despondent 
 and tearful, had tramped out into the rain 
 with a pile of clothes in an oilcloth wrapper, 
 she said, sulkily, without looking up: 
 
 " You might 'a' let 'er kep' that ; you git 
 all you want." 
 
 At another time this remonstrance would 
 have provoked active hostilities ; but now, 
 with the money about him, Billv was com- 
 placently disposed. 
 
 " You shutcher 'ead," he said ; " I got this, 
 any'ow. She can make it up out o' my rent 
 if she likes." 
 
 This last remark was a joke, and he chuck- 
 led as he made it. For Billy's rent was a
 
 43 
 
 simple fiction, devised, on the suggestion of 
 a smart canvasser, to give him a parliament- 
 ary vote. 
 
 That night Billy and Lizer slept, as usual, 
 in the bed in the back room, where the two 
 younger children also were. Billy's mother 
 made a bedstead nightly with three chairs 
 and an old trunk in the front room by the 
 mangle, and the eldest child lay in a floor- 
 bed near her. Early in the morning Lizer 
 awoke at a sudden outcry of the little creat- 
 ure. He clawed at the handle till he opened 
 the door, and came staggering and tumbling 
 into the room with screams of terror. 
 
 " Wring 'is blasted neck," his father 
 grunted, sleepily. " Wot's the kid 'owlin' 
 for ?" 
 
 " I's Taid o' g'anny — I's 'f'aid o' g'anny !" 
 was all the child could say ; and when he had 
 said it, he fell to screaming once more. 
 
 Lizer rose and went to the next room ; and 
 straightway came a scream from her, also. 
 
 "Oh, oh, Billy! Billy! Oh, my Gawd! 
 Billy, come 'ere !" 
 
 And Billy, fully startled, followed in Lizer's 
 wake. He blundered in, rubbing his eyes, 
 and saw. _, 
 
 Stark on her back in the huddled bed of old 
 wrappers and shawls lay his mother. The
 
 44 
 
 outline of her poor face — strained in an up- 
 ward stare of painful surprise — stood sharp 
 and meagre against the black of the grate 
 beyond. But the muddy old skin was white 
 and looked cleaner than its wont, and many 
 of the wrinkles were gone. 
 
 Billy Chope, half-way across the floor, 
 recoiled from the corpse, and glared at it 
 pallidly from the doorway. 
 
 " Good Gawd !" he croaked faintly, " is she 
 dead ?" 
 
 Seized by a fit of shuddering breaths, Lizer 
 sank on the floor, and, with her head across 
 the body, presently broke into a storm of 
 hysterical blubbering, while Billy, white and 
 dazed, dressed hurriedly and got out of the 
 house. 
 
 He was at home as little as might be until 
 the coroner's officer carried away the body 
 two days later. When he came for his meals, 
 he sat doubtful and querulous in the matter 
 of the front room door's being shut. The 
 dead once clear away, however, he resumed 
 his faculties and clearly saw that here was a 
 bad change for the worse. There was the 
 mangle, but who was to work it? If Lizer 
 did, there would be no more charing jobs — 
 a clear loss of one-third of his income. And 
 it was not at all certain that the people who
 
 45 
 
 had given their mangling to his mother would 
 give it to Lizer. Indeed, it was pretty sure 
 that many would not, because mangling is a 
 thing given by preference to widows, and 
 many widows of the neighborhood were per- 
 petually competing for it. Widows, more- 
 over, had the first call in most odd jobs 
 whereunto Lizer might turn her hand ; an 
 injustice whereon Billy meditated with bit- 
 terness. 
 
 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 disappoint- 
 ment and a sense of injury. . . 
 
 The mangling orders fell away as suddenly 
 and completely as he had feared; they were 
 duly absorbed among the local widows. 
 Neglect the children as Lizer might, she 
 could no longer leave them as she had done. 
 Things, then, were bad with Billy, and neither 
 threats nor thumps could evoke a shilling 
 now.
 
 4 6 
 
 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. " Oh, yus. 
 That's easy, ain't it ? ' Go an' git it,' says 
 you. 'Ovv ?" 
 
 " 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. Go 
 on — you ain't so bleed'n' innocent as all 
 that. Go an' see Sam Cardew. Go on — 
 'ook it." 
 
 Lizer, who had been kneeling at the child's 
 floor-bed, rose to her feet, pale-faced and 
 bright of eye. 
 
 " Stow kiddin', Billy," she said. " You 
 don't mean that. I'll go round to the fact'ry 
 in the mornin' ; p'raps they'll take me on 
 temp'ry." 
 
 " Damn the fact'ry." 
 
 He pushed her into the passage. " Go 
 on — you git me some money, if ye don't 
 want yer bleed'n' 'ead knocked auf." 

 
 47 
 
 There was a scuffle in the dark passage, 
 with certain blows, a few broken words, and 
 a sob. Then the door slammed, and Lizer 
 Chope was in the windy street.
 
 WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS 
 
 All East London idled, or walked in a 
 procession, or waylaid and bashed, or cried 
 in an empty kitchen ; for it was the autumn 
 of the Great Strikes. One army of men, 
 having been prepared, was ordered to strike 
 — and struck. Other smaller armies of men, 
 with no preparation, were ordered to strike 
 to express sympathy — and struck. Other 
 armies still were ordered to strike because it 
 was the fashion — and struck. Then many 
 hands were discharged because the strikes in 
 other trades left them no work. Many 
 others came from other parts in regiments to 
 work, but remained to loaf in gangs ; taught 
 by the example of earlier regiments, which, 
 the situation being explained (an expression 
 devised to include mobbings and kickings 
 and flingings into docks), had returned 
 whence they came. So that East London 
 was very noisy and largely hungry; and the 
 rest of the world looked on with intense 
 
 [48]
 
 49 
 
 interest, making- earnest suggestions, and 
 comprehending" nothing. Lots of strikers, 
 having 1 no strike pay and finding little 
 nourishment in processions, started off to 
 walk to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool 
 or Newcastle, where work might be got. 
 Along the Great North Road such men 
 might be seen in silent companies of a dozen 
 or twenty, now and again singly or in couples. 
 At the tail of one such gang, which gathered 
 in the Burdett Road and found its way into 
 the Enfield Road by way of Victoria Park, 
 Clapton, and Stamford Hill, walked a little 
 group of three : a voluble young man of 
 thirty, a stolid workman rather older, and 
 a pale, anxious little fellow, with a nasty 
 spasmic cough and a canvas bag of tools. 
 
 The little crowd straggled over the foot- 
 path and the road, few of its members speak- 
 ing, most of them keeping to their places 
 and themselves. As yet there was nothing 
 of the tramp in the aspect of these mechanics. 
 With their washed faces and well-mended 
 clothes they might have been taken for a 
 jury coming from a local inquest. As the 
 streets got broken and detached, with 
 patches of field between, they began to look 
 about them. One young fellow in front 
 (with no family to think of), who looked
 
 5° 
 
 upon the enterprise as an amusing sort of 
 tour, and had even brought an accordion, 
 began to rebel against the general depres- 
 sion, 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 only got a bob for 'erself 
 an' the kids." He broke into a sweat of un- 
 easiness. " I'll 'ave to send it back at the 
 next post-office, that's all." 
 
 " Send it back? not you !" Thus with deep 
 scorn the voluble young man at his side. 
 She 11 be all right, you lay your life. A 
 woman alius 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 dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 The march continued and grew dustier.
 
 5i 
 
 The cheerful pilgrim in front produced his 
 accordion. At Palmer's Green four went 
 straight ahead to try for work at the Enfield 
 Arms Factory. The others, knowing the 
 thing hopeless, turned off to the left for 
 Potter's Bar. 
 
 After a long silence, " Which'll be nearest, 
 Dave," asked little Joey Clayton, " Newcastle 
 or Middlesborough ?" 
 
 " Middlesborough," said Dave; " I done it, 
 afore." 
 
 " Trampin' ain't so rough on a man, is it, 
 after all?" asked Joey, wistfully. " You done 
 all right, didn't you?" 
 
 " Got through. All depends, though it's 
 rough enough. Matter o' luck. I 'ad the 
 bad weather." 
 
 " If I don't get a good easy job where we're 
 goin'," remarked the voluble young man, 
 " I'll 'ave a strike there too." 
 
 "'Ave a strike there?" exclaimed Joey. 
 <"Ow? Who'd call 'em out?" 
 
 "Wy,/ 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 and the 
 lukshry an' the igstravagance they've pro- 
 duced with the sweat of their brow, why, then, 
 feller-workmen, it's time to act ; it's time to
 
 52 
 
 bring the nigger-drivin', bloated capitalists 
 to their knees." 
 
 "'Ear, 'ear," applauded Joey Clayton; 
 tamely, perhaps, for the words were not 
 new. " Good on yer, Newman!" Newman 
 had a habit of practising this sort of thing in 
 snatches whenever he saw the chance. He 
 had learnt the trick in a debating society, 
 and Joey Clayton was always an applausive 
 audience. There was a pause, the accordion 
 started another tune, and Newman tried a 
 different passage of his harangue. 
 
 " In the shop they call me Skulky Newman. 
 Why ? " Cos I skulk o' course" (" 'Ear, 'ear," 
 dreamily — from Dave this time). " I ain't 
 ashamed of it, my friends. I'm a miker out 
 an' out, an' I 'ope I shall always remain a 
 miker. The less a worker does the more 'as 
 to be imployed, don't they? An' the more 
 the toilers wrings out o' the capitalists, don't 
 they? Very well then, I mike, an' I do it as 
 a sacred dooty." 
 
 " You'll 'ave all the mikin' you want for a 
 week or two," said Dave Burge, placidly. 
 " Stow it." 
 
 At Potter's Bar the party halted and sat 
 under a hedge to eat hunks of bread and 
 cheese (or hunks of bread and nothing else), 
 and to drink cold tea out of cans. Skulky New-
 
 53 
 
 man, who had brought nothing, stood in with 
 his two friends. As they started anew and 
 turned into the Great North Road he said, 
 stretching himself and looking slyly at Joey 
 Clayton, " If I'd got a bob or two I'd stand 
 you two blokes a pint apiece." 
 
 Joey looked troubled. " Well, as you ain't, 
 I suppose I ought to," he said uneasily, turn- 
 ing toward the little inn hard by. " Dave," 
 he cried to Burge, who was walking on, 
 " won't you 'ave a drink?" And, "Well, if 
 you are goin' to do the toff, I ain't proud," 
 was the slow reply. 
 
 Afterward, Joey was inclined to stop at the 
 post-office to send away at least two shillings. 
 But Newman wouldn't. He enlarged on 
 the improvidence of putting out of reach that 
 which might be required on an emergency; 
 he repeated his axiom as to a woman's knack 
 of keeping alive in spite of all things; and 
 Joey determined not to send — for a day or 
 so at any rate. 
 
 The road got looser and dustier; the 
 symptoms of the tramp came out stronger 
 and stronger on the gang. The accordion 
 struck up from time to time, but ceased 
 toward the end of the afternoon. The player 
 wearied, and some of the older men, soon 
 tired of walking, were worried by the noise.
 
 54 
 
 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. Be- 
 tween Welwyn and Codicote the company 
 broke up to roost in such barns as they might 
 possess, all but the master of the accordion, 
 who had stayed at a little public-house at 
 Welwyn, with the notion of earning a pot of 
 beer and a stable-corner (or better) by a tune 
 in the tap-room. Dave Burge lighted on a 
 lone shed of thatched hurdles with loose hay 
 in it, and Newman straightway curled in the 
 snuggest corner on most of the hay. Dave 
 Burge pulled some from under him, and, 
 having helped Joey Clayton to build a nest 
 in the best place left, was soon snoring. But 
 Joey lay awake all night, and sat up and 
 coughed and turned restlessly, being unused 
 to the circumstances and apprehensive of
 
 55 
 
 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 break- 
 fast and eightpence ; this had determined 
 him to stay at Hitchin, and work it for, at 
 least, a day, and then to diverge into the 
 towns and let the rest go their way. So 
 beyond Hitchin there was no music. 
 
 Joey Clayton soon fell slow. Newman had 
 his idea, and the three were left behind, and 
 Joey staggered after his mates with difficulty. 
 He lacked sleep, and he lacked stamina. 
 Dave Burge took the canvas bag, and there 
 were many rests, when Newman, expressing 
 a resolve to stick by his fellow-man through 
 thick and thin, hinted at drinks. Dave Burge 
 made 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 some- 
 times and sometimes blue. He walked 
 without knowing it, now helped, now lurch- 
 ing on alone. The others of the party' were
 
 56 
 
 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 Biggle- 
 swade. Joey, sleeping as he tottered, fell in 
 a heap and lay without moving from sunset 
 to broad morning. 
 
 When he woke Dave Burge was sitting at 
 the door, but Newman was gone. Also, there 
 was no sign of the canvas bag. 
 
 " No use lookin','' said Dave ; " 'e's done it." 
 
 " Eh ?" 
 
 " Skulky's 'opped the twig an' sneaked your 
 tools. Gawd knows where 'e is bynow." 
 
 "No — "the little man gasped, sitting up 
 in a pale sweat. . . " Not sneaked 'em 
 . . . is 'e. . . S'elp me, there's a set o' 
 callipers worth fifteen bob in that bag 
 . . . e' ain't gawn . . . ?" 
 
 Dave Burge nodded inexorably. 
 
 " Best feel in your pockets," he said, " p'raps 
 'e's bin there." 
 
 He had. The little man broke down. " I 
 was a-goin' to send 'ome that two bob — s'elp 
 me, I was. . . An' what can I do without 
 my tools? If I'd got no job I could 'a 
 pawned 'em — an' then I'd 'a sent 'ome the 
 money — s'elp me I would. . . Oh, it's 
 crool!"
 
 57 
 
 The walking, with the long sleep after it, 
 had left him sore and stiff, and Dave had 
 work to put him on the road again. He had 
 forgotten yesterday afternoon, and asked, at 
 first, for the others. They tramped in silence 
 for a few miles; when Joey suddenly flung 
 himself upon a tussock by the wayside. 
 
 "Why won't nobody let me live?" he 
 sniveled. " I'm a 'armless bloke enough. I 
 worked at Ritterson's, man and boy, very 
 nigh twenty year. When they come an' 
 ordered us out, I come out with the others, 
 peaceful enough ; I didn't want to chuck it 
 up, Gawd knows, but I come out promp' 
 when they told me. And when I found 
 another job on the Island, four big blokes set 
 about me an' 'arf killed me. / didn't know 
 the place was blocked. And when two o' 
 the blokes was took up, they said I'd get 
 strike-pay again if I didn't identify 'em ; so I 
 didn't. But they never give me no strike- 
 pay — they laughed an' chucked me out. An' 
 now I'm a-starvin' on the 'igh road. An' 
 Skulky . . . blimy . . . Vs done me 
 too!" 
 
 There were days wherein Joey learned to 
 eat a swede pulled from behind a wagon, and 
 to feel thankful for an early turnip ; might
 
 58 
 
 have learned, too, just what tramping- means 
 in many ways to a man unskilled both in beg- 
 ging 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, tak- 
 ing 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. " Oh, yes, there was some others. 
 They're gone on ahead, y'know." 
 
 Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. 
 Then he said, " Expect they're 'avin' a rough 
 time too." 
 
 " Ah — very like," said Dave. 
 
 For a space Joey was silent, save for the 
 cough. Then he went on : " Comes o* not 
 bringing 'cordions with 'em. Everyone 
 ought to take a 'cordion what goes tram pin.' 
 I knew a man once that went trampin', an' 'e 
 took a'cordion. He done all right. It ain't so 
 rough for them as plays on the 'cordion." 
 And Dave Burge rubbed his cap about his 
 head and stared ; but answered nothing. 
 
 It was a bad day. Crusts were begged at 
 cottages. Every rise and every turn, the 
 eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch be- 
 fore them, flouting their unrest. Joey, now
 
 59 
 
 unimpressionable, endured more placidly 
 than even Dave Burge. Late in the after- 
 noon, " 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, sud- 
 denly, " we're all 'cordions !" He sniggered, 
 thoughtully, and then burst into a cough that 
 left him panting. " We're nothin' but a 
 bloomin' lot o' 'cordions ourselves," he went 
 on, having got his breath, " an' they play any 
 toon they like on us ; an' that's 'ow they 
 make their livin'. S'elp me, Dave, we're all 
 'cordions." And he laughed. 
 
 " Um — yus," the other man grunted. And 
 he looked curiously at his mate; for he had 
 never heard that sort of laugh before. 
 
 But Joey fondled the conceit, and returned 
 to it from time to time; now aloud, now to 
 himself. " All 'cordions; playin' any toon as 
 is ordered, blimy. . . Are we 'cordions? 
 /don't b'lieve we're as much as that. . . 
 no, s'elp me. We're on'y the footlin' little 
 keys ; shoved about to soot the toon. . . 
 Little tin keys, blimy . . . footlin' little 
 keys. . . I've bin played on plenty, / 
 *ave." 
 
 Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried 
 to talk of other things. But Joey rarely 
 heard him. " I've bin played on plenty, /
 
 6o 
 
 'ave," he persisted. " I was played on once 
 by a pal ; an' my spring broke." 
 
 At nightfall there was more bad luck. 
 They were driven from a likely barn by a 
 leather-gaitered man with a dog, and for 
 some distance no dormitory could be found. 
 Then it was a cut haystack, with a nest near 
 the top and steps to reach it. 
 
 In the night Burge was wakened by a 
 clammy hand upon his face. There was a 
 thick mist. 
 
 " It's you, Dave, ain't it ?" Clayton 
 was saying. " Good Gawd, I thought I'd 
 lawst you. What's all this 'ere — not the 
 water, is it? — not the dock? I'm soppin' 
 wet." 
 
 Burge himself was wet to the skin. He 
 made Joey lie down, and told him to sleep, 
 but a coughing fit prevented that. " It was 
 them 'cordions woke me," he explained when 
 it was over. 
 
 So the night put on the shuddering 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 dizzi- 
 ness and faintness. " It's my spring broke," 
 he would say after such an attack. " Bloom- 
 in' little tin key put out o' toon." And once
 
 6i 
 
 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 lad\ r give it 
 you. You come an' git a drop o' beer." 
 
 They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap- 
 room of a small tavern, and Dave had mild 
 ale himself, but saw that Joey was served 
 with stout with a penn'orth of gin in it. 
 Soon the gin and stout reached Joey's head, 
 and he 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 two- 
 penny loaf into his pocket. He took a piece 
 of chalk from the bagatelle board in the cor. 
 ner, and wrote this on the table : — " dr. sir. 
 for god sake take him to the work House." 
 
 Then he gathered up the coppers where 
 they lay, and stepped quietly into the street.
 
 TO BOW BRIDGE 
 
 The eleven-five tram-car from Stratford 
 started for Bow a trifle before its time. The 
 conductor knew what he might escape by 
 stealing a march on the closing public-houses; 
 as also what was in store for all the con- 
 ductors in his wake, till there were no more 
 revelers 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 door at 
 eleven under Act of Parliament, whereas 
 beyond the Bridge, which is the county of 
 London, the law gives them another hour, 
 and a man may drink many pots therein. 
 And for this, at eleven every Saturday, there 
 is a great rush westward, a vast migration 
 over Lea, from all the length of High Street. 
 From the nearer parts they walk, or do their 
 best to walk ; but from further Stratford, by 
 the Town Hall, the Church, and the Martyrs' 
 Memorial, they crowd the cars. For one 
 
 [62]
 
 63 
 
 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 con- 
 ductor's forlorn hope, but taking care to sit 
 at the extreme fore-end inside. In the broad 
 street the market clamored and flared, its 
 lights and shadows flickering and fading 
 about the long churchyard and the steeple in 
 the midst thereof; and toward the distant 
 lights, the shining road sparkled in long 
 reaches, like a blackguard river. 
 
 A gap fell here and there among the lights 
 where a publican put his gas out ; and at 
 these points the crowds thickened. A quiet 
 mechanic came in, and sat near a decent 
 woman with children, a bundle, a basket, and 
 a cabbage. Thirty yards on the car rumbled 
 and suddenly its hinder end was taken in a 
 mass of people — howling, struggling and 
 blaspheming — who stormed and wrangled in 
 at the door and up the stairs. There were 
 lads and men whooping and flushed, there
 
 6 4 
 
 were girls and women screaming- choruses ; 
 and in a moment the seats were packed, 
 knees were taken, and there was not an inch 
 of standing room. The conductor cried 
 "All full!" and tugged at his bell-strap, 
 whereunto many were hanging by the hand ; 
 but he was swept from his feet, and made to 
 push hard for his own place. And there was 
 no more foothold on the back platform nor 
 the front, nor any vacant step upon the stair- 
 way ; and the roof was thronged; and the 
 rest of the crowd was fain to waylay the next 
 car. 
 
 This one moved off slowly, with shrieks 
 and howls that were racking to the wits. 
 From divers quarters of the roof came a 
 bumping thunder as of cellar-flapping clogs. 
 Profanity was sluiced down, as it were by 
 pailfuls, from above, and was swilled back 
 as it were in pailfuls from below. Blowses in 
 feathered bonnets bawled hilarious obscenity 
 at the jiggers. A little maid with a market- 
 basket, hustled and jostled and elbowed at 
 the far end, listened eagerly, and laughed 
 when she could understand ; and the quiet 
 mechanic, whose knees had been invaded by 
 an unsteady young woman in a crushed hat, 
 tried to look pleased. My own knees were 
 saved from capture by the near neighbor-
 
 65 
 
 hood of an enormous female, seated partly on 
 the seat and partly on myself, snorting and 
 gulping with sleep, her head upon the next 
 man's shoulder. (To offer your seat to a 
 standing woman would, as beseems a foreign 
 antic, have been visited by the ribaldry of 
 the whole crowd.) In the midst of the riot 
 the decent woman sat silent and indifferent, 
 her children on and about her knees. Further 
 along, two women ate fish with their fingers 
 and discoursed personalities in voices which 
 ran strident through the uproar, as the odor 
 of their snack asserted itself in the general 
 fetor. And opposite the decent woman there 
 sat a bonnetless drab, who said nothing, but 
 looked at the decent woman's children as a 
 shoeless brat looks at the dolls in a toyshop 
 window. 
 
