With the causes of my first plunge into the troubled waters of trade at the early age of nine I have here nothing to do. It must suffice to say that one spring morning, over forty years ago, I entered the emporium of an oil, colour, and Italian warehouseman (to quote from his fascia), in what was then known as Kensal New Town, a neighbourhood that had long been of unsavoury reputation, but was emerging into something like respectability by the aid of sundry long rows of jerry-built, stucco-ornamented houses, the inhabitants of which tried hard to forget the former appellation of their chosen abiding-place, and dated their letters, when they wrote any, from Upper Westbourne Park.
Mingled with the rows of mean streets of private dwellings were a few scattered shops tenanted by brave and daring folk who lived principally upon hope and a little capital. One of these had established himself between a butcher and a baker, and having laid in a stock of the amazingly miscellaneous description which characterises what we in London call, tout court, an "oil shop," awaited local custom. But having no children to assist him, and his wife being fully occupied with household duties, he sought additional help, and I obtained the situation. How vivid and fresh is the recollection of my opening morn! With what awe did I gaze upon the closely packed shop, wondering however mortal mind could tell where everything was stowed; how curiously did I sniff the mingled odours of paint, soap, paraffin, glue, dog-biscuit, size, etc., all combined by the piney scent of the newly chopped wood which was stacked in halfpenny bundles up against the counter.
My employer was a stout, stern, dark man, who appeared to me like the dread arbiter of my fate, and his deep voice sent a thrill of apprehension through me as he gave me my first order, which was to carry home some wood, seven bundles for threepence, to one of the aristocracy of the vicinity. It was a heavy load for my thin arms, but had I been unable to lift it I should have strained myself to injury point in the endeavour to do so, such was my pride in my first commission. I wasted no time on the way, and ran back with the cash, triumphant, panting with exertion, pride, and the consciousness of ability.
Thenceforward I knew no idle moments, for my master was an expert in keeping me at it; he was never at a loss for a job for me, nor, to do him justice, did I ever see him idle himself. In fact, my only respite during the long day, from 7 A.M. till 10 P.M., was when, munching my crusts of bread and dripping, I minded the shop during his meal times, my mouth watering at the savoury smells which assailed my nostrils through all the reek of the shop, from his little parlour.
I have now a curious notion that I was too willing, because I know that I must have made him forget how puny an urchin I was, or he would never have sent me on the errands he did. One of these in the early days of my service with him stands out, salient, against the background of memory. It was in the early days of the Metropolitan Railway, which then ran only from Shepherd's Bush to Moorgate Street. There was a funny little primitive station at Westbourne Park, which was but a mile from our shop, and one day, giving me a few pence for my half-fare, he despatched me to Shoreditch to fetch something, I knew not what, for which he had given me an order in a sealed envelope. Proud as possible, I dashed off, took my ticket at Westbourne Park for the City, and arriving at Moorgate Street, inquired my way to Shoreditch, which I reached without any difficulty. A salesman took my order, looked at me, and said loftily, "Ow yer goin' ter take it?" In reply I only stared dumbly, because I had no idea what "it" was. He shrugged his shoulders and retired, presently bringing forward an iron drum full of treacle, which he plumped before me, saying, "There y' are." I looked at it helplessly for a moment, and then looked at him; but seeing no encouragement in his eye, essayed to lift it, and found that I could just manage to raise it an inch or two from the floor.
Can't carry it, I said.
Nothin' to do wi' me, he replied, taking it up—oh, so easily, I thought—and putting it outside on the pavement. I did not need telling what that meant, and so calling my wits to work, I did the best I knew, that is, I turned it over on its side and rolled it! Yes, I rolled it along Shoreditch, up Worship Street, and along Finsbury Pavement, until I came opposite Moorgate Street Station, where I halted, baffled by the width of that great highway. But a kindly costermonger came to my aid, and, finding what the trouble was, uttered many strange words about the behaviour of whoever had sent such a kid on an errand of this kind; then, hoisting the drum on his barrow, he wheeled it across the road and deposited it within the station. Thence I rolled it to the steps and managed to work it down them on to the platform (I am afraid I quite forgot to thank my kind helper), where it was lifted into the van by a sympathetic guard, and we rattled off to Westbourne Park. Arriving there, and being helped again by the tender-hearted guard aforesaid, I rolled my incubus into a dark corner, and fled shopwards, pantingly explaining on arrival that I wanted the "truck." Granted, with gloomy brows, by the boss.
Now this truck, of which more anon, was one of those curiously shaped ones used exclusively by wine merchants at that time. It was curved and hollow, in order to take one barrel. It had a very long push handle, and no bottom. So you can imagine how difficult was my journey with that drum upon it, a veritable pilgrimage of pain. Let me pause awhile to solemnly curse that truck, and the evil chance that harnessed me to its awkwardness. Nevertheless upon this occasion I did reach my journey's end in safety, with the drum and its contents intact, only to be grumbled at because I had been so long!
But before I quit the subject of that truck, I must tell of my great exploit in connection with it. It was so entirely unhandy and unsuitable for general purposes, besides being so infernally heavy to push or pull that it was as much as I could do to handle it when empty. Yet I was so willing and eager that my employer forgot my pigmy size and put me to tasks absurdly beyond my strength, simply because he didn't think. I don't for a moment believe he was deliberately cruel or callous, and I know that although entirely free to do so, and often sorely aggravated, he never struck me, nor ever abused me. One day, however, he sent me on an errand to the older part of Kensal New Town with a hundredweight of bar soap in a box balanced on that truck. For some reason, which I forget, but probably hurry, he omitted to lash the box—it would have been a difficult operation in any case; and so I started off, trying to push the truck with one hand and hold the box on with the other, as the truck jolted over the stones—and succeeded fairly well too, until I came to a quagmire of a road where building was going on. Still I strove, the truck bumping horribly over the boulders hidden beneath the mud, until, when abreast of a church, which was just abuilding, the calamity which had been looming ever since I left the shop occurred—the box slid off the truck and capsized in the mud. The bars of soap flew in all directions, disposing themselves picturesquely as if planted in the slush, and I surveyed the awful scene in a sort of philosophic calm, feeling indeed that kismet had conquered me, and not carelessness or inefficiency. It never occurred to me to blame my employer.
From that stupor or reverie I was aroused by the loud laughter of the bricklayers on the scaffolding near at hand, and I sprang with desperate energy to the task of righting the wrong. First, I replaced the box, then, stripping off my little jacket, I disinterred bar after bar of the soap. I scraped the thick of the mud off on the side of the barrow, and then wiping the bars as clean as I could on my jacket, I replaced them one by one in the box, nor did I lose any. By the time I had finished, and I had no help, a circumstance which even now I wonder at—it would have been hard to tell which was muddiest, the truck, the box, the soap, or myself. But my only object being to get that box home, I took no heed of such an extrinsic matter as mud; and when, at last, I pushed off again with my cargo, I felt quite a glow of legitimate pride, for that I had retrieved my disaster.
How I escaped another before emerging from that bad road I do not know; but I did, and presently arrived at my destination, overheated, unrecognisable for mud, but triumphant. I knocked at the door, and the laundress appeared, a comely figure in spotless print. She gave a little start back when she saw me, as if she feared I would soil her eyesight, but I said quickly—
Please, 'm, I've brought the soap.
She, incredulously, "Oh, 'ave yer! Well, it's abaht time. Bring it in."
I hastened to the barrow, loaded myself with an armful of bars, and hastened back. But she met me at the door, and glancing at my burden, put up her hand in protest, crying—
What the devil d'ye call that.
It's the soap, m'am, replied I meekly.
Don't you dare bring none o' that muck in 'ere, young man, said she grimly.
Then I pleaded that a little scraping would make it all right, and used other feeble arguments, to all of which she presented a stony front, when suddenly our conference was interrupted by the appearance of my employer, who, with profuse apologies, wheeled away the soap, leaving me to follow, but apparently caring not whether I did. I felt terribly guilty as I followed him back, and never dreamed of blaming him for the catastrophe. I have often wondered since whether he blamed himself.
Be that as it may, I remember he said no word as we twain unloaded the sombre cargo and scraped each bar with utter care, making the scrapings into a ball. It was a long job, for customers kept coming in for pennyworths of soap, and halfpenny bundles of wood, and farthingsworths of blacking, at which trivial interruptions he still evinced no irritability, but when at last all was finished he weighed the ball of scrapings and found it equivalent to three bars and a half of soap. These he added to the pile of cleansed bars, repacked them, and started me off again, warning me, however, to go a long way round in order to avoid the road where I had come to grief; and on Saturday night he stopped the value of that soap out of my week's wages, which left me 2s., for I was then receiving 4s. per week.
As I lived with a laundress, I was able to make a bargain for the ball of soap-scrapings, so managed to scrape through, though not without difficulty and many cursory remarks upon my behaviour. Now, as if my troubles were not sufficient, the baker's and butcher's boys on either side conceived a dislike to me, and lost no opportunity of making my life a burden, especially when, during spells of leisure in the evenings, I watched the store of pails, crockery, etc., arranged outside the shop. Many and harsh were the tricks they played on me, until I discovered that they both smoked, and thenceforward I purchased immunity from persecution with handfuls of shag tobacco, purloined from the back of the counter while the boss was inside at his meals, not recking of the risk I ran, in view of present ease.
My experiences altogether were of an exceedingly varied character in this business, and I must often have made my employer feel that life was hardly worth living when my blunders were frequent and painful; yet, on the whole, I feel that he had his full money's worth out of me—especially on Saturday nights, when the shop would be full, mostly of urchins carrying all sorts of utensils and yelling "pint er penny oy-el," in twenty different keys all at once, while almost everybody watched an opportunity to steal a bundle of wood or some other trifling article. Once, indeed, a purblind old woman put a bundle of wood in her basket abstractedly, not noticing that it had a piece of thin string fast to it, and methinks I can now see her amazed face as on nearing the door the string grew tight and jerked her plunder out of the basket along with some other small parcels. But my governor was equal to the occasion. He said calmly—
I don't think I took for that bundle, m'am, and you somehow got hold of the wrong one, quietly putting it back and handing her another, which she took, and forked out the halfpenny.
But after about four months matters reached a climax. I was sent hurriedly to Paddington one night for a box of tallow candles of about ten pounds' weight, with urgent orders to hurry, as the stock was out. I did hurry. On the way back, running down Brindley street with the box on my head, I stumbled, and the box flew off into the road with a crash. It did not break, so I snatched it up and ran off again. Arriving at the shop all breathless, I found three customers waiting to be served with candles. The boss seized the box, burst it open, and, lo! there was not a whole candle within! He glared at me, but refrained from expressing any opinion. Apologising to his customers, he dismissed them candleless. Then turning to me, he said, with an effort, "You'll go on Saturday. And take those candles for your week's wages. I've had enough of you." And probably he had.
Incidentally, I may mention that the laundress with whom I lived, and for whom I worked when out of a job, resented intensely my bringing home those candles in lieu of four shillings, and I suffered many things until the last of those mutilated lumps of tallow and cotton had been disposed of.
I spent about a month of misery working in the laundry at night, and by day looking for a job, until I obtained a situation at a boot-shop in Archer Street, Notting Hill, as errand-boy, my wages being 3s. 6d. per week and my tea. Here my opportunities for blundering were fewer, the business being so much more simple. My duties were to run errands, dust the shop, and keep the floor clean. I was really much better off than before, though the hours were very long, till ten every night but Saturday, and then till midnight; for my work was not heavy, and the good meal I got every evening was a great help. But I confess sadly that, all my earnings going for my lodgings, I devised a dishonest plan for getting a little pocket-money. When taking home the repairs, I would add threepence or sixpence to the price, and when my scheme panned out all right, as it often did, I pocketed the difference. But of course I was soon discovered, and literally kicked out by my irate employer, who stigmatised me as a young thief, and spoke of prison and the policeman, whom I dreaded far more.
I pass over the weary time of waiting for another job, when indeed I worked far harder than while in a place, and come to my next billet, which was at a trunk-maker's in the Edgware Road. Whether my employer was the owner of the business or not I never knew, but, as I remember him, he was more like a soulless automaton than a man. He employed no one but me in the huge shop, and only one man in the workshop below, who was principally at work making, that is covering, ladies' dress-baskets. Every morning at eight, after hoisting the revolving shutters with a winch handle, I toiled, with occasional assistance from the governor, in building up a huge pile of trunks, bags, boxes, etc., outside the shop, a pile which was made more imposing by a great, black, box-like thing, about ten feet long by three feet square, which he used to help me lug in and out.
