The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell

  When he was gone they drank the rest of the beer and then they began to feel inclined to laugh. What did they care for Hunter or Rushton either? To hell with both of ’em! They left off scraping and scrubbing, and began throwing buckets of water over the dresser and the walls, laughing uproariously all the time.

  ‘We’ll show the b—rs how to wash down paintwork!’ shouted the Semi-drunk, as he stood in the middle of the room and hurled a pailful of water over the door of the cupboard. ‘Bring us another bucket of water, Bill.’

  Bill was out in the scullery filling his pail under the tap, and laughing so much that he could scarcely stand. As soon as it was full he passed it to the Semi-drunk, who threw it bodily, pail and all, on to the bench in front of the window, smashing one of the panes of glass. The water poured off the table and all over the floor.

  Bill brought the next pailful in and threw it at the kitchen door, splitting one of the panels from top to bottom, and then they threw about half a dozen more pailfuls over the dresser.

  ‘We’ll show the b—rs how to clean paintwork,’ they shouted, as they hurled the buckets at the walls and doors.

  By this time the floor was deluged with water, which mingled with the filth and formed a sea of mud.

  They left the two taps running in the scullery and as the waste pipe of the sink was choked up with dirt, the sink filled up and overflowed like a miniature Niagara.

  The water ran out under the doors into the back-yard, and along the passage out to the front door. But Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk remained in the kitchen, smashing the pails at the walls and doors and the dresser, and cursing and laughing hysterically.

  They had just filled the two buckets and were bringing them into the kitchen when they heard Hunter’s voice in the passage, shouting out inquiries as to where all that water came from. Then they heard him advancing towards them and they stood waiting for him with the pails in their hands, and directly he opened the door and put his head into the room they let fly the two pails at him. Unfortunatley, they were too drunk and excited to aim straight. One pail struck the middle rail of the door and the other the wall by the side of it.

  Misery hastily shut the door again and ran upstairs, and presently the ‘coddy’ came down and called out to them from the passage.

  They went out to see what he wanted, and he told them that Misery had gone to the office to get their wages ready: they were to make out their time sheets and go for their money at once. Misery had said that if they were not there in ten minutes he would have the pair of them locked up.

  The Semi-drunk said that nothing would suit them better than to have all their pieces at once – they had spent all their money and wanted another drink. Bill Bates concurred, so they borrowed a piece of blacklead pencil from the ‘coddy’ and made out their time sheets, took off their aprons, put them into their tool bags, and went to the office for their money, which Misery passed out to them through the trap-door.

  The news of this exploit spread all over the town during that day and evening, and although it was in July, the next morning at six o’clock there were half a dozen men waiting at the yard to ask Misery if there was ‘any chance of a job’.

  Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk had had their spree and had got the sack for it and most of the chaps said it served them right. Such conduct as that was going too far.

  Most of them would have said the same thing no matter what the circumstances might have been. They had very little sympathy for each other at any time.

  Often, when, for instance, one man was sent away from one ‘job’ to another, the others would go into his room and look at the work he had been doing, and pick out all the faults they could find and show them to each other, making all sorts of ill-natured remarks about the absent one meanwhile. ‘Jist run yer nose over that door, Jim,’ one would say in a tone of disgust. ‘Wotcher think of it? Did yer ever see sich a mess in yer life? Calls hisself a painter!’ And the other man would shake his head sadly and say that although the one who had done it had never been up to much as a workman, he could do it a bit better than that if he liked, but the fact was that he never gave himself time to do anything properly: he was always tearing his bloody guts out! Why, he’d only been in this room about four hours from start to finish! He ought to have a watering cart to follow him about, because he worked at such a hell of a rate you couldn’t see him for dust! And then the first man would reply that other people could do as they liked, but for his part, he was not going to tear his guts out for nobody!

  The second man would applaud these sentiments and say that he wasn’t going to tear his out either: and then they would both go back to their respective rooms and tear into the work for all they were worth, making the same sort of ‘job’ as the one they had been criticizing, and afterwards, when the other’s back was turned, each of them in turn would sneak into the other’s room and criticize it and point out the faults to anyone else who happened to be near at hand.

