Last chapter closed with a bitter confession of incompetence on my part that I would not make if I could help it, but alas it is too true. Account for it I cannot, except by saying that I began by getting into debt, as I have before said, and never afterwards until the end of that régime came was I able to emerge from the condition of poverty I have attempted to describe, not though my struggles were incessant and certainly severe. It tinged my whole life and robbed me of my rightful proportion of joy, this want of ability to manage my own affairs upon a very small and strictly stationary income. If this condition of things may be taken for granted, whether with blame or pity, it will simplify matters a good deal and save me humiliating allusions to it every now and then.
So time fled along in rapid fashion, for now I never had a moment to spare. And still further to curtail the time at my disposal, I, finding the burden of the rent in the west of London too grievous to be borne, to say nothing of the cruel anxiety of letting lodgings unfurnished, decided to migrate to the far east of London, between Upton Park and East Ham. There I had heard that a neat five-roomed house with a long garden could be hired for seven and six a week inclusive of all rates and taxes. (I believe the same house would fetch nearly if not quite double now.) That was a rental I felt able to pay, and even if the great distance from my employment did mean extra expense, it was well worth a struggle to have a home to ourselves freed from the incubi of lodgers or sub landlord.
So with great hopes of making the last move for a long time, I commenced the big business. It must be confessed that the auspices were not very bright, my wife being too ill to stand upon her feet, my eldest child a toddler of five, and my next one quite a baby. But in those days such details hardly fretted me, I was so used to them. And consequently it was with a stout heart that, having succeeded in hiring a big van and horse and man, at one and sixpence an hour, I commenced the long day's labour at seven in the morning. I carried my wife and little ones into a good Samaritan next door, who looked after them, while my helper and I dismantled the home and carefully stowed it in the van. For once I had found a man who was willing to work as hard as I could, and who did not seize every opportunity to suggest rest and refreshment. So we got on very well indeed.
By nine o'clock all was ready, my wife was comfortably secured upon a sofa lashed to the tailboard of the van, the baby was accommodated with an impromptu cot on the keyboard of the piano, and the five-year-old also had a place for her little chair. So we started off for our new home facing the twelve miles between us and that distant suburb without misgivings, though it was certainly anything but a picnic for the horse. I do not recall how many times we halted, only I know that but few of them involved the spending of money, that being as usual a very limited quantity with me. But at five o'clock the weary trudge was over, and with fresh energy we tackled the task of getting the chattels indoors. With such good will did we both work that by six all was over, and the hard-working carman, apparently satisