‘Yes! We know all about that!’ shouted Harlow. ‘And who the bloody ’ell is it cuts ’em? Why, sich b—rs as ’Unter and Rushton! If this firm ’adn’t cut this job so fine, some other firm would ’ave ’ad it for more money. Rushton’s cuttin’ it fine didn’t make this job, did it? It would ’ave been done just the same if they ’adn’t tendered for it at all! The only difference is that we should ’ave been workin’ for some other master.’
‘I don’t believe the bloody job’s cut fine at all!’ said Philpot. ‘Rushton is a pal of Sweater’s and they’re both members of the Town Council.’
‘That may be,’ replied Slyme; ‘but all the same I believe Sweater got several other prices besides Rushton’s – friend or no friend; and you can’t blame ’im: it’s only business. But pr’aps Rushton got the preference – Sweater may ’ave told ’im the others’ prices.’
‘Yes, and a bloody fine lot of prices they was, too, if the truth was known!’ said Bundy. ‘There was six other firms after this job to my knowledge – Pushem and Sloggem, Bluffum and Doemdown, Dodger and Scampit, Snatcham and Graball, Smeeriton and Leavit, Makehaste and Sloggitt, and Gord only knows ’ow many more.’
At this moment Newman came into the room. He looked so white and upset that the others involuntarily paused in their conversation.
‘Well, what do you think of it?’ asked Harlow.
‘Think of what?’ said Newman.
‘Why, didn’t ’Unter tell you?’ cried several voices, whose owners looked suspiciously at him. They thought – if Hunter had not spoken to Newman, it must be because he was already working under price. There had been a rumour going about the last few days to that effect. ‘Didn’t Misery tell you? They’re not goin’ to pay more than six and a half after this week.’
‘That’s not what ’e said to me. ’E just told me to knock off. Said I didn’t do enough for ’em.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Crass, pretending to be overcome with surprise.
Newman’s account of what had transpired was listened to in gloomy silence. Those who – a few minutes previously – had been talking loudly of chucking up the job became filled with apprehension that they might be served in the same manner as he had been. Crass was one of the loudest in his expression of astonishment and indignation, but he rather overdid it and only succeeded in confirming the secret suspicion of the others that he had had something to do with Hunter’s action.
The result of the discussion was that they decided to submit to Misery’s terms for the time being, until they could see a chance of getting work elsewhere.
As Owen had to go to the office to see the wallpaper spoken of by Hunter, he accompanied Newman when the latter went to get his wages. Nimrod was waiting for them, and had the money ready in an envelope, which he handed to Newman, who took it without speaking and went away.
Misery had been rummaging amongst the old wallpapers, and had got out a great heap of odd rolls, which he now submitted to Owen, but after examining them the latter said that they were unsuitable for the purpose, so after some argument Misery was compelled to sign an order for some proper cartridge paper, which Owen obtained at a stationer’s on his way home.
The next morning, when Misery went to the ‘Cave’, he was in a fearful rage, and he kicked up a terrible row with Crass. He said that Mr Rushton had been complaining of the lack of discipline on the job, and he told Crass to tell all the hands that for the future singing in working hours was strictly forbidden, and anyone caught breaking this rule would be instantly dismissed.
Several times during the following days Nimrod called at Owen’s flat to see how the work was progressing and to impress upon him the necessity of not taking too much trouble over it.
17
The Rev. John Starr
‘What time is it now, Mum?’ asked Frankie as soon as he had finished dinner on the following Sunday.
‘Two o’clock.’
‘Hooray! Only one more hour and Charley will be here! Oh, I wish it was three o’clock now, don’t you, Mother?’
‘No, dear, I don’t. You’re not dressed yet, you know.’
Frankie made a grimace.
‘You’re surely not going to make me wear my velvets, are you, Mum? Can’t I go just as I am, in my old clothes?’
The ‘velvets’ was a brown suit of that material that Nora had made out of the least worn parts of an old costume of her own.
