She had seen nothing of Uncle Isaac since she had come to Harbour Lane, though he knew where to find her. She had hoped he would lend a hand with the painting, or with the display of the stock; but no doubt he had been too busy. True, Johnny thought he had seen him once from the steps, some way down the street, but that must have been a mistake; for Uncle Isaac would not have come so near them without calling, nor would he have bolted instantly round the nearest corner at sight of the boy and his work, as Johnny had fancied he had.
The afternoon began no better than the morning. Nobody came but a child, who asked for sixpenn’orth of coppers, till abont four. Then a hurried woman demanded a penn’orth of mixed pickles in a saucer, and grumbled at the quantity. She wonldn’t come into the shop again, at anyrate; a threat so discomposing (for was not the woman the first paying customer?) that for hours Nan May could not forgive herself for her illiberality; though indeed she gained but a weak fraction of a farthing by the transaction.
Half an hour more went, and then there came a truly noble customer. He looked like a bricklayer, and he was far from sober: so far, indeed, that Johnny, on the steps, spying the mazy sinuosity of his approach, got a step lower and made ready to jump, in case of accidents. But the bricklayer, conscious of the presence of many ladders, steered wide into the roadway, and there stopped, fascinated by the brilliancy before him. Some swaying moments of consideration resolved him that this was a shop: and after many steps up the curb, and as many back in the gutter, he picked a labyrinthine path among the myriad ladders, narrowly missing the real one as he went, shouldered against the wet door-post, and stumbled toward the counter. Here he regarded a bladder of lard with thoughtful severity, till Nan May timorously asked what he wanted.
“Shumm for kidsh,” he replied sternly, to the lard. “Shummforkidsh.” For some moments his scowl deepened; then he raised his hand and pointed. “W — wha’sha’?” he demanded.
“Lard.”
“Tharr’ll do.” He plunged his hand into his trousers pocket. “Tharr’ll do. ‘Ow mush?”
“Sevenpence halfpenny a pound.”
“Orrigh’? Gi’s ‘oldovit.” He reached an unsteady hand, imperilling -bottles; but Nan May was quicker, and took the bladder of lard from its perch.
“How much?” she asked.
“‘Ow much? Thash wha’ I wan’ know. You give it ‘ere, go on.” His voice rose disputatively, and he fell on the bladder of lard with both hands. “‘Ow mush?”
Nan reflected that it weighed more than three pounds, and that she had paid Mr. Dunkin eighteenpence for it. “Two shillings,” she said.
“Two shillin’. Orrigh’,” and instantly what remained of the new customer’s week’s wages was scattered about the counter. Mrs. May took two shillings and returned the rest; which with some difficulty was thrust back into the pocket. And the new customer, after looking narrowly about him in search of his purchase, and at last discovering it under his arm, sallied forth with a wipe against the other door-post, and continued his winding way: a solemn and portentous bricklayer, with red paint on his shoulders and whiskers, and a bladder of lard that slipped sometimes forward and sometimes backward from his embrace, and was a deal of trouble to pick up again.
Here was a profit of sixpence at a stroke, unlikely as the chance was to recur; and it raised Nan’s spirits, unreasonably enough. Still, the bricklayer brought luck of a sort. For there were three more customers within the next hour, two bringing a halfpenny and one a penny. And in the evening five or six came, one spending as much as fourpence. This was better, perhaps, but poor enough. At ten that night Nan May reckoned her profit for the day at ninepence farthing, including the bricklayer’s sixpence; and she was sick with waiting and faint with fear. At half-past ten Uncle Isaac turned up.
“Ah hum,” he said; “bin paintin’. Might ‘a’ laid it on a bit evener. There’s right ways o’ layin’ on paint, an’ there’s wrong ways, an’ one way ain’t the same as the other.” He raised his finger at Johnny instructively. “Far from it and contrairy, there’s a great difference.” Uncle Isaac paused, and no further amplification of his proposition occurring to him, he turned to Mrs. May. “‘Ow’s trade?” he asked.
Nan May shook her head sadly. “Very bad, uncle,” she said. “Hardly any at all.” And she felt nearer crying than ever since the funeral.