  Harlow was working at the place that had been Macaroni’s Café when one day a note was sent to him from Hunter at the shop. It was written on a scrap of wallpaper, and worded in the usual manner of such notes – as if the writer had studied how to avoid all suspicion of being unduly civil:

  Harlow go to the yard at once take your tools with you.

  Crass will tell you where you have to go.

  J.H.

  They were just finishing their dinners when the boy brought this note; and after reading it aloud for the benefit of the others, Harlow remarked that it was worded in much the same way in which one would speak to a dog. The others said nothing; but after he was gone the other men – who all considered that it was ridiculous for the ‘likes of us’ to expect or wish to be treated with common civility – laughed about it, and said that Harlow was beginning to think he was Somebody: they supposed it was through readin’ all those books what Owen was always lendin’ ’im. And then one of them got a piece of paper and wrote a note to be given to Harlow at the first opportunity. This note was properly worded, written in a manner suitable for a gentleman like him, neatly folded and addressed:

  Mr Harlow Esq.,

  c/o Macoroni’s Royal Café

  till called for.

  Mister Harlow,

  Dear Sir: Wood you kinely oblige me bi cummin to the paint shop as soon as you can make it convenient as there is a sealin’ to be witewoshed hoppin this is not trubbling you to much

  I remane

  Yours respeckfully

  Pontius Pilate.

  This note was read out for the amusement of the company and afterwards stored away in the writer’s pocket till such a time as an opportunity should occur of giving it to Harlow.

  As the writer of the note was on his way back to his room to resume work he was accosted by a man who had gone into Harlow’s room to criticize it, and had succeeded in finding several faults which he pointed out to the other, and of course they were both very much disgusted with Harlow.

  ‘I can’t think why the coddy keeps him on the job,’ said the first man. ‘Between you and me, if I had charge of a job, and Misery sent Harlow there – I’d send ’im back to the shop.’

  ‘Same as you,’ agreed the other as he went back to tear into his own room. ‘Same as you, old man: I shouldn’t ’ave ’im neither.’

  It must not be supposed from this that either of these two men were on exceptionally bad terms with Harlow; they were just as good friends with him – to his face – as they were with each other – to each other’s faces – and it was just their way: that was all.

  If it had been one or both of these two who had gone away instead of Harlow, just the same things would have been said about them by the others who remained – it was merely their usual way of speaking about each other behind each other’s backs.

  It was always the same: if any one of them made a mistake or had an accident or got into any trouble he seldom or never got any sympathy from his fellow workmen. On the contrary, most of them at such times s
eemed rather pleased than otherwise.

  There was a poor devil – a stranger in the town; he came from London – who got the sack for breaking some glass. He had been sent to ‘burn off’ some old paint on the woodwork of a window. He was not very skilful in the use of the burning-off lamp, because on the firm where he had been working in London it was a job that the ordinary hands were seldom or never called upon to do. There were one or two men who did it all. For that matter, not many of Rushton’s men were very skilful at it either. It was a job everybody tried to get out of, because nearly always the lamp went wrong and there was a row about the time the work took. So they worked this job on to the stranger.

  This man had been out of work for a long time before he got a start at Rushton’s, and he was very anxious not to lose the job, because he had a wife and family in London. When the ‘coddy’ told him to go and burn off this window he did not like to say that he was not used to the work: he hoped to be able to do it. But he was very nervous, and the end was that although he managed to do the burning off all right, just as he was finishing he accidentally allowed the flame of the lamp to come into contact with a large pane of glass and broke it.

  They sent to the shop for a new pane of glass, and the man stayed late that night and put it in in his own time, thus bearing half the cost of repairing it.

  Things were not very busy just then, and on the following Saturday two of the hands were ‘stood off’. The stranger was one of them, and nearly everybody was very pleased. At mealtimes the story of the broken window was repeatedly told amid jeering laughter. It really seemed as if a certain amount of indignation was felt that a stranger – especially such an inferior person as this chap who did not know how to use a lamp – should have had the cheek to try to earn his living at all! One thing was very certain – they said, gleefully – he would never get another job at Rushton’s: that was one good thing.