‘Of course not: if you went as you are now, you’d have everyone staring at you.’
‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to put up with it,’ said Frankie, resignedly. ‘And I think you’d better begin to dress me now, don’t you?’
‘Oh, there’s plenty of time yet; you’d only make yourself untidy and then I should have the trouble all over again. Play with your toys a little while, and when I’ve done the washing up I’ll get you ready.’
Frankie obeyed, and for about ten minutes his mother heard him in the next room rummaging in the box where he stored his collection of ‘things’. At the end of that time, however, he returned to the kitchen.
‘Is it time to dress me yet, Mum?’
‘No, dear, not yet. You needn’t be afraid; you’ll be ready in plenty of time.’
‘But I can’t help being afraid; you might forget.’
‘Oh, I shan’t forget. There’s lots of time.’
‘Well, you know, I should be much easier in my mind if you would dress me now, because perhaps our clock’s wrong, or p’r’aps when you begin dressing me you’ll find some buttons off or something, and then there’ll be a lot of time wasted sewing them on; or p’r’aps you won’t be able to find my clean stockings or something and then while you’re looking for it Charley might come, and if he sees I’m not ready he mightn’t wait for me.’
‘Oh, dear!’ said Nora, pretending to be alarmed at this appalling list of possibilities. ‘I suppose it will be safer to dress you at once. It’s very evident you won’t let me have much peace until it is done, but mind when you’re dressed you’ll have to sit down quietly and wait till he comes, because I don’t want the trouble of dressing you twice.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind sitting still,’ returned Frankie, loftily. ‘That’s very easy.
‘I don’t mind having to take care of my clothes,’ said Frankie as his mother – having washed and dressed him, was putting the finishing touches to his hair, brushing and combing and curling the long yellow locks into ringlets round her fingers, ‘the only thing I don’t like is having my hair done. You know all these curls are quite unnecessary. I’m sure it would save you a lot of trouble if you wouldn’t mind cutting them off.’
Nora did not answer: somehow or other she was unwilling to comply with this often-repeated entreaty. It seemed to her that when this hair was cut off the child would have become a different individual – more separate and independent.
‘If you don’t want to cut it off for your own sake, you might do it for my sake, because I think it’s the reason some of the big boys don’t want to play with me, and some of them shout after me and say I’m a girl, and sometimes they sneak up behind me and pull it. Only yesterday I had to have a fight with a boy for doing it: and even Charley Linden laughs at me, and he’s my best friend – except you and Dad of course.
‘Why don’t you cut it off, Mum?’
‘I am going to cut it as I promised you, after your next birthday.’
‘Then I shall be jolly glad when it comes. Won’t you? Why, what’s the matter, Mum? What are you crying for?’ Frankie was so concerned that he began to cry also, wondering if he had done or said something wrong. He kissed her repeatedly, stroking her face with his hand. ‘What’s the matter, Mother?’
‘I was thinking that when you’re over seven and you’ve had your hair cut short you won’t be a baby any more.’
‘Why, I’m not a baby now, am I? Here, look at this!’
He strode over to the wall and, dragging out two chairs, he placed them in the middle of the room, back to b
ack, about fifteen inches apart, and before his mother realized what he was doing he had climbed up and stood with one leg on the back of each chair.
‘I should like to see a baby who could do this,’ he cried, with his face wet with tears. ‘You needn’t lift me down. I can get down by myself. Babies can’t do tricks like these or even wipe up the spoons and forks or sweep the passage. But you needn’t cut it off if you don’t want to. I’ll bear it as long as you like. Only don’t cry any more, because it makes me miserable. If I cry when I fall down or when you pull my hair when you’re combing it you always tell me to bear it like a man and not be a baby, and now you’re crying yourself just because I’m not a baby. You ought to be jolly glad that I’m nearly grown up into a man, because you know I’ve promised to build you a house with the money I earn, and then you needn’t do no more work. We’ll have a servant the same as the people downstairs, and Dad can stop at home and sit by the fire and read the paper or play with me and Maud and have pillow fights and tell stories and –’
‘It’s all right, dearie,’ said Nora, kissing him. ‘I’m not crying now, and you mustn’t either, or your eyes will be all red and you won’t be able to go with Charley at all.’
When she had finished dressing him, Frankie sat for some time in silence, apparently lost in thought. At last he said:
‘Why don’t you get a baby, Mother? You could nurse it, and I could have it to play with instead of going out in the street.’
‘We can’t afford to keep a baby, dear. You know, even as it is, sometimes we have to go without things we want because we haven’t the money to buy them. Babies need many things that cost lots of money.’
‘When I build our house when I’m a man, I’ll take jolly good care not to have a gas-stove in it. That’s what runs away with all the money; we’re always putting pennies in the slot. And that reminds me: Charley said I’ll have to take a ha’penny to put in the mishnery box. Oh, dear, I’m tired of sitting still. I wish he’d come. What time is it now, Mother?’
Before she could answer both Frankie’s anxiety and the painful ordeal of sitting still were terminated by the loud peal at the bell announcing Charley’s arrival, and Frankie, without troubling to observe the usual formality of looking out of the window to see if it was a runaway ring, had clattered half-way downstairs before he heard his mother calling him to come back for the halfpenny; then he clattered up again and then down again at such a rate and with so much noise as to rouse the indignation of all the respectable people in the house.
When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs he remembered that he had omitted to say goodbye, and as it was too far to go up again he rang the bell and then went into the middle of the road and looked up at the window that Nora opened.
‘Goodbye, Mother,’ he shouted. ‘Tell Dad I forgot to say it before I came down.’
The School was not conducted in the chapel itself, but in a large lecture hall under it. At one end was a small platform raised about six inches from the floor; on this was a chair and a small table. A number of groups of chairs and benches were arranged at intervals round the sides and in the centre of the room, each group of seats accommodating a separate class. On the walls – which were painted a pale green – were a number of coloured pictures: Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites dancing round the Golden Calf, and so on. As the reader is aware, Frankie had never been to a Sunday School of any kind before, and he stood for a moment looking in at the door and half afraid to enter. The lessons had already commenced, but the scholars had not yet settled down to work.
The scene was one of some disorder: some of the children talking, laughing or playing, and the teachers alternately threatening and coaxing them. The girls’ and the very young children’s classes were presided over by ladies: the boys’ teachers were men.
The reader already has some slight knowledge of a few of these people. There was Mr Didlum, Mr Sweater, Mr Rushton and Mr Hunter and Mrs Starvem (Ruth Easton’s former mistress). On this occasion, in addition to the teachers and other officials of the Sunday School, there were also present a considerable number of prettily dressed ladies and a few gentlemen, who had come in the hope of meeting the Rev. John Starr, the young clergyman who was going to be their minister for the next few weeks during the absence of their regular shepherd, Mr Belcher, who was going away for a holiday for the benefit of his health. Mr Belcher was not suffering from any particular malady, but was merely ‘run down’, and rumour had it that this condition had been brought about by the rigorous asceticism of his life and his intense devotion to the arduous labours of his holy calling.
Mr Starr had conducted the service in the Shining Light Chapel that morning, and a great sensation had been produced by the young minister’s earnest and eloquent address, which was of a very different style from that of their regular minister. Although perhaps they had not quite grasped the real significance of all that he had said, most of them had been favourably impressed by the young clergyman’s appearance and manner in the morning: but that might have arisen from prepossession and force of habit, for they were accustomed, as a matter of course, to think well of any minister. There were, however, one or two members of the congregation who were not without some misgivings and doubts as to the soundness of his doctrines.
Mr Starr had promised that he would look in some time during the afternoon to say a few words to the Sunday School children, and consequently on this particular afternoon all the grown-ups were looking forward so eagerly to hearing him again that not much was done in the way of lessons. Every time a late arrival entered all eyes were directed towards the door in the hope and expectation that it was he.
