Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

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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. Unfortunately, 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 Semidrunk 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 Semidrunk 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 Cafe 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 Macaroni’s Royal Cafe

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

wate-woshed 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

seemed 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 of the woodwork of a window. He was not very

skilful in the use of the burning-off lamp, because on the firm when

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