 " So I ses to 'er, I ses" — this from the 
 snacksters — " I'm a respectable married 
 woman, I ses. More'n you can say, you 
 barefaced hussey, I ses — " Then a shower of 
 curses, a shout and a roar of laughter ; and 
 the conductor, making slow and laborious 
 progress with the fares nearest him, turned 
 his head. A man had jumped upon the foot- 
 board and a passenger's toes. A scuffie and 
 a fight, and both had rolled off into the mire, 
 and got left behind. " Ain't they fond o' one
 
 66 
 
 another?" cried a girl. " They're a-goin' for 
 a walk together ;" and there was a guffaw. 
 " The silly bleeders '11 be too late for the pubs," 
 said a male voice, and there was another, for 
 the general understanding was touched. 
 
 Then — an effect of sympathy, perhaps — a 
 scuffle broke out on the roof. But this dis- 
 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 neighbor's 
 shoulder; and the shabby strumpet looked at 
 the children. 
 
 A man by the door vomited his liquor ; 
 whereat was more hilarity, and his neighbors, 
 with many yaups, shoved further up the mid- 
 dle. But one of the little ones, standing 
 before her mother, was pushed almost to fall- 
 ing ; and the harlot, seeing her chance, 
 snatched the child upon her knee. The child 
 looked up, something in wonder, and smiled ; 
 and the woman leered as honestly as she 
 might, saying a hoarse word or two. 
 
 Presently the conflict overhead, waxing
 
 6 7 
 
 and waning to an accompaniment of angry 
 shouts, afforded another brief diversion to 
 those within, and something persuaded the 
 standing passengers to shove toward the 
 door. The child had fallen asleep in the 
 street-walker's arms. " Jinny !" cried the 
 mother, reaching forth and shaking her. 
 "Jinny! wake up now — you mustn't go to 
 sleep." And she pulled the little thing from 
 her perch to where she had been standing. 
 
 The bonnetless creature bent forward, and, 
 in her curious voice (like that of one sick 
 with shouting), " She can set on my knee, 
 m'm, if she likes," she said ; " she's tired." 
 
 The mother busied herself with a jerky 
 adjustment of the child's hat and shawl. 
 " She mustn't go to sleep," was all she said, 
 sharply, and without looking up. 
 
 The hoarse woman bent further forward, 
 with a propitiatory grin. " 'Ow old is she ? 
 
 . . . I'd like to — give 'er a penny." 
 
 The mother answered nothing; but drew 
 the child close by the side of her knee, where 
 a younger one was sitting, and looked steadily 
 through the fore windows. 
 
 The hoarse woman sat back, unquestioning 
 and unresentful, and turned her eyes upon 
 them that were crowding over the conductor ; 
 for the car was rising over Bow Bridge.
 
 68 
 
 Front and back they surged down from the 
 roof, and the insides made for the door as 
 one man. The big woman's neighbor rose, 
 and let her fall over on the seat, whence, awak- 
 ing with a loud grunt and an incoherent curse, 
 she rolled after the rest. The conductor, 
 clamant and bedeviled, was caught between 
 the two pellmells and, demanding fares and 
 gripping his satchel, was carried over the 
 footboard in the rush. The stramash over- 
 head 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 bright- 
 ness at the bridge foot — the lights of the 
 Bombay Grab. 
 
 The woman with the children wailed till 
 
 the footboard was clear, and then, carrying 
 
 : child and leading another (her market- 
 
 3 attached about her by indeterminate 
 
 is), she set the two youngsters on the 
 
 pavement, leaving the third on the step of 
 
 the car. The harlot, lingering, lifted the 
 
 child again — lifted her rather high — and set 
 
 her on the path with the others. Then she 
 
 walked away toward the Bombay Grab. A 
 
 man in a blue serge suit was footing it down 
 
 the turning between the public-house and the 
 
 bridsre with drunken swiftness and an inter-
 
 6 9 
 
 mittent stagger; and tightening her shawl, 
 she went in chase. 
 
 The quiet mechanic stood and stretched 
 himself, and took a corner seat near the door; 
 and the tram-car, quiet and vacant, bumped 
 on westward.
 
 THAT BRUTE SIMMONS 
 
 Summons's infamous behavior toward his 
 wife is still matter for profound wonderment 
 among the neighbors. The other women had 
 all along regarded him as a model husband, 
 and certainly Mrs. Simmons was a most con- 
 scientious 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. Sim- 
 mons had been the widowed Mrs. Ford. 
 Ford had got a berth as donkeyman on a 
 tramp steamer, and that steamer had gone 
 clown with all hands off the Cape ; a judg- 
 ment, the widow woman feared, for long 
 years of contumacy which had culminated 
 in the wickedness of taking to the sea, and 
 taking to it as a donkeyman — an immeasur- 
 
 [7o]
 
 able fall for a capable engine-fitter. Twelve 
 years as Mrs. Ford had left her still childless, 
 and childless she remained as Mrs. Simmons. 
 
 As for Simmons, he, it was held, was for- 
 tunate in that capable wife. He was a mod- 
 erately good carpenter and joiner, but no 
 man of the world, and he wanted one. No- 
 body could tell what might not have happened 
 to Tommy Simmons if there had been no Mrs. 
 Simmons to take care of him. He was a 
 meek and quiet man, with a boyish face and 
 sparse, limp whiskers. He had no vices 
 (even his pipe departed him after his mar- 
 riage), and Mrs. Simmons had engrafted on 
 him divers exotic virtues. He went solemnly 
 to chapel every Sunday, under a tall hat, 
 and put a penny — one returned to him for 
 the purpose out of his week's wages — in the 
 plate. Then, Mrs. Simmons overseeing, he 
 took off his best clothes and brushed them 
 with solicitude and pains. On Saturday 
 afternoons he cleaned the knives, the forks, 
 the boots, the kettles and the windows, pa- 
 tiently and conscientiously. On Tuesday 
 evenings he took the clothes to the mangling. 
 And on Saturday nights he attended Mrs. 
 Simmons in her marketing, to carry the par- 
 cels. 
 
 Mrs. Simmons's own virtues were native
 
 7* 
 
 and numerous. She was a wonderful man- 
 ager. Every penny of Tommy's thirty-six or 
 thirty-eight shillings a week was bestowed to 
 the greatest advantage, and Tommy never 
 ventured to guess how much of it she saved. 
 Her cleanliness in housewifery was distract- 
 ing to behold. She met Simmons at the 
 front door whenever he came home, and then 
 and there he changed his boots for slippers, 
 balancing himself painfully on alternate feet 
 on the cold flags. This was because she 
 scrubbed the passage and doorstep turn 
 about with the wife of the downstairs family, 
 and because the stair-carpet was her own. 
 She vigilantly supervised her husband all 
 through the process of "cleaning himself" 
 after work, so as to come between her walls 
 and the possibility of random splashes ; and 
 if, in spite of her diligence a spot remained 
 to tell the tale, she was at pains to impress 
 the fact on Simmons's memory, and to set 
 forth at length all the circumstances of his 
 ungrateful selfishness. In the beginning she 
 had always escorted him to the ready-made 
 clothes shop, and had selected and paid for 
 his clothes ; for the reason that men are such 
 perfect fools, and shopkeepers do as they 
 like with them. But she presently improved 
 on that. She found a man selling cheap
 
 73 
 
 remnants at a street corner, and straightway 
 she conceived the idea of making Simmons's 
 clothes herself. Decision was one of her 
 virtues, and a suit of uproarious check tweeds 
 was begun that afternoon from the pattern 
 furnished by an old one. More, it was fin- 
 ished by Sunday ; when Simmons overcome 
 by astonishment at the feat, was indued in 
 it, and pushed off to chapel ere he could re- 
 cover his senses. The things were not alto- 
 gether comfortable, he found ; the trousers 
 clung tight against his shins, but hung loose 
 behind his heels; and when he sat, it was on 
 a wilderness of hard folds and seams. Also 
 his waistcoat collar tickled his nape, but his 
 coat collar went straining across from 
 shoulder to shoulder; while the main gar- 
 ment bagged generously below, his waist. Use 
 made a habit of his discomfort, but it never 
 reconciled him to the chaff of his shopmates ; 
 for as Mrs. Simmons elaborated successive 
 suits, each one modeled 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, tailor- 
 ing being bad for the eyes, and there was a 
 new tailor's in the Mile End Road, very
 
 74 
 
 cheap, where. . . " Hoyus," she retorted, 
 " you're very consid'rit I dessa)' sittin' there 
 actin' a livin' lie before your own wife 
 Thomas Simmons as though I couldn't see 
 through you like a book. A lot you care 
 about overworkin' me as long as your turn's 
 served throwin' away money like dirt in the 
 street on a lot o' swindlin' tailors an' me 
 workin* an' slavin' 'ere to save a 'apenny an' 
 this is my return for it, 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 bas- 
 ket to do some small shopping, and Simmons 
 was left at home. He washed and put away 
 the tea-things, and then he fell to meditating 
 on a new pair of trousers, finished that day 
 and hanging behind the parlor door. There 
 they hung, in all their decent innocence of 
 shape in the seat, and they were shorter of 
 leg, longer of waist, and wilder of pattern 
 than he had ever worn before. And as he 
 looked on them the small devil of Original
 
 75 
 
 Sin awoke and clamored in his breast. He 
 was ashamed of it, of course, for well he 
 knew the gratitude he owed his wife for those 
 same trousers, among other blessings. Still, 
 there the small devil was, and the small devil 
 was fertile in base suggestions, and could not 
 be kept from hinting at the new crop of work- 
 shop gibes that would spring at Tommy's 
 first public appearance in such things. 
 
 " Pitch 'em in the dustbin !" said the small 
 devil at last ; " it's all they're fit for." 
 
 Simmons turned away in sheer horror of 
 his wicked self, and for a moment thought of 
 washing the tea-things over again by way of 
 discipline. Then he made for the back room, 
 but saw from the landing that the front door 
 was standing open, probably by the fault of 
 the child downstairs. Now a front door 
 standing open was a thing that Mrs. Simmons 
 would not abide ; it looked low. So Sim- 
 mons went down, that she might not be 
 wroth with him for the thing when she came 
 back ; and, as he shut the door, he looked 
 forth into the street. 
 
 A man was loitering on the pavement, and 
 prying curiously about the door. His face 
 was tanned, his hands were deep in the pock- 
 ets of his unbraced blue trousers, and well 
 back on his head he wore the high-crowned
 
 ;6 
 
 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 Sim- 
 mons neither liked nor understood. 
 
 " No," said Simmons, " she ain't in now." 
 
 " You ain't her 'usband, are ye ?" 
 
 "Yus." 
 
 The man took his pipe from his mouth, and 
 grinned silently and long. " Blimy," he said 
 at length, " you look the sort o' bloke she'd 
 like," — and with that he grinned again. Then, 
 seeing that Simmons made ready to shut the 
 door, he put a foot on the sill and a hand 
 against the panel. " Don't be in a 'urry, 
 matey," he said, " I come 'ere t'ave a little 
 talk with you, man to man, d'ye see ?" And 
 he frowned fiercely. 
 
 Tommy Simmons felt uncomfortable, but 
 the door would not shut so he parleyed. 
 " 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 humil-
 
 77 
 
 ity. " 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 years 
 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. 
 " So now we can talk it over — as man to 
 man." 
 
 Simmons slowly shut his mouth, and led the 
 way upstairs mechanically, his fingers still 
 in his hair. A sense of the state of affairs sank 
 gradually into his brain, and the small devil 
 woke again. Suppose this man was Ford ? 
 Suppose he did claim his wife? Would it be 
 a knock-down blow ? Would it hit him out ? 
 — or not? He thought of the trousers, the 
 tea-things, the mangling, the knives, the ket- 
 tles 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 re- 
 plied, having first of all repeated the question
 
 78 
 
 in his own mind. And then he opened the 
 parlor door. 
 
 " Ah," said Ford, looking about him, 
 "you've bin pretty comf table. Them chairs 
 an' things — "jerking his pipe towards them — 
 " was hers — mine ? that is to say, speaking 
 straight, and man to man." He sat down, 
 puffing meditatively at his pipe, and pres- 
 ently : " Well," he continued, " 'ere I am agin, 
 ol' Bob Ford dead an' done for — gawn down 
 in the Moolta?i. On'y I airit 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, tak- 
 ing his pipe from his mouth, and holding it 
 low in his hand. " I know 'Anner. 'Ow 
 d'you find 'er ? Do she make ye clean the 
 winders ?" 
 
 " Well," Simmons admitted uneasily, " I — I 
 do 'elp 'er sometimes, o' course." 
 
 " Ah. An' the knives too, I bet, an' the 
 bloomin' kittles. I know. Wy — " he rose
 
 79 
 
 and bent to look behind Simmons's head — 
 " 's'elp me, I b'lieve she cuts ) r er 'air ! Well, 
 I'm damned ! Jes' wot she would do, too." 
 
 He inspected the blushing Simmons from 
 divers points of advantage. 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 argu- 
 ment all its own way. If this man took his 
 wife back perhaps he'd have to wear those 
 trousers. 
 
 "Ah!" Ford pursued, "she ain't got no 
 milder. An' my davy, wot a jore !" 
 
 Simmons began to feel that this was no 
 longer his business. Plainly, 'Anner was 
 this other man's wife, and he was bound in 
 honor to acknowledge the fact. The small 
 devil put it to him as a matter of duty. 
 
 " Well," said Ford suddenly, " time's short 
 an' this ain't business. I won't be 'arc! on yon, 
 matey. I ought prop'ly to stand on my 
 rights, but seein' as you're a well-meanin' 
 young man, so to speak, an' all settled an' 
 a-livin' 'ere quiet an' matrimonual, I'll" — this 
 with a burst of generosity — " damme, yus, 
 I'll compound the felon)', an' take me 'ook.
 
 So 
 
 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 Sim- 
 mons 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. " It's more'n fair ; it's noble — 
 downright noble, / call it. But I ain't goin' 
 to take a mean advantage o' your good-'arted- 
 ness, Mr. Ford. She's your wife, an' I 
 oughtn't to 'a' come between you. I apolo- 
 gize. 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. 
 
 41 'Old on,' quoth Ford, and got between
 
 8i 
 
 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, appre- 
 hensively. 
 
 " I'll see," said Thomas Simmons in reply, 
 and he made a rush for the staircase. 
 
 Bob Ford heard him open the front door. 
 Then he went to the window, and, just below 
 him, he saw the crown of a bonnet. It 
 vanished, and borne to him from within the 
 door there fell upon his ear the sound of a 
 well-remembered female voice. 
 
 " Where ye goin' now with no 'at ?" asked 
 the voice sharply. 
 
 "Awright, 'Anner — there's — there's some- 
 body 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.
 
 82 
 
 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 Sim- 
 mons's base desertion — under his wife's very 
 e) r es, too — is still an astonishment to the 
 neighbors.
 
 BEHIND THE SHADE 
 
 The street was the common East End 
 street — two parallels of brick pierced with 
 windows and doors. But at the end of one, 
 where the builder had found a remnant of 
 land too small for another six-roomer, there 
 stood an odd box of a cottage, with three 
 rooms and a wash-house. It had a green 
 door with a well-blacked knocker round the 
 corner ; and in the lower window in front 
 stood a " shade of fruit" — a cone of waxen 
 grapes and apples under a glass cover. 
 
 Although the house was smaller than the 
 others, and was built upon a remnant, it was 
 always a house of some consideration. In a 
 street like this mere independence of pattern 
 gives distinction. And a house inhabited by 
 one sole family makes a figure among houses 
 inhabited by two or more, even though it be 
 the smallest of all. And here the seal of 
 respectability was set by the shade of fruit — 
 
 [83]
 
 8 4 
 
 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, more- 
 over, 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 cir- 
 cumstances. They are also watched. 
 
 Still, the neighbors knew the history of the 
 Perkinses, mother and daughter, in its main 
 features, with little disagreement ; having 
 told it to each other, filling in the details 
 when occasion seemed to serve. Perkins, 
 ere he died, had been a shipwright ; and this 
 was when the shipwrights were the aristoc- 
 racy of the work-shops, and he that worked 
 more than three or four days a week was 
 counted a mean slave ; it was long (in fact) 
 before depression, strikes, iron plates, and 
 collective blindness had driven shipbuilding 
 to the Clyde. Perkins had labored no harder 
 than his fellows, had married a tradesman's 
 daughter, and had spent his money with free- 
 dom; 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
 
 85 
 
 girls in a back room over the wash-house. 
 But as the School Board waxed in power, 
 and the tradesmen's pride in regard thereunto 
 waned, the attendance, never large, came 
 down to twos and threes. Then Mrs. Per- 
 kins 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 dis- 
 tinct opinion the adventure bred in the street 
 was Mrs. Webster's, the little Bethelite, who 
 considered it a judgment for sinful pride — 
 for Mrs. Perkins had been a Church-goer. 
 But the neighbors never saw Mrs. Perkins 
 again. The doctor left his patient " as well 
 as she ever would be," but 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 honor. And, meantime, the school 
 had ceased, although Miss Perkins essayed a 
 revival, and joined a Dissenting chapel to 
 that end. 
 
 Then, one day, a card appeared in the
 
 86 
 
 window, over the shade of fruit, with the 
 legend " Pianoforte Lessons." It was not ap- 
 proved by the street. It was a standing 
 advertisement of the fact that the Perkinses 
 had a piano, which others had not. It also 
 revealed a grasping spirit on the part of 
 people able to keep a house to themselves, 
 with red curtains and a shade of fruit in the 
 parlor window ; who, moreover, had been 
 able to give up keeping a school because of 
 ill-health. The pianoforte lessons were eight 
 and-sixpence a quarter, two a week. No- 
 bod}' was ever known to take them but the 
 relieving officer's daughter, and she paid six- 
 pence a lesson, to see how she got on, and 
 left off in three weeks. The card stayed in 
 the window a fortnight longer, and none of 
 the neighbors saw the cart that came in the 
 night and took away the old cabinet piano 
 with the channeled 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 noth- 
 ing 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
 
 87 
 
 were used to flatten their faces against the 
 lower panes, and to discuss the piano, the 
 stuff-bottomed chairs, the antimacassars, the 
 mantlepiece ornaments, and the loo table 
 with the family Bible and the album on it. 
 
 It was soon after this that the Perkinses 
 altogether ceased from shopping — ceased, at 
 any rate, in that neighborhood. Trade with 
 them had already been dwindling, and it was 
 said that Miss Perkins was getting stingier 
 than her mother — who had been stingy 
 enough herself. Indeed, the Perkins de- 
 meanor 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 prac- 
 tise 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 agnin at chapel. 
 
 Then there was a discovery. The spare 
 figure of Miss Perkins was seldom seen in the 
 streets, and then almost always at night ; but 
 on these occasions she was observed to carry 
 parcels, of varying wrappings and shapes. 
 Once, in broad daylight, with a package in 
 newspaper, she made such haste past a shop- 
 window where stood Mrs. Webster and Mrs. 
 Jones, that she tripped on the broken sole of
 
 88 
 
 one shoe, and fell headlong. The newspaper 
 broke away from its pins, and although the 
 woman reached and recovered her parcel be- 
 fore 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, under- 
 took 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 unre- 
 marked, the door being round the coiner, 
 and most people within. One morning, 
 though, Miss Perkins, her best foot foremost, 
 was venturing along a near street with an 
 outgoing parcel — large and triangular and 
 wrapped in white drugget — when the reliev- 
 ing: officer turned the corner across the wav. 
 
 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)
 
 8 9 
 
 he was in the habit of recognizing by a 
 gracious nod. When he met the minister's 
 wife he lifted his hat, instantly assuming an 
 intense frown, in the event of irreverent 
 observation. Now he quite felt that the 
 Perkinses were entitled to some advance 
 upon the nod, although it would be absurd 
 to raise them to a level with the minister's 
 wife. So he had long since established a 
 compromise ; he closed his finger and thumb 
 upon the brim of his hat, and let his hand fall 
 forthwith. Preparing now to accomplish 
 this salute, he was astounded to see that Miss 
 Perkins, as soon as she was aware of his 
 approach, turned her face, which was rather 
 flushed, away from him, and went hurrying 
 onward, looking at the wall on her side of the 
 street. The relieving officer, checking his 
 hand on its way to his hat, stopped and 
 looked after her as she turned the corner, 
 hugging her parcel on the side next the wall. 
 Then he shouldered his umbrella and pur- 
 sued 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 call- 
 ing regularly, because of late Miss Perkins 
 had left her five shillings of rent with Mrs.
 
 go 
 
 Crouch every Saturday evening. He noted 
 with satisfaction the whitened sills and the 
 shade of fruit, behind which the curtains were 
 now drawn close and pinned together. He 
 turned the corner and lifted the bright 
 knocker. Miss Perkins half opened the door, 
 stood in the opening, and began to speak. 
 
 His jaw dropped. " Beg pardon — forgot 
 something. Won't wait — call next week — 
 do just as well;" and he hurried round the 
 corner and down the street, puffing and 
 blowing and staring. " Why, the woman 
 frightened me," he afterward explained to 
 Mrs. Crouch. "There's something wrong 
 with her eyes, and she looked like a corpse. 
 The rent wasn't ready — I could see that 
 before she spoke ; so I cleared out." 
 
 " P'r'aps something's happened to the old 
 lady," suggested Mrs. Crouch. " Anyhow, 
 I should think the rent 'ud be all right." 
 And he thought it would. 
 
 Nobody saw the Perkinses that week. 
 The shade of fruit stood in its old place, but 
 was thought not to have been dusted after 
 Tuesday. Certainly the sills and the door- 
 step 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 embank-
 
 9i 
 
 ment edges. It was as though a great blot 
 had fallen, and had obliterated three days 
 from the calendar. It cleared on Monday 
 morning, and, just as the women in the street 
 were sweeping their steps, Mr. Crouch was 
 seen at the green door. He lifted the 
 knocker, dull and sticky now with the foul 
 vapor, and knocked a gentle rat-tat. There 
 was no answer. He knocked again, a little 
 louder, and waited, listening. But there was 
 neither voice nor movement within. He 
 gave three heavy knocks, and then came 
 round to the front window. There was the 
 shade of fruit, the glass a little duller on the 
 top, the curtains pinned close about it, and 
 nothing to see beyond them. He tapped at 
 the window with his knuckles, and backed 
 into the roadway to look at the one above. 
 This was a window with a striped holland 
 blind and a short net curtain ; but never a 
 face was there. 
 
 The sweepers stopped to look, and one 
 from opposite came and reported that she 
 had seen nothing of Miss Perkins for a week, 
 and that certainly nobody had left the house 
 that morning. And Mr. Crouch grew ex- 
 cited, and bellowed through the keyhole. 
 
 In the end they opened the sash-fastening 
 with a knife, moved the shade of fruit, and
 
 9 2 
 
 got in. The room was bare and empty, and 
 their steps and voices resounded as those of 
 people in an unfurnished house. The wash- 
 house was vacant, but it was clean, and there 
 was a little net curtain in the window. The 
 short passage and the stairs were bare boards. 
 In the back room by the stair-head was a 
 drawn window-blind, and that was all. In 
 the front room with the striped blind and the 
 short curtain there was a bed of rags and old 
 newspapers ; also a wooden box ; and on each 
 of these was a dead woman. 
 
 Both deaths, the doctor found, were from 
 syncope, the result of inanition; and the 
 better-nourished woman — she on the bed — 
 had died the sooner ; perhaps by a day or 
 two. The other case was rather curious; 
 it exhibited a degree of shrinkage in the di- 
 gestive organs unprecedented in his experi- 
 ence. After the inquest the street had an 
 evening's fame ; for the papers printed coarse 
 drawings of the house, and in leaderettes de- 
 manded the abolition of something. Then it 
 became its wonted self. And it was doubted 
 if the waxen apples and the curtains fetched 
 enough to pay Mr. Crouch his fortnight's 
 rent.
 
 THREE ROUNDS 
 
 At six o'clock the back streets were dank 
 and black ; but once in the Bethnal Green 
 Road, blots and flares of gas and naphtha 
 shook and flickered till every slimy cobble 
 in the cartway was silver-tipped. Neddy 
 Milton was not quite fighting-fit. A day's 
 questing for an odd job had left him weary 
 in the feet ; and a lad of eighteen cannot 
 comfortably go unfed from breakfast to 
 night-fall. But box he must, for the shilling 
 was irrecoverable, and so costly a chance 
 must not be thrown away. It was by a bout 
 with the gloves that he looked to mend his 
 fortunes. That was his only avenue of 
 advancement. He could read and write 
 quite decently, and in the beginning might 
 even have been an office-boy, if only the 
 widow, his mother, had been able to give him 
 a good send-off in the matter of clothes. 
 Also, he had had one chance of picking up a 
 
 [93]
 
 94 
 
 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 finish- 
 ing to do for three or four days, and he dis- 
 tinctly 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 pretend- 
 ing not to be hungry, and of starving herself. 
 He almost wished that shilling of entrance- 
 money back in his pocket. There is a deal 
 of stuff to be bought for a shilling ; fried fish, 
 for instance, whereof the aromas, warm and 
 rank, met him thrice in a hundred yards, and 
 the frizzle, loud or faint, sang in his ears 
 all along the Bethnal Green Road. His 
 shilling had been paid over but two days 
 before the last job gave out, and it would be 
 useful now. Still, the investment might turn 
 out a gold mine. Luck must change. 
 Meanwhile, as to being hungry — well, there 
 was always another hole in the belt ! 
 
 The landlord of the Prince Regent public
 
 95 
 
 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 pummelings, had 
 learned the trick of a straight lead, a quick 
 counter, and a timely duck ; and here, in the 
 nine-stone competition to open this very 
 night, he might perchance punch wide the 
 gates of Fortune. For some sporting pub- 
 lican, or discriminating bookmaker from Bow, 
 might see and aprove his sparring, and start 
 him fairly, with money behind him — a pro- 
 fessional. 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 competi- 
 tion. Once he won his bout in the first round, 
 and was beaten in the second ; and once he 
 was beaten in the first, but that was by the 
 final winner, Tab Rosser, who was now 
 matched for a hundred a side, sparred exhibi- 
 tion 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 performances was more than 
 he could reasonably expect. There might be
 
 9 6 
 
 luck in the third trial; but he would like to 
 feel a little fitter. Breakfast (what there was 
 of it) had been ten hours ago, and since there 
 had been but a half-pint of four-ale. It was 
 the treat of a well-meaning friend, but it lay 
 cold on the stomach for want of sold company. 
 Turning into Cambridge Road, he crossed, 
 and went on among the by-streets leading 
 toward Globe Road. Now and again a slight 
 aspersion of fine rain came down the gusts, 
 and further damped his cap and shoulders 
 and the ragged hair that hung over his collar. 
 Also a cold spot under one foot gave him 
 fears of a hole in his boot-sole as he tramped 
 in the chilly mud. 
 
 In the Prince Regent there were many at 
 the bar, and the most of them knew Neddy. 
 
 " Wayo, Ned," said one lad with a pitted 
 face, "you don't look much of a bleed'n' 
 champion. 'Ave a drop o' beer." 
 
 Ned took a sparing pull at the pot, and 
 wiped his mouth on his sleeve. A large man 
 behind him guffawed, and Neddy reddened 
 high. He had heard the joke. The man 
 himself was one of the very backers that 
 might make one's fortune, and the man's com- 
 panion thought it would be unsafe to back 
 Neddy to fight anything but a beefsteak.
 
 97 
 
 " You're drawed with Patsy Beard," one 
 of Ned's friends informed him. " You'll 'ave 
 to buck up." 
 
 This was bad. Patsy Beard, on known 
 form, stood best chance of winning - the com- 
 petition, 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, shoul- 
 dering him quietly out of the group. It was 
 Sam Young, whom Neddy had beaten in an 
 earlier competition. 
 
 " 'Ungry, Neddy ?" he asked, in a corner. 
 
 It was with a shamed face that Neddy con- 
 fessed, for among those in peril of hunger it 
 is disgraceful to be hungry. Sam unpocketed 
 a greasy paper, enveloping a pallid sausage- 
 roll. " 'Ave 'alf o' this,' he said. 
 
 It was a heavy and a clammy thing, but 
 Ned took it, furtively swallowed a large 
 piece, and returned the rest with sheepish 
 thanks. He did not turn again toward the 
 others, but went through to the room where 
 the ring was pitched. 
 
 The proceedings began. First there were 
 exhibition bouts, to play in the company.
 
 98 
 
 Neddy fidgeted. Why couldn't they begin 
 the competition at once ? When they did, his 
 bout would be number five. That would 
 mean at least an hour of waiting ; and the 
 longer he waited the less fit he would feel. 
 
 In time the exhibition sparring was ended, 
 and the real business began. He watched 
 the early bouts feverishly, feeling unaccount- 
 ably anxious. The lads looked strong and 
 healthy. Patsy Beard was as strong as any 
 of them, and heavy. Could he stand it? 
 This excited nervousness was new and diffi- 
 cult to understand. He had never felt like 
 it before. He was almost trembling ; and 
 that lump of sausage-roll had stuck half-way, 
 and made breathing painful work. Patsy 
 Beard was at the opposite corner, surrounded 
 by admirers. He was red-faced, well-fed* 
 fleshy, and confident. His short hair clung 
 shinily about his bullet head. Neddy noted 
 a small piece of court-plaster at the side of 
 his nose. Plainly there was a tender spot, ami 
 it must be gone for, be it cut, or scratch, or 
 only pimple. On the left side, too, quite handy. 
 Come, there \v;is some comfort in that. 
 
 He fell to watching the bout. It was a 
 hard fight, and both the lads were swinging 
 the right again and again for a knock-out. 
 But the pace was too hot, and they were
 
 99 
 
 soon breathing like men about to sneeze, 
 wearily pawing at each other, while their 
 heads hung forward. Somebody jogged him 
 in the back, and he found he must get ready. 
 His dressing was simple. An ill-conditioned 
 old pair of rubber gymnasium shoes replaced 
 his equally ill-conditioned bluchers, and a 
 cotton singlet his shirt ; but his baggy cordu- 
 roys, ragged at the ankles and doubtful at 
 the seat, remained. 
 
 Presently the last pair of boxers was 
 brought into the dressing-room, and one of 
 the seconds, a battered old pug with one eye, 
 at once seized Neddy. " Come along, young 
 *un," he said. " I'm your bloke. Got no 
 flannels? Awright. Jump on the scales." 
 
 There was no doubt as to the weight. He 
 had scaled at eight ^stone thirteen ; now it 
 was eight stone bare. Patsy Beard, on the 
 other hand, weighed the full nine, without an 
 ounce to spare. 
 
 " You're givin' 'im a stone," said the old 
 pug ; " all the more credit 'idin' of 'im. 'Ere, 
 let's shove 'em on. Feel 'em." He grinned 
 and blinked his solitary eye as he pulled on 
 Neddy's hand one of a very black and long- 
 worn pair of boxing-gloves. They were soft 
 and flaccid ; Neddy's heart warmed toward 
 the one-eyed man, for well he knew from
 
 IOO 
 
 many knocks that the softer the glove the 
 harder the fist feels through it. " Sawftest 
 pair in the place, s'elp me," grunted the sec- 
 ond, with one glove hanging from his teeth. 
 " My lad 'ad 'em last time. Come on." 
 
 He snatched a towel and a bottle of water, 
 and hurried Neddy from the dressing-room 
 to the ring. Neddy sat in his chair in the 
 ring-corner, and spread his arms on the ropes ; 
 while his second, arms uplifted, stood before 
 him and ducked solemnly forward and back 
 with the towel flicking overhead. While he 
 was fanning, Neddy was still conscious of the 
 lump of sausage-roll in his chest. Also he 
 fell to wondering idly why they called Beard 
 Patsy, when his first name was Joe. The 
 same reflection applied to Tab Rosser, and 
 Hocko Jones, and Tiggy Magson. But cer- 
 tainly 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.
 
 ior 
 
 climbed through the ropes. " Don't go in- 
 fightinV' he whispered from behind. "Mark 
 'im on the stickin'-plaster ; an' if you don't 
 give 'im a 'idin', bli' me, I'll give you one !" 
 
 " Time !" 
 
 The seconds seized the chairs and dragged 
 them out of the ring, as the lads advanced 
 and shook hands. Patsy Beard flung back 
 his right foot and made a flashy prance with 
 his left knee as they began to spar for an 
 opening ; it was Patsy's way. All Neddy's 
 anxiety was gone. The moment his right 
 foot dropped behind his left, and his left hand 
 rocked, knuckles up, before him, he was a 
 competent workman, with all his tools in 
 order. Even the lump of dough on his chest 
 he felt no more. 
 
 " Buy, buy !" bawled a wag in the crowd, 
 as a delicate allusion to Beard's more ordin- 
 ary occupation. Patsy grinned at the com- 
 pliment, but Neddy confined his attention to 
 business. He feinted with his left, and got 
 back ; but Patsy was not to be drawn. Then 
 Neddy stepped in and led quickly, ducking 
 the counter and repeating before getting 
 away. Patsy came with a rush and fought 
 for the body, but Neddy slipped him, and 
 got in one for nothing on the ear. The com- 
 pany howled.
 
 102 
 
 They sparred in the middle. Patsy led per- 
 functorily with the left now and again, while 
 his right elbow undulated nervously. That 
 foretold an attempt to knock out with the 
 right ; precautions, a straight and persistent 
 left and a wary eye. So Neddy kept poking 
 out his left, and never lost sight of the court- 
 plaster, never of the shifty right. Give and 
 take was the order of the round, and they 
 fought all over the ring. Patsy Beard mak- 
 ing for close quarters, and Neddy keeping off 
 and stopping him with the left. Neddy met a 
 straight punch on the nose that made his eyes 
 water, but through the tears he saw the 
 plaster displaced and a tiny stream of blood 
 trickling toward the corner of Patsy's mouth. 
 Plainly it was a cut. lie broke ground* 
 stopped half-way and banged in left and right. 
 He got a sharp drive on the neck for his 
 pains, and took the right on his elbow ; but he 
 had landed on the spot, and the tiny streak of 
 blood was smeared out wide across Patsy's 
 face. The companj r roared and whistled 
 with enthusiasm. It was a capital rally. 
 
 But now Neddy's left grew slower, and 
 was heavy to lift. From time to time Patsy 
 got in one for nothing, and soon began to 
 drive him about the ring. Neddy fought on, 
 weak and gasping, and longed for the call of
 
 *o3 
 
 time. His arms felt as they were hung with 
 lead, and he could do little more than push 
 feebly. He heard the yell of many voices: 
 11 Now then, Patsy, hout him ! 'Ave 'im out! 
 That's it, Patsy, another like that ! Keep on, 
 Patsy !" 
 
 Patsy kept on. Right and left, above and 
 below, Neddy could see the blows coming. 
 But he was powerless to guard or to return. 
 He could but stagger about, and now and 
 again swing an ineffectual arm as it hung 
 from the shoulder. Presently a flush hit on 
 the nose drove him against the ropes, another 
 in the ribs almost through them. But, a 
 desperate, wide whirl of his right brought it 
 heavily on Patsy's tender spot, and tore open 
 the cut. Patsy winced, and — 
 
 " Time !" 
 
 Neddy was grabbed at the waist and put 
 in his chair. " Good lad !" said the one- 
 eyed pug in his ear as he sponged his face. 
 " Nothink like pluck. But you mustn't go 
 to pieces 'alf through the round. Was it a 
 awk'ard poke upsetcher?" 
 
 Neddy, lying back and panting wildly, 
 shook his head as he gazed at the ceiling. 
 
 " Awright ; try an' save yourself a bit. 
 Keep yer left goin' — you roasted 'im good 
 with that ; 'e'll want a yard o' plaster to-night.
 
 104 
 
 An' when e' gits leadin' loose, take it auf an' 
 give him the right straight from the guard — 
 if you know the trick. Point o' the jaw 
 that's for, mind. 'Ave a cooler." He took a 
 mouthful of water and blew it in a fine spray 
 in Neddy's face, wiped it down, and began 
 another overhead fanning. 
 
 " Seconds out of the ring !" called the 
 time-keeper. 
 
 " Go it my lad " — thus a whisper from be- 
 hind — " you can walk over 'im !" And Neddy 
 felt the wet sponge squeezed against the 
 back of his neck, and the cool water trickling 
 down his spine 
 
 "Time!" 
 
 Neddy was better, though there was a 
 worn feeling in his arm-muscles. Patsy's cut 
 had been well sponged, but it still bled, and 
 Patsy meant giving Neddy no rest. He 
 rushed at once, but was met by a clean right- 
 hander, slap on the sore spot. " Bravo, 
 Neddy !" came a voice, and the company 
 howled as before. Patsy was steadied. He 
 sparred with some caution, twitching the 
 cheek next the cut. Neddy would not lead 
 (for he must save himself), and so the two 
 sparred for a few seconds. Then Patsy 
 rushed again, and Neddy got busy with both 
 hands. Once he managed to get the right in
 
 105 
 
 from the guard as his second had advised, 
 but not heavily. He could feel his strength 
 Groins: — earlier than in the last round — and 
 Patsy was as strong and determined as ever. 
 Another rush carried Neddy against the 
 ropes, where he got two heavy body blows 
 and a bad jaw-rattler. He floundered to the 
 right in an attempt to slip, and fell on 
 his face. He rolled on his side, however, 
 and was up again, breathless and unsteady. 
 There was a sickening throbbing in the 
 crown of his head, and he could scarce lift 
 his arms. But there was no respite ; the 
 other lad was at him again, and he was 
 driven across the ring and back, blindly 
 pushing his aching arms before him, while 
 punch followed punch on nose, ears, jaws, 
 and body, till something began to beat inside 
 his head, louder and harder than all beside, 
 .stunning and sickening him. He could hear 
 the crowd roaring still, but it seemed further 
 off; and the yells of " That's it, Patsy ! Now 
 you're got 'im ! Keep at 'im ! Hout 'im 
 this time !" — came from some other building 
 close by, where somebody was getting a bad 
 licking. Somebody with no control of his 
 legs, and no breath to spit away the blood 
 from his nose as it ran and stuck over his 
 lips. Somebody praying for the end of the
 
 io6 
 
 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 
 jghead ; 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. Oh, it was 
 bad, but it was a rest. 
 
 Cold water was on his face, and somebody 
 spoke. He was in his chair again, and the 
 one-eyed man was sponging him. " It was 
 the call o' time as saved ye then," he said ; 
 "you'd never 'a' got up in the ten seconds, 
 Y'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 thiough 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.
 
 107 
 
 Nurse yer right, an' give it 'im good on the 
 point. 'E'snone so fresh 'isself ; 'e's blowed 
 with the work, an' you pasted 'im fine when 
 you did 'it. Last thing, just before 'e sent 
 ye down, ye dropped a 'ot 'un on 'is beak. 
 Didn't see it, didjer ?'.' The old bruiser 
 rubbed vigorously at his arms, and gave him 
 a small, but welcome, drink of water. 
 
 " Seconds out of the ring ' 
 
 The one-eyed man was gone once more, 
 but again his voice came from behind. 
 " Mind — give it 'im 'ard and give it 'im soon, 
 an' if you feel groggy, chuck it d'reckly. If 
 ye don't, I'll drag ye out by the slack o' yer 
 trousis an' disgrace ye." 
 
 " Time !" 
 
 Neddy knew there was little more than 
 half a minute's boxing left in him — perhaps 
 not so much. He must do his best at once. 
 Fatsy was showing signs of hard wear, and 
 still blew a little ; his nose was encouragingly 
 crimson at the nostrils, and the cut was open 
 and raw. He rushed in with a lead which 
 Neddy ducked and cross-countered, though 
 ineffectually. There were a few vigorous 
 exchanges, and then Neddy staggered back 
 from a straight drive on the mouth. There 
 was a shout of " Patsy !" and Patsy sprang in, 
 right elbow all a-jerk, and flung in the left.
 
 io8 
 
 Neddy guarded wildly, and banged in the 
 right from the guard. Had he hit? He had 
 felt no shock, but there was Patsy, lying on 
 his face. 
 
 The crowd roared and roared again. The- 
 old pug stuffed his chair hastily through the 
 ropes, and Neddy sank into it, panting, with 
 bloodshot eyes. Patsy lay still. The time- 
 keeper watched the second 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 knockout I ever see — smack on 
 the point o' the jaw. Never thought you'd 
 'a' done it. I said there was nothink like 
 pluck, did'n' I ? 'Ave a wash now, an' you'll 
 be all the better for the exercise. Give us 
 them gloves — I'm off for the next bout." And 
 he seized another lad, and marched him out. 
 
 " 'Ave a drop o* beer," said one of Neddy's 
 new-won friends, extending a tankard. He 
 took it, though he scarcely felt awake. He 
 was listless and weak, and would not have 
 moved for an hour had he been left alone. 
 But Patsy was brought to, and sneezed loudly, 
 and Neddy was hauled over to shake hands 
 with him.
 
 109 
 
 "You give me a 'ell of a doin', " said 
 Neddy, "/never thought I'd beat you." 
 
 "Beat me? well you ain't, 'ave you? 
 'Ow ?" 
 
 " Knock-out," answered several at once. 
 
 " Well I'm damned,' said Patsy Beard. . . . 
 
 In the bar, after the evening's business, 
 Neddy sat and looked wistfully at the stout, 
 red-faced men who smoked fourpenny cigars 
 and drank special Scotch; but not one 
 noticed him. His luck had not come after 
 all. But there was the second round of 
 bouts, and the final, in a week's time — per- 
 haps it would come then. If he could only 
 win the final — then it must come. Mean- 
 while he was sick and faint, and felt doubt- 
 ful about getting home. Outside it was rain- 
 ing hard. He laid his head on the bar table 
 at which he was sitting, and at closing time 
 there they found him asleep.
 
 IN BUSINESS 
 
 There was a great effervescence of rumor 
 in Cubitt Town when Ted Munsey came into 
 money. Ted Munsey, commonly alluded to 
 as Mrs. Munsey 's 'usband, was a moulder 
 with a regular job at Moffat's ; a large, quiet 
 man of forty-five, the uncomplaining appur- 
 tenance of his wife. This was fitting, for she 
 had married beneath her, her father having 
 been a dock time-keeper. 
 
 To come into money is an unusual feat in 
 Cubitt Town ; a feat, nevertheless, continu- 
 ally contemplated among possibilities by all 
 Cubitt Towners; who find nothing else in 
 the Sunday paper so refreshing as the para- 
 graphs headed" Windfall for a Cabman" and 
 " A fortune for a Pauper," and who cut them 
 out to pin over the mantelpiece. The hand- 
 some coloring of such paragraphs was repon- 
 sible for many bold flights of fancy in regard 
 to Ted Munsey's fortune ; Cubitt Town, left 
 
 [HO]
 
 Ill 
 
 to itself, being sterile soil for the imagina- 
 tion. Some said that the Munseys had come 
 in for chests packed with bank notes, on the 
 decease of one of Mrs. Mnnsey'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 fore- 
 bears had been " done out of " for many years, 
 by the lawyers. All which Mrs. Munsey, in 
 her hour of trumph, was at little pains to dis- 
 count, although, in simple fact, the fortune 
 was no more than a legacy of a hundred 
 pounds from Ted's uncle, who had kept a 
 public-house in Deptford. 
 
 Of the hundred pounds Mrs. Munsey took 
 immediate custody. There was no guessing 
 what would have become of it in Ted's hands ; 
 probably it would have been, in chief part, 
 irrecoverably lent; certainly it would have 
 gone and left Ted a moulder at Moffatt's, as 
 before. With Mrs. Munsey there was neither 
 hesitation nor difficulty. The obvious use of a 
 hundred pounds was to put its possessors 
 into business — which meant a shop ; to elevate 
 them socially at a single bound beyond the 
 many grades lying between the moulder and 
 the small tradesman. Wherefore the Mun-
 
 112 
 
 seys straightway went into business. Being 
 equally ignorant of every sort of shopkeep- 
 ing, they were free to choose the sort they 
 pleased; and thus it was that Mrs. Munsey 
 decided upon drapery and haberdashery, 
 Ted's contribution to the discussion being 
 limited to a mild hint of green grocery and 
 coals, instantly suppressed as low. Nothing 
 could be more genteel than drapery, and it 
 would suit the girls. General chandlery, 
 sweetstuff, oil and firewood — all these were 
 low, comparatively. Drapery it was, and 
 quickly ; for Mrs. Munsey was not wont to 
 shilly-shally. An empty shop was found in 
 Bromley, was rented, and was stocked as far 
 as possible. Tickets were hung upon every. 
 thing, 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 time-keeping was re- 
 deemed five-fold; dock time-keeping itself 
 was left far below, with carpentering, ship- 
 wrighting, and engine-fitting. The Munseys 
 were in business. 
 
 Ted Munsey stood about helplessly and 
 stared, irksomely striving not to put his 
 hands in his pockets, which was low ; any 
 lapse being instantly detected by Mrs. Mun- 

 
 H3 
 
 sey, who rushed from all sorts of unexpected 
 places and corrected the fault vigorously. 
 
 " I didn't go for to do it, Marier," he 
 explained penitently. " It's 'abit. I'll get 
 out of it soon. It don't look well, I know, 
 in a business ; but it do seem a comfort, 
 somehow." 
 
 "Oh, } r ou an' your comfort! A lot you 
 study my comfort, Hedward!" — for he was 
 Ted no more — " a-toilin' an' a-moilin' with 
 everything to think of myself while you look 
 on with your 'ands in your pockets. Do try 
 and 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 door- 
 way an' starin' up an' down the street, as 
 t.hough 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 of 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
 
 ii4 
 
 alternate feet, and stared at the ceiling, the 
 floor, or the space before him, with an un- 
 happy sense of being- on show and not know- 
 ing 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 result- 
 ing oil from his hand on his trousers ; never 
 looking in the least degree like a shop- 
 walker. 
 
 The first customer was a very small child 
 who came for a ha'porth of pins, and on 
 whom Hedward gazed with much interest 
 and respect, while Mrs. Munsey handed over 
 the purchase ; abating not a jot of his appre- 
 ciation when the child returned, later, to 
 explain that what she really wanted was sew- 
 ing cotton. Other customers were disap- 
 pointingly few. Several old neighbors came 
 in from curiosity, to talk and buy nothing. 
 One woman who looked at many things 
 without buying was discovered after her 
 departure to have stolen a pair of stockings ; 
 and Hedward was duly abused for not keep- 
 ing a sharp look-out while his wife's back was 
 turned. Finally, the shutters went up on a 
 day's takings of three and sevenpence farth- 
 ing, including a most dubious threepenny bit. 
 But, then, as Mrs Munsey said, when you are
 
 n5 
 
 in business you must expect trade to vary ; 
 and of course there would be more customers 
 when the shop got known ; although Hed- 
 ward certainly might have taken the trouble 
 to find one in a busier thoroughfare. Hed- 
 ward (whose opinion in that matter, as in 
 others, had never been asked) retired to the 
 back-yard to smoke a pipe — a thing he had 
 been pining for all day; but was quickly re- 
 called (the pipe being a clay) upon Mrs. 
 Munsey's discovering that the act could be 
 observed from a neighbor's window. He 
 was continually bringing the family into dis- 
 grace, and Mrs. Munsey despaired aloud over 
 him far into the night. 
 
 The days came and went, and trade varied, 
 as a fact, very little indeed. Between three 
 and sevenpence farthing and nothing the 
 scope for fluctuation is small, and for some 
 time the first day's record was never ex- 
 ceeded. But on the fifth day a customer 
 bought nearly seven shillings worth all at 
 once. Her husband had that day returned 
 from sea with money, and she, after months 
 of stint, indulged in an orgie of haberdashery 
 at the nearest shop. Mrs. Munsey was reas- 
 sured. Trade was increasing ; perhaps an 
 assistant would be needed soon, in addition 
 to the two girls.
 
 n6 
 
 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 un- 
 presentable by inordinate blubbering. This 
 was because of Mrs. Munsey's prohibition of 
 more company-keeping with J'ck Page. Jack 
 was a plumber, just out of his lime — rather a 
 catch for a moulder's daughter, but impos- 
 sible, of course, for the daughter of people in 
 business, as Emma should have had the 
 proper feeling to see for herself. This Emma 
 had not ; she wallowed in a luxury of woe, 
 exacerbated on occasions to poignancy by 
 the scoldings and sometimes by the th limp- 
 ings of her mar; and neglected even the 
 select weekly quadrille class, membership 
 whereof was part of the novel splendor. 
 
 But there was never again a seven-shilling 
 customer. The state of trade perplexed Mrs. 
 Munsey beyond telling. Being in business, 
 one must, by the circumstance, have a genteel 
 competence; this was an elementary axiom 
 in Cubitt Town. But where was the money? 
 What was the difference between this and 
 other shops? Was a screw loose anywhere ? 
 In that case it certainly could not be her 
 fault; wherefore she nagged Hedward. 
 
 One day a polite young man called in a
 
 U7 
 
 large pony-trap and explained the whole 
 mystery. Nobody could reasonably expect 
 to succeed in a business of this sort, who did 
 not keep a good stock of the fancy aprons 
 and lace bows made by the firm he was 
 charged to represent. Of course, he knew 
 what business was, and that cash was not 
 always free, but that need never hinder 
 transactions with him ; three months' credit 
 was the regular thing with any respectable, 
 well-established business concern, and in three 
 months one would certainly sell all the fancy 
 aprons and lace bows of this especial kind 
 and price that one had room for. And he 
 need scarcely remind a lady of Mrs. Munsey's 
 business experience that fancy aprons and 
 lace bows — of the right sort — were by far the 
 most profitable goods known to the trade. 
 Everybody knew that. Should they say a 
 gross of each, just to go on with? No? 
 Well, then half a gross. These prices were 
 cut so near that it really did not pay to split 
 the gross, but this time, to secure a good 
 customer, he would stretch a point. Mrs. 
 Munsey was enlightened. Plainly the secret 
 of success in business was to buy advan- 
 tageously, in the way the polite young man 
 suggested, sell at a good price, and live on 
 the profits, merely paying over the remainder
 
 n8 
 
 at the end of three months. Nothing could 
 be simpler. So she began the system forth- 
 with. Other polite young men called, and 
 further, certain profits were arranged for on 
 similar terms. 
 
 The weak spot in the plan was the absence 
 of any binding arrangement with the general 
 public; and this was not long in discovering 
 itself. Nobody came to buy the fancy aprons 
 and the lace bows, tempting as they might 
 seem. Moreover, after they had hung a week 
 or more, Alice reported that a large shop in 
 the Commercial Road was offering, by retail, 
 aprons and bows of precisely the same sort 
 at a less price than the polite young man had 
 charged for a wholesale purchase. Mrs. 
 Munsey grew desperate, and Hedward's life 
 became a horror unto him. He was set to 
 stand at the door with a fancy apron in one 
 hand and a lace bow in the other, and capture 
 customers as they passed ; a function wherein 
 he achieved detestable failure ; alarming 
 passing women (who considered him danger- 
 ously drunk) as greatly as his situation dis- 
 tressed himself. 
 
 Mrs. Munsey grew more desperate, and 
 drove Hedward to the rear of the house, with 
 bitter revilings. Money must be got out of 
 the stock somehow. That a shop could in
 
 ii 9 
 
 any circumstances be unremunerative puz- 
 zled as much as it dismayed her. The goods 
 were marked down to low prices — often lower 
 than cost. Still Mrs. Munsey had the abid- 
 ing conviction that the affair must pay, as 
 others did, if only she might hold out long 
 enough. Hed ward's suggestion that he 
 should return to the moulding, coming and 
 going as little in sight as possible, she re- 
 pelled savagely. " A nice notion you've got 
 o' keepin' up a proper position. You ain't 
 content with disgracin' me and yourself too, 
 playin' the fool in the shop till trade's ruined 
 an' nobody won't come near the place — an* I 
 don't wonder at it. . . You're a nice 
 sort of 'usband, I must say. What are you 
 goin' to do now, with the business in this 
 pretty mess, an' your wife an' children ready 
 to starve? What are yon goin' to do? 
 Where are you goin' to turn ? That's what I 
 want to know." 
 
 " Well, I'm a-thinkin' it out, Marier, in a 
 legal point. P'r'aps, you know, my dear — " 
 " Oh, don't dear me. I 'ate a fool." 
 Marked as low as they might be, none of 
 the aprons nor the bows nor the towels nor 
 the stockings nor any other of the goods 
 were bought — nevera thing beyond a ha'porth 
 of thread or a farthing bodkin. Rent had to
 
 120 
 
 .be paid, and even food cost money. There 
 was a flavor of rank disappointment about 
 Saturday — the pay day of less anxious times ; 
 and quarter-day, when all these polite young 
 men would demand the money that was not — 
 that day was coming, black and soon. Mrs. 
 Munsey grew more desperate than ever; 
 sharp of feature, and aged. Alone, she would 
 probably have wept. Having Hedward at 
 hand, she poured forth her bitterness of spirit 
 upon him ; till at last he was nagged out of 
 his normal stolidity, and there came upon his 
 face the look of a bullock that is harried on 
 all hands through unfamiliar streets. 
 
 On a night when, from sheer weariness of 
 soul, she fell from clatter toward sleep, of a 
 sudden Hedward spoke. " Marier — " he 
 said. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You ain't give me a kiss lately. Kiss me 
 now." 
 
 " Don't be a fool. I'm sick and tired. Go 
 to sleep, if you can sleep, with everything — " 
 
 " Kiss me, I tell you !" He had never com- 
 manded like that before. She marveled, 
 feared a little, and obeyed. 
 
 In the morning when she awoke, he had 
 already gone downstairs. This was as usual. 
 When she followed, however, he was not to
 
 121 
 
 be found in the house. The shop shutters 
 had been taken down, and the windows care- 
 fully cleaned, although it was not the regular 
 window-cleaning day ; but the door was shut. 
 On the sitting-room table were two papers, 
 one within the other. The first was written 
 with many faults and smudges, and this was 
 how it ran : 
 
 " the deed and testiment of Ed. Munsey 
 this is to cirtiffy that i" make over all my 
 propperty to my belov d wife stock bisness 
 and furnitur so help me god all detts i keep to 
 pay myself and my wife is not ansrable for 
 them and certiffy that I O U Minchin and 
 co 9 pound 4\7i Jones and son 6 pound 13X2 
 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 dock- 
 erment after thinking it out it will make you 
 alrite having all made over and me still oawe 
 the detts not you as you can pull round the 
 bisness as you said with time and if you do 
 not see me again will you pay the detts when 
 it is pull round as we have been allways hon- 
 nest and straght i should wish for Emma to
 
 122 
 
 keep co with Jhon Page if cnn be mannaged 
 he might be shop walker and you will soon 
 all be rich swels i know so no more from 
 yours affec husband Ed. Munsey 
 
 " love to Emma and Alice this one must be 
 burnt keep the other" 
 
 Near the papers lay Ted Munsey 's large 
 silver watch and chain, the silver ring that 
 he used to fasten his best tie, three keys, and 
 a few coppers. Upstairs the girls began to 
 move about. Mrs. Munsey sat with her 
 frightened face on the table.
 
 THE RED COW GROUP 
 
 The Red Cow Anarchist Group no longer 
 exists. Its leading spirit appears no more 
 among his devoted comrades, and without 
 him they are ineffectual. 
 
 He was but a young man, this leading 
 spirit (his name, by-the-bye, was Sotcher), 
 but of his commanding influence among the 
 older but unlettered men about him, read 
 and judge. For themselves, they had long 
 been plunged in a beery apathy, neither re- 
 garding nor caring for the fearful iniquities 
 of the social system that oppressed them. 
 A Red Cow Group they had always been, 
 before the coming of Sotcher to make an- 
 archists of them ; foregathering in a remote 
 compartment of the Red Cow bar, reached 
 by a side door in an alley, a compartment 
 uninvaded and almost undiscovered by any 
 but themselves, where night after night they 
 drank their beer and smoked their pipes, 
 
 [123]
 
 124 
 
 sunk in a stagnant ignorance of their mani- 
 fold wrongs. During the day Old Baker re- 
 mained to garrison the stronghold. He was 
 a long-bankrupt tradesman, with invisible re- 
 sources and no occupation but this, and no 
 known lodging but the Red Cow snuggery. 
 There he remained all day and every day, 
 "holding the fort," as he put it, with his 
 nose, a fiery signal of possession, never two 
 feet from the rim of his pot ; while Jerry 
 Shand was carrying heavy loads in Columbia 
 Market; while Gunno Poison was running 
 for a book-maker in Fleet Street ; while 
 Snorkey was wherever his instinct took him, 
 doing whatever paid best, and keeping out of 
 trouble as long as he could ; and while the 
 rest of the group — two or three — picked a 
 living out of the London heap in ways and 
 places unspecified. But at evening they 
 joined Old Baker, and they filled their snug- 
 gery. 
 
 Their talk was rarely of politics, and never 
 of " social problems ;" present and immediate 
 facts filled their whole field of contemplation. 
 Their accounts were kept, and their refer- 
 ences to pecuniary matters were always 
 stated, in terms of liquid measure. Thus, 
 fourpence was never spoken of in the com- 
 mon way ; it was a quart, and a quart was the
 
 125 
 
 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 revolu- 
 tionary appeared before the Red Cow Group 
 with his message of enlightenment. Snor- 
 key (who was christened something else that 
 nobody knew or cared about) had a trick of 
 getting into extraordinary and unheard of 
 places in his daily quest of quarts, and he 
 had met Sotcher in a loft at the top of a 
 house in Berners Street, Shadwell. It was a 
 loft where the elect of Anarchism congre- 
 gated nightly, and where everybody lectured 
 all the others. Sotcher was a very young 
 Anarchist, restless by reason of not being 
 sufficiently listened to, and glad to find out- 
 siders to instruct and to impress with a full 
 sense of his sombre, mystic dare-devilry. 
 Therefore he came to the Red Cow with 
 Snorkey, to spread (as he said) the light. 
 
 He was not received with enthusiasm, per- 
 haps because of a certain unlaundered aspect 
 of person remarkable even to them of the 
 Red Cow Group. Grease was his chief ex- 
 terior characteristic, and his thick hair, turn- 
 ing up over his collar, seemed to have lain 
 for long unharried of brush or comb. His
 
 126 
 
 face was a sebaceous trickle of long features, 
 and on his hands there was a murky deposit 
 that looked like scales. He wore, in all 
 weathers, a long black coat with a rectangu- 
 lar rent in the skirt, and his throat he clipped 
 in a brown neckerchief that on a time had 
 been of the right Anarchist red. But no 
 want of welcome could abash him. Here*, 
 indeed, he had an audience, an audience that 
 did not lecture on its own account, a crude 
 audience that might take him at his own 
 valuation. So he gave it to that crude audi- 
 ence, 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 repeti- 
 tion 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 deserving than himself. 
 
 " Wy are we pore ?" asked Sotcher, lean- 
 ing forward and jerking his extended palm 
 from one to another, as though attempting a 
 hasty collection. " I ask you straight, wy 
 are we pore ? Why is it, my f rien's, that
 
 127 
 
 awften and awften you find you ain't got a 
 penny in yer pocket, not for to git a crust 
 o' bread or 'alf a pint o' reasonable refresh- 
 ment? 'Ow is it that 'appens? Agin I ask, 
 'ow ?" 
 
 Snorkey, with a feeling that an answer was 
 expected from somebody, presently mur- 
 mured, " No mugs," which encouraged 
 Gunno Poison to suggest " Backers all stony- 
 broke." Jerry Shand said nothing, but 
 reflected on the occasional result of a day on 
 the loose. Old Baker neither spoke nor 
 thought. 
 
 " I'll tell you, me frien's. It's 'cos o' the 
 rotten state o' s'ciety. VVy d'you allow the 
 lazy, idel, 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 iukshry an' starve yerselves? Wy don't 
 you go an' take your shares o' the wealth 
 lyin' round you ?" 
 
 There was another pause. Gunno Poison 
 looked at his friends one after another, spat 
 emphatically, and said " Coppers." 
 
 " Becos o' the brute force as the privileged 
 classes is 'edged theirselves in with, that's 
 all. Becos o' the paid myrmidons armed an' 
 kep' to make slaves o' the people. Becos o' 
 the magistrates an' p'lice. Then wy not git
 
 128 
 
 rid o' the magistrates an' p'lice? They're no 
 good, are they ? 'Oo wants 'em I ask ? 'Oo ?" 
 
 " They are a noosance," admitted Snorke}', 
 who had done a little time himself. Me was 
 a mere groundling, and persisted in regard- 
 ing the proceedings as simple conversation, 
 instead of as an oration with pauses at the 
 proper places. 
 
 " Nobody wants 'em — nobody as is any 
 good. Then don't 'ave 'em, me frien's — don't 
 'ave 'em! It all rests with you. Don't 'ave 
 no magistrates nor p'lice, nor gover'ment, 
 nor parliament, nor monarchy, nor county 
 council, nor nothink. Make a clean sweep 
 of 'em. Blow 'em up. Then you'll 'ave yer 
 rights. The time's comin', I tell you. It's 
 comin', take my word for it. Now you toil 
 an' slave ; then everybody'll 'ave to work 
 w'ether 'e likes it or not, and two hours' work 
 a day'll be all you'll 'ave to do." 
 
 Old Baker looked a little alarmed, and for 
 a moment paused in his smoking. 
 
 " Two hours a day at most, that's all ; an' 
 all yer wants provided for, free an' liberal." 
 Some of the group gave a lickerish look 
 across the bar. " No a'thority, no gover'- 
 ment, no privilege, an' nothink to interfere. 
 Free contrack between man an' man, subjick 
 to free revision an' change.
 
 129 
 
 " 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 Poison musingly, rotat- 
 ing his pot horizontally before him to stir the 
 beer ; ' - that 'ud be 'andy sometimes. They 
 call it welshin' now." 
 
 The light spread fast and free, and in a few 
 nights the Red Cow Group was a very prom- 
 ising little bed of anarchy. Sotcher was at 
 pains to have it reported at two places west 
 of Tottenham Court Road and at another in 
 Dean Street, Soho, that at last a comrade had 
 secured an excellent footing with a party of 
 the proletariat of East London, hitherto 
 looked on as hopeless material. More, that 
 an early manifestation of activity might be 
 expected in that quarter. Such activity had 
 been held advisable of late, in view of certain 
 extraditions. 
 
 And Sotcher's discourse at the Red Cow 
 turned, lightly and easily, toward the ques- 
 tion of explosives. Anybody could make
 
 130 
 
 them, he explained ; nothing simpler, with 
 care. And here he posed at large in the 
 character of mysterious desperado, the 
 wonder and admiration of all the Red Cow 
 Group. They should buy nitric acid, he said, 
 of the strongest sort, and twice as much 
 sulphuric acid. The shops where they sold 
 photographic materials were best and cheap- 
 est for these things, and no questions were 
 asked. They should mix the acids, and then 
 add gently, drop by drop, the best glycerine, 
 taking care to keep everything cool. After 
 which the whole lot must be poured into 
 water, to stand for an hour. Then a thick, 
 yellowish, oily stuff would be found to have 
 sunk to the bottom, which must be passed 
 through several pails of water to be cleansed; 
 and there it was, a terrible explosive. You 
 handled it with care, and poured it on brick- 
 dust or drv 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 moutliwards. 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,
 
 I3i 
 
 me frien's — one o' the pioneers that goes to 
 show the way for the active workers like you. 
 I on'y come to explain the principles an* set 
 you in the right road to the social revolution, 
 so as you may get yer rights at last. It's for 
 you to act." 
 
 Then he explained that action might be 
 taken in two ways; either individually or by 
 mutual aid in the group. Individual work 
 was much to be preferred, being safer ; but 
 a particular undertaking often necessitated 
 co-operation. But that was for the workers 
 to settle as the occasion arose. However, 
 one thing must be remembered. If the group 
 operated, each man must be watchful of the 
 rest ; there must be no half measures, no tim- 
 orousness ; any comrade wavering, temporiz- 
 ing, or behaving in any way suspiciously, 
 must be straightway suppressed. There must 
 be no mistake about that. It was desperate 
 and glorious work, and there must be desper- 
 ate 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 finger, as of one ac- 
 customed 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.
 
 132 
 
 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 build- 
 ings, a public office was probably to be pre- 
 ferred — something in Whitehall, say. Or a 
 bank — nobody seemed to have tried a bank; 
 he offered the suggestion now. Of course 
 there were not many public buildings in the 
 East End, but possibly the group would like 
 to act in their own neighborhood ; it would 
 be a novelty and would attract notice; the 
 question was one for their own decision, 
 independent freedom of judgment being the 
 right thing in these matters. There were 
 churches, of course, and the factories of the 
 bloated capitalist. Particularly, he might 
 suggest the gas-works close by. There was 
 a large gasometer abutting on the street, and 
 probably an explosion there would prove 
 tremendously effective, putting the lights out 
 everywhere, and attracting great attention in 
 the papers. That was glory. 
 
 Jerry Shand hazarded a remark about the 
 lives of the men in the gas-works ; but Sotcher 
 explained that that was a trivial matter. 
 Revolutions were never accomplished without 
 bloodshed, and a few casual lives were not to 
 be weighed in the balance against the gloru
 
 133 
 
 ous consummation of the social upheaval. 
 He repeated his contention, when some 
 weaker comrade spoke of the chance of dan- 
 ger 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 hundredfold vengeance on the enemy in 
 the day to come! The martyr's crown was 
 his who should die at the post of duty. 
 
 His eloquence prevailed ; there were mur- 
 murs no more. "'Ere, tell us the name of 
 the stuff ngin," broke out Gunno Poison, re- 
 solutely, feeling for a pencil and paper. 
 " Blimy, I'll make some to-morrer." 
 
 He wrote down the name of the ingredi- 
 ents with much spelling. " Thick, yuller, 
 oil} 7 stuff, ain't it, wot you make ?" he asked. 
 
 " Yus — an' keep it cool." 
 
 The group broke up, stern and resolute, 
 and Sotcher strode to his home exultant, a 
 man of power. 
 
 For the next night or two the enthusiasm 
 at the Red Cow was unbounded. There was 
 no longer any questioning of principles or 
 action — every man was an eager anarchist — 
 strong and devoted in the cause. The little 
 chemical experiment was going on well,
 
 134 
 
 Gunno Poison reported, with confident nods 
 and winks. Sotcher repeated his discourse, 
 as a matter of routine, to maintain the gen- 
 eral ardor, which had, however, to endure a 
 temporary check as the result of a delicate 
 inquiry of Snorkey's, as to what funds might 
 be expected from headquarters. For there 
 were no funds, said Sotcher, somewhat sur- 
 prised at the question. 
 
 "Wot?" demanded Jerry Shand, opening 
 his mouth and putting down his pipe ; "ain't 
 we goin' to got 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 cheerfulness, with zeal 
 no whit abated. The sitting closed with 
 promises of an early gathering for the next 
 night.
 
 i35 
 
 But when the next night came Sotcher was 
 later than usual. " 'Ullo," shouted Gunno 
 Poison, 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 whis- 
 pered hoarsely. " Don't shake it, for Gawd's 
 sake! . . . Wot — wotjer bring it 'ere for, 
 like that? It's — it's awful stuff, blimy." He 
 looked uneasily about the group, and wiped 
 his forehead with the back of his hand. " I 
 — I thought you'd git the job over soon as 
 the stuff was ready. . 'Ere, my Gawd !" 
 
 he squeaked under his breath, " don't put it 
 down 'ard on the table like that. It's sich — 
 sich awful stuff." He wiped his forehead 
 again, and, still standing, glanced once more 
 apprehensively round the circle of impassive 
 faces. Then after a pause, he asked, with an 
 effort : " Wot — wotjer goin' to do now ?" 
 
 " Blow up the bleed'n' gasworks, o' 
 course," answered Gunno Poison, compla- 
 cently. " '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 ougrht to
 
 136 
 
 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 awfid stuff it 
 is — s'elp me, you don't ! You — you'll blow 
 us all up if you don't keep it still. Y — you'll 
 want some — other things. I'll go an' — " 
 
 But Jerry Shand stood grimly against the 
 door. "This 'ere conspiracy '11 'ave to be 
 gawn through proper," he said. " We can't 
 'ave no waverers nor blokes wot want to 
 clear out in the middle of it, and p'r'aps go 
 an' tell the p'lice. Them sort we 'as to sup- 
 press, 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 re- 
 plied, " 'fore you come. We voted it — by 
 ballot, all square. If you'd 'a' come earlier 
 you'd 'a' 'ad a vote ycrsclf." 
 
 Sotcher pushed at Jerry's shoulder, de- 
 spairingly. "I won't, 1 won't!" he gasped. 
 "Lemme <ro — it ain't fair — 1 wasn't 'ere — 
 
 lemme so !
 
 137 
 
 " None o' yer shovin', young man," said 
 Jerry, severely. " None o' }>er shovin', else I'll 
 'ave to punch you on the jore. You're a 
 bleedin' nice conspirator, you are. It's pretty 
 plain we can't depend on you, an' you know 
 wot that means — eh? Doncher? You're one 
 o' the sort as 'as to be suppressed, that's 
 wot it means. 'Ere, 'ave a drink o' this 
 'ere beer, an' see if that can't put a little 
 'art in ye. You got to do it, so you may as 
 well do it cheerful. Snorkey, give 'im a drink." 
 
 But the wretched revolutionary would not 
 drink. He sank in a corner — the furthest 
 from the table where Gunno Poison was 
 packing his dreadful canister — a picture of 
 stupid affright. 
 
 Presently he thought of the bar — a mere 
 yard of counter in an angle of the room, with 
 a screen standing above it — and conceived a 
 wild notion of escape by scrambling over. 
 But scarce had he risen ere the watchful Jerry 
 divined his purpose. 
 
 " 'Old 'im, Snorkey," he said. " Keep 'im 
 in the corner. An' if 'e wont drink that beer 
 pour it over 'is 'ead." 
 
 Snorkey obeyed gravely and conscien- 
 tiously, and the bedraggled Sotcher, cowed 
 from protest, whined and sobbed desolately. 
 
 When all was ready, Jerry Shand said :
 
 138 
 
 " I s'pose it's no good askin' you to do it 
 willin' like a man ?" 
 
 " Oh, let me go, I — I ain't well — s'elp me, I 
 ain't. I — I might do it wrong — an' — an' — I'm 
 a — a teacher — a speaker ; not the active 
 branch, s'elp me. Put it auf — for to-night — 
 wait till to-morrer. I ain't well an' — an* 
 you're very 'ard on me !" 
 
 " Desp'rit work, desp'rit ways," Jerry re- 
 plied, 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 Mm 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, 
 1 wisted to throttling point. But in the end 
 it was settled that it would be simpler, and 
 would better destroy all traces, to dispatch 

 
 139 
 
 him in the explosion — to tie him to the canis- 
 ter, 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 
 Poison, who turned out each in succession. 
 " You won't 'ave no use for money where 
 you're goin'," he observed callously ; " be- 
 sides, it 'ud be blowed to bits an' no use to 
 nobody. Look at the bloke at Greenwich, 
 'ow 'is things was blowed away. 'Ullo! 'ere's 
 two 'arf-crowns an' some tanners. Seven an' 
 thrippence altogether, with the browns. 
 This is the bloke wot 'adn't got no funds. 
 This'll be divided on free an' equal principles 
 to 'elp pay for that beer you're wasted. 
 'Old up, ol' man! Think o' the glory. 
 P'r'aps you're all right, but it's best to be on 
 the safe side, an' dead blokes can't split to the 
 coppers. An' you mustn't forget the glory. 
 You 'ave to shed blood in a revolution, an' a 
 few odd lives more or less don't matter — not 
 a single damn. Keep your eye on the bleeed'n' 
 glory ! They'll 'ave photos of you in the 
 papers, all the broken bits in a 'eap, fac-sim- 
 iliar as found on the spot. Wot a comfort 
 that'll be !" 
 
 But the doomed creature was oblivious —
 
 140 
 
 prostrate — a swooning heap. They ran a 
 piece of clothes-line under his elbows, and 
 pulled them together tight. They then hob- 
 bled his ankles, and took him among them 
 through the alley and down the quiet street, 
 singing and shouting their loudest as they 
 went, in case he might sufficiently recover 
 his piowers to call for help. But he did not, 
 and there in the shadow, at the foot of the 
 great gasometer, they flung him down with a 
 parting kick and a barbarous knock on the 
 head, to keep him quiet for those few neces- 
 sary moments. Then the murderous canis- 
 ter, bound with wire, was put in place ; the 
 extruding touch-paper was set going with a 
 match ; and the Red Cow Anarchists disap- 
 peared at a run, leaving their victim to his 
 fate. Presently the policeman on that beat 
 heard a sudden report from the neighbor- 
 hood of the gas-works, and ran to see what it 
 might mean. 
 
 The next morning Alfred Sotcher was 
 charged at the Thames Police Court as a 
 drunk and incapable. He had been found in 
 a helpless state near the gas-works, and ap- 
 peared to have been tied at the elbows and 
 ankles by mischievous boys, who had also, it 
 seemed, ignited a cracker near by where he
 
 141 
 
 lay. The divisional surgeon stated that he 
 was called to the prisoner, and found him 
 tearful and incoherent, and smelling' strongly 
 of drink. He complained of having been 
 assaulted in a public-house, but could give no 
 intelligible account of himself. A canister 
 found by his side appeared to contain a mix- 
 ture of sand and castor oil, but prisoner could 
 not explain how it came there. The magis- 
 trate fined him five shillings, with the alter- 
 native of seven days, and as he had no money 
 he was removed to the cells.
 
 ON THE STAIRS 
 
 The house had been " genteel." When 
 trade was prospering in the East End, and 
 the ship-fitter or block-maker thought it. no 
 shame to live in the parish where his work- 
 shop 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 sick- 
 ness and deaths and the cost of things; and 
 treacherous holes lurked in the carpet of 
 road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. 
 For when eight families live in a house, 
 nobody buys a door-mat, and the street was 
 one of those streets that are always muddy. 
 It smelt, too, of many things, none of them 
 pleasant (one w;is fried fish) ; but for all that 
 it was not a slum. 
 
 Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare 
 
 [142]
 
 H3 
 
 forearms stayed on her way to listen at a 
 door which, opening, let out a warm, fetid 
 waft from a close sick-room. A bent and 
 tottering old woman stood on the threshold, 
 holding the door behind her. 
 
 "An* is 'e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?" 
 the gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the 
 opening. 
 
 The old woman shook her head, and pulled 
 the door closer. Her jaw waggled loosely 
 in her withered chaps: "Nor won't be, till 
 'e's gone." Then after a certain pause, "'E's 
 goin'," she said. 
 
 " Don't doctor give no 'ope?" 
 
 " Lor' bless ye, I don't want to ast no 
 doctors," Mrs. Curtis replied, with something 
 not unlike a chuckle. " I've seed too many 
 on 'em. The boy's a-goin', fast; I can see 
 that. An' then " — she gave the handle 
 another tug, and whispered — " he's been 
 called." She nodded amain. " Three seprit 
 knocks at the bed-head las' night; an' I know 
 what that means !" 
 
 The gaunt woman raised her brows, and 
 nodded. " Ah, well," she said," we all on us 
 comes to it some day, sooner or later. An' 
 it's often a 'appy release." 
 
 The two looked into space beyond each 
 other, the elder with a nod and a croak.
 
 144 
 
 Presently the other pursued, " E's been a 
 very good son, ain't 'e ?" 
 
 " Ay, ay, — well enough son to me," re- 
 sponded the old woman, a little peevishly ; 
 "an' I'll 'ave 'im put away decent, though 
 there's on'y the Union for me after. I can 
 do that, thank Gawd !" she added, medita- 
 tively, 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 ker- 
 ridge for the fam'ly an' one for 'is mates — 
 two 'orses each, an' feathers, an' mutes ; an' 
 it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. 
 4 VVotever 'appens, Mrs. Manders,' says the 
 undertaker, ' you'll feel as you're treated im' 
 proper; nobody can't reproach you over 
 that.' An' they couldn't. 'E was a good 
 'usband to me, an' I buried 'im respectable." 
 
 The gaunt woman exulted. The old, 
 old story of Manders's funeral fell upon the 
 other one's ears with a freshened interest, 
 and she mumbled her gums ruminantly. 
 " Bob'll 'ave a 'ansome buryin,' too," she said. 
 " I can make it up, with the insurance money,
 
 145 
 
 an' this, an' that. On'y I dunno about mutes. 
 It's a expense." 
 
 In the East End, when a woman has not 
 enough money to buy a thing much desired, 
 she does not say so in plain words ; she says 
 the thing is an "expense," or a "great ex- 
 pense." It means the same thing, but it 
 sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned 
 her resources, and found that mutes would 
 be an " expense." At a cheap funeral mutes 
 cost half-a-sovereign and their liquor. Mrs. 
 Manders said as much. 
 
 " Yus, yus, 'arf-a-sovereign," the old woman 
 assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat 
 the floor with a stick. " I'm a-comin'," she 
 cried shrilly; " yus, 'arf-a-sovereign, but it's 
 a lot, an' I don't see 'ow I'm to do it — not at 
 present." She reached for the door-handle 
 again, but stopped and added, by after- 
 thought, " Unless I don't 'ave no plooms." 
 
 " It 'ud be a pity not to 'ave plooms. 
 I 'ad—*' 
 
 There were footsteps on the stairs, then a 
 stumble and a testy word. Mrs. Curtis 
 peered over into the gathering dark. " Is it 
 the doctor, sir?" she asked. It was the 
 doctor's assistant ; and Mrs. Manders tramped 
 up to the next landing as the door of the sick- 
 room took him in.
 
 146 
 
 For five minutes the stairs were darkerthan 
 ever. Then the assistant, a very young man, 
 came out again, followed by the old woman 
 with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the 
 upper dark. " He's sinking fast," said the 
 assistant. " He must have a stimulant. Dr. 
 Mansell ordered port wine. Where is it?" 
 Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. "I tell 
 you he must have it," he averred with unpro- 
 fessional emphasis (his qualification was only 
 a month old). "The man can't take solid 
 food, and his strength must be kept up some- 
 how. Another day may make all the differ- 
 ence. 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 six- 
 pences at nap the night before ; and, being 
 inexperienced, be did not foresee the career of 
 persecution whereon he was entering at his 
 own expense and of his own motion. He
 
 147 
 
 produced five shillings. " If you absolutely 
 haven't the money, why — take this and get a 
 bottle — good ; not at a public-house. But 
 mind, at once. He should have had it before." 
 
 It would have interested him, as a matter 
 of coincidence, to know that his principal had 
 been guilty of the self-same indiscretion — 
 even the amount was identical — on that land- 
 ing the day before. But, as Mrs. Curtis said 
 nothing of this, he floundered down the stair 
 and out into the wetter mud, pondering 
 whether or not the beloved son of a Con- 
 gregational minister might take full credit 
 for a deed of charity on the proceeds of six- 
 penny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her 
 wrinkles, and shook her head sagaciously as 
 she carried in her candle. From the room 
 came a clink as of money falling into a tea- 
 pot. And Mrs. Manders went about her 
 business. 
 
 The door was shut, and the stair a pit of 
 blackness. Twice a lodger passed down, and 
 up and down, and still it did not open. Men 
 and women walked on the lower flights, and 
 out at the door, and in again. From the 
 street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated 
 up the pit. On the pavement footsteps rang 
 crisper and fewer, and from the bottom 
 passage there were sounds of stagger and
 
 148 
 
 sprawl. A demented old cock buzzed divers 
 hours at random, and was rebuked every 
 twenty minutes by the regular tread of a 
 policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody 
 shut the street-door with a great bang, and 
 the street was muffled. A key turned inside 
 the door on the landing, but that was all. A 
 feeble light shone for hours along the crack 
 below, and then went out. The crazy old 
 clock went buzzing on, but nothing left that 
 room all night. Nothing that opened the 
 door. . . 
 
 When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. 
 Manders's knock, in the full morning ; and 
 soon the two women came out on the land- 
 ing 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, 
 / 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
 
 149 
 
 agoin' to 'ave mutes. I can do it respectable, 
 thank Gawd ! " 
 
 " And the plooms ?" 
 
 " Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain't 
 sich a great expense, after all."
 
 SQUIRE NAPPER. 
 
 I 
 
 Bill Napper was a heavy man of 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 clown 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 contractor), when he 
 won and began to wear the nickname 
 " Squire." 
 
 Daily at the stroke of twelve from the 
 neighboring church, Bill Napper's mates let 
 drop rammer, trowel, spade and pick, and 
 turned toward a row of basins, tied in blue- 
 and red handkerchiefs, and accompanied of 
 
 [150J
 
 i5i 
 
 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 wrath fully 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, " VV. Napper, Esq.," with a 
 flourish ; the words, " By hand," stood in the 
 corner of the envelope ; and on the flap at 
 the back were the embossed characters, " T. 
 & N." These things Bill Napper noted 
 several times over, as he turned the letter 
 about in his hand. 
 
 " Seems to me you'll 'ave to open it after 
 all," said one of Bill's mates; and he opened 
 it, setting back his hat as a preparation to 
 serious study. The letter was dated from 
 Old Jewry, and ran thus: 
 
 " re B. Napper deceased. 
 " Dear Sir, — We have a communication
 
 152 
 
 in this matter from our correspondents at Syd- 
 ney, New South Wales, in respect to testa- 
 mentary dispositions under which you benefit. 
 We shall be obliged it you can make it con- 
 venient to call at this office any day except 
 Saturday between two and four. — Your obe- 
 dient servants, 
 
 Tims & Norton." 
 
 The dinner hour had gone by before the 
 full inner meaning had been wrested from 
 this letter. " B. Napper, deceased," Bill ac- 
 cepted, with a little assistance, as an an- 
 nouncement of the death of his brother Ben, 
 who had gone to Australia nearly twenty 
 years ago, and had been forgotten. " Testa- 
 mentary dispositions " nobody would tackle 
 with confidence, although its distinct sugges- 
 tion 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 instantlyaccepted 
 as the most probable, although some thought 
 it foolish of him not to leave it direct instead 
 of authorizing the interference of a lawyer, 
 who would want to do Bill out of it. 
 
 Bill Napper put up his tools and went 
 home. There the missis put an end to doubt
 
 153 
 
 by repeating what the lawyer's clerk said ; 
 which was nothing more definite than that 
 Bill had been " left a bit ;" and the clerk only 
 acknowledged so much when he had satisfied 
 himself, by sinuous questionings, that he had 
 found the real legatee. He further advised 
 the bringing of certain evidence on the visit 
 to the office. Thus it was plain that the 
 Napper fortunes were in good cnse, for, as 
 " a bit " means money all the world over, 
 the thing was clearly no worthless keep- 
 sake. 
 
 II 
 
 On the afternoon of the next day, Bill 
 Napper, in clean moleskins and black coat, 
 made for Old Jewry. On mature considera- 
 tion 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
 
 154 
 
 of any use, and in any case such a friend 
 would have to be paid for the loss of his day's 
 work. Moreover, he might imagine himself 
 to hold a sort of interest in the proceeds. So 
 Bill Napper went alone. 
 
 Having waited the proper time without 
 the bar in the clerk's office, he was shown 
 into a room where a middle-aged man sat at 
 a writing-table. There was no other lawyer 
 to be seen. This was a stratagem for which 
 Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked 
 suspiciously about the room, but without 
 discovering anything that looked like a hid- 
 ing-place. Plainly there were two lawyers, 
 because their names were on the door and on 
 the letter itself ; and the letter said we. Why 
 one should hide it was hard to guess, unless 
 it were to bear witness to some unguarded 
 expression. Bill Napper resolved to speak 
 little, and not loud. 
 
 The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting 
 him to sit. Then he asked to see the papers 
 that Bill had brought. These were an old 
 testimonial reciting that Bill had been em- 
 ployed " with his brother Benjamin " as a boy 
 in a brick-field, and had given satisfaction ; a 
 letter from a parish guardian, the son of an 
 old employer of Bill's father, certifying that 
 Bill was his father's son and his brother's
 
 155 
 
 brother ; copies of the birth registry of both 
 Bill and his brother, procured that morning; 
 and a letter from Australia, the last word 
 from Benjamin, dated eighteen years back. 
 These Bill produced in succession, keeping a 
 firm grip on each as he placed it beneath the 
 lawyer's nose. The lawyer behaved some- 
 what testily under this restraint, but Bill 
 knew better than to let the papers out of his 
 possession, and would not be done. 
 
 When he had seen all—" Well, Mr. Nap- 
 per," said the lawyer, rather snappishly (ob- 
 viously he was balked), " these things seem 
 all right, and with the inquiries I have 
 already made I suppose I may proceed to 
 pay you the money. It is a legacy of three 
 hundred pounds. Your brother was married, 
 and I believe his business and other property 
 goes to his wife and children. The money is 
 intact, the estate paying legacy duty and ex- 
 penses. In cases of this sort there is some- 
 times an arrangement for the amount to be 
 paid a little at a time as required ; that, how- 
 ever, I judge, would not be an arrangement 
 to please you. I hope, at any rate, you will 
 be able to invest the money in a profitable 
 way. I will draw a check." 
 
 Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill 
 Napper's wildest dreams. But he would not
 
 1 5 6 
 
 be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the 
 lawyer tore the check from the book and 
 pushed it across the table with another paper. 
 He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other 
 hand at the bottom of the second paper, and 
 paying, " This is the receipt. Sign just there, 
 please." 
 
 Bill took up the check but made no move- 
 ment toward the pen. "Receipt?" he 
 grunted softly ; " receipt, wot for? I ain't 
 'ad no money." 
 
 " There's the check in your hand, the same 
 thing. It's an order to the bank to hand you 
 the amount — the usual way of paying money 
 in business affairs. If you would rather have 
 the money paid here, I can send a clerk to the 
 bank to get it. Give me the check." 
 
 But again Bill was not to be done. The 
 lawyer, finding him sharper than he expected, 
 now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper 
 back. So Bill only grinned at him, keeping 
 a good hold of the check. The lawyer lost 
 his temper. " Why, damn it," he said, 
 "you're a curious person to deal with. D'ye 
 want the money and the check too?" 
 
 He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. 
 " Mr. Dixon," said the lawyer, " I have given 
 this person a check for three hundred pounds. 
 Just take him round to the bank, and get it
 
 157 
 
 cashed. Let him sign the receipt at the bank. 
 I suppose," he added, turning to Bill, " that 
 you won't object to giving a receipt when 
 you get the money, eh ?" 
 
 Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, ex- 
 pressed his willingness to do the proper thing 
 at the proper time, and went out with the 
 clerk. At the bank there was little difficulty, 
 except at the clerk's advice to take the money 
 chiefly in notes, which instantly confirmed 
 Bill in a determination to accept nothing but 
 gold. When all was done, and the three 
 hundred sovereigns, carefully counted over 
 for the third and fourth time, were stowed in 
 small bags about his person, Bill, much 
 relieved after his spell of watchfulness, in- 
 sisted 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' /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, an' set a example to men of 
 property." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Bill Napper went home in a hansom, order- 
 ing a barrel of beer on the way. One of the
 
 i 5 8 
 
 chief comforts of affluence is that you may 
 have beer in by the barrel ; for then Sundays 
 and closing times vex not, and you have but 
 to reach the length of your arm for another 
 pot whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in 
 Canning Town had beer by the barrel except 
 the tradesmen, and for that Bill had long 
 envied the man who kept shop. And now, 
 at his first opportunity, he bought a barrel of 
 thirty-six gallons. 
 
 Once home with the news, and Canning 
 Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had come in 
 for three thousand, thirty thousand, three 
 hundred thousand — any number of thousands 
 that were within the compass of the gossip's 
 command of enumeration. Bill Napper was 
 called " W. Napper, Esq." — he was to be 
 knighted — he was a long-lost baronet — any- 
 thing. Bill Napper came home in a han- 
 som — 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 neigh- 
 bors dead, right and left. And by the next 
 morning tradesmen had sent circulars and 
 samples of goods. Mrs. Napper was for 
 taking a proper position in society, and a 
 house in a fashionable part — Barking Road, 
 for instance, or even East India Road, Poplar ;
 
 »59 
 
 but Bill would none of such foolishness. He 
 wasn't proud, and Canning Town was quite, 
 good enough for him. This much, though, 
 he conceded, that the family should take a 
 whole house of five rooms in the next street, 
 instead of the two rooms and a cellule up- 
 stairs now rented. 
 
 That morning Bill lit his pipe, stuck his 
 hands in his pockets, and strolled as far as 
 his job. " Wavo, squire," shouted one of the 
 men as he approached. " 'Ere comes the 
 bleed'n' toff," remarked another. 
 
 "'Tcheer 'tcheer, mates," Bill responded, 
 calmly complacent. " I'm again' to wet it." 
 And all the fourteen men left their paving for 
 the beer-house close by. The foreman made 
 some demur, but was helpless, and ended by 
 coming himself. " Now then, gaffer," said 
 Bill, "none o' your sulks. No one ain't 
 agoin' to stand out of a drink o' mine — unless 
 'e wants to fight. As for the job — damn the 
 job! I'd buy up fifty jobs like that 'ere and 
 not stop for the change. You send the 
 guv'nor to me if V says anythink ; unner- 
 stand ? You send 'im to me." And he laid 
 hands on the foreman, who was not a big man, 
 and hauled him after the others. 
 
 They wetted it for two or three hours, 
 from many quart pots. Then there appeared
 
 i6o 
 
 between the swing- doors the wrathful face 
 of the guv'nor. 
 
 The guv'nor's position was difficult. He 
 was only a small master, and but a few years 
 back had been a working mason. This de- 
 serted job was his first for the parish, and 
 by contract he was bound to end it quickly 
 under penalty. Moreover, he much desired 
 something on account that week, and must 
 stand well with the vestry. On the other 
 hand, this was a time of strikes, and the air 
 was electrical. Several large and successful 
 movements had quickened a spirit of restless- 
 ness in the neighborhood, and no master was 
 sure of his men. Some slight was fancied, 
 something was not done as it should have 
 been done from the point of view of the 
 workshop, and there was a strike, picketing, 
 and bashing. Now, the worst thing that 
 could have happened to the guv'nor at this 
 moment was one of those tiny, unrecorded 
 strikes that were bursting out weekly and 
 daily about him, with the picketing of his 
 two or three jobs. Furious, therefore, as he 
 was, he dared not discharge every man on 
 the spot. So he stood in the door, and said : 
 " Look here, I won't stand this sort of thing 
 — it's a damn robbery. I'll — " 
 
 " That's all right, ol' cock," roared Bill
 
 161 
 
 Napper, reaching toward theguv'nor. " You 
 come 'an 'ave a tiddley. I'm a bleed'n' mil- 
 lionaire meself now, but I ain't proud. 
 What, you won't?" — for the guv'nor, unen- 
 thusiastic, 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 'm ; an' I can give you 
 a bob, me fine feller, if you're 'ard up. See?" 
 
 The guv'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 vio- 
 lently on the shoulder. " This 'ere's the 
 gaffer," he shouted. " 'E's all right. 'E 
 come 'ere 'cos 'e couldn't 'elp 'isself. I made 
 im come, forcible. Don't you bear no spite 
 agin' the gaffer, d'y'ear ? 'E's my mate, is the 
 gaffer ; an' I could buy you up, forty times, 
 s'elp me — but I ain't proud. An' you're a 
 bleed'n' gawblimy slackbaked . . . " 
 
 " Well," said the guv'nor to the assembled 
 company, but still ignoring Bill, "don't you 
 think there's been about enough of this ?" 
 
 A few of the men glanced at one another, 
 and one or two rose. " Awright, guv'nor,"' 
 said one, " we're auf." And two more echoci,
 
 1 62 
 
 "Awright, guv'nor," and began to move 
 away. 
 
 "Ah!" said Bill Nappcr, with disgust, as 
 he turned to finish his pot, "you're a blasted 
 nigger-driver, you are. An' a sulky beast," 
 he ridded 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, observ- 
 ing two small boys in the prelusory stages of 
 a fight, he put up sixpence by way of stakes,
 
 163 
 
 and supervised the battle from the seat 
 afforded by a convenient window-sill. After 
 that he bought a morning - paper, and lay 
 upon his bed to read it, with a pipe and a 
 jug ; for he was begining a life of leisure and 
 comfort, wherein every day should be a 
 superior Sunday. 
 
 IV 
 
 Thus far the outward and visible signs of 
 the Napper wealth were these ; the separate 
 house ; the barrel of beer ; a piano — not 
 bought as a musical instrument, but as one of 
 the visible signs ; a daily paper, also primarily 
 a sign ; the bonnets and dresses of the missis; 
 and the perpetual possession of Bill Napper 
 by a varying degree of fuddlement. An in- 
 ward and dissembled sign was a regiment, 
 continually reinforced, of mostly empty 
 bottles, in a cupboard kept sacred by the 
 missis. And the faculties of that good lady 
 herself experienced a fluctuating confusion 
 from causes not always made plain to Bill; 
 for the money was kept in the bedroom chest 
 of drawers, and it was easy to lay hands on 
 a half-sovereign as required without unneces- 
 sary disturbance.
 
 164 
 
 Now and again Bill Napper would dis- 
 cuss the abstract question of entering upon 
 some investment or business pursuit. Land 
 had its advantages ; great advantages ; and he 
 had been told that it was very cheap just 
 now, in some places. Houses were good, 
 too, and a suitable possession for a man of 
 consideration. Not so desirable on the whole, 
 however, as land. You bought your land 
 and — 'Well there it was, and you could take 
 things easily. But with houses there was 
 rent to collect, and repairs to see to and so 
 forth. It was a vastly paying thing for any 
 man with capital to be a merchant ; but there 
 was work even in that, and you had to be 
 perpetually on guard against sharp chaps in 
 the City. A public-house, suggested by one 
 of his old mates on the occasion of wetting if, 
 was out of the question. There was tick, and 
 long hours, and a sharp look-out, and al! 
 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 al!, 
 when it was so easy for a man to live on his 
 means. After nil, to take your boots off, and 
 lie on the bed with a pipe and a pot and the
 
 165 
 
 paper was very comfortable, and you could 
 always stroll out and meet a mate, or bring 
 him in when so disposed. 
 
 Of an evening the Albert Music Hall was 
 close at hand, and the Queen's not very far- 
 away. And on Sundays and Saturday after- 
 noons, Bill would often take a turn down by 
 the dock gates, or even in Victoria Park, or 
 Mile End Waste, where there were speakers 
 of all sorts. At the dock gates it was mostly 
 Labor and Anarchy, but at the other places 
 there was a fine variety ; you could always 
 be sine of a few minutes of Teetotalism, Evan- 
 gelism, Atheism, Republicanism, Salvation- 
 ism, Socialism, Anti- Vaccinationists, and 
 Social Purity, with now and again some Mor- 
 monism or another curious exotic. Most of 
 the speakers denounced something, and if 
 the denunciations of one speaker were not 
 sufficiently picturesque and lively, you passed 
 on to the next. Indeed you might always 
 judge afar off where the best denouncing was 
 going on, by the size of the crowds, at least 
 until the hat went round. 
 
 It was at Mile End Waste that a good 
 notion occurred to Bill Napper. He had 
 always vastly admired the denunciations of 
 one speaker — a little man, shabbier, if any- 
 thing, than most of the others, and surpass-
 
 1 66 
 
 ingly tempestuous of antic. He was an un- 
 attached orator, not confining himself to any 
 particular creed, but denouncing whatever 
 seemed advisable, considering the audience 
 and circumstances. He was always denounc- 
 ing something somewhere, and was ever in a 
 crisis that demanded the circulation of a hat. 
 Bill esteemed this speaker for his versatility 
 as well as for the freshness of his abuse, and 
 Bill's sudden notion was to engage him for 
 private addresses. 
 
 The orator did not take kindly to the pro- 
 posal at first, strongly suspecting something 
 in the nature of " guy " or " kid ;" but a seri- 
 ous assurance of a shilling for an occasional 
 hour and the payment of one in advance 
 brought him over. After this Squire Napper 
 never troubled to go to Mile End Waste. 
 He sat at ease in his parlor, with his pot on 
 tlie piano, while the orator, with another pot 
 on the mantelpiece, stood up and denounced 
 to order. " Tip us the Teetotal an' Down 
 with-the-Public-'Ouse," Bill would request, 
 and the orator (his name was Minns) would 
 oblige in that line till most of the strong 
 phrases had run out, and had begun to recur. 
 Then Bill would say, " Now come the Rights 
 o' Labor caper." Whereupon Minns would 
 take a pull at the pot, and proceed to de-
 
 167 
 
 nounce Capital, Bill Napper applauding or 
 groaning at the pauses provided for those 
 purposes. And so on with whatever subjects 
 appealed to the patron's fancy. It was a 
 fancy that sometimes put the orator's inven- 
 tion to grievous straits ; but for Bill the 
 whole performance was peculiarly privileged 
 and dignified. For to have an orator gesticu- 
 lating and speechifying all to oneself, on one's 
 own order and choice of subject, is a thing 
 not given to all men. 
 
 One day Minns turned up (not having been 
 invited) with a friend. Bill did not take to 
 the friend. He was a lank-jawed man with a 
 shifty eye, who smiled as he spoke, and 
 showed a top row of irregular and dirty 
 teeth. This friend, Minns explained, was a 
 journalist — a writer of newspapers ; and be- 
 tween 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 sim- 
 plicity. He was of the people and not 
 ashamed of it. (" Well, no, I ain't proud," 
 Bill interjected, wondering what was com- 
 ing.) With all the advantages of wealth, he 
 preferred to remain one of the people, living 
 among them plainly, conforming to their 
 simple habits, and sympathizing with their
 
 1 68 
 
 sorrows. (" This chap," thought Bill, " wants 
 to be took on to hold forth turn about with 
 the other, and he's showing his capers ; but I 
 ain't on it.") It was the knowledge of these 
 things, so greatly to Mr. Napper's honor, 
 that had induced Minns and Minns's friend to 
 place before him a means by which he might 
 do the cause of toiling humanity a very great 
 service. A new weekly paper was wanted — 
 wanted very badly ; a paper that should rear 
 its head on behalf of the down-trodden toil- 
 ers, and make its mighty voice heard with 
 dread by the bloated circles of Class and 
 Privilege. That paper would prove a mar- 
 velously paying investment to its proprie- 
 tor, bringing him enormous profits every 
 week. He would have a vast fortune in that 
 paper alone, besides the glory and satisfaction 
 of striking the great blow that should pave the 
 way to the emancipation of the Masses and 
 the destruction of the vile system of society 
 whose whole and sole effect was the accumu- 
 lation 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. 
 Napperthe opportunity of becoming its pro- 
 prietor.
 
 169 
 
 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 print- 
 ing would be done by contract. Mr. Napper 
 would only have to find the money. The 
 paper, with a couple of thousand pounds be- 
 hind it — or even one thousand (Minns's friend 
 read a difficulty in Bill's face) — would be 
 established forever. Even five hundred would 
 do, and many successful papers had been 
 floated with no more than a couple of hun- 
 dred 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 de- 
 tails.
 
 lyo 
 
 Bill Nappcr continued to smoke. Then 
 beginning with a slight chuckle at the back 
 of his throat, he said : 
 
 " Wen I got my money I went to a lawyer's 
 for it. There was two lawyers — one lay in' 
 low. There was two fust-rate lawyers an' a 
 lot o' clurks — City clurks — an' a bank an' all. 
 An' they couldn't 'ave me, not for a single 
 farden — not a farden, try an' fiddle as they 
 would. . . Well, arter that, it ain't much 
 good you a-tryin' it on, is it? And he chuck- 
 led 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 sim- 
 ple 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
 
 171 
 
 head and an arm plunged into the thicker 
 darkness of the room, and a hand went feel- 
 ing along the edge of the chest of drawers by 
 the window. Bill rolled over on the bed, 
 and reached from the floor one of a pair of 
 heavy iron-set boots. Taking the toe in his 
 right hand, and grasping the footrail of the 
 bedstead with his left, he raised himself on 
 his knees, and brought the boot-heel down 
 heavily on the intruding head. There was a 
 gasp, and the first breath of a yell, and head, 
 arm, shoulders, and body vanished with a 
 bump and a rattle. Bill Napper let the boot 
 fall, dropped back on the bed, and took no 
 further heed. 
 
 Neither Minns nor his friend ever came 
 back again, but for some time after, at Vic- 
 toria Park, Minns, inciting an outraged 
 populace to rise and sweep police and army 
 from the earth, was able to point to an honor- 
 able scar on his own forehead, the proof and 
 sign of a police bludgeoning at Tower Hill — 
 or Trafalgar Square. 
 
 Things went placidly on for near ten 
 months. Many barrels of beer had come in
 
 172 
 
 full and been sent empty away. Also the 
 missis had got a gold watch and divers new- 
 bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill, 
 some by applying privily to the drawer. 
 Her private collection of bottles, too, had 
 been cleared out twice, and was respectable 
 for the third time. Everybody was not 
 friendly with her, and one bonnet had been 
 torn off her head by a neighbor who disliked 
 her airs. 
 
 So it stood when, on a certain morning, 
 Bill, being minded to go out, found but two 
 shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to 
 the missis, as was his custom in such a pass, 
 asking her to fetch a sovereign or two when 
 she came down; and, as she was long in 
 coming, he went up himself. The missis left 
 the room hurriedly, and Bill, after raking out 
 every corner of the drawer (which he him- 
 self had not opened for some time), saw not a 
 single coin. The missis had no better ex- 
 planation than that there must have been 
 thieves in the house some time lately ; a 
 suggestion deprived of some value by the 
 subsequent protest that Bill couldn't expect 
 money to last forever, and that he had had 
 the last three days ago. In the end there 
 was a vehement row, and the missis was 
 severely thumped.
 
 173 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred pounds was a suspiciously small sum to 
 inherit from a well-to-do brother. He would 
 go to the lawyers and demand the rest of his 
 money. He would not reveal his purpose 
 till he saw the lawyers face to face, and then 
 he would make his demand suddenly, so that 
 surprise and consternation should overwhelm 
 and betray them. He would give them to 
 understand that he had complete evidence of 
 the whole swindle. In any case he could lose 
 nothing. He went, after carefully preparing 
 his part, and was turned out by a police- 
 man. 
 
 " After that," mused Squire Napper, going 
 home, " I suppose I'd better see about getting 
 a job at Allen's again. He can't but make 
 me gaffer, considering I've been a man of 
 property."
 
 "A POOR STICK" 
 
 * Mrs. Jennings (or Jinnins, as the neigh- 
 bors would have it) ruled absolutely at home, 
 when she took so much trouble as to do any- 
 thing at all there — which was less often than 
 might have been. As for Robert, her hus- . 
 band, he was a poor stick, said the neighbors. 
 And yet he was a man with enough of hardi- 
 hood to remain a non-unionist in the erectors' 
 shop at Maidment's all the years of his ser- 
 vice ; no. mean test of a man's fortitude and 
 resolution, as many a sufferer for independent 
 opinion might testify. The truth was that 
 Bob never grew out of his courtship blind- 
 ness. Mrs. Jennings governed as she pleased, 
 stayed out or came home as she chose, and 
 cooked a dinner or didn't, as her inclination 
 stood. Thus it was for ten years, during 
 which time there were no children, and Bob 
 bore all things uncomplaining; cooking his 
 own dinner when he found none cooked, and 
 
 [i74]
 
 175 
 
 sew log on his own buttons. Then of a- sud- 
 den came children, till in three years there 
 were three ; and Bob Jennings had to nurse 
 and to wash them as often as not. 
 
 Mrs. Jennings at this time was what is called 
 rather a fine woman ; a woman of large, scale 
 and full development ; whose slatternly habits 
 left her coarse, black hair to tumble in snake- 
 locks about her face and shoulders half the 
 day ; who, clad in half-hooked clothes, bore 
 herself notoriously and unabashed in her full-* 
 ness ; and of whom ill things were said re- 
 garding the lodger. The gossips had their 
 excuse. The lodger was an irregular young 
 cabinet-maker, who lost quarters and halves 
 and whole days; who had been seen abroad 
 with his landlady, what time Bob Jennings 
 was putting the children to bed at home ; 
 who on his frequent holidays brought in 
 much beer, which he and the woman shared, 
 while Bob was at work. To carry the tale 
 to Bob would have been a thankless effort, 
 for he would have none of anybody's sym- 
 pathy, even in regard to miseries plain to his 
 eye. But the thing got about in the work- 
 shop, 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 a
 
 176 
 
 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 si9ter, 
 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- 
 less." Whereat his sister called him a fool 
 (it was her customary good-by at such times), 
 and took herself off. 
 
 Bob Jennings's intelligence was sufficient 
 for his common needs, but it was never a 
 vast intelligence. Now, under a daily bur- 
 den of dull miser} 7 , it clouded and stopped. 
 The base wit of the workshop he compre- 
 hended less, and realized more slowly, than 
 before ; and the gaffer cursed him for a sleepy 
 dolt. 
 
 Mrs. Jennings ceased from any pretense of 
 house wifery, and would sometimes sit — per- 
 chance not quite sober — while Bob washed 
 the children in the evening, opening her 
 mouth only to express her contempt for him
 
 177 
 
 and his establishment, and to make him un- 
 derstand that she was sick of both. Once, 
 exasperated by his quietness, she struck at 
 him, and for a moment he was another man. 
 "Don't do that, Melier," he said, "else I 
 might forget myself." His manner sui prised 
 his wife ; and it was such that she never did 
 do that again. 
 
 So was Bob Jennings, without a friend in 
 the world, except his sister, who chid him, 
 and the children, who squalled at him ; when 
 his wife vanished with the lodger, the clock, 
 a shade of wax flowers, Bob's best boots 
 (which fitted the lodger), and his silver watch. 
 Bob had returned, as usual, to the dirt and 
 the children, and it was only when he struck 
 a light that he found the clock was gone. 
 
 " Mummy tooked ve t'ock," said Milly, the 
 eldest child, who had followed him in from 
 the door, and now gravely observed his 
 movements. "She tooked ve t'ock an' went 
 ta-ta. An' she tooked ve fyowers." 
 
 Bob lit the parafrine lamp with the green 
 glass reservoir, and carried it and its evil 
 smell about the house. Some things had 
 been turned over and others had gone, 
 plainly. All Melicr's clothes were gone. 
 The lodger was not in, and under his bed- 
 room window, where his box had stood, there
 
 1/3 
 
 was naught but an oblong patch of con- 
 spicuously clean wall-paper. In a muddle of 
 doubt and perplexity, Bob found himself at. 
 the front door, staring up and down the 
 street. Divers women-neighbors stood at 
 their doors, and eyed him curiously; for 
 Mrs. Webster, moralist, opposite, had not 
 watched the day's proceedings (nor those of 
 many other days) for nothing, nor had she 
 kept her story to herself. 
 
 He turned back into the house, a vague 
 notion of what had befallen percolating feebly 
 through his bewilderment. "I dunno — I 
 dunno," he faltered, rubbing his ear. His 
 mouth was dry, and he moved his lips 
 uneasily, as he gazed with aimless looks 
 about the walls and ceiling. Presently his 
 eyes rested on the child, and " Milly," he said 
 decisively, " come an' 'ave yer face washed." 
 • He put the children to bed early, and went 
 out. \n the morning, when his sister came, 
 because she had heard the news in common 
 with everybody else, he had not returned. 
 Bob Jennings had never lost more than two 
 quarters in his life, but he was not seen at the 
 workshop all this day. His sister stayed in 
 the house, and in the evening, at his regular 
 homing-time, he appeared, haggard and 
 dusty, and began his preparations for wash-
 
 i/9 
 
 ing the children. When he was made to 
 understand that they had been already- 
 attended to, he looked doubtful and troubled 
 for a moment. Presently he said : " 1 ain't 
 found 'er yet, Jin ; I was in 'opes she might 
 'a' bin back by this. I — I don't expect she'll 
 be very long. She was alwis a bit larky, was 
 Melier ; but very good-'arted." 
 
 His sister had prepared a strenuous lecture 
 on the theme of " I told you so ;" but the 
 man was so broken, so meek, and so plainly 
 unhinged in his faculties, that she suppressed 
 it. Instead, she gave him comfortable talk, 
 and made him promise in the end to sleep 
 that night, and take up his customary work 
 in the morning. 
 
 He did these things, and could have worked 
 placidly enough had he but been alone ; but 
 the tale had reached the workshop, and there 
 was no lack of brutish chaff to disorder him. 
 This the decenter men would have no part 
 in, and even protested against. But the ill- 
 conditioned kept their way, till, at the cry of 
 " Bell Oh !' when all were starting for dinner, 
 one of the worst shouted the crudest gibe of 
 all. Bob Jennings turned on him and 
 knocked him over a scrap-heap. 
 
 A shout went up from the hurrying work- 
 men, with a chorus of " Serve ye right," and
 
 i8o 
 
 the fallen joker found himself awkwardly 
 confronted by the shop bruiser. But Bob 
 had turned to a corner, and buried his eyes 
 in the bend of his arm, while his shoulders 
 heaved and shook. 
 
 He slunk away home, and stayed there ; 
 walking- restlessly to and fro, and often peep- 
 ing down the street from the window. When 
 at twilight, his sister came again, he had be- 
 come 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 
 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 sny 
 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 dis- 
 tance. After his pennv shave he made for 
 the main road, where company-keeping
 
 i8r 
 
 couples walked up and down all evening 1 . 
 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 nn 
 hour, and then went home. In two hours 
 more she came back with her husband. Bob 
 was still there, walking to and fro. 
 
 " 'Ullo, Bob," said his brother-in-law ; 
 "come along 'ome an' get to bed, there's a 
 good chap. You'll be awright in the 
 mornin'." 
 
 " She ain't turned up," Bob complained ; 
 " or else I've missed 'er. This is the reg'lar 
 place — where I alwis used to meet 'er. But 
 she'll come to-morrer. She used to leave me 
 in the lurch sometimes, bein' nach'rally larky. 
 But very good-'arted, rnindjer; very good- 
 'arted." 
 
 She did not come the next evening, nor 
 the next, nor the evening after, nor the one 
 after that. But Bob Jennings, howbeit de- 
 pressed and anxious, was always confident. 
 " Somethink's prevented 'er to-night," he 
 would say, " but she'll come to-morrer, 
 . . . I'll buy a blue tie to-morrer — she 
 used to like me in a blue tie. I won't miss 
 'er to-morrer. I'll come a little earlier." 
 
 So it went. The black coat grew ragged
 
 I 82 
 
 in the service, and hobbledehoys, finding him 
 safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes 
 time after time. He wept over the hat, and 
 straightened it as best he might. Was she 
 coming? Night after night, and night and 
 night. But to-morrow. . .
 
 A CONVERSION 
 
 There are some poor criminals that never 
 have a chance ; circumstances are against 
 them from the first, as they explain, with 
 tears, to sympathetic mission-readers. Cir- 
 cumstances 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 inven- 
 tion of any distinct person. Still, it was 
 commonly his only name, and most of his 
 acquaintances had also nicknames of similarly 
 vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine 
 feelings, capable of a most creditable hour of 
 rapturous misery after hearing, perhaps at a 
 sing-song, " Put Me in my Little Bed," or 
 any other ditty that was rank enough in senti- 
 ment ; wherefore the mission-readers never 
 
 [183]
 
 1 84 
 
 really despaired of him. He was a small, 
 shabby man of twenty-six, but looking 
 younger; with a runaway chin, a sharp, 
 yellow face, and tremulously sly eyes ; with 
 but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a 
 great deal of it, straight and ragged and 
 dirty, on his head. 
 
 Scuddy Lond's misfortunes began early. 
 Temptation had prevailed against him when 
 he was at school, but that was nothing. He 
 became errand boy in a grocer's shop, and 
 complications with the till brought him, a 
 howling penitent, to the police court. Here, 
 while his mother hid her head in the waiting- 
 room, he set forth the villainy of older boys 
 who had prompted him to sin, and got away 
 with no worse than a lecture on the evils of 
 bad company. So that a philanthropist 
 found him a better situation at a distance, 
 where the evil influence could no longer move 
 him. Here he stayed a good while — longer 
 than some who had been there before him, 
 but who had to leave because of vanish- 
 ing postal orders. Nevertheless, the postal 
 orders still went, and in the end he confessed 
 to another magistrate, and fervently promised 
 to lead a better life if his false start were 
 only forgiven. Betting, he protested, was 
 this time the author of his fall ; and as that
 
 i8s 
 
 pernicious institution was clearly to blame 
 for the unhappy young man's ruin, the 
 lamenting magistrate let him off with a 
 simple month in consideration of his misfor- 
 tune and the intercession of his employer, 
 who had never heard of the grocer, and his 
 till. 
 
 After his month Scuddy went regularly 
 into business as a lob-crawler ; that is to say, 
 he returned to his first love, the till ; not 
 narrowly to any individual till, but broad- 
 mindedly to the till as a general institution, 
 to be approached in unattended shops by 
 stealthy groveling on the bell)'. This he 
 did until he perceived the greater security 
 and comfort of waiting without while a small 
 boy did the actual work within. From this, 
 and with this, he ventured on peter-claiming ; 
 laying hands nonchalantly on unconsidered 
 parcels and bags at railway stations, until a 
 day when, bearing a fat portmanteau, he ran 
 against its owner by the door of a refresh- 
 ment bar. This time the responsibility lay 
 with Drink. Strong Drink, he declared, with 
 deep emotion, had been his ruin ; he dated his 
 downfall from the day when a false friend 
 persuaded him to take a Social Glass ; he 
 would still have been an honest, upright, self- 
 respecting young man but for the Cursed
 
 1 36 
 
 Drink. From that moment he would never 
 toucli it more. The case was met with three 
 months with hard labor, and for all that 
 Scuddy Lond had so clearly pointed out the 
 culpability of Drink, he had to do the drag 
 himself. But the mission-readers were com- 
 forted ; for clearly there was hope for one 
 whose eyes were so fully opened to the causes 
 of his degradation. 
 
 After the drag, Scuddy for long made a 
 comfortable living, free from injurious over- 
 work, in the several branches of lob-crawl- 
 ing and peter-claiming, with an occasional 
 deviation into parlor-jumping. It is true 
 that this last did sometimes involve unpleas- 
 ant exertion when the window was high and 
 the boy heavy to bunk up ; and it was neces- 
 sary 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 marvelous 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 per- 
 haps a sixer. And the mission-readers never 
 despaired, because the real cause was always 
 hunger, or thirst, or betting, or a sudden
 
 i?7 
 
 temptation, or something quite exceptional — 
 never anything- like real, hardened, unblush- 
 ing wickedness; and the man himself was al- 
 ways truly penitent. He made such touching 
 references to his innocent childhood, and was 
 so grateful for good advice or anything else 
 you might give him. 
 
 One bold attempt Scuddy made to realize 
 his desire for better things. He resolved to 
 depart from his evil ways and to become a 
 nark — a copper's nark — which is a police spy, 
 or informer. The work was not hard, there 
 was no imprisonment, and he would make 
 amends for the past. But hardly had he 
 begun his narking when some of the Kate 
 Street mob dropped on him in Brick Lane, 
 and bashed him full sore. This would never 
 do ; so once more implacable circumstances 
 drove him to his old courses. And there 
 was this added discomfort; that no boy 
 would parlor-jump nor dip the lob for him. 
 Indeed they bawled aloud, " Yah, Scuddy 
 Lond the copper's nark !" So that the hand 
 of all Flower and Dean Street was against 
 him. Scuddy grew very sad. 
 
 These and other matters were heavy upon 
 his heart on an evening when, with nothing 
 in his pockets but the piece of coal that he 
 carried for luck, he turned aimlessly up
 
 1 88 
 
 Baker's Row. Things were very bad ; it 
 was as though the whole world knew him — 
 and watched. Shop-keepers stood frown- 
 ingly at their doors. People sat defiantly on 
 piles of luggage at the railway stations, and 
 Ihere was never a peter to touch for. All 
 the areas were empty, and there were no side- 
 doors left unguarded, where, failing the 
 more desirable wedge, one might claim a 
 pair or two of daisies put out. for cleaning. 
 All the hundred trifling things that commonly 
 come freely to hand in a mile or two of streets 
 were somehow swept out of the world's 
 economy; and Scuddy tramped into Baker's 
 Row in melting mood. Why were things so 
 hard for some and so easy for others? It 
 was not as though he were to blame — he, a 
 man of feeling and sentiment. Why were 
 others living comfortable lives unvexed of any 
 dread of the police? And apart from that, 
 why did other gonophs get lucky touches for 
 half a century of quids at a time, while he! 
 . . . But there, the world was one brutal 
 oppression and he was its most pitiable victim; 
 and he slunk along, dank with the pathos of 
 things. 
 
 At a corner a group was standing about a 
 woman, whose voice was uplifted to a man's 
 accompaniment on a stand-accordion. Scud-
 
 189 
 
 dy listened. She sang-, with a harsh trem- 
 ble : 
 
 " — An sang a song of 'ome, sweet 'ome. 
 
 The song that reached my 'art. 
 'Ome, 'ome, sweet, sweet 'ome. 
 She sang the song of 'ome, sweet 'ome. 
 
 The song- that reached my 'art !' 
 
 Here, indeed, was something in tune with 
 Scuddy's fine feelings. He looked up. From 
 the darkening sky the evening star winked 
 through the smoke from a factory chimney. 
 From a-near came an exquisite scent of 
 saveloys. Plaintive influences all. He tried 
 to think of 'ome himself — of 'ome strictly in 
 the abstract, so that it might reach his 'art. 
 He stood for some minutes torpid and mind- 
 less, oozing' with sentiment, till the song- 
 ended, and he went on. Fine feelings — fine! 
 He crossed the road, and took a turning. 
 A lame old woman sat in a recess selling 
 trotters, where a dark passage led back to a 
 mission-hall. About the opening a man hov- 
 ered — 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?"
 
 190 
 
 Scuddy turned ; the sound of an harmo- 
 nium and many strenuous voices came faintly 
 down the passage. It was his mood. Why 
 not give his fine feelings another little run? 
 He would ; he would go in. 
 
 " Trotters!" quavered the lame old woman, 
 looking up wistfully. " Two a penny ! Two 
 a penny !" But no; he went up the passage, 
 and she turned patientlv to her board. 
 
 Along the passage the singing grew louder, 
 and burst on his ears unchecked as he pushed 
 open the door at the end. 
 
 " — 'Oosoever will, 'oosoever will. 
 Send the proclamation over vale an' 'ill: 
 'Tis a lovin Father calls the wand'rer 'ome, 
 'Oosoever will may come/" 
 
 A man by the door knew him at once for a 
 stranger, and found him a seat. The hymn 
 went quavering to an end, and the preacher 
 in charge, a small, bright-eyed man with re- 
 bellious hair and a surprisingly deep voice, 
 announced that Brother Spyers would offer a 
 prayer. 
 
 The man prayed with his every facultw 
 He was a sturdy, red-necked artisan, great of 
 hand and wiry of beard ; a smith, perhaps, or 
 a bricklayer. He spread his arms wide, and,
 
 igi 
 
 his head thrown back, brought forth, with 
 passion and pain, his fervid, disordered sen- 
 tences. As he went on, his throat swelled 
 and convulsed in desperate knots, and the 
 sweat hung thick on his face. He called for 
 grace, that every unsaved soul there might 
 come to the fold and believe that night. Or 
 if not all, then some — even a few. That at 
 least one, only one, poor soul might be 
 plucked as a brand from the burning. And 
 as he flung together, with clumsy travail, his 
 endless, formless, unconsidered vehemences 
 of uttermost Cockney, the man stood trans- 
 figured, admirable. 
 
 From here and there came deep amens. 
 Then more, with gasps, groans and sobs. 
 Scuddy J ond, carried away luxuriously on a 
 tide of grievous sensation, groaned with the 
 others. The prayer ended in a chorus of ejacu- 
 lations. Then there was a hymn. Somebody 
 stuffed an open hymn-book into Scuddy's 
 hand but he scarce saw it. Abandoning him- 
 self to the mesmeric influence of the many 
 who were singing about him, he plunged 
 and reveled in a debauch of emotion. He 
 heard, he even joined in ; but understood 
 nothing, for his feelings filled him to over- 
 flowing.
 
 192 
 
 " / 'ave a robe, 'tis resplendent in w'iteness, 
 Awaitiri in glory my wonder in view , 
 
 Oh, w'en I receive it, all shinin in brightness. 
 Dear friend, could J see you receivin' one too / 
 
 For you I am pray in' I For you I am pray in' ! 
 For you I am pray in' I'm pray in for you." 
 
 The hymn ceased ; all sat down, and the 
 preacher began his discourse ; quietly at first, 
 and then, though in a different way, with all 
 the choking fervor of the man who had 
 prayed. For the preacher was fluent as well 
 as zealous, and his words, except when emo- 
 tion stayed them, poured in a torrent. He 
 preached faith — salvation in faith — declaim- 
 ing, beseeching, commanding. " Come — 
 come ! Now is the appointed time ! Only 
 believe — only come! Only — only come!" 
 To impassioned, broken entreaty he added 
 sudden command and the menace of eternity, 
 but broke away pitifully again in urgent 
 pleadings, pantings, gasps; pointing above, 
 spreading his arms abroad, stretching them 
 forth imploringly. Come, only come ! 
 
 Sobs broke out in more than one place. A 
 woman bowed her head and rocked, while 
 her shoulders shook again. Brother Spyers's 
 face was alight with joy. A tremor, a throe 
 of the senses ran through the assembly as 
 through a single body.
 
 193 
 
 The preacher nearing his peroration, rose to 
 a last frenzy of adjuration. Then, ending in 
 a steadier key, he summoned any to stand 
 forth who had found grace that night. 
 
 His bright, strenuous eves were on the 
 sobbers, charging them, drawing them. First 
 rose the woman who had bowed her head. 
 Her face uncovered but distorted and twitch- 
 ing, still weeping but rapt and unashamed, 
 she tottered out between the seats, and sank 
 at last on the vacant form in front. Next a 
 child, a little maid of ten, lank-legged and 
 outgrown of her short skirts, her eyes squeezed 
 down on a tight knot of pocket-handkerchief, 
 crying wildly, broken-hearted ly, sobbed and 
 blundered over seat-corners and toes, and 
 sat down forlorn and solitary, at the other 
 end of the form. And after her came Scuddy 
 Loud. 
 
 Why, he knew not — nor cared. In the full 
 enjoyment of a surfeit of indefinite emotion, 
 tearful, rapturous, he had accepted the com- 
 mand put on him by the preacher, and he had 
 come forth, walking on clouds, regenerate, 
 compact of fine feelings. There was a short 
 prayer of thanks, and then a final hymn : 
 
 " Ring the bells of 'eaven, there is joy to-day, 
 For a soul retumin from the wild !"
 
 i 9 4 
 
 Scuddy felt a curious equable lightness of 
 spirits — a serene cheerfulness. His emotional 
 organism was spent, and in its place was a 
 numb calm, pleasant enough. 
 
 " — Glory f Glory ! '07a the angels sing — 
 Glory I glory ! 'ow the loud 'arfis 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 
 Loud, and spoke with grave, smiling confi- 
 dence about his soul. Brother Spyers also 
 shook hands with him and bespoke his return 
 on Sunday. 
 
 In the cool air of the empty passage, 
 Scuddy's ordinary faculties began to assert 
 themselves; still in an atmosphere of calm 
 cheer. Fine feelings — fine. And as lie 
 turned the piece of coal in his pocket, he 
 reflected that, after all, the day had not be c 11 
 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
 
 195 
 
 her back to roll her white cloth over her re- 
 maining trotters. On the ledge behind stood 
 her little pile of coppers, just reckoned. 
 Scuddy Lond's practised eye took the c;ise in 
 a flash. With two long, tip-toed steps he 
 reached the coppers, lifted them silently, and 
 hurried away up the street. He did not run, 
 for the woman was lame and had not heard 
 him. No, decidedly the day had not been 
 blank. For here was a hot supper.
 
 "ALL THAT MESSUAGE" 
 
 I 
 
 "All that messuage dwelling-house and 
 premises now standing on part of the said 
 parcel of ground," was the phrase in the as- 
 signment of lease, although it only meant. 
 Number Twenty-seven Mulberry Street, Old 
 Ford, containing five rooms and a wash-house, 
 and sharing a dirty front wall with the rest 
 of the street on the same side. The phrase 
 was a very fine one, and, with others more 
 intricate, lent not a little to the triumph and 
 the perplexity the transaction filled old Jaclc 
 Randall withal. The business was a conjunc - 
 tion of purchase and mortgage, whereby old 
 Jack Randall, having thirty pounds of his 
 own, had, after half an hour of helpless stupe- 
 faction 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 
 
 [196]
 
 i 9 7 
 
 pounds had been furnished by the Indubitable 
 Perpetual Building Society, on the security 
 of a mortgage ; and the loan with its interest 
 was to be repaid in monthly installments of 
 two pounds and fourpence during twelve 
 years. Thus old Jack Randall designed to 
 provide for the wants and infirmities of age ; 
 and the outright purchase, he argued, was a 
 thing of mighty easy accomplishment. For 
 the house let at nine shillings a week, which 
 was twenty-three pounds eight shillings a 
 year; and the mortgage installments, with 
 the ground rent of three pounds a year, only 
 came to twenty-seven pounds four, leaving a 
 difference of three pounds sixteen, which 
 would be more than covered by a saving of 
 eighteenpence a week ; certainly not a diffi- 
 cult saving for a man with a regular job and 
 no young family, who had put by thirty 
 pounds in little more than three years. Thus 
 on many evenings old Jack Randall and his 
 wife would figure out the thing, wholly for- 
 getting rates and taxes and repairs. 
 
 Old Jack stood on the pavement of Corn- 
 hill, and stared at the traffic. When he re- 
 membered 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
 
 198 
 
 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 shil- 
 lings, 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; be- 
 cause the house cannot run away as is the 
 manner of directors, nor dissolve into noth- 
 ingness as is the way of banks. And here 
 was he, Jack Randall, walking down Leaden- 
 hall Street a landlord. He mounted a tram- 
 car at Aldgate, and all things were real. 
 
 II 
 
 Old Jack had always been old Jack since 
 at fourteen young Jack had come 'prentice 
 in the same engine-turner's shop. Young 
 Jack was a married man himself now, at 
 another shop ; and old Jack was near fifty ; 
 and had set himself toward thrift. All along 
 Whitechapel Road, Mile End Road, and
 
 199 
 
 Bow Road he considered the shops and 
 houses from the tram-roof, madly estimating 
 rents and values. Near Bow Road end he 
 and his wife alighted, and went inspecting 
 Twenty-seven Mulberry Street once more. 
 Old Jack remarked that the scraper was of a 
 different shape from that he had carried in 
 his mind since their last examination ; and 
 he mentioned it to Mrs. Randall, who consid- 
 ered the scraper of fact rather better than 
 the scraper of memory. They walked to 
 and fro several times, judging the door and 
 three windows from each side of the street, 
 and in the end they knocked, with a purpose 
 of reporting the completed purchase. But 
 the tenant's wife, peeping from behind a 
 blind, and seeing only the people who had 
 already come spying about the house some 
 two or three times, retired to the back and 
 went on with her weekly washing. 
 
 They waited a little, repeated the knock, 
 and then went away. The whole day was 
 " off," and a stroll in the Tower Hamlets 
 Cemetery was decided on. Victoria Park 
 was as near, but was not in the direction of 
 home. Moreover, there was less interest for 
 Mrs. Randall in Victoria Park, because there 
 were no funerals. In the cemetery, Mrs. 
 Randall solaced herself and old Jack with the
 
 200 
 
 more sentimental among- the inscriptions. In 
 the poor part, whose miscellaneous graves 
 are marked by mounds alone, they stopped 
 to look at a very cheap funeral. 
 
 "Lor', Jack," Mrs. Randall said, under her 
 breath with a nudge, " wot a common caufin ! 
 Why, the body's very nigh a-droppin' through 
 the bottom!" The thin tinder-board had, in 
 fact, a bulge. " Poor chap ! ain't it shockin'!" 
 
 The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers 
 was a thing - accepted of course, but the 
 horror of a cheap coffin they had never 
 realized till now. They turned away. In 
 the main path they met the turgid funeral of 
 a Bow Road bookmaker. After the dozen 
 mourning coaches there were cars and pony 
 traps, and behind these came a fag-end of 
 carts and donkey-barrows. Ahead of all was 
 the glazed hearse, with attendants in weepers, 
 and by it, full of the pride of artistry, walked 
 the undertaker himself. " Now that," said 
 old Jack, " is somethin' like a caufin." (It 
 was heavy and polished and beset with bright 
 fittings). "Ah," sighed his missis, "ain't it 
 lovely !" 
 
 The hearse drew up at the chapel door, 
 where the undertaker turned to the right- 
 about and placidly surveyed the movements 
 of his forces. Mrs, Randall murmured
 
 201 
 
 again : " Lovely — lovely !" and kept her eyes 
 on the coffin. Then she edged gently up to 
 the undertaker, and whispered : " What 
 would that kind o' caufin be called, mister?" 
 
 The undertaker looked at her from the 
 sides of his eyes and answered briskly : "Two- 
 inch polished oak solid extry brass fittin's." 
 Mrs. Randall returned to old Jack's side and 
 repeated the words. " That must cost a 
 lot," she said. " What a thing, though, to 
 be certain you won't be buried in a trump- 
 ery 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 da)' he 
 had nursed a fancy that some small indul- 
 gence, something a little heavier than usual 
 in the matter of expense, would be proper to 
 celebrate the occasion. But he reflected that 
 his savings were gone and his pockets no 
 fuller than had always been their Wednesday 
 wont; though, of course, in that matter the 
 future would be different. The bearers car- 
 ried the coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Rnn- 
 dall turned away among the graves. Old 
 Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, look- 
 ing at the ground, said : " That was a nobby 
 caufin, mother, wasn't it ?" Whereunto Mrs.
 
 202 
 
 Randall murmured : " Lovely — lovely !" yet 
 again. 
 
 Old Jack walked a little further and asked : 
 " Two-inch polished oak, 'e said, didn't 'e ?" 
 
 " Solid, an' extry brass fittin's ; beautiful !" 
 
 " I'll remember it. That's what you shall 
 'ave if it 'appens you go fust. There !" And 
 old Jack sat on the guard-chain of a flowery 
 grave with the air of one giving a handsome 
 order. 
 
 " Me ? Git out ! Look at the expense." 
 
 " Matter o' circumstances. Look at Jen- 
 kins's Gardens. Jenkins was a bench-'and at 
 the Limited; got 'is 'ouses one under another 
 through building s'ieties. That there caufin 
 'ud be none too dear for *im. We're begin- 
 nin'; an' I promise you that same, if you'd 
 like it." 
 
 " Like it!" the missis ejaculated. " Course 
 I should. Wouldn't you ?" 
 
 " Wy, yus. Any one 'ud prefer somethin* 
 a bit nobb) r ; an' thick." 
 
 And the missis reciprocated old Jack's 
 promise, in case he died first; if a two-inch 
 polished oak solid could be got for every- 
 thing she had to offer. And, tea-time 
 approaching, they made well pleased for 
 home.
 
 203 
 
 III 
 
 In two day old Jack was known as a land- 
 lord all about. On the third day, which was 
 Saturday, young Jack called to borrow half 
 a sovereign, but succeeded only to the extent 
 of five shillings ; work was slack with him, 
 and three days of it was all he had had that 
 week. This had happened before, and he 
 had got on as best he could ; but now, with a 
 father buying house-property, it was absurd 
 to economize for lack of half a sovereign. 
 When he brought the five shillings home, 
 his wife asked why he had not thrown them 
 at his father's head ; a course of procedure 
 which, young Jack confessed, had never 
 occurred to his mind. " Stingy old 'unks !" 
 she scolded. " A-goin' about buyin' 'ouses, 
 an' won't lend 'is own son ten shillin's ! 
 Much good may all 'is money do 'im with 'is 
 'ateful mean ways!" This was the begin- 
 ning of old Jack's estrangement from his 
 relatives. For young Jack's missis expressed 
 her opinion in other places, and young Jack 
 was soon ready to share it ; rigidly abstain- 
 ing from another attempt at a loan, though 
 he never repaid the five shillings. 
 
 In the course of the succeeding week two
 
 204 
 
 of his shopmates took old Jack aside at differ- 
 ent times to explain that the loan of a pound 
 or two would make the greatest imaginable 
 difference to the whole course of their future 
 lives, while the temporary absence of the 
 money would be imperceptible to a capital- 
 ist like himself. When he roundly declared 
 that he had as few loose sovereigns as them- 
 selves, he was set down an uncommon liar as 
 well as a wretched old miser. This was the 
 beginning of old Jack's unpopularity in the 
 workshop. 
 
 IV 
 
 He took a half day off to receive the first 
 week's rent in state, and Mrs. Randall went 
 with him. He showed his written authority 
 from the last landlord, and the tenant's wife 
 paid over the sum of nine shillings, giving 
 him at the same time the rent-book to sign 
 and a slip of written paper. This last was a 
 week's notice to terminate the tenancy. 
 
 "We're very well satisfied with the 'ouse," 
 the tenant's wife said (she was a painfully 
 clean, angular woman, with a notable flavor 
 of yellow soap and scrubbing-brush about 
 her), " but m) r 'usband finds it too far to get 
 to an' from Albert Docks mornin' and night.
 
 205 
 
 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 set- 
 ting by of ten and sixpence a week for the 
 building society payments and the ground 
 rent. This was serious ; it meant knocking 
 off some of the butcher's meat, all the beer 
 and tobacco, and perhaps a little firing. Old 
 Jack resolved to waste no more half-days in 
 collecting, but to send his missis. On the fol- 
 lowing Monday, therefore, while the tenant's 
 wife kept a sharp eye on the man who was 
 piling a greengrocer's van with chairs and 
 tables, Mrs. Randall fixed a " To Let " bill in 
 the front window. In the leaves of the rent- 
 book she found another thing of chagrin ; to 
 wit, a notice demanding payment of poor, 
 highway, and general rates to the amount of 
 one pound eighteen and sevenpence. Now, 
 no thought of rates and taxes had ever vexed 
 the soul of old Jack. Of course, he might 
 have known that his own landlord paid the 
 rates for his house ; but, indeed, he had never 
 once thought of the thing, being content with 
 faithfully paying the rent, and troubling no 
 more about it. That night was one of dismal
 
 2^0 
 
 wakefulness for old Jack and his missis. If 
 he had understood the transaction at the law- 
 yer'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 
 clay ; and if he had known something of the 
 ways of rate-collecting, he would have under- 
 stood that payment was not expected for at 
 least a month. As it was, the glories of lease- 
 possession grew dim in his eyes, and a landlord 
 seemed a poor creature, spending his sub- 
 stance to keep roofs over the heads of 
 strangers. 
 
 On Wednesday afternoon a man called 
 about taking the house, and returned in the 
 evening, when old Jnck was home. He was 
 a large-featured, quick-eyed man, with a loud. 
 harsh voice and a self-assertive manner. 
 Quickly old Jack recognized him as a speaker 
 he had heard at certain street-corners ; a man 
 who was secretary, or delegate, or that sort 
 of thing, to something that old Jack had 
 forgotten. 
 
 He began with the announcement: "I am 
 Joe Parsons ;" delivered with a stare for
 
 2QJ 
 
 emphasis, and followed by a pause to permit 
 assimilation. 
 
 Old Jack had some recollection of the 
 name, but it was indefinite. He wondered 
 whether or not he should address the man as 
 "sir," considering the street speeches, and 
 the evident importance of the name. But 
 then, after all, he was a landlord himself. So 
 he only said, " Yus ?" 
 
 "I am Joe Parsons," the man repeated ; 
 " and I'm looking for a 'ouse." 
 
 There was another pause, which lasted till 
 old Jack felt obliged to say something. So 
 he said, " Yus?" again. 
 
 " I'm looking for a 'ouse," the man repeated, 
 " and if we can arrange things satisfactory, I 
 might take yours." 
 
 Mr. foe Parsons was far above haggling: 
 about the rent, but he had certain ideas as to 
 painting and repairs that looked expensive. 
 In the end old Jack promised the paint a 
 touch-up, privily resolving to do the work 
 himself in his evenings. And on the whole, 
 Mr. Joe Parsons was wonderfully ensy to 
 come to terms with, considering his eminent 
 public character. And anything in the nature 
 of a reference in his case would have been 
 absurd. As himself observed, his name was 
 enough for that.
 
 2o8 
 VI 
 
 Old Jack did the painting, and the new 
 tenant took possession. When Mrs. Randall 
 called for the first week a draggle-tailed little 
 woman with a black eye meekly informed 
 her that Mr. Parsons was not at home, and 
 had left no money nor any message as to the 
 rent. This was awkward, because the first 
 building society installment would Be due 
 before next rent-day — to say nothing of the 
 rates. But it would never do to offend Mr. 
 Parsons. So the money was scraped together 
 by heroic means (the missis produced an 
 unsuspected twelve and sixpence from a 
 gallipot on the kitchen dresser), and the first 
 installment was paid. 
 
 Mrs. Randall called twice at Mulberry 
 Street next rent-day, but nobody answered 
 her knocks. Old Jack, possessed by a misty 
 notion, born of use, that rent was constitu- 
 tionally demandable only on Monday morn- 
 ing, called no more for a week. But on 
 Thursday evening a stout little stranger, 
 with a bald head which he wiped continually, 
 came to the Randalls to ask if the tenant of 
 Twenty-seven Mulberry Street was Mr. Joe 
 Parsons. Assured that it was, he nodded,
 
 2og 
 
 said " Thanks ! that's all," wiped his head 
 again, and started to go. Then he paused, 
 and " Pay his rent regular?" he asked. Old 
 Jack hesitated. " Ah, thought so," said the 
 little stranger. " He's a wrong 'un. I've got 
 a bit o' paper for 'im." And he clapped on 
 his hat with the handkerchief in it and van- 
 ished. 
 
 VII 
 
 Old Jack felt unhappy, for a landlord. He 
 and the missis reproached themselves for not 
 asking the little stranger certain questions ; 
 but he had gone. Next Monday morning 
 old Jack took another half-day, and went to 
 Mulberry Street himself. From appearances, 
 he assured himself that a belief, entertained 
 by his missis, that the upper part of his house 
 was being sublet, was well-founded. He 
 watched awhile from a corner, until a dirty 
 child kicked at the door, and it was opened. 
 Then he went across and found the draggle- 
 tailed woman who had answered Mrs. Ran- 
 dall before, in every respect the same to look 
 at, except that not one eye was black but 
 two. Old Jack, with some abruptness, de- 
 manded his rent of her, addressing her as
 
 2IO 
 
 Mrs. Parsons. Without disclaiming the 
 name, she pleaded with meek uneasiness that 
 Mr. Parsons really wasn't at home, and she 
 didn't know when to expect him. At last, 
 finding this ineffectual, she produced four and 
 sixpence ; begging him with increasing agit- 
 ation to take that on account and call again. 
 
 Old Jack took the money, and called again 
 at seven. Custom or law or what-not, he 
 would wait for no Monday morning now. 
 The door was open, and a group of listening 
 children stood about it. From within came 
 a noise of knocks and thuds and curses — 
 sometimes a gurgle. Old Jack asked a small 
 boy, whose position in the passage betokened 
 residence, what was going forward. " It's 
 the man down-stairs," said the bo}% " a-givin' 
 of it to 'is wife for pay in' awy the lodgers' 
 rent." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Joe Parsons appeared 
 in the passage. The children, who had once 
 or twice commented in shouts, dispersed. 
 " I've come for my rent," said old Jack. 
 
 Mr. Joe Parsons saw no retreat. So he 
 said : " Rent ?" Ain't you 'ad it ? I don't 
 bother about things in the 'ouse. Come again 
 when my wife's in." 
 
 " She is in," rejoined old Jack, " an' you've 
 been a-landin' of 'er for payin' me what little
 
 211 
 
 she 'as. Come, you pay me what you owe 
 me, and take a week's notice now. I want 
 my house kep' respectable." 
 
 Mr. Joe Parsons had no other shift. " You 
 be damned," he said. " Git out." 
 
 " What ?" gasped old Jack — for to tell a 
 landlord to get out of his own house ! . . . 
 "What?" 
 
 " Why git out. Y'ought to know better 
 than comin' 'ere askin for money you ain't 
 earn't." 
 
 " Ain't earnt ? What d'ye mean ?" 
 
 " What I say. Y'aint earnt it. It's you 
 blasted lan'lords as sucks the blood o' the 
 workers. You go an' work for your 
 money." 
 
 Old Jack was confounded. " Why — what 
 — how d'ye think I can pay the rates, an' 
 everythink ?" 
 
 " I don't care. You'll 'ave to pay 'em, an' 
 I wish they was 'igher. They ought to be 
 the same as the rent, 'an that 'ud do away 
 with fellers like you. Go on ; you do your 
 damdest an' get your rent best way you 
 can." 
 
 " But what about upstairs ? You're lettin' 
 it out an' takin' the rent there. I — " 
 
 " That's none o' your business. Git out, 
 will ye?" They had gradually worked over
 
 212 
 
 the doorstep, and Randall was on the pave- 
 ment. " I sha'n't pay, an' I sha'n't go, an* ye 
 can do what ye like; so it's no good your 
 stoppin' — unless you want to fight. Eh — do 
 ye ?" And Mr. Parsons put a foot over the 
 threshold. 
 
 Old Jack had not fought for many years. 
 It was low. For a landlord outside his own 
 house it was, indeed, disgraceful. But it was 
 quite dark now, and there was scarcely a soul 
 in the street. Perhaps nobody would know, 
 and this man deserved something for himself. 
 He looked up the street again, and then, 
 " Well, I ain't so young as I was," he said, 
 "but I won't disappoint-ye. Come on." 
 
 Mr. Joe Parsons stepped within and 
 slammed the door. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Old Jack went home less happy than ever. 
 He had no notion what to do. Difficulties of 
 private life were often discussed and argued 
 out in the workshop, but there he had become 
 too unpopular to ask for anything in the na- 
 ture of sympathy or advice. Not only would 
 he lend no money, but he refused to stand 
 treat on rent days. Also, there was a collec-
 
 213 
 
 tion on behalf of men on strike at another 
 factory, to which he gave nothing; and he 
 had expressed the strongest disapproval of 
 an extension of that strike, and his own in- 
 tention to continue working if it happened. 
 For what would become of all his plans and 
 his savings if his wa<res ceased ? Wherefore 
 there was no other man in the shop so un- 
 popular as old Jack, and in a workshop un- 
 popularity is a bad thing. 
 
 He called on a professional rent-receiver 
 and seller-up. This man knew Mr. Joe 
 Parsons very well. He never had furniture 
 upon which a profitable distress might be 
 levied. But if he took lodgers, and they 
 were quiet people, something might be got 
 out of them — if the job were made worth 
 while. But this was not at all what old Jack 
 wanted. 
 
 Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice 
 of the secretary of the building society. 'lis 
 was a superficial young man, an auctioneer's 
 clerk until evening, who had no disposition 
 to trouble himself about matters outside his 
 duties. Still, he went so far as to assure old 
 Jack that turning out a tenant who meant to 
 stay was not a simple job. If you didn't 
 mind losing the rent it might be done by 
 watching until the house was left ungar-
 
 214 
 
 risoned, getting in, putting the furniture into 
 the street, and keeping the tenant out. With 
 this forlorn hope old Jack began to spend his 
 leisure about Mulberry Street; ineffectually, 
 for Mrs. Parsons never came out while he 
 was there. Once he saw the man, and offered 
 to forgive him the rent if he would leave; a 
 proposal which Mr. Parsons received with 
 ostentatious merriment. At this old Jack's 
 patience gave out, and he punched his tenant 
 on the ear. Whereat the latter, suddenly 
 whitening in the face, said something about 
 the police, and walked away at a good pace. 
 
 IX 
 
 The strike extended, as it was expected and 
 designed to do. The men at old Jack's fac- 
 tory were ordered out, and came, excepting 
 only old Jack himself. He was desperate. 
 Since he had ventured on that cursed invest- 
 ment everything had gone wrong; but he 
 would not lose his savings if mere personal 
 risk would preserve them. Moreover, a man 
 of fifty is not readily re-employed, once out, 
 and as the firm wns quite ready to keep one 
 hand on to oil and see that things were in 
 order, old Jack stayed ; making his comings
 
 215 
 
 and goings late to dodge the pickets, and ap- 
 proaching subtly by a railway-arch stable and 
 a lane thereunto. It was not as yet a very 
 great strike, and with care these things could 
 be done. Still, he was sighted and chased 
 twice, and he knew that if the strike lasted, and 
 feeling grew hotter, he would be attacked in 
 his own house. If only he could hold on 
 through the strike, and by hook or crook 
 keep the outgoings paid, he would attend to 
 Mr. Parsons afterward. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon, as Mrs. Randall 
 was buying greens and potatoes, old Jack, 
 waiting without, strolled toward a crowd 
 standing about a speaker. A near approach 
 discovered the speaker to be Mr. Joe Par- 
 sons, who was saying : — 
 
 " strike pay is little enough at the 
 
 time, of course, but don't forget what it will 
 lead to ! An' strike pay does very well, my 
 frien's, when the party knows 'ow to lay it 
 out, an' don't go passin' it on to the lan'lord. 
 Don't give it away. When the lan'lord 
 comes o' Monday mornin', tell 'im (polite as 
 you like) that there's nothink for 'im till
 
 2l6 
 
 there's more for you. Let the lan'lord earn 
 'is money, like me an' you. Let the lan'lords 
 pay a bit towards this 'ere strike as well as 
 the other blaggards, the imployers. Lan'- 
 lords gits quite enough out o' you my fellow 
 workers, when — " 
 
 " They don't git much out o' you !" 
 shouted old Jack in his wrath ; and then felt 
 sorry he had spoken. For everybody looked 
 at him, and he knew some of the faces. 
 
 " Ho !" rejoined the speaker, mincingly. 
 " There's a gent there as seems to want to 
 address this 'ere meetin'. P'raps you'll 'ave 
 the kindness to step up 'ere, my friend, an' 
 say wot you got to say plain." And he 
 looked full at old Jack, pointing with his 
 finger. 
 
 Old Jack fidgeted, wishing himself out of 
 it. " You pay me what you owe me," he 
 growled sulkily. 
 
 " As this 'ere individual, after intruding 
 'isseH on this peaceful meetin', ain't got any- 
 think to say for 'isself," pursued Mr. Joe Par- 
 sons, " I'll explain things for 'im. That's my 
 lan'lord, that is; look at 'im ! 'E comes 
 'angin' round my door waitin' for a chance 
 to turn my pore wife an' children out o' 
 'ouse and 'one. 'E rollers me in the street 
 an' tries to intimidate me. 'E comes 'ere,
 
 217 
 
 my feller workers, as a spy, an' to try an' 
 poison your minds agin me as devotes my 
 'ole life to your int'rests. That's the sort o' 
 man, that's the sort o' lan'lord V is. But 'e's 
 somethink more than a greedy, thievun', 
 overfed lan'lord, my frien's, an' I'll tell you 
 wot. 'E's a dirty, crawlin' blackleg ; that's 
 wot else 'e is. 'E's the on'y man as wouldn't 
 come out o' Maidment's; an' 'e's workin' 
 there now, skulkin' in an' out in the dark — a 
 dirty rat ! Now you all know very well I 
 won't 'ave nothink to do with any violence 
 or intimidation. It's agin my principles, al- 
 though I know there's very often great 
 temptation, an' it's impossible to identify in a 
 crowd, an' safe to be very little evidence. 
 But this I will say, that when a dirty, low 
 rat, not content with fattenin' on starvin' 
 tenants, goes an' takes the bread out o' 'is 
 feller men's mouths, like that bleedin' black- 
 leg — blackleg ! — blackleg ! — 
 
 Old Jack was down. A dozen heavy >.. ots 
 were at work about his head and belly. In 
 from the edge of the crowd a woman tore her 
 way, shedding potatoes as she ran, and 
 screaming ; threw herself upon the man on 
 the ground ; and shared the kicks. Over the 
 shoulders of the kickers whirled the buckle-
 
 2l8 
 
 end of a belt. " One for the old cow," said a 
 voice. 
 
 XI 
 
 When a man is lying helpless on his back, 
 with nothing in hand, he pays nothing off a 
 building society mortgage, because, as his 
 wife pawns the goods of the house, the result- 
 ing money goes for necessaries. To such a 
 man the society shows no useless grace ; 
 especially when the secretary has a friend 
 always ready to take over a forfeited house 
 at forced sale price. So the lease of Twenty- 
 seven vanished, and old Jack's savings with 
 it. 
 
 And one day, some months later, old Jack, 
 supported by the missis and a stick, took his 
 way across the workhouse forecourt. There 
 was a door some twenty yards from that 
 directly before them, and two men came out 
 of it, carrying a laden coffin < ">lain deal. 
 
 " Look there, Jack," the mi'ssffe said, as she 
 checked her step; " what a common caufin !" 
 And indeed there* was a distinct bulge in the 
 bottom. 
 
 THE END.
 
 fK 
 
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