He lived in a little den in one corner of the shop, and made his meals of tea (which he made over the gas-flame by which he wrote) and bread and butter, which I fetched for him, a twopenny coburg, and two ounces of fourteenpenny Dorset at a time. Never once did he speak a kind or considerate word to me, or even offer me a crust of his bread—no, he used to save and soak them and eat them himself; at which I wondered and grumbled secretly, for I felt that he could well afford to leave me a few scraps, as I was always hungry. But 'twas not i' the bond.
I had very little to do here in the way of errand-running, but I had no idle moments, and when not occupied in the almost interminable job of dusting the stock and cleaning out the shop, I could always find work below, making paste and lining the cheap boxes we made for servants. And here I was quite happy, for the journeyman was a genial soul and beguiled the time with jokes and snatches of song, often too giving me a portion of his frugal dinner or a halfpenny, which I promptly invested in "broken stale" at the baker's hard by, where I purchased the governor's coburgs.
But it was a dull, hard, monotonous life, and only for the fact that I occasionally got hold of a copy of the "Boys of England," "The Young Briton," or the "Sons of Britannia," among the waste-paper we used for linings, and lost myself in the realms of romance with "Caradoc the Briton," "Alone in the Pirate's Lair," or the "Young Centurion," there would have been hardly a gleam of sunshine in my young life. Those blessed stories supplied the place of pleasant companions and of kind words, and were in a great measure educational—at any rate, they were all the schooling in one sense that I had.
I had been at this slow business several months, when one day my employer, without thinking, I am sure, of what he was doing, sent me to Hoxton to fetch a full-sized leather portmanteau from one of the small workers who make such things at home. Of course he gave me no money for travelling, my time at four shillings a week was not valuable, and off I set. Arriving at my journey's end, and stating my errand, the man handed the article to me, that is he put it outside his door, and left me to deal with it as best I could. Now, it was so large that I could almost have got into it, and it was correspondingly heavy. But I was six miles from home, and had to do something; so, as I could not lift it, I started to drag it along the pavement through a light, drizzling rain. Coming to an oil-shop, I went in and begged a yard of clothesline, which I rove through the handle, and, incredible as it may appear, I actually towed that portmanteau home. I was nearly four hours doing that six miles, and reached the shop late in the evening, dead beat, but triumphant.
It was a short-lived triumph, though, for that spruce portmanteau looked as if it had been subjected to years of the hardest wear, and was besides almost covered with mud. My employer gave one glance at it, uttered a sort of whoop, and sat down trembling. I stood facing him, wondering what would happen. Suddenly he rose and uttered his nightly formula, "Close the establishment."
As soon as that heavy task was done, he placed two shillings in my hand (it was Wednesday night), and said, "If ever you come near this shop again, and I catch you, I'll break every bone in your skin." I said, "Good night, sir," and fled, pleased to think I had escaped so easily. And thus abruptly ended my acquaintance with the trunk-maker's art. Hitherto, it must be confessed, I had made no great hit at commerce, not even having been able to obtain a character. But I suppose I was an unconscious opportunist, for I wasted little energy in vain regrets, but cast about for a new opening after each phase of experience.
By some strange freak of good fortune to which I was totally unaccustomed, the very next day after my summary dismissal from the trunk-maker's, I got a job in a big dairy company's business. I have forgotten exactly how it happened, but I think that one of my street chums told me he had seen the notice in the shop window, and hurrying off at once, I secured the situation. At first blush I was almost overwhelmed with the magnitude of my good fortune. For my wages were to be six shillings per week, and a pint of milk twice a day, which to me was wealth indeed, and I began to have visions of getting a little pocket-money out of my earnings, and perhaps even, blissful thought, a new suit of clothes, a possession that I had never yet enjoyed.
My delight was somewhat tempered by the fact that my hours of business were to be from 4.30 A.M. to 9 P.M., on Sunday and week-day alike, in summer; and from 5.30 A.M. to 9 P.M. in winter. But of course that was merely a detail. As I had to begin at so unholy an hour in the morning, of course it was unthinkable that I could get any food in the house, and so my landlady made arrangements, in consideration of receiving the whole of my earnings and the milk, to subsidise a local coffee-stall keeper to the extent of one cup of coffee and one slice of cake, price together one penny, every morning. This I bolted at the street corner, often scalding my mouth, for I need hardly say that the margin of time was never very great. And if a boy arrived late, well, there was an end, for his van had gone without him, since it might not linger, obstructing the others.
After swallowing my coffee, I fled as fast as my legs would carry me towards my place of business (sounds important, doesn't it?), which, when I reached it, was a roaring vortex of noise. For the railway vans had just arrived from Paddington Station, and the huge churns of milk were being shifted with much clangour and shouting from the street to the cellar of the shop, where their contents were being distributed into the polished churns which went into the distributing vans. Every man and boy was hard at work, the majority fitting out their respective vans with cans, kettles, etc.; and in half an hour from beginning this work, every van (there were sixteen of them) with its driver and its attendant boy, a crate full of empty cans, and two brimming churns of milk, had rattled off towards the district, often three or four miles away, which was allotted to it.
In summer this eager rush and excitement was rather pleasant, and more in the nature of a huge frolic than otherwise; but in winter, on bitter, bleak, snowy, or wet mornings, it was undoubtedly terribly hard upon such children as I, poorly clad and insufficiently fed, as most of us were. There were two of us in my van besides the driver, it being a heavy district, and there was consequently considerable rivalry between my fellow-worker and myself, which kept both of us from lagging. Our boss was a gruff, unsociable sort of fellow, but he must have had a soft spot in his heart somewhere, for he invariably pulled up at the first coffee stall (it was set against a dead wall, nearly opposite the entrance to Kensington Palace Gardens, I remember), and treated each of us to a pennyworth of coffee and cake; and this kindness he repeated when we had finished our round, if the weather was cold.
Upon arriving at the commencement of our district we at once flew into violent activity, distributing the milk in cans down the areas and at the doors; but at seven we began to serve at the doors, the servants being about, and many a chunk of cake and mug of hot coffee fell to my lot from kind-hearted kitchen-maids. So, taking it all round, it was not entirely unpleasant if very exhausting. But one thing I have never been able to understand, the wonderful memory we developed. We carried no books, and yet when we returned to the shop at about eight, each of us went before the cashier and repeated, without an effort apparently, as he read out the numbers of the houses, the quantity of milk we had served them with. I do not remember learning this, and indeed it seemed to come naturally to all of us. And when it is remembered that out of 150 gallons of milk we were only allowed one quart for margin, it can easily be understood that we must have been pretty correct.
We had an hour allowed for breakfast, and then the boys had to return and wash and polish the big cans or kettles, as we called them, a task which took us till the afternoon, when we sallied forth again in all the glory of white smocks, shining cans, and trim equipages. This was the pleasant time, for there were nice little snacks obtainable at kitchen doors, and many an opportunity of making a dishonest halfpenny by selling milk to strangers, which deficiency in our pails we made up by giving short measure to regular and large customers, but never, as far as I know, by calling in the aid of the pump. At night when we returned, and the men took their vans off to the stables, the boys washed up the hundreds of small cans under the acute supervision of an old foreman. All the cans were washed and rinsed, were stacked with open lids ready for the morning, and at about 9.30 we were released.
I do not know how long this strenuous employment claimed me, but I know that I was one day discharged suddenly without explanation. The only reason I can assign is that some of my petty pilferings of milk had been discovered, and the only excuse I can give is that of all my earnings I never had a halfpenny to call my own—it all went for my keep.
Why or how I went to my next place I shall never know. It is to me and always has been a profound mystery. It was at a "lath-render's," a place where laths were made by hand from curved fillets of Russian pine, with a groove down the centre as if showing whence the pith had been removed, that had often aroused my wonder as to their use. I was to receive, as far as I remember, small wages, and certainly no food, but I was to learn the business! But my only occupation while I was there was to tie up chips for sale and keep the fire going in the stove, although I watched the men splitting the long laths from the billets with a sort of hatchet with keenest interest. Ah, yes, I used to saw the billets into lengths, I remember, but not to any extent. I was too small for such strenuous labour.
Well, my whole course there is misty in retrospect, but deeply flavoured with the pleasant scent of the pine wood, except the manner of my leaving, which was sudden, dramatic, and mysterious. I have said that my principal occupation was the tying up of chips. There were naturally a great many of these, and they were made into bundles by the aid of a rude machine, and sold, largely to laundresses, who used to send for them as being more economical than the bundle-wood at the oil-shops. Now what perverse demon tempted me I know not, but one day I thought it would be a desirable thing to conceal in the heart of each bundle a lump of clinker from the stove! No possible benefit could accrue to me from doing this, and had my reasoning powers been in working order, I must have known that detection and subsequent disaster must inevitably be swift.
But I did not think, and I did include clinkers in my bundles, with the result that one day a horde of infuriated washerwomen, mostly of Irish extraction, descended upon the shop armed with clinkers, with which, after briefest prologue, they pelted my unfortunate and totally innocent employer. He, poor man, could do nothing but close the establishment under this rapid fire of missiles; and then, thinking quickly, turned upon me and flung me out, not, I rejoice to say, as a sacrifice to the mob, but by a rear door, whence I escaped along the canal side. Explanation of my conduct I have none, and there I must leave the matter. It may have been the budding of incipient genius, but in the mellow light of retrospect I confess that it appears very like the act of a lunatic of which I had been guilty.
Again, I was free and still characterless. This time I suffered, as no doubt I deserved, hunger, thirst, and pain before I again entered employment, but when I did get a berth it promised fairer than any of my previous ones. Just how I fell in with this astounding piece of luck, I have forgotten, but what is indelibly impressed upon my memory is the fact that in my new situation I received board and clothing and two shillings a week—quite sufficient to pay for my poor little bed in a room which I shared with a cobbler, who used it for a workshop, toiling far into the night after I had gone to sleep; but while I was awake, entertaining me vastly with scraps of quaint philosophy. No wonder I was what they used to call an old-fashioned kid! But bless that dear old cobbler's heart. He was gentle, kind, and wise, except in one direction, but even in his cups I never remember hearing him say ought that a little child might not listen to, or ask and obtain the meaning of unsullied. He was very fond of me, and I of him. I daresay we meant a great deal to each other, meeting as we did in that little eddy out of the great rapids of life, and without visible effort supplying each other's needs. I well remember meeting him one day—it must have been when I was looking for a job—surrounded by a little mob of children "avin a gime wiv im" in the vernacular. Taking me gently by the arm he said, with a grand wave of his free hand, "Now here is an example for you, ill-mannered brats that you are, that can only shout 'Ullo, Trotty.' I know I trot, I know I am old, but you are ill-bred to remind me of it, and as for this dear child!" And much to my horror and entire discomfiture, he lifted me up and kissed me. I did not get over that, or escape the consequences of his ill-timed affection for a long time, I promise you.
But I am forgetting Mr Green, my employer. He kept an establishment in Westbourne Grove for the manufacture and sale of paper patterns of fashionable dresses. In those far-off days I think he must have been a pioneer in this business, and I know he used to visit Paris periodically, in order to obtain the latest modes; and returning with them, his wife and her assistants reduplicated them in coloured paper, which elaborate models were exhibited in a grand show-room and sold. My business was to wear a fine suit of clothes with many silvered buttons, and lie hidden in the hall to conduct clients upstairs to the show-rooms, which was on the first floor over a shop. Another and more important part of my duties was to carry parcels to clients' houses, at which times I wore a shiny top-hat bedecked with silver braid. Indeed, so fine was I that my old companions of the street forbore to guy me, but paid me undisguised tribute of admiration for my splendour.