  And yet they all knew that this accident might have happened to any one of them.

  Once a couple of men got the sack because a ceiling they distempered had to be washed off and done again. It was not really the men’s fault at all: it was a ceiling that needed special treatment and they had not been allowed to do it properly.

  But all the same, when they got the sack most of the others laughed and sneered and were glad. Perhaps because they thought that the fact that these two unfortunates had been disgraced, increased their own chances of being ‘kept on’. And so it was with nearly everything. With a few exceptions, they had an immense amount of respect for Rushton and Hunter, and very little respect or sympathy for each other.

  Exactly the same lack of feeling for each other prevailed amongst the members of all the different trades. Everybody seemed glad if anybody got into trouble for any reason whatever.

  There was a garden gate that had been made at the carpenter’s shop: it was not very well put together, and for the usual reason; the man had not been allowed the time to do it properly. After it was fixed, one of his shopmates wrote upon it with lead pencil in big letters: ‘This is good work for a joiner. Order one ton of putty.’

  But to hear them talking in the pub of a Saturday afternoon just after pay-time one would think them the best friends and mates and the most independent spirits in the world, fellows whom it would be very dangerous to trifle with, and who would stick up for each other through thick and thin. All sorts of stories were related of the wonderful things they had done and said; of jobs they had ‘chucked up’, and masters they had ‘told off’: of pails of whitewash thrown over offending employers, and of horrible assaults and batteries committed upon the same. But strange to say, for some reason or other, it seldom happened that a third party ever witnessed any of these prodigies. It seemed as if a chivalrous desire to spare the feelings of their victims had always prevented them from doing or saying anything to them in the presence of witnesses.

  When he had drunk a few pints, Crass was a very good hand at these stories. Here is one that he told in the bar of the Cricketers on the Saturday afternoon of the same week that Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk got the sack. The Cricketers was only a few minutes’ walk from the shop and at pay-time a number of the men used to go in there to take a drink before going home.

  ‘Last Thursday night about five o’clock, ’Unter comes inter the paint-shop an’ ses to me, “I wants a pail o’ wash made up tonight, Crass,” ’e ses, “ready for fust thing in the mornin’,” ’e ses. “Oh,” I ses, lookin’ ’im straight in the bloody eye, “Oh, yer do, do yer?” – just like that. “Yes,” ’e ses. “Well, you can bloody well make it yerself!” I ses, “’cos I ain’t agoin’ to,” I ses – just like that. “Wot the ’ell do yer mean,” I ses, “by comin’ ’ere at this time o’ night with a order like that?” I ses. You’d a larfed,’ continued Crass, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after taking another drink out of his glass, and looking round to note the effect of the story, ‘you’d a larfed if you’d bin there. ’E was fairly flabbergasted! And wen I said that to ’im I see ’is jaw drop! An’ then ’e started apoligizing and said as ’e ’adn’t meant no offence, but I told ’im bloody straight not to come no more of it. “You bring the horder at a reasonable time,” I ses – just like that – “and I’ll attend to it,” I ses, “but not otherwise,” I ses.’

  As he concluded this story, Crass drained his glass and gazed round upon the audience, who were full of admiration. They looked at each other and at Crass and nodded their heads approvingly. Yes, undoubtedly, that was the proper way to deal with such bounders as Nimrod; take up a strong attitude, an’ let ’em see as you’ll stand no nonsense!

  ‘Yer don’t blame me, do yer?’ continued Crass. ‘Why should we put up with a lot of old buck from the likes of ’im! We’re not a lot of bloody Chinamen, are we?’

  So far from blaming him, they all assured him that they would have acted in precisely the same way under similar circumstances.