“Ah,” said Uncle Isaac, sitting on a packing case — empty, but intended to look full; “ah, what you want’s Enterprise. Enterprise; that’s what you want. What is it as stimilates trade an’ encourages prosperity to — to the latest improvements? Enterprise. Why is commercial opulentness took — at least, wafted — commercial opulentness wafted round the ‘ole world consekince o’ what? Consekince o’ Enterprise.” Uncle Isaac tapped the counter with his forefinger and gazed solemnly in Nan May’s troubled face. “Consekince o’ Enterprise,” he repeated slowly, with another tap. Then he added briskly, with a glance at the inner door: “‘Adjer supper?”
“No, uncle,” Nan answered. “I never thought of it. But, now you’re here, p’raps you’ll have a bit with us?”
“Ah — don’t mind if I do,” Uncle Isaac responded cheerfully. “That looks a nice little bit o’ bacon. Now a rasher auf that, an’ a hegg — got a hegg? O yus.” He saw a dozen in a basin. “A rasher auf that, an’ a hegg or two, ‘ud be just the thing, with a drop o’ beer, wouldn’t it?”
Johnny fetched the beer, and Uncle Isaac had two rashers and four eggs; and he finished with a good solid piece of bread, and the first slice — a large one — out of the Dutch cheese from the counter. Nan May made no more than a pretence at eating a little bread and cheese.
When at last the jug was empty, and Uncle Isaac was full, he leaned back in his chair, and for some minutes exercised his lips in strange workings and twistings, with many incidental clicks and sucks and fizzes, while he benignantly contemplated the angle of the ceiling. When at last the display flagged, he brought his gaze gradually lower, till it rested on the diminished piece of bacon. “None so bad, that bacon,” he observed, putting his head aside with a critical regard. “Though p’raps rayther more of a breakfast specie than a supper.” He laid his head to the other side, as one anxious to be impartial. “Yus,” he went on thoughtfully, “more of a breakfast specie, as you might say.” Then after a pause, he added, with the air of one announcing a brilliant notion:— “I b’lieve — yus, I do b’lieve I’ll try a bit for breakfast to-morrer mornin’!”
“If you like, uncle,” Nan answered, a little faintly. “But — but—” timidly— “I was thinking p’raps it’ll make it look rather small to — to put on the counter.”
“So it would — so it would,” Uncle Isaac admitted frankly; and indeed the remaining piece was scarce of four rashers’ capacity. “Pity to cut it, as you say, Nan. Thanks — I’ll just wrop it up as it is. It’ll come in for Monday too; an’ that large bit o’ streaky’ll look a deal more nobler on the counter.”
Uncle Isaac’s visit swept away the day’s profits and a trifle more. But certainly, Uncle Isaac must not be offended now that things looked so gloomy ahead.
Bessy lay, and strained her wits far into the night, inventing comfortable theories and assurances, and exchanging them with her mother for others as hopeful. But in the morning each pillow had its wet spot.
CHAPTER XII.
BUT Monday saw another beginning. Johnny must rise soon after five now, to reach his work at six; but on this, the first morning, he was awake and eager at half-past four. Early as he was, his mother was before him, and as he pulled his new white ducks over his every-day clothes he could hear her moving below. Nan May was resolved that the boy should go out to begin the world fed and warm at least, and as cheerful as might be.
For this one morning Johnny felt nothing of the sleepy discomfort of any house in pitch dark a little before five. Two breakfasts were ready for him, one for the present moment (which he scarce touched, for he was excited), and another in a basin and a red handkerchie
f, for use at the workshop, with a new tin can full of coffee. For the half-hour allowed for breakfast would scarce suffice for the mere hurrying home and hurrying back again; and the full hour at midday would give him bare time for dinner with his mother.
Bessy was infected with the excitement, and stumped downstairs to honour Johnny’s setting out. He left the shop-door half an hour too soon, with a boot flung after him. The darkness of the street seemed more solid at this hour than ever at midnight, and it almost smothered the faint gas-lights. Now and again a touch of sleet came down the wind, and a little dirty, half-melted snow of yesterday made the ways sloppy. Nobody was about, to view the manly glory of Johnny’s white ducks, and he was not sorry now that his overcoat largely hid them, for the wind was cold. And he reflected with satisfaction that the warming of his coffee on a furnace would smoke the inglorious newness off the tin can ere he carried it home in the open day.
The one or two policemen he met regarded him curiously, for workmen were not yet moving. But the coffee-stall was open by the swing bridge, and here the wind came over the river with an added chill. The coffee-stall keeper had no customers, and on the bridge and in the straight street beyond it nobody was in sight. Till presently a small figure showed indistinctly ahead, and crossed the road as though to avoid him. It moved hurriedly, keeping timidly to the wall, and Johnny saw it was a girl of something near his own age. He tramped on, and the girl, once past, seemed to gather courage, turned, and made a few steps after him. At this he stopped, and she spoke from a few yards off. She was a decently-dressed and rather a pretty girl, as he could see by the bad light of the nearest lamp, but her face was drawn with alarm, and her eyes were wet.
“Please have you seen a lady anywhere?” she asked tremulously. “Ill?”
Johnny had seen no lady, ill or well, and when he said no, the young girl, with a weak “Thank-you,” hastened on her way. It was very odd, thought Johnny, as he stared into the dark where she vanished. Who should lose a lady — ill — in Blackwall streets at this time of a pitch dark morning? As he thought, there rose in his mind the picture of gran’dad, straying and bloody and sick to death, that night that seemed so far away, though it was but a month or two since. Maybe the lady had wandered from her bed in some such plight as that. Johnny was sorry for the girl’s trouble, and would have liked to turn aside and join in her search; but this was the hour of great business of his own, and he went his way about it.
The policemen were knocking at doors now, rousing workmen, who answered with shouts from within. An old night-watchman, too, scurrying his hardest (for he had farther to go than the policemen), banged impatiently at the knockers of the more conservative and old-fashioned. And as Johnny neared Maidment and Hurst’s, the streets grew busy with the earliest workmen — those who lived farthest from their labour.
Maidment and Hurst’s gate was shut fast; he was far too soon. He tried the little door that was cut in the great gate, but that was locked. He wondered if he ought to knock; and did venture on a faint tap of the knuckles. But he might as well have tapped the brick wall. Moreover, a passing apprentice observed the act, and guffawed aloud. “Try down the airey, mate,” was his advice.
So Johnny stood and waited, keeping the new tin can where the gaslight over the gate should not betray its unsmoked brightness, and trying to look as much like an old hand as possible. But the passing men grinned at each other, jerking their heads toward him, and Johnny felt that somehow he was known for a greenhorn. The apprentices, immeasurable weeks ahead of him in experience, flung ironic advice and congratulation. “Hooray! Extry quarter for you, mate!” two or three said; one earnestly advising him to “chalk it on the gaffer’s ‘at, so’s ‘e won’t forget.” And still another shouted in tones of extravagant indignation:— “What? On’y jes’ come? They bin a-waitin’ for ye ever since the pubs shut!”
At length the timekeeper came, sour and grey, and tugged at a vertical iron bell-handle which Johnny had not perceived. The bell brought the night-watchman, with a lantern and a clank of keys, and the timekeeper stepped through the little door with a growl in acknowledgment. He left the door ajar, and Johnny, after a moment’s hesitation, stepped in after him.
“Mr. Cottam told me to come this morning, sir,” he said, ‘before the timekeeper had quite disappeared into his box. “My name’s May.”
The timekeeper turned and growled again, that being his usual manner of conversation. “Awright,” he continued. “You wait there till ‘e comes in then.” And it was many months ere Johnny next heard him say so much at once.
The timekeeper began hanging round metal tickets on a great board studded with hooks, a ticket to each hook, in numbered order. Presently a man came in at the door, selected a ticket from the board, and dropped it through a slot into what seemed to be a big money-box. Then three came together, and each did the same. Then there came a stream of men and boys, and the board grew barer of tickets and barer. In the midst came Mr. Cottam, suddenly appearing within the impossibly small wicket as by a conjuring trick.
He tramped heavily straight ahead, apparently unconscious of Johnny. But as he came by he dropped his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and, gazing steadily ahead: “Well, me lad!” he roared, much as though addressing somebody at a window of the factory across the yard.
“Good-morning, sir,” Johnny answered, walking at the foreman’s side by compulsion; for the hand, however friendly, was the heaviest and strongest he had ever felt.