At such times as I was not employed in public work as aforesaid, I assisted the housemaid in her domestic duties, and was indeed a boy of all work. But taking it all round, I had a good place, and but for the one defect of never having any money of my own, I might have remained there until I began to grow a beard. But I could not resist the temptation of pilfering, because I had never anything of my own, and so in spite of my comfort and ease I forfeited this good place, and was suddenly kicked out. I had not yet, it will be seen, discovered for myself that honesty was the best policy, and I was certainly not one of those wonderful children of whom we read in prize-books that they would starve rather than steal. I stole whenever I saw a favourable opportunity, and when found out and made to suffer therefor, only blamed my own stupidity in not taking more elaborate precautions.
My next employment was at a chemist's, and my never ending wonder is, that I am alive to tell of my experiences there. For it was a large business, and they employed a light porter, a big boy of about eighteen, to do the work I was too weak for; and this fellow led me on to sample portions of the stock, which exercise on several occasions nearly proved fatal to me. But my direst experience was not due to him at all. I was sent one day with a basket containing six syphons of soda to a client's house in Inverness Place, and at the corner of Inverness Terrace, where it joins the Place, I, resting, saw a fellow errand-boy approaching. After salutations, he suddenly caught sight of my burden as I sat upon the handle of the basket, and immediately asked me why I did not have a drink, and give him some. I, who knew nothing of syphons and their peculiarities, scoffed at the idea. But he very seriously gave me to understand that soda water was a kind of sublimated lemonade, and that it was most easy to get out of these patent bottles, which indeed were made for the purpose.
I needed little persuasion to try the experiment, and so in a minute or two behold me kneeling on the pavement, while that fiend, taking out one of the syphons, inserted the spout in my mouth, and telling me to draw hard, pulled the trigger! Merciful powers, shall I, can I, ever forget the agony of that moment! I felt the impact of that surcharged stream against my diaphragm, and simultaneously a regurgitating flood seemed to be beating against my skull, while a double stream poured down my nostrils. He, the miscreant, yelling with delight, dropped the syphon on the pavement and fled, leaving me three parts dead, with a charge against me of something like five shillings and sixpence for a broken syphon. Fun to him doubtless, but to me!!!
I must pass rapidly over several other adventures at that fatal shop, such as my putting a handful of soft soap in my mouth in mistake for honey, and exuding soapsuds from every pore for hours as it seemed, eating greedily of ipecacuanha lozenges and worm tablets, both given me by the light porter, with equally disastrous results, until one fateful Saturday night came with the remark from the manager as he handed me my four shillings and sixpence, that I was too volatile for his business, and that as he did not want a post-mortem on the premises, I had better not trouble to return on Monday morning. Which valediction I received as quite in keeping with the recognised scheme of things as far as I was concerned.
But I could not help feeling that a crisis in my affairs had arrived, and I dared not return to my lodging with the now too familiar remark, "I've got the sack," so forgathering with another boy, similarly situated, I cut loose from such conventionalities as I had hitherto preserved; and after a riotous expenditure of sixpence in fried fish and chips and gingerbeer, we climbed the railings of Kensington Gardens, and creeping like Indians through the gloom, ensconced ourselves within the shrubbery by the Serpentine under a heap of plant matting, and slept soundly till morning.
That was the beginning of an Arab life in the great city, which, I suppose, must have had a certain charm for me, in that it was made up almost entirely of exciting episodes, tempered by the two salient factors of cold and hunger. I can never remember being warm and well fed together for more than an hour or two at a time, and those occasions were so rare as to mark their occurrence indelibly as periods to be reckoned from. I had no prevision, no ambition except to get a good feed and a warm place to sleep, no anxiety save to avoid the policeman, for the School Board Official was not yet in existence, nor as far as I was aware, any other person whose business it was to look after waifs and strays such as I was.
Now, curiously enough, one fact stands out in great prominence for which I cannot account at all. It will have been noticed that I had, to put it mildly, no excessive scruples as to taking what did not belong to me, if I thought I needed it; but one thing I would not, could not, did not do, was beg. In the whole of that adventurous time of which I am writing, and afterwards when I was stranded in strange places between voyages in the early days, although I often suffered most acute pangs of hunger, I never once asked alms. And that, I think, will be found quite characteristic of the London street boy. It is a curious, and, I think, not unsatisfactory feature in his make-up. But there is no denying that we were all predatory in the highest degree. And this habit grew upon us, well, I had better say me, in a case of this kind; until when the lot fell upon me to do the "nicking" for the party, I went and did it with the most natural air in the world.
There was nothing melodramatic about it either, no stealthy dartings from shadow to shadow with an occasional "hist, I am observed," so dear to the old play-writers. Oh, no. For instance, it once fell to me to "nick" something, and I have the most precise recollection of walking deliberately into a large grocer's shop in Westbourne Grove, its counter laden as usual with samples of goods for sale, and under the nose of the dumfounded salesman, who had watched me enter, lifting a large box of biscuits and retreating before he had even attempted to clear the obstacles between us. And that was only a type of many such adventures. Since, however, this recital tends to become highly immoral, I will only quote one more instance which must even yet linger in the memories of such of its participants as are still alive.
There used to be a large sweet-stuff shop at the corner of Newton Road, Westbourne Grove, which did a fine trade, and was very fully stocked. One night, dared thereunto by some of my companions who had contributed an extraordinary full and varied meal, I entered this shop and calmly lifted a large glass off a side shelf, which contained five or six pounds of chocolate in penny bars covered with silver paper. I took no precautions whatever, beyond leaving the door wide open, nor did I hurry. But upon emerging into the Grove I immediately turned up the dark way of Newton Road, and whistled shrilly for my chums, who were supposed to be keeping nix, although their idea of doing so was to get as far away as possible in case of accidents.
I found them all, however, in Kildare Gardens, which used to be reached by a sort of paved alley way guarded by posts at each end, and was a most select, silent, and quasi-aristocratic retreat. A veritable oasis of quiet comfort just off the main artery of Westbourne Grove, then beginning to be famous through the exertions of Mr W. Whiteley. And we sat down on the kerb of the central garden in the dark to divide the spoil. This being done, and each boy's pocket laden with chocolate sticks, one uneasy wight raised the question, "What should we do with the show-glass?" The obvious thing would have been to leave it there in the dark, but when did boys affect the obvious?
Then arose the genius of the party and propounded a scheme which made us all cavort with delight (I have said that we were full fed). He proposed that our quartette should advance upon the first house in that utterly silent square, one member carrying the glass container, another the cover, while the other two ascended the steps under the portico and seized, one the knocker, and the other the bell. Then at a given signal the glass must be hurled at the front of the house, the knocker banged, the bell pulled as hard as might be, and—flight. This was at ten p.m.
The instructions were carried out to the foot of the letter; and never, not in a mutiny on board ship, or a coolie riot, have I heard so infernal a row or seen so sudden an upheaval of temporarily mad people. We four were also suddenly frantic, and in our mad flight up Kildare Terrace, assisted the tumult by snatching at the bells at the garden gates as we ran. But on arriving in the Talbot Road, breathless, we halted, and alter a brief consultation, decided that we would return and view the result. We did, and we were completely satisfied. The gardens were full of people, each with a different theory, and the majority clad in strange garb. We circulated and enjoyed ourselves listening. But gradually the concourse melted away; and we, quite happy, stole off to our various lairs.
From the foregoing chapter the reader might hastily arrive at the conclusion that I was certainly qualifying for inclusion in the ranks of criminal classes, since I had arrived at the stages of committing offences against the general peace and well-being without any adequate reason, and had besides no conscience at all, or a conscience void of offence, my only dread being the policeman. I don't know that such a conclusion could be far from the truth, but I would plead that my predatory instincts had been aroused through no fault of my own, and had been fostered by the company into which I was inevitably cast. And then a sudden check was put upon my career, quite by accident, and I shot off at a tangent for a while into an entirely new branch of business.
I met a kind man one day, whose acquaintance I had made about a year previously, quite by accident. I was hungry and despondent, having been unable to find a chance job for nearly two days. He pitied me, and helped me temporarily, but better still offered me employment. He was a billiard-marker, who had just taken a room at a big public-house at Notting Hill, and he wanted a little cheap help such as I could give. So next day I got my first lesson in billiard-marking, and proved, so he said, a very apt pupil, so apt indeed, that by the end of the first evening I could be trusted to mark without fear of my displeasing the players, who, however, were seldom hard to satisfy. And in a week I was as familiar with the whole atmosphere and argot of the billiard-room, as if I had been at it all my life.
Doubtless, to the moralist, I should have appeared to be in very great danger, but I can only state what I know to be the fact, that although the talk was almost incessantly of gambling, and a good deal of drinking went on, I heard nothing in the way of language nearly as bad as the women in the laundry used habitually, and I never saw any actual drunkenness. Moreover, since I now always had money in my pocket, being frequently tipped by the players, I had no temptation to pilfer, and became suddenly and entirely honest, in act at any rate, if not from conviction.
And yet by the very irony of fate, I now for the first time fell into the clutches of the law, and was terrified more than I had ever been before. It happened in this way. Among the habitues of the room was a man whom even I knew to be a sharper, a hawk, who preyed upon other men's weaknesses and vices. He usually had some callow youth in training, whom he fleeced until his victim found him out, or had no more money to spend. He was no welcome visitor, for my employer was a very decent fellow, and hated swindling; but was constrained by the necessities of his position to turn a blind side to much that was shady.
Now our customers seldom came in until the evening, so the afternoon was devoted to cleaning up and getting ready, or attending upon some very rare chance customer. One day, at about 3 P.M., there were three of us in the room, my employer, the sharper, whom we will call Vivian, and myself. Vivian was idly knocking the balls about, just killing time, while I was dusting, etc. Presently my employer said to me, "When Mr Vivian goes, put the cover on, and run down to the —— Hotel, and get the set of balls that the marker will hand you. You needn't hurry, there will be nothing doing till six o'clock. I am going out on business, and shall be back at seven." He then left, and a few minutes after Vivian sauntered out also.
I immediately covered the table, snatched my cap, came out, and locked the room after me. I did my errand, loitering a good deal on the way, but got back to the house about six. As soon as I entered the side door, one of the barmen met me, and told me that I was wanted in the bar parlour. I had never been into that sacred apartment. Indeed, I hardly knew the landlord or landlady by sight. But I went, feeling quite trembly, and was at once confronted by my employer, the landlord and landlady, and a keen-looking stranger, whom I instinctively shrank from in dread.
This latter personage at once began to examine me as to my movements since I had left the house, so closely, that I felt more and more afraid, in spite of my perfect innocence, that something was wrong. But the landlady, a handsome, kindly woman, did her best to reassure me, continually speaking comfortable words to me, and giving me a glass of wine. I was gradually losing my fear and becoming indignant at this cross-examination, when the door opened, and in burst another of the frequenters of the house, a professional billiard-player, who had evidently had quite as much drink as was good for him. He burst into the conversation by attacking my tormentor, and expressing decided views as to what he would do to any adjective detective who dared to badger a boy of his. The terrible word detective almost paralysed me with fright. I had always been afraid of a policeman raised to an unknown power, and here I was obviously in the toils of one of that dread fraternity.
However, my warm and injudicious champion was speedily silenced by the cold statement that it was none of his business, because between the hours of 3 and 6 P.M. the landlady's bedroom had been entered and jewellery to the value of £70 had been stolen, and at present there seemed to be no one upon whom suspicion could reasonably rest but me. It was a terrible shock, but though my mouth felt full of dust, and I shivered as if naked to an east wind, I am glad to remember that I sat silent and dry-eyed.
However, there was nothing to be got out of me, and the matter was compromised on the understanding that I was to go on with my work, but on no account to leave the premises under pain of being instantly locked up; and so it came about that for the next four days I lived in luxury, I had a beautiful bed and the best of food, while the barmaids and landlady, all firmly convinced of my innocence, showered caresses and presents on me. Consequently I had no quarrel with my lot, nor did I repine at not being able to go out. As to the suspicion which hung over me, I declare I thought no more about it except when I caught the detective's cold eye upon me, when I shivered involuntarily.
On the fifth day, at about eight in the evening, we were quite busy, when Mr Vivian, whom I had not seen for four days, suddenly walked in. Instantly I recollected that I had forgotten to mention his leaving the room on the fatal day just before I did. Then I was struck by the amazing change in his appearance. He had always before been shabby-genteel, but now the chrysalis had become a butterfly. He wore a glossy new top-hat, a fur-lined coat, open to display a fashionably-cut suit beneath, and patent leather shoes. He smoked a big cigar, and twirled an elaborate cane. With a swagger that compelled attention, he suggested pool and ordered drinks round, and several being willing, a round game began.
Then creeping up to my employer, who appeared as if hypnotised by this gorgeous vision, I whispered my suspicions. Mr T.'s face lighted up, and presently he slipped out of the room, returning with the detective. There was no fuss; at the conclusion of the game the detective invited Mr Vivian outside, and in the result, the affair being fully brought home to him, he was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. It appeared that when he left the billiard-room on the day in question, he had gone upstairs instead of down, the house being almost deserted, and entering the first room on the next landing which stood open, he had seen the landlady's jewellery lying on the dressing-table, had promptly swept it up, and departed; and he would doubtless have escaped scot-free on account of my stupidity in forgetting about his being there at the time, but for the madness which had prompted him to return and flaunt his fine feathers in his old haunts.
I was considerably petted by all, and the landlady gave me five shillings as well as many kisses. But, alas! only a short time afterwards the house changed hands, and my good friend Mr T. being out of employment, I, too, was once more cast upon my own resources, but this time better off in respect of clothes than I had been for a long time.
I led an extraordinarily nomad life for the next few weeks, just keeping alive by doing any jobs that came along, but having my few clothes that I had accumulated beyond my immediate wearing safely stored with an old woman, who gave me a shelter when hard pressed, but whom I did not trouble much. And then another acquaintance got me a job on some new buildings that were being erected on the site of an old rookery of tumbledown dwellings, what is now Clanricarde Gardens, Notting Hill. It was an entirely new departure for me, but I was somewhat versatile, and easily acquired the necessary details to enable me to make a show at least at whatever I got a chance to do. My first duty was as time-keeper, and my orders were to allow five minutes' grace to laggards, of whatever class they might be. But here, alas! my conscientious desire to obey my instructions soon made me an object of detestation to everybody on the works except my employer. My book, which I kept with the most rigid justice, was questioned by every delinquent, and I was speedily given to understand that unless I turned a blind eye to the clock, and allowed late comers to pass in without making an entry against them in my book, my life would not only not be worth living, but it was darkly hinted that it would be a very short one.
Then for the first time I learned how devoid of the most elementary principles of justice was the average British workman. Turn a blind eye to his failings and sing loudly his praises, he will laud you to the skies, but only hint that he has his faults, and immediately you are his enemy, to be pursued with relentless ferocity. It was a bitter lesson, but I learned it thoroughly, and I can never forget the faces distorted by passion, and the cruel threats weighted by terrible oaths which were hurled against me on pay day, when "quarters" were stopped on my evidence, merely because I did what I was told.
I only held that position a fortnight, when, yielding to pressure, the boss removed me and made me an assistant to a moulder of ornaments in Roman cement for the fronts of the houses. This was dirty work, but not very hard, and the moulder being an old soldier of the Mutiny time, and garrulous in the extreme about his experiences, I was quite happy. My wages were about eight shillings a week, and the hours from six to six, with an hour and a half for meals, not at all severe. So, upon reflection, I am inclined to think that this was the happiest of all my boyish days ashore, always excluding of course the sheltered time I spent under my aunt's roof.
To my great sorrow this good time came to an end with the finishing of the houses, and I was again adrift. And now let me say in deepest gratitude, that through cold, hunger, wet, and sleeping out, I do not remember ever ailing anything. True, I was stunted in my growth owing to privation, but I was wiry, and except for the curse of bad teeth, I do not think I ever had an ache or pain except the transient ones of cold and hunger. But my great sorrow, continually haunting me, was the fact that I never was able to get permanent employment. No sooner did I seem to get settled and satisfied, than some catastrophe or other would come along and heave me out into unattached desolation again. I was like a homeless dog, ready to fawn upon any possible proprietor, and gladly give up my hated freedom for the certainty of continuous employment.
Now I had heard many things about life at sea, for an uncle of mine, whom I had not seen for years, had commanded ships for a long time, and his remarks upon the sailor's life I had often drank in with greedy care. Nothing that he ever said gave me the slightest desire to adopt his career, for from my earliest recollection I had an analytical mind, and I really had no desire to seek adventure at the cost of all that most people consider makes life worth living. I am afraid my bent was essentially bourgeois, strengthened and set as time wore on and experience came to me. I felt that I could understand, dimly perhaps but certainly, how boys who had never known a hardship, a want unsupplied, should be led away by the glamour of what they read, but how ever a boy who knew what the stress and struggle of life meant ashore could go to sea knowingly, to encounter conditions far worse, I did not understand.
And now, for me at least, the explanation came. It was continuity of employment. You might not like your job, or your employer might be entirely dissatisfied with you, but you were compelled to put up with each other until the passage was over, at anyrate. This made the prospect of sea-life tolerable to me. I was under absolutely no apprehensions as to romantic adventure, for I was certainly not the stuff of which adventurers are made. All my adventures had been forced upon me, and I was never so happy as when I was under somebody's command, if that somebody would only give me an encouraging word now and then.
So I determined to try and get to sea. But owing to my puny size I found it very difficult. I was told that the easiest way to begin was to hang about a certain public-house in Thames Street, whither coasting skippers used to resort for their crews. It was just opposite the Custom-House steps, and was called the King's Head (or Arms). A certain individual, popularly known as Sam, who was, I suppose, a species of crimp, was always in evidence and acted as go-between. To him came all sorts of rough coasting skippers, masters of barges, of "billy-boys," ketches and schooners, in quest of men and boys, and the latter looked to him as their earthly providence.
How he got paid I do not know, a certain commission from both sides was paid him, I expect. The candidates were allowed to haunt a grim den, a tap-room at the back of the public-house, where a good fire was always blazing, and though dark and gloomy in the extreme, it afforded a shelter from the bitter blasts which swept down that grimiest of London's business thoroughfares.
I am afraid that it is impossible for me to attempt any adequate description of the time I spent looking for a ship in this terrible place. I had to live, and did, but how I hardly know, for so small an urchin as I stood but little chance in the incessant struggle for employment that went on down there. But I had learned to live upon very little, and it is an incontrovertible fact that the stomach of a young human being that has never known pampering can assimilate food that should, theoretically, derange the digestion of an ostrich. For instance, Fresh Wharf, Thames Street, was the rendezvous of many steamers from Spain, laden with dried fruits, nuts, oranges, etc. In the handling of cases, sacks, and other packages, there was a good deal of breakage, and I could often snatch a few handfuls of currants, nuts, raisins, etc. I always ate of them ravenously, in spite of their copious admixture of dust and dirt, but even after devouring a couple of pounds of currants I never remember feeling the slightest ill effects.
But when by some happy chance I managed to get hold of a few coppers, there was a cook shop opposite the main entrance to Billingsgate Market that never failed to attract me. Their specialité was pea-soup, which was exposed most temptingly in a large tank in one of the windows. It was sold at twopence a basin; but the half basin for a penny, not being carefully measured, lacked very little of being full. Moreover, to the initiate, there were degrees in the quality of this soup. It was freshly made on Monday, and even then was good. On Tuesday, however, the thick residue at the bottom of the tank remaining unsold was left, and the usual ingredients for a fresh mess were added to it, making it much richer and more substantial. On Wednesday, this process was repeated, with the result that Wednesday's soup was a thick pureé in which a spoon would stand erect, and he who could buy a penn'orth and eat it with a ha'penny hunk of bread, could go in the strength of that meal for twenty-four hours without any inconvenience. At least I can say for myself that I very often did, and my appetite in those days was terrible, abnormal. I really do not seem ever to have been fully satisfied.
One thing I have reason to be thankful for; my pilfering propensities had almost entirely disappeared, for with the exception of an occasional roll from a baker's shop, or some unconsidered trifle of cheese or the dried fruit aforesaid, I never took what was not mine, and when I did, it was only under the pressure of great hunger.
Once I made a serious mistake which gave me a bitter pang, disappointment so keen that I feel the sting of it even now sometimes. I was ravenously hungry, and there seemed to be no possibility of getting anything to eat. So diving down into the shell-fish market beneath the main building of Billingsgate, I watched my opportunity, and filled the breast of my shirt with whelks from a mighty tubful. My booty secured, I hastened back to the gloomy tap-room, there to devour my prize, but was immediately confronted with the difficulty of extracting the whelks from their shells.
I had often seen it done by the men who kept whelk stalls in the streets, and it looked ridiculously easy. But I could not do it, and I was fain at last to smash the shells, no easy task either. Then clearing the mollusc from débris I tried to eat it, but it was quite impossible, it was tougher than gutta-percha, and I realised that my whelks were unboiled! These morsels require immense masticatory powers to deal with them at any time, but uncooked they would defy the jaws of a stone-crusher.
So time passed, oh so slowly, and although I made frequent appeals to Sam, he always looked at me indulgently, and told me to wait a bit. And every day I saw men and boys being shipped, and practising the recognised ritual, by virtue of which they were permitted to use the public-house as a house of call. This consisted of receiving from the skipper engaging them a shilling for handsel money, which coin was always spent in two pots of beer and two screws of shag, which was shared by all the waiting ones. It was of no use to me, for I neither drank beer or smoked tobacco, but although I would have been glad to take my share in coin, if only a ha'penny, that was not to be thought of.
One adventure befell me about this time, which left a most vivid impression on me. Among the fellows who hung about looking to Sam for a ship would be occasionally a big boy warmly clad in coarse nautical clothing, and an indefinable air about him of being under some invisible supervision. One of these fellows became quite friendly with me, and at last in a burst of confidence informed me that he had been in prison for some minor offence, and that by the bounty of the authorities he had been clothed as I saw him, and every night a shilling was given to him for his maintenance while looking for a ship, which he was sure to get before long, because Sam had special instructions on his behalf.
One night my new found friend informed me that he was going to sea the next day, and invited me to share his hospitality, with the special inducement that I should be introduced to his sweetheart. I accepted with grateful alacrity, and soon after dark I accompanied him to the purlieus of Spitalfields to a rag-and-bottle shop kept by his inamorata's father. The shop was frowsty and mildewy as these places must be, and the old man might well have served Dickens as a model for Krook, but he was very affable, and his buxom slatternly daughter was obviously much in love with my companion. At any rate a feast of fried fish and potatoes and bread were spread for us, and although our surroundings savoured of the charnel-house, and the only light was from a tallow dip in a ginger-beer bottle, I fully enjoyed my meal, not that I got enough, but the razor edge was certainly taken off my hunger.
After we had eaten, the old man sent me out for a quartern of gin, which was diluted with hot water and sugar, and shared by the three—I had some drink from the tap. Then the old merchant engaged my attention with some, to me, absolutely unintelligible conversation, while his daughter and her young man, seated upon a pile of mixed coloured (rags), made ostentatious love to each other. It was all very uninteresting to me, and I was growing weary of it, when at last Jem, my friend, rose, and bidding his host and sweetheart good-night bade me follow him.
I went unquestioningly, he regaling me all the way with descriptions of the great career which lay before him when he should marry Jemima, and succeed to the old man's business—which to him apparently contained the potentialities of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. But, oh the weary trudge! I was ready to drop where I stood, when he turned and went into a lodging-house in one of the slums of Westminster, paying threepence each for us at a little office at the door. Thence we passed into a large room with plain benches and tables, at which sat a large number of rough-looking men, none of whom however took any notice of us. There was an immense kitchen range at one side of this room, with a splendid fire blazing, and at the sides a number of kettles, frying-pans, and gridirons.
My companion then gave me sixpence and sent me out marketing. I bought a ha'porth of tea and sugar (mixed), a farthing's worth of milk, a penn'orth of butter, half a loaf (twopence), and two fine bloaters for three halfpence, returning with my load and three farthings change. We had a wash, made our tea, and thoroughly enjoyed an ample meal in comfort, after which, so sleepy was I, that I could hardly sit up, though I endeavoured to read an old newspaper. I had just whispered a query to Jem as to whether I couldn't get to bed, when the door-keeper came in and beckoned me, retreating at the same time towards the door. I followed him, and when we reached his office he silently placed three pennies in my hand, then said, "Get out o' this." I looked appealingly, questioningly at him, but his stern face and pointed finger did not invite delay, so I slunk out into the night and down to St James's Park, where, climbing over the railings, I found a quiet spot in a shrubbery, and laid me down to sleep; a little shivery, but quite easy in my mind.
Undoubtedly there was a good deal of mystery about the proceedings which closed the last chapter, but I was in those days very little concerned with causes, I had enough trouble with results. So I did not try to speculate, only feeling glad that my friend was evidently all right. And after all I had spent a very pleasant evening, my belly was nearly full, and I was threepence to the good. So why worry, more especially as it was certain that any attempt at investigation on my part could only lead to trouble for me, and I was ever anxious to avoid trouble of any kind.
In the course of the day I drifted down to the King's Arms again, but saw nothing of my friend. So towards evening, I made bold to ask Sam if he had seen him, and received the reply that he had sailed that morning in a schooner for Spain. I have never seen him since, but I have not been able to forget him.
One never-failing source of amusement I had during this long weary time, for even if hungry and cold young things will try to play, was in the Tower of London, into which I often dodged past the guards. I was often caught and driven back, but that only whetted my appetite for getting in. In my numerous visits I explored many portions of the old building that visitors never see, and I had many a good meal given me by the kind-hearted mess-cooks of the garrison. And by stealthily joining myself on to parties of visitors, I went the rounds of all the showplaces, into which entrance in those days could only be had by payment, and was mightily amused at hearing the same old story told with hardly an altered word by the "beef-eaters."
I have mentioned this particularly, because opportunities for play in that stern and dingy quarter of London were very few, and when I got out of Thames Street for a brief space into the cloister-like atmosphere of the Tower, I really did feel as if I was in another world, and I never quite got rid of that eerie feeling when I was alone in some unfrequented corner, that I was moving among a crowd of ghosts, who in the past had suffered and died within those grim walls. One night I found myself belated in the horse armoury, and as I could not find my way out, and dared not call, for that I knew I had no business there, I curled myself up in a snug corner and went to sleep, awaking in the morning with the sun streaming into my eyes, and with a firm determination to run no such risk again. I got in there by climbing over a big gate with a cheval-de-frise on the top, and I got out the same way without being observed. I suppose if I had been caught my punishment would have been something mediæval, for the crime was, to say the least of it, unusual.
And now the grim fact began to thrust itself upon me without possibility of mistake that it was hopeless ever to expect to get a ship by doing as I was doing. The vessels that got their crews in this way were all pitifully undermanned, and consequently whoever was chosen for employment in one of them must of necessity be strong and inured to hard work. Indeed, this choice was carried so far, that the skippers invariably felt the hands of the candidates, and if they were not calloused like the skin of a yam, the defect was fatal, supposing that there was any competition. My hands were only felt once, and that more I suspect as a matter of form, for nothing came of it.
At last I asked Sam timidly if he really thought I stood any chance of getting a ship there. He looked down at me as if he had just seen me for the first time, pondered a moment (but about nothing I am sure), then suddenly remembering my question, said, "Oh no, not till you've a-growed a bit. You better stow-away." I said, "Thank you, sir," and moved off fully determined, whatever happened, not to stow-away. Going to sea, I thought, was bad enough in any case, but from what I had heard stowaways stood a good chance of getting first a good hammering, then a tremendous lot of hard work, and very little food, and prison at the journey's end. It was a programme that did not appeal to me.
Nevertheless, it was with a sinking heart that I turned away from Thames Street that night. I felt that I could not hold my own in the rough and tumble life of the streets much longer, and I craved with all my heart and soul for a master. I know that there are boys who, even in good homes, have the nomad instinct so strongly implanted that they cannot be contented anywhere, will endure, nay, embrace voluntarily all kinds of privation, so long as they may vagabondise, but I was not one of them. My early training was all against it. I longed for a home, and to have some one in authority over me, although I could not help admitting to myself that I had not made the best of my chances, such as they were.
But as the darkest hour is just before the dawn according to the adage, so when my prospects of getting to sea were at what appeared to be the lowest ebb, I suddenly bethought me of the possibility of finding my uncle, whom I have before alluded to as being master of a ship. More by accident than design, I discovered him, and although he was evidently not overjoyed to see me he agreed to take me to sea with him at the wage of five shillings per month.
Of my early experiences at sea, I have told at length in the "Log of a Sea Waif," and therefore I cannot repeat them here. I can only point out that there seemed to be a fatality about the matter, something working against my becoming a seafarer, since I was shipwrecked on my first voyage and landed in Havana, where, because of the old trouble, my puny size, I could not get a ship, and consequently I returned to one of my old employments, namely, that of billiard-marker. It was at the Hotel St Isabel in the Plaza de Armas, and here for some months I led a very happy if entirely demoralising life for one so young. I received no wages, but the best of food and lodging, and the tips given me by the frequenters of the billiard-room were so many that I always had plenty of money.
But strangely enough, although I certainly ought to have known the value of money from my previous training, now being provided liberally with all I needed, I made no attempt to save, but distributed my wealth among the sailors at the port, with whom I always forgathered when not on duty. Thus it came about that when I was one day taken charge of by the Consul again, and after he had scolded and threatened me for some time, because, as he said, I had dared to remove myself from his care without his permission, I was entirely penniless.
He put me on board a vessel bound for home via Mobile, Alabama, and when I reached Liverpool I was not merely penniless, I was almost naked, and it was winter. I had no claim upon anybody for wages, no knowledge of where to go, and I felt as if the fates had indeed been unkind to me. But I found a good Samaritan in the guise of a poor woman, who kept a small eating-house, and she took me in and allowed me to work for my keep. And thus I added one more to my smattering of trades, that of waiter; the maid-of-all-work part I was very well versed in. It was all the kinder of her, because the business was hardly substantial enough to support even the slight additional burden which I placed upon it. Our principal trade was with the poverty-stricken dock-labourers, whose orders were usually for a basin of broth at a penny and a ha'porth of bread, except when flush, they were able to treat themselves to a twopenny plate of potato-pie. Everybody seemed to be bitterly poor, and it was little wonder to me that when a sailor just paid off did happen to come in and show the gleam of gold, eyes grew wolfish and fingers involuntary crooked themselves.
I had not been there more than a couple of months, when my mistress gave me clearly to understand that I must be off, for she could not support me any longer; although God knows I did work hard for every mouthful I ate (and I was never stinted). Then chance threw in my way an opportunity of trying yet another trade, that of carver of ornamental wood work for ship decoration. The workshop was next door, and I had made the proprietor's acquaintance through running in there occasionally for chips. But I do not think I should ever have dreamed of asking him for employment, if my mistress had not one day, when in conversation with him, mentioned that she was going to start me off. In the goodness of his heart he offered me employment, and I leaped at the offer. I started work the very next morning, for my keep, though what he paid my late mistress I never knew. I was an apt pupil, and he was very kind, so that I soon became quite useful to him. I learned to sharpen the multitude of tools he used, and also to rough out with mallet and chisel the carvings that he and his brother finished off.
It was congenial and pleasant work, and I felt as if at last I had found my groove, and that I was destined to be a wood-carver. But alas my evil genius was on my track. I pleased my employer too well. So well indeed, that his brother, older than he, but a journeyman under him, became violently jealous of me, and lost no opportunity of showing his dislike. That, however, did not trouble me much, except when my boss was away, which was seldom, because under his benevolent eye I was entirely happy and stimulated to do my very best. Even at this great lapse of time I remember with a glow at my heart, how gently he reproved me for the mistakes I made, how warmly he praised me whenever I was able to do exactly what he wished me to do, and I have no recollection whatever of his ever being harsh, unjust, or even inconsiderate.
He had many odd jobs of repairing to do, the ornamental work on ship's bows and sterns was always getting knocked away when coming into or going out of dock;and generally it had to be repaired in situ, only the worst damage being worked over in the shop and then taken down and fitted on. There was something to me very delightful in sitting alongside him on a precarious-looking stage overhanging the black water in a dock, listening to his cheery remarks, his clear tenor as he sang snatches of song, or his whistle, melodious as a skylark's. He never seemed to be weary or discouraged, or ill-tempered; and I know that I rendered him all the loving homage of which I was capable.
It was often bitterly cold as we swang on our stages in those exposed positions, but it never seemed to affect him, his blows with the chisel upon the intricate design before him never seemed to vary their certitude or his patience, to falter, even when a cross-grained piece of wood did fly and spoil the pattern. And then how delightful at meal times, when we were too far from home to go thither for food, to accompany him to some cosy cook-shop, and eat with him, treated just as his son, I was going to say, only unhappily I know that he treated me far far better than many fathers treat their sons.
Unfortunately as the time went on it became increasingly evident that this present happiness of mine was drawing rapidly near its end. The brother of whom I spoke was a most morose and sullen man, a very poor workman, who could never be trusted to do a job properly, not I should say lazy, but incapable of doing good work, and fully conscious of the fact. He would not have earned his salt anywhere, but his good brother kept him on out of charity. Now my presence there annoyed him, and whenever I was left alone with him he used to give me a very bad time. And when his brother returned he always made an evil report of my behaviour, but I had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not believed, as indeed he did not deserve to be.
At last, however, the matter culminated in this way. The boss was working upon one of the African boats, and had left me with his brother to do some cross-cut sawing. Now every one should know that this is heavy work even for practised men, and when a boy of thirteen and a man of thirty are working together, the man ought to remember the disparity between their ages and strength. But this only gave my small-witted enemy his opportunity, and when I had perforce to stop from fatigue he burst into a flood of sarcastic swearing. When he paused for breath, I made some injudicious reply, and was immediately sent flying across the shop by a blow on the side of the head. Smarting with pain I snatched up a mallet, and flung it at the coward with all my strength, and I am glad to say it landed on his nose, even though my successful shot was productive of much serious trouble for me.
Then I bolted from the place, for I feared that he would kill me, as indeed I daresay he would have done had I remained. That evening my good friend came into the cook-shop, and found me sitting white and trembling, waiting for him. He was as usual very kind, though he reproved me gravely for having broken his brother's nose. But when he asked me if I wasn't sorry for having done it, I gladly remember that I truthfully told him no. A ghost of a smile gathered around his mouth, but shaking his head he went on to say, "I'm terribly sorry to part with you, Tommy, for I had got very fond of you, but I've got to choose between you and my brother, and I can't turn him off. He swears he will murder you when he sees you, so you'll have to go. Poor little boy, I do hope you'll get something else soon." And with that he pressed half a sovereign into my hand, and went away.
I need not enlarge upon the fact of its being a terrible blow to me, nor apologise for shedding a good many hot tears after he was gone, because he was the first person during my independent career who had satisfied my burning desire to be loved. I felt that he was fond of me, and knew that his lightest word of commendation was more precious to me than any treasure would have been. I glory in the knowledge that he never once had to scold me for anything but mistakes. I did try with all my heart and soul to please him, because I loved him, and now I had lost him. And the wide world before me again looked very unsympathetic and dreary.
Somehow Liverpool seemed very distasteful to me. My weary wanderings around the docks, and the continual unsuccess I had met with in looking for a ship, had made me feel as if I might possibly do better in my own big village, and I realised that I now possessed the means of getting back to it again. So the next morning I bade farewell to Mrs Dickey, my landlady, who was quite unmoved at the parting, for she was very angry with me for getting the sack, as she termed it, and toddled off to Lime Street, where I had no difficulty whatever in getting a half ticket to London, nor felt troubled because after paying for it I had only 1s. 7½d. left out of my precious half-sovereign.
I must not omit to mention that Mrs Dickey gave me a big hunk of bread and cheese when I told her that I was going to London, but she did not give me a kiss, which I should have prized far more, for I was an affectionate little chap, and was starving for love. But, poor woman, she was heavily burdened, and no doubt was heartily glad to get rid of me, although I cannot think that she had ever been out of pocket by me, for I certainly earned my keep. Still she did not want me, so there is no more to be said.
It was a glorious spring day, and the novelty of my first long train journey made me forget all my troubles. Moreover, I felt full of importance to think that I was a passenger by that great train. Every inch of that journey was full of interest to me. I had a seat by the window, and my eyes fairly ached with the intensity of my gaze out over the beautiful country of which, until then, I had seen practically nothing. I remember that I spoke to no one, and no one spoke to me, though several of my fellow-passengers must have wondered who or what was the ill-clad urchin who sat so quietly and gazed so intently at the flying landscape.
I was quite sorry when the train arrived at Euston, and I had to march out into the mean net-work of streets which surround the badly situated station, for now I began to wonder what I should do in the vast city which was my birth-place, but in which I had no friends or abiding-corner. It was all so familiar, and yet so inhospitable. Had I only known where to look, there were many places where I could have found shelter and help, but for lack of that useful knowledge, how many wanderers like myself have died?
One thing I felt certain of, which was that I could not now take my place among the ranks of my former companions, I could not compete with them for sale of papers, or the numerous odd jobs that boys can do. For one thing I had never been much of a pusher—I was always more ready to stand aside than to press forward in the race for a job, though willing enough to take one if I got the chance—and for another, I had lost the sense of familiarity with those conditions of life ashore, while the new experience I had gained was here of no use to me.
Therefore I made no effort in this direction, but after wandering aimlessly about until I was dog tired, I went down the West India Dock Road until I came to a house with the legend painted up—"Seamen's Boarding House," and knocked at its door with my heart thumping furiously. A terrible looking man with a great grizzled beard and a voice like a foghorn came to the door and looked at me in silence. I swallowed nothing once or twice, then taking out my discharge from my last ship, which I had treasured as if it were a bank-note for a hundred pounds, I said, "Please, Sir, may I stay here. I want a ship and I've got a good discharge. I'll pay you out of my advance if you'll get me a ship." He growled.
Wher's yer dunnage (clothes)? I answered faintly, "I've got none, I was shipwrecked." He hesitated for a moment, then rumbled, "come inside," and with my heart leaping, I went into a stuffy front parlour, where sat two or three men, obviously ill at ease, and a fat pale faced woman who was looking fixedly in the fire. Taking me by the shoulder, the boarding-master led me up to the woman saying—
Here, mother, here's an able seaman wants to stop here. He's got no clothes and no money, but he says he'll pay me out of his advance note.
Then I saw with a wave of pity that she was blind. She turned at the voice and put out both hands, touching me and feeling me from my forehead down to my waist.
Why, Bill, she cried, "its only a child, a poor little boy," and with a motherly movement she drew me to her, and felt me all over again. Then she asked me many questions, all of which I answered with absolute truth, for there could be no reason why I should not. And at the conclusion of her examination I was entered on the books of the house as a boarder, while the master went growling about saying that at this rate he would soon be in the workhouse. But the old lady kept me by her side and whispered that it was only Mr Jones's fun, he didn't mean anything by it, and that he would surely do his best to get me a ship soon.
This was true, for though he was always grumpy, and given to regaling his boarders at meal times with lugubrious forebodings of his speedy entrance to Poplar Workhouse, with victuals at the price they were and so many hungry outward-bounders to feed, I know he did his best for me; did it so well, that in five days from entering his house I obtained a ship as boy with a wage of twenty-five shillings per month, to my intense surprise. I received, like the rest of the crew, a note for a month's advance, which I handed over to him at once. Out of this he gave me a small supply of most necessary clothes bought second hand, so that he must have dealt with me not merely honestly but in a spirit of generosity.
And now I come to the close of my shore apprenticeship, as it may be termed, for although I had a very severe time upon my return to Liverpool from that voyage (again shipwrecked), I never again but once had a job ashore until I left the sea as a profession finally. That time I spent upon a farm in New Zealand, and although it certainly had its comic side, I was such an utterly complete failure at it that I blush now when I think of the figure I made. Fortunately it did not last long, about two months, and in spite of my colossal ineptitude I really think I earned all that I received, which was my keep and a pair of boots.
Not indeed that I could have claimed to have been a shining success in any of the various commercial paths wherein I had strayed, more or less painfully, but I must plead that I was very young, and entirely without the guidance which youngsters have a right to expect from their elders. And now I must make a jump of a great many years, to the time in fact when relentless need drove me into commercialism again. And with this what I suppose I must call the serious part of my narrative begins.
Splendid and universal as are the attainments of seamen, it is only the bare truth to say that one of the rarest qualifications to find among them is commercial aptitude. There are, of course, notable exceptions, and in the days when masters and officers of vessels were allowed to add to their income substantially by trade with the natives of the countries which they visited, and were granted a certain amount of space in the hold wherein to store the merchandise they bought, the trading instinct must have been fairly general. Indeed there are not wanting cynics at sea to-day, who will tell you that what with the slop-chest, tobacco selling, and the outrageous rates of exchange, many a deep water skipper of a sailing ship could give points to an Armenian. And the latter is supposed by sailors to be equal in, let us call it trading power, to five Parsees, one of whom again equals five Jews.
But I do not think this is fair. It does not follow that a man is a born trader because he can sell necessaries to people who must have them from him or go without, and cannot go without. It only argues lack of conscience on the part of the seller. And to expect, without lack of competition, the same characteristics would, I am afraid, be indicative of a weak mind. At any rate I am quite certain that, speaking generally, a sailor when he comes ashore is helpless in the hands of business people, and that it is a very long while before he is able to think their thoughts and walk in their ways.
So when I first settled down ashore to steady employment in an office at a fixed salary of £2 per week, after fifteen years of irresponsibility as regards domestic affairs, I quickly learned that I was very callow indeed in those matters. My first false step was in buying furniture, wherewith to make a home, on the hire system. It must be remembered that I had a wife and one child, but that I was practically beginning a new life. And I did so by hanging round my neck a burden of debt which I did not get rid of for fifteen years, and then—but I must not anticipate the regular sequence of my story.
The next was to take a house. I had tried apartments several times, but something always went wrong, I was always made to feel that I was only in the house on sufferance, and being an enthusiast for peace, I always moved rather than have a row. But moving as a fairly regular experience is apt to pall upon one. It costs a good deal of money even when you hire the local greengrocer's van and horse at one and sixpence an hour, and it is very hard work, for unless you buckle to and do the lion's share yourself, you find at nightfall that you have just got in, you have parted with the bulk of your savings, and the best part of a heavy night's work is before you, putting up bedsteads and reducing the chaotic heap of your belongings to a condition in which you can find what you want within reasonable distance of the time that you want it.
For this and other reasons which I need not now specify I decided to take a house. I satisfied myself that by letting the floor below and the floor above the one I intended to keep for ourselves at the current rate in the neighbourhood, carefully ascertained beforehand, that I should live rent free or nearly so, and of course in a neighbourhood like that it was unthinkable that I should ever be empty. I mean the house of course. By which process of reasoning I demonstrated that I possessed one of the prime requirements of a tradesman—hope that my venture would be justified by the profit on my outlay.
But, alas, I was not made of the fibre necessary in order to be a successful sub-landlord. By the end of the first year of my tenancy I had come to the conclusion that I was a known mark for all the undesirables in the neighbourhood. If a tenant was clean he was utterly unreasonable, looking upon me as his bond-slave, and his right to do as he liked indefeasible, even though it might be destructive to my peace of mind or rest of body. And his one argument in reply to any remonstrance was, "I pay my rent and can go where I like. And don't you interfere with me."
Amiable tenants found excuses for non-payment of rent or were dirty. One I remember brought a sofa into the house the stuffing of which I think must have been mainly bugs. I learned of this by the house becoming infested beyond belief, and seeing hordes of these odoriferous insects coming downstairs. This led to my making enquiries, when the origin or hotbed was found to be the sofa aforesaid. Nothing could have been more amiable than the manner in which my mild remonstrances were received or more suave than the manner in which my modest request for a small contribution towards the heavy expense of getting the house cleansed and fumigated was denied.
Other lodgers smilingly avowed their inability to pay their rent, and playfully urged me to get it if I could. Others fought furious battles overhead, or engaged in gymnastic exercises which brought the ceilings down, or contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with each other (the top and bottom floors), with the avowed object of making us "sit up," in which I may add they were surprisingly successful.
I do not say that I never had a desirable or satisfactory tenant, because I had several, but alas, I never had two sets of desirable tenants at the same time. And one of the nicest families I ever let my ground floor to, seven in number, developed scarlet fever and gave me perhaps more anxiety and put me to more expense than all the rest put together. Taking them all round though, I can see there was ample copy among them for a book on queer tenants. There were the widow and her two daughters, aged respectively seventeen and fourteen. The latter used to take turn about to beat their mother, and the screams would at once attract a crowd, for it was a populous street. Then when I interfered, the whole three would turn upon me, the mother fiercest of all, and threaten me with unheard of penalties for daring to interfere with their menus plaisirs. There was a fine specimen of a British working man, who for six days of the week was a credit to his country; clean, punctual, honest, and hard working. But on Saturday night he invariably got partially drunk, and after eleven P.M. amused himself until about 1 A.M. by stamping heavily up and down stairs, along the passage, past my door, out of the front door, slamming it behind him with great violence, immediately re-entering and repeating the performance, and all the time uttering the most bloodthirsty and blasphemous threats against me. Me! who never exchanged a word with him, and against whom I could have had no possible ground of complaint, except perhaps that he, being a socialist of the Keir Hardie or Will Crooks type, was bound to show his resentment for having to pay me rent.
But I must not multiply instances, though the temptation to do so is very great, but pass on to what must have appeared to the reader to be the inevitable result. I got behind with my rent. Worry began to prey upon me, to gnaw my vitals, and make me look almost despairingly around for some means of earning more money. Fortunately for me, my landlord was a kind hearted tradesman, who had a splendid business of his own, and who had invested some of the profits in this house which I rented. I paid my rent direct to him, and always met with the most kindly consideration short of letting me off paying altogether, which I could not expect.
Unhappily, however, his kindness led to the inevitable result. He became my last resource. Creditors who would not wait got paid while he continued to wait. Finding that he would take excuses and grant delays which no one else would, I grew to depend upon him, and what was worse, to feel aggrieved because others were not like-minded. It is a vicious circle in which an enormous number of people travel, but I think it will be found that the majority of them are too soft-hearted to insist upon their own dues being paid them promptly, and are always filled with wonder that their creditors are not actuated by the same benevolent sentiments.
Meanwhile, if the charge of unbusiness-like and soft-hearted habits could justly have been laid to my charge, extravagance certainly could not. I lived personally poorer than any day labourer, scarcely ever tasting meat except on Sunday, and then only the cheapest and coarsest parts of the animal, which my skill in cookery rendered palatable in stews and curries to all of us. I walked to and fro to business—a matter of ten miles—daily, and never spent a penny for anything but absolute necessaries. My sole recreation was in open air meetings for religious purposes, which to me were theatre, circus, and concert all in one. Yet I grew steadily poorer, and as to saving, well, the only possible means of doing that was by insuring my life, which I am glad to say I did to the amount of ten shillings a month, the utmost I could spare.
I only mention these few details to show how I was being steadily thrust in the direction of doing something outside my regular office work, something to utilise the time which I felt was being wasted. My long sea-training had made me an early riser, indeed I could get up cheerfully at any time (and can still), and nothing was more irksome to me than lying abed after my body was satisfied with rest. I used to get up at most unearthly hours in the summer and go long walks with a book, and lie and read after I came home at night until I could see no more. Yet, thank God, I am writing this in a minute hand at the age of fifty, without spectacles or feeling the need of them.
Constantly the thought would intrude itself, "why can't I get something to do during the hours I am free from the office and don't want to sleep?" My fellow-clerks, with but very few exceptions, had outside employment, but this was usually literary, and for that I felt I had neither aptitude nor training. Mechanical bent I felt sure I had none, for I could hardly drive a nail or put a screw in without spoiling the head. In short, I felt that I was a drug in the market, a passable seaman perhaps, but I had thrown that employment behind me for ever, and now I was a very mediocre junior clerk, getting on into middle age and being reminded of my deficiencies—which, alas, I knew only too well—every day by my superiors.
Since these are confessions, shall I be blamed for saying that I prayed for extra work? Well, anyhow I did; prayed as fervently as some people do at certain crises for forgiveness of sin. You all know that I was what is called very religious, that is to say, I lived an exceedingly narrow life, looking upon all amusements as snares of the devil, and consoled myself continually, for the loss of all that my fellows seemed to prize in this world, by the thought of the glories of immortality. Happily, I did not condemn all who differed from me in my theological concepts to an eternity of unmentionable agony, because although this was insisted upon as a cardinal item in their belief by the people with whom I associated, my heart or brain or feelings—or my thinking gear—simply would not let me do so. In fact, I felt that such an idea of the God I believed in was blasphemy. And my freely expressed opinions led to my being excommunicated in due form from several bodies of Christians with whom I worked.
Yes, I did pray for some means of earning a little extra money, but at the same time I was acutely conscious of my lack of ability to do anything that employers of overtime men had any use for. Anything in the way of manual labour was of course out of the question, while as to canvassing! With shame I confess that I did try one or two of the specious advertisements in the daily papers, which promise so much and perform so little. But I speedily found that at soliciting custom from door to door I should starve. I was too sensitive. So far from realising the ideal of never taking no for an answer, which was always held up to me, a glum look, or a door slammed in my face, was enough to put me off my business for a whole evening. I realised then, as I had never done before, the terrible truth of Longfellow's lines, long as they had been graven in my heart—
"Who amid their wants and woes, Hear the sound of doors that close, And of feet that pass them by. Grown familiar with disfavour, Grown familiar with the savour Of the bread by which men die!
"The Legend Beautiful.
But I realised also that whatever my sentimental feelings on the matter might be, the need of earning something extra grew not merely none the less, but ever more pressing. Yet nothing seemed to present itself, nor were there any of my acquaintances able to throw anything at all in my way. At last a small chance came, a curious little eddy in one of the backwaters of life, and I, ready for anything that I could do, seized it. A friend of mine used to add to his income by selling to his fellow-clerks such small articles of jewellery or fancy goods as he could obtain at wholesale price, taking payment for them weekly or monthly as the case might be. He was also Agent for several other concerns such as Insurance Companies, photographers, etc., and finally finding that he had more on his hands than he was able to do, and attend to his clerical work as well, he decided to give up that part of his outside work that was least profitable and imposed the greatest amount of extra work upon him. This was the fancy goods business.
This he offered to me with his connection both for buying and selling, and full explanation as to profits, etc. He did not certainly go so far as to supply the capital, but he did everything else that he could in order that I might start fair. Given a small amount of capital, the business was simple enough. Having once obtained the entrée to certain large wholesale firms in Houndsditch and its neighbourhood, anything comprised within the enormous range of articles known as "fancy" could be purchased for cash at wholesale prices, even in one twelfth of a dozen, or "one only" as the trade term goes. And often an article from a "clearing line," or goods which have been in stock longer than they ought to have been, and were clamouring to be dispersed, could be purchased for a sum which certainly did not represent the cost of the raw material of the manufacture, to say nothing of the skilled workmanship lavished upon it.
Goods were never bought on speculation, my capital would not admit of that; indeed I often borrowed a few shillings for the purpose of buying an ordered article, so that I was almost completely debarred from taking advantage of these "clearing line" opportunities. No, I bought when I had an order say for £1. I delivered the article and accepted three sums of ten shillings each on successive monthly pay days. Now, at first blush and remembering that I took no risk, this may seem an exorbitant profit, but I found in practice that it was not so, and that many retail establishments where goods are sold for cash charge quite as much for similar goods as I did. Still, I am not apologising, I am merely stating facts.
I did a strictly limited and non-expanding business for many reasons, but principally because although I developed a fine business aptitude as far as the mere buying and selling went, I had no notion of accumulating a little capital—there were so many crying needs to be supplied at home that I could not turn a deaf ear to them when I had a little money made out of office hours like this, and assume that I had not got it at all. Also, because I dared not incur any risks, my customers had to be confined to those of my acquaintances whose affairs were almost as well known to me as my own.
But timid and tentative as these little excursions of mine into trade were, they were laden with instruction and interest; yes, and occasionally a fair amount of amusement was obtained also. For instance, most of the wholesale dealers whom I patronised were Hebrews, and I, having like all sailors associated Jews generally with the distinctively evil types of the ancient race who flourish in sailor towns as tailors and boarding masters, was at first inclined to be very shy and cautious in my dealings with them. Before long, however, I made two curious discoveries. One was that the Jews whom I now met in business were kindly, straightforward, honest, and hospitable, in fact quite unlike my preconceived notions of Jews. The other was perhaps a partial explanation of the former—wherever I went among them I was taken for a Jew myself! At first my silly prejudices led me rather to resent this; but I have always felt proud of an open mind, and after considering the matter carefully, I came to the conclusion that the mistake was rather a compliment than otherwise.
Now, as far as I know or can ascertain, the records of the old Dorset family from which I am descended contain no reference to any admixture of Jewish blood, and so although I am a firm believer in transmitted physical and mental characteristics, I am compelled to believe that this Hebraic cast of features is either accidental or is a throw back to some remote ancestor. Be that as it may, I reaped a very definite benefit from my Jewish physiognomy, in that I had never any difficulty in getting my tiny orders filled at any Jewish wholesale house, and if one firm could not supply me I was at once passed on to another who could. Here also I may pause for a moment to point out, that during my recent visit to Australia and New Zealand, I was always sought after and made much of by the Jewish community, which is very highly respected and powerful in those distant colonies. And when I laughingly used to disclaim any tribal connection they invariably assured me that it really did not matter, because even if I was a true Goy or Gentile, I had so many traits in common with the best of Israel that I might well be accepted as one of the Sephardim.
Well, this digression is merely to show how, in those feeble attempts at trade, I was curiously helped and interested in this strange by-way. But undoubtedly had I been a true son of Israel I should have become a successful merchant, for I had every encouragement to launch out except capital—and I now think that even that essential might have been forthcoming had I chosen to seek it. I did not, but contented myself with endeavouring to fill such small orders for bags, workboxes, christening sets, clocks, cheap watches and chains, etc., as came my way, gaining in the process a great amount of insight into the workings of business of a certain kind.
One curious discovery I made which was of great service to me on several occasions. (I hope the term "great" will be understood as relative to my small affairs, in which shillings loomed as important as hundreds of pounds to some people, and where a penny tram or bus ride often meant a considerable shortage in a meal.) Of course I was not very long ashore before I became familiar with the working of the poor man's bank, the much abused pawnbroker. Many a time in dire distress through sickness or some other sudden strain I have blessed the means whereby a temporary loan could be effected without straining the resources of a friend, or risking a rebuff from some one I thought friendly. It is commonly supposed among people comfortably off that only drunkards and shiftless people support pawnbrokers. Ah, well, a great many other suppositions of a similar kind are made by those who do not know, but I can assure them that were it not for the pawnbroker pauperism would be much greater than it is.
I go farther and declare that it preserves the borrower's self-respect, in that he need not cringe to those who may be temporarily better off than he is, as long as he has any portable property that a pawnbroker will look at, while the possession of such articles proves that he has had foresight and been thrifty when it was possible for him to be so. Better means might doubtless be devised for the assistance of the temporarily embarrassed worker without robbing him of his self-respect, but until they are, it is cruel as well as foolish to slander the pawnbroker.
And now for the curious discovery. On one occasion I had purchased a watch and chain for a customer, and had borrowed some money to make up what I lacked of the price of the articles. My customer had a misfortune which prevented him from keeping his bargain, and in consequence I was left with the goods on my hands, and no means of repaying the loan. In my extremity I turned to a pawnbroker of my acquaintance and asked him to lend me as much as he could upon the watch and chain. He asked me if I was likely to redeem them, and I frankly answered no. Thereupon he lent me within a couple of shillings of the price I had paid for them, and as I soon afterwards sold the ticket for five shillings, I made a small profit on the transaction.
But this side line I could not feel was legitimate trade, and so, although I was several times driven to avail myself of this knowledge to meet a sudden emergency, I never attempted to use it except when compelled. Another thing, I was never tempted, as I have known traders to be, to pawn goods which, being unpaid for, were really not my own. This was because I had no credit from anyone except from the landlord and the Furnishing Company, and I found that burden heavy enough in all conscience. But I have known a woman working for a wholesale mantle house, and employing a dozen other women, to make up goods and pawn them to pay her workers, take a portion of the order in and get more material out, and so on in a vicious circle, with what wear and tear of mental and moral fibre no one could possibly guess. No wonder the lunacy rate rises.
And yet when you come to think of it, there is only a quantitative, not a qualitative difference between that poor hunger-bitten woman making ulsters at sixpence each, and some of our motor-driving fur-coated manipulators of stocks and shares who pawn one lot of somebody else's shares to buy a lot for a third party, and pledge the latest purchase to redeem or contango or bedevil something else. Yes, there is one great difference, the stock-dealer neither goes hungry nor cold, nor runs much risk of "doing time," because he happens to be caught with ten shillings short at delivery time.
The appetite grows by what it feeds upon, says the proverb, and this is indubitably true of extra work. No matter what the auxiliary business may be, or how sorely it may press upon the over-burdened body and mind, it gradually becomes a necessity, reckoned upon as an essential part of the income, and impossible to be done without. That such work is an evil of the first magnitude cannot be gainsaid by any thinking man. Unless of course it be, as sometimes happens, in the nature of a recreation, but even then what home life can the man have who is absent at work from breakfast time until nearly midnight? And what justice can he do his legitimate employer, who after all has the best right to his chief energies.
It may be said that if men were only paid a sufficient wage for the work they do during the day they would not seek evening employment, but such a statement would be very difficult to prove, since what is sufficient for one is not for another. And some men have a mania for work, begrudge themselves necessary sleep and food time, not because they need the money, but because they want it. The best that can be said for the practice is that it is far better than spending every evening in the vicious atmosphere of a saloon bar or public billiard-room, as so many workers do under the plea of recreation. But both are bad for the man practising them, making him prematurely old, and robbing him of all real enjoyment of life.
And yet how great is the excuse for the poorly paid clerk, who, having married and seeing his children coming all too quickly, is at his wit's end to know how to meet his ever growing expenses upon a non-expanding salary. I know for a fact that an enormous majority of the married clerks and salesmen of London live the life of slaves to those whom they love, toiling ever with one end in view, the comfortable maintenance of their dear ones. In literature, save the mark, they are held up to scorn and ridicule, the clerk and the "counter jumper" being taken as fair game for every smart pen, and even giants of the quill like Mr H. G. Wells do not scruple to draw such a hideous caricature of a splendid solid class as Kipps. A monstrous exception if ever there was one to the great rule that these hardly entreated workers are fit to hold their own in any society, and as far as their work is concerned need not fear comparison with any.
To resume, as far as I am personally concerned, I found that even the trifling amount that I was able to add to my income by my infrequent sales of fancy goods for monthly payments, became absolutely necessary to me, and I craved too for some means of adding thereunto. I answered many advertisements, but they were all of the canvassing or touting order, and I felt that I could much easier starve than do that. Why, I always found it a dreadful task to go on board a ship, and ask if they wanted any hands, to offer myself for hire! and that compared to the door to door canvassing is ridiculously easy. However, I was fortunate enough to get a job now and then to write up some firm's advertisement books, and so utilise the holidays I was allowed, but could not enjoy. This, and addressing envelopes at 3s. 6d. per thousand (I believe it is now done for 1s. 6d.), brought in a little valuable money, and improved my handwriting too. And still I craved for more. For one thing my seafaring habit of early rising clung to me so, that I simply could not remain in bed even on the dark mornings of winter after six o'clock, while in summer I was often out and about at three, enjoying the freshness of the young day, but lamenting that I could not put this leisure time to some presently profitable use. It was the same in the evening. Beyond the open-air meetings on Sunday and Thursday, I had no recreations, no places of amusement. I could not read all the time, and although I walked fully ten miles a day to and from my work I had abundant energy still available.
Now among my many deficiencies I was always painfully conscious of a lack of mechanical genius, or even aptitude. As before noted, I could not drive a nail without bending it, or turn a screw without burring the head. Yet one day it chanced that I stood in the shop of an acquaintance of mine watching him make picture-frames, and the thought occurred to me that I could learn to do likewise, and thus perhaps utilise my spare time, and earn a little money into the bargain. Thenceforward I was a frequent visitor to him, and my questions were many, but, such was my shyness that I never asked for a practical lesson.
While in this absorbent frame of mind a canvasser called at our office with some rather good steel engravings for sale. They were in monthly parts of three in paper portfolios with descriptive letterpress, and were entitled the "Imperial Gallery of British Art." Price five shillings per part, the series to be completed in sixteen parts. As I looked at the beautiful pictures, for, in spite of worn plates and retouching, many of them were beautiful, a scheme sprang to being in my brain. Why should I not subscribe for two sets of engravings, frame them myself, and sell them on my monthly payment system? In about five minutes I had decided that I would venture, and had signed a document burdening me with the payment of ten shillings monthly for sixteen months.
After this, I suppose it is useless for me to say that I have or had no speculative instinct, since I thus determined upon so slight a prospect to mortgage such a considerable sum out of my income. But I think it must have been some long dormant flair for business which thus suddenly materialised. However that may be, I was for the time being possessed by my scheme, and frequented the shop where my friend was always making frames more assiduously than ever. I plied him with questions innumerable, all of which he answered very readily, seeing in me a good prospective customer for material in order to carry out my hobby, as he supposed it to be, and never even dreaming that I might be a possible business competitor.
I afterwards found that amateur picture frame-makers when properly encouraged make exceedingly good clients to the professional, whose aim it should be to encourage them by all the means in his power to make their own frames. Because it is almost certain that the amateur will spoil far more material than he uses, and that his friends to whom he shows his work with pride will make mental notes of his great inferiority to the work of the professional, and determine never to have any home-made frames themselves. This attitude of the professional towards the amateur is an exceedingly profitable one, and pervades a great many trades, where it is recognised that the man with a hobby is a sort of bubbling well from whence the judicious fosterer of his client's most amiable weakness may draw an ever-increasing profit.
Of course I made mistakes at starting, which cost me far more than I could afford, mistakes which I should not have made had I possessed any mechanical genius whatever. But I had what was better, an imperative necessity to succeed. You remember the story of the cow climbing the tree? It was exactly my case. There was no question of my learning to frame pictures, I had to. But for that I know should have flung down my tools and upset my glue-pot early in the game, vowing solemnly that to learn such a business was impossible at my time of life and as a side issue. But I did not, because I dared not, and after spending about six times their value in moulding, and forty times as much in hard, almost despairing work, I at last emerged from the struggle with two framed pictures.
Looking back now I am amazed at even that moderate measure of success. For we only had three rooms, and I had two children. Consequently my only workshop was the apartment which served us as kitchen, dining-room, and living room. The Pembroke table, all rickety as those abominations always are, was my bench, and not infrequently capsized with all my litter of work upon it. Of the usual appliances for the work I had scarcely any. For instance I have often, to their great delight, used my two children for a press—that is to sit on the board in order to keep newly pasted down engravings or photographs from cockling up. And if when putting the back into a frame I accidentally touched the glass with the point of a brad, hearing at once the ominous click which told me I had lost sixpence, the price of the square of cheap glass, my children's hilarity was hushed in a moment as they saw the almost despairing look in my eyes, and the haggard expression on my face.
But I am getting on too fast. So much depends upon the point of view, so relative are our joys or sorrows to our circumstances that I doubt whether Columbus upon first beholding that will-o'-the-wisp-like light upon San Salvador was more elate than I when I first beheld the two finished frames which were the work of mine own hands. True I had bought the moulding, and the gold or gilt slip. True I had bought the ready cut mount from another tradesman, and the squares of glass had been cut to my measurements by another, but mine was the hand that had, after much bungling and patching and besmearing of thick glue, achieved those frames. I felt that I could not weary of looking at them. Mine was the joy of creation, however lawlessly assumed. Upon rising at five the next morning, before dressing I paid a visit to them for another admiring survey, and a wondering retrospect as to whether it was really I who had succeeded in producing two such works of art. Of course I had nothing to compare them with, but that was the merest detail, it troubled me not at all.
I was all impatience to get to the office with them, nor, although I am the least optimistic person alive, could I feel any great amount of trepidation as to whether they would be favourably received or not. It was a long and weary walk across the park from Kilburn to Westminster, and my hands were blue with the cramping cold through carrying my precious pictures, but I cared nothing for that. I was for the time being satisfied with myself. And yet as I drew near the office where my amateur work would be submitted to the shrewd if not unkindly judgment of my fellows, and I should learn once for all whether in the city man's phrase there "was money in it," I had hard work to keep my spirits up. Fortunately I did not know what the odds were against me, a blissful ignorance which has saved many a struggler from collapse of dread before the fight has begun.
It is just possible that my work of totalling and meaning massive columns of figures, mechanical and monotonous as it had become, suffered that morning from utter lack of any ability on my part to think of what I was doing. But at last the luncheon interval of three quarters of an hour came, and having bolted my usual dinner of bread and cheese, I began my tour of the various rooms with my work. I sold my pictures to the first man I showed them to at a good profit on the usual terms of five shillings a month, but he very kindly allowed me to tote them all round the office, by which means I secured orders for six more. Better than that I heard words of praise to which I had almost always been a stranger, praise of my work, at which I was far too gratified to inquire whether those who uttered it were competent critics, or were trying to get my wares a little cheaper, or on a little easier terms. It was a day to be marked with a white stone, and I find it impossible now to recall any definite idea of the multitudinous schemes of infinite pettiness which that day's success hatched in my brain. I can only say that in their prospective wealth of a few shillings extra a week, they were just as important, I was just as earnest in considering them, as any millionaire manipulator of stocks and shares, even though he looks for more tens of thousands from other people's labour than I looked for units from my own.
Behold me then launched as a (vide my cards printed soon after) "Carver, gilder, and picture-frame maker. Clients visited at their own residences. Advice upon all art subjects gratis; estimates free!" Nevertheless I found it anything but plain sailing. At almost every turn I came up against some problem that would have given me no trouble had I served a year in a bona fide frame-maker's shop. Mostly I got over or round the difficulty somehow by myself, for I grew more and more diffident of asking for instruction at the shop where I bought my moulding and et ceteras. But I was steadily improving in my work, steadily learning more and more of the details of the business, and gradually acquiring more tools suitable for the work. It is often scornfully said to the amateur, who is lamenting his inability to do better because of the want of proper tools, that a "bad workman always blames his tools." That may be true, but it is certainly not truer than that no regular workman would attempt to commence a job with the tools that the average amateur possesses. Bad or good as the result may be, that there is any result at all from amateur work proves the possession of what all are agreed that the workman is always the better for, a love of the work for its own sake, and not at all from any hope of reward for his achievement outside of the satisfaction of his own innate desire for perfection.
I was now much happier. I cannot conscientiously say that I loved the new work for its own sake, but I had never enjoyed the possession of a hobby except reading and open-air preaching, and I was as I have said far too poor to indulge my tastes even in these pursuits to the full. But I was certainly interested in pictures and their frames. I was both surprised and delighted to find that I actually had some mechanical skill after all, and I never felt quite satisfied that my work was as well done as possible. By which of course I mean that I was always striving to do it better; not only, I can safely declare, because of pleasing a customer, but for the great delight of admiring the work of my own hands before I delivered it over to its owner.
Moreover, I found to my deep gratification, that my circle of acquaintances or I may say even, friends, which had been exceedingly small, was now being constantly enlarged. Nearly every new customer I obtained became interested in the man beyond his work, and this intercourse though it undoubtedly took up a great deal of time was very pleasant. Before long I was adding a few shillings regularly every week to my income, every one of which represented a great deal of work and scheming and persuasion; shillings that were well and faithfully earned, if ever shillings were. I did most of my work in the morning before going to the office, for after office hours I was handicapped by the fact that I had to go to the city to buy my mouldings and mounts, or to make long journeys with the finished product.
This gathering together of the material that I used was one of the chief drawbacks to my progress. I could not of course lay in a stock; first, because I had no capital; secondly, because I had no room to store it; and thirdly, because, owing to the enormous variety of patterns, I could never tell what I should want a stock of. Of course I early learned to guide my client's taste in the direction of the easily obtainable (and profitable to me) patterns for obvious reasons, but if a customer had seen a certain pattern and required it, I never tried to persuade him out of it, but did my very best to satisfy him. Here I found another enormous difficulty. I did not know what to charge! There was no one of whom I dared ask the question, for it will be quite easily understood that in all trades there must be intense jealousy and dislike of an outsider coming in by a side entrance and cutting into the business. I got some help from the price-lists of the great stores, finding that I could make a very respectable profit, as I considered it, by charging about twenty-five per cent. less than they did. But that only helped me a little way, because I was continually confronted by the cheap frames made by the gross and sold by the drapers and fancy goods people at a few pence and some farthings each, less in fact than I could buy the materials for in the making of one frame.
So I groped blindly along, sometimes making a fair profit on my labour, sometimes after two or three days' hard work emerging with about what I started with because of unforeseen difficulties. I may have undersold the legitimate operators in the same line, but if so it was entirely due to ignorance on my part—I would never willingly spoil any man's market, unless of course as in some monopolies prices needed reduction in the interests of truth and honesty.
The writing of the last three words of the preceding sentence has suddenly brought before me the necessity of a word or two of explanation. I have not the slightest intention in these chapters to be dictative. Still less do I wish to write a clumsy tract. And yet I find upon looking back upon the last few pages that I am in great danger of being accused of a smug and disgustingly hypocritical trumpeting forth of my virtues. From such a peril I desire to guard myself if possible. And I feel that I can only do so by stating definitely that although of course I claimed to be a Christian man, my actions with regard to my work did not seem to me to spring from any desire to follow a certain code of moral laws, but to do to others as I wished they would do to me. At my proper work at the office I know I was often indolent and careless, and pre-occupied with my own affairs when I ought to have given my best abilities to the duties for which I was paid, the reason (not the excuse) being, that I never could take the slightest interest in it. But in my private business outside the office I did always try to give the best possible value for the money I received, and I had an absolute horror of overcharging anybody.
Moreover, on certain occasions when I had to pay others to do what I could not do myself, and based my proposal for payment on the profit I expected to make, I have several times, on finding that my profits were larger than I had expected, voluntarily increased the payment to my helper. Not, I affirm, because of any deep-seated desire to be just as well as kind, but, because it was the easiest way to quiet some inner impulse driving me in the direction of justice. This is not a matter of virtue, it is a matter of temperament. There is to me something diabolical, infernal, in the idea of "doing" anybody, of getting the better of them in a business deal, of binding men down to serve you for a pittance upon which they can hardly live, and making yourself a fortune by their labour. And I believe that a faithful servant who puts love for you as the employer into his or her work is valuable beyond all payment, but that fact should never hinder the recipient of such service from paying as liberally as he can, not caring a hang for the laws of political economy.
Dear me, how far this kind of thing does lead one to be sure. But I have the most vivid recollection of those reflections in that strenuous time, and they gave point and edge to my remarks made on Sunday morning at Kensal Green Cemetery Gates, to the immense audiences of men waiting there for William the Fourth to open. I preached the doctrine of Christian Socialism as I saw it, as different from the naked and unabashed Socialism of the Keir Hardie type, as light is from darkness, a social law of love and duty towards my neighbour, whether he be rich or poor. And this was a great and splendid compensation, even when as often happened, I, having laid out my last few shillings on Friday for materials wherewith to make frames in the hope of getting paid for them on Saturday, found that I was left with only a few pence to procure that sacrament of the Londoner, the Sunday's dinner.
However hard those times now seem to look back upon, I can very plainly see how much of pleasure and good training there was in them, compensations of which I then thought little. But I cannot help seeing also how helpful a few business-like habits would have been. I cannot say that I had a rooted objection to keeping accounts, I only know that I never did keep them except in my head. And consequently I grew to trust my memory for everything, which in business, however small, is I now know fatal. Yet I know, too, that had I been managing anybody else's business, I should have been a scrupulous book-keeper. Blamable in the last degree this constitutional aversion of mine from putting down what I had spent and how much I had earned from that spending. Also, for another confession, though I was in theory anything but an optimist, in practice I acted optimism. I never could feel sure of my monthly government pay, until I had actually cashed the cheque, yet in the face of demands which it seemed miraculous that I should ever be able to satisfy I was cheery, even confident, that, as Dickens so scornfully puts it, "things would come round."
Now I must close this chapter, already overlong, but before I do so I must just say that at this time I drank nothing but water or tea, did not smoke, never paid a penny for recreation, and wore my clothes till I dared wear them no longer. And yet I was, with a steady salary of £2. 2s. a week, abjectly poor!