When Frankie, standing at the door, saw all the people looking at him he drew back timidly.
‘Come on, man,’ said Charley. ‘You needn’t be afraid; it’s not like a weekday school; they can’t do nothing to us, not even if we don’t behave ourselves. There’s our class over in that corner and that’s our teacher, Mr Hunter. You can sit next to me. Come on!’
Thus encouraged, Frankie followed Charley over to the class, and both sat down. The teacher was so kind and spoke so gently to the children that in a few minutes Frankie felt quite at home.
When Hunter noticed how well cared for and well dressed he was he thought the child must belong to well-to-do, respectable parents.
Frankie did not pay much attention to the lesson, for he was too much interested in the pictures on the walls and in looking at the other children. He also noticed a very fat man who was not teaching at all, but drifted aimlessly about the room from one class to another. After a time he came and stood by the class where Frankie was, and, after nodding to Hunter, remained near, listening and smiling patronizingly at the children. He was arrayed in a long garment of costly black cloth, a sort of frock coat, and by the rotundity of his figure he seemed to be one of those accustomed to sit in the chief places at feasts. This was the Rev. Mr Belcher, minister of the Shining Light Chapel. His short, thick neck was surrounded by a studless collar, and apparently buttonless, being fastened in some mysterious way known only to himself, and he showed no shirt front.
The long garment before-mentioned was unbuttoned and through the opening there protruded a vast expanse of waistcoat and trousers, distended almost to bursting by the huge globe of flesh they contained. A gold watch-chain with a locket extended partly across the visible portion of the envelope of the globe. He had very large feet which were carefully encased in soft calfskin boots. If he had removed the long garment, this individual would have resembled a balloon: the feet representing the car and the small head that surmounted the globe, the safety valve; as it was it did actually serve the purpose of a safety valve, the owner being, in consequence of gross overfeeding and lack of natural exercise, afflicted with chronic flatulence, which manifested itself in frequent belchings forth through the mouth of the foul gases generated in the stomach by the decomposition of the foods with which it was generally loaded. But as the Rev. Mr Belcher had never
been seen with his coat off, no one ever noticed the resemblance. It was not necessary for him to take his coat off: his part in life was not to help to produce, but to help to devour the produce of the labour of others.
After exchanging a few words and grins with Hunter, he moved on to another class, and presently Frankie with a feeling of awe noticed that the confused murmuring sound that had hitherto pervaded the place was hushed. The time allotted for lessons had expired, and the teachers were quietly distributing hymn-books to the children.
Meanwhile the balloon had drifted up to the end of the hall and had ascended the platform, where it remained stationary by the side of the table, occasionally emitting puffs of gas through the safety valve.
On the table were several books, and also a pile of folded cards. These latter were about six inches by three inches; there was some printing on the outside: one of them was lying open on the table, showing the inside, which was ruled and had money columns.
Presently Mr Belcher reached out a flabby white hand and, taking up one of the folded cards, he looked around upon the under-fed, ill-clad children with a large, sweet, benevolent, fatherly smile, and then in a drawling voice occasionally broken by explosions of flatulence, he said:
‘My dear children. This afternoon as I was standing near Brother Hunter’s class I heard him telling them of the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, and of all the wonderful things that were done for them; and I thought how sad it was that they were so ungrateful.
‘Now those ungrateful Israelites had received many things, but we have even more cause to be grateful than they had, for we have received even more abundantly than they did.’ (Here the good man’s voice was stifled by a succession of explosions.) ‘And I am sure,’ he resumed, ‘that none of you would like to be even as those Israelites, ungrateful for all the good things you have received. Oh, how thankful you should be for having been made happy English children. Now, I am sure that you are grateful and that you will all be very glad of an opportunity of showing your gratitude by doing something in return.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Page 23