Mr. Cottam went several yards in silence, still gripping Johnny’s shoulder. Then he spoke again. “Mother all right?” he asked fiercely, still addressing the window.
“Yes, sir, thank-you.”
They walked on, and entered the factory. “This ‘ere,” said Mr. Cottam, turning on Johnny at last and glaring at him sternly: “this ‘ere’s the big shop. ‘Eavy work. There’s a big cylinder for the noo Red Star boat.” He led his prisoner through the big shop, this way and that among the great lathes and planers, lit by gas from the rafters; and up a staircase to another workshop. “‘Ere we are,” said Mr. Cottam, releasing Johnny’s shoulder at last. “Y’ain’t a fool, are ye? Know what a lathe is, doncher, an’ beltin’, an’ shaftin’? Awright. Needn’t do nothin’ ‘fore breakfast. Look about an’ see things, an’ don’t get in mischief. I got me eye on ye.”
The foreman left him, and began to walk along the lines of machines; and the nearest apprentice grinned at Johnny, and winked. Johnny looked about, as the foreman had advised. This place, where he was to learn to make engines, and where he was to work day by day till he was twenty-one, and a man, was a vast room with skylights in the roof: though this latter circumstance he did not notice till after breakfast, when the gas was turned off, and daylight penetrated from above. A confusion of heavy raftering stretched below the roof, carrying belted shafting everywhere; and every man bent over his machine or his bench, for Cottam was a sharp gaffer. Johnny watched the leading hand scribing curves on metal along lines already set out by punctured dots. “Lining off,” said the leading hand, seeing the boy’s interest. And then, leaning over to speak, because of the workshop din: “Centre-dabs,” he added, pointing to the dots. That, at least, Johnny resolved not to forget: lining off and centre-dabs.
For some reason — perhaps the usual reason, perhaps another — three or four of the men were “losing a quarter” that Monday morning, and some of them were men with whom young apprentices had been working. Consequently, Cottam, in addition to his general supervision, had to keep particular watch on these mentorless lads, and Johnny learned a little from the gaffer’s remarks.
“Well, wotjer doin’ with that file?” he would ask of one. “You ain’t a-playin’ cat’s cradle now, me lad! Look ‘ere, keep ‘er level, like this! It’s a file, it ain’t a rockin’-’orse!”
Or he would come behind another who was chipping bye-metal, and using a hammer with more zeal than skill. He would watch for a moment, and then break out, “Well, you are fond o’ exercise, I must sa
y! Good job you’re strong enough to stand it. I ain’t. My constitootion won’t allow me to ‘old a ‘ammer like this ‘ere.” This with a burlesque of the lad’s stiff grasp and whole-arm action. “It ‘ud knock me up. Bein’ a more delicate sort o’ person,” (his arm was near as thick as the boy’s waist) “I ‘old a ‘ammer like this — see!” And he took the shaft end loosely in his fingers and hammered steadily and firmly from the wrist. Johnny saw that and remembered.
Again, half an hour later, stopping at the elbow of another apprentice, a little older than the last: “Come,” said the foreman, “that’s a noo idea, that is! Takin’ auf the skin from cast iron with a bran’ noo file! I ‘ope you’ve patented it. An’ I ‘ope you won’t come an’ want another file in about ‘alf an hour, ‘cos if you do you won’t git it!” Whereat Johnny, astonished to learn that cast iron had a skin, resolved not to forget that you shouldn’t take it off with a new file, and made a mental note to ask somebody why.
Presently, as he came by the long fitting-bench, Johnny grew aware of a fitter, immensely tall and very thin, who grinned and nodded in furtive recognition. It was, indeed, the next door lodger, who had painted the cornice. He was very large, Johnny thought, to be so shy; he positively blushed as he grinned. “You come to this shop?” he asked in his odd whisper, as he stooped to judge the fit of his work. “I’m beddin’ down a junk ring; p’raps the gaffer’ll put you to ‘elp me after breakfast.”
Bedding down a junk ring sounded advanced and technical, and Johnny felt taller at the prospect. He would learn what a junk ring was, probably, when he had to help bed it down. Meanwhile he watched the tall man, as he brought the metal to an exact face.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 98