  ‘For my part, I’m a bloke like this,’ said a tall man with a very loud voice – a chap who nearly fell down dead every time Rushton or Misery looked at him. ‘I’m a bloke like this ’ere: I never stands no cheek from no gaffers! If a guv’nor ses two bloody words to me, I downs me tools and I ses to ’im, “Wot! Don’t I suit yer, guv’ner? Ain’t I done enuff for yer? Werry good! Gimmie me bleedin’ a’pence.”’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said everybody. That was the way to serve ’em. If only everyone would do the same as the tall man – who had just paid for another round of drinks – things would be a lot more comfortable than they was.

  ‘Last summer I was workin’ for ole Buncer,’ said a little man with a cutaway coat several sizes too large for him. ‘I was workin’ for ole Buncer, over at Windley, an’ you all knows as ’e don’t arf lower it. Well, one day, when I knowed ’e was on the drunk, I ’ad to first coat a room out – white; so thinks I to meself, “If I buck up I shall be able to get this lot done by about four o’clock, an’ then I can clear orf ’ome. ’Cos I reckoned as ’e’d be about flattened out by that time, an’ you know ’e ain’t got no foreman. So I tears into it an’ gets this ’ere room done about a quarter past four, an’ I’d just got me things put away for the night w’en ’oo should come fallin’ up the bloody stairs but ole Buncer, drunk as a howl! An’ no sooner ’e gits inter the room than ’e starts yappin’ an’ rampin’. “Is this ’ere hall you’ve done?” ’e shouts out. “Wotcher bin up to hall day?” ’e ses, an’ ’e keeps on shoutin’ an’ swearin’ till at last I couldn’t stand it no longer, ’cos you can guess I wasn’t in a very good temper with ’im comin’ along jist then w’en I thought I was goin’ to get orf a bit early – so w’en ’e kept on shoutin’ I never made no answer to ’im, but ups with me fist an’ I gives ’im a slosh in the dial an’ stopped ’is clock! Then I chucked the pot o’ w’ite paint hover ’im, an’ kicked ’im down the bloody stairs.’

  ‘Serve ’im blooming well right, too,’ said Crass as he took a fresh glass of beer from one of the others, wh
o had just ‘stood’ another round.

  ‘What did the b—r say to that?’ inquired the tall man.

  ‘Not a bloody word!’ replied the little man, ‘’E picked ’isself up, and called a keb wot was passin’ an’ got inter it an’ went ’ome; an’ I never seen no more of ’im until about ’arf-past eleven the next day, w’en I was second-coatin’ the room, an’ ’e comes up with a noo suit o’clothes on, an’ arsts me if I’d like to come hover to the pub an’ ’ave a drink? So we goes hover, an’ ’e calls for a w’iskey an’ soda for isself an’ arsts me wot I’d ’ave, so I ’ad the same. An’ w’ile we was gettin’ it down us, ’e ses to me, “Ah, Garge,” ’e ses. “You losed your temper with me yesterday,” ’e ses.’

  ‘There you are, you see!’ said the tall man. ‘There’s an example for yer! If you ’adn’t served ’im as you did you’d most likely ’ave ’ad to put up with a lot more ole buck.’

  They all agreed that the little man had done quite right: they all said that they didn’ blame him in the least: they would all have done the same: in fact, this was the way they all conducted themselves whenever occasion demanded it. To hear them talk, one would imagine that such affairs as the recent exploit of Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk were constantly taking place, instead of only occurring about once in a blue moon.

  Crass stood the final round of drinks, and as he evidently thought that circumstance deserved to be signalized in some special manner, he proposed the following toast, which was drunk with enthusiasm:

  ‘To hell with the man,

  May he never grow fat,

  What carries two faces,

  Under one ’at.’

  Rushton & Co. did a lot of work that summer. They did not have many big jobs, but there were a lot of little ones, and the boy Bert was kept busy running from one to the other. He spent most of his time dragging a handcart with loads of paint, or planks and steps, and seldom went out to work with the men, for when he was not taking things out to the various places where the philanthropists were working, he was in the paintshop at the yard, scraping out dirty paint-pots or helping Crass to mix up colours. Although scarcely anyone seemed to notice it, the boy presented a truly pitiable spectacle. He was very pale and thin. Dragging the handcart did not help him to put on flesh, for the weather was very hot and the work made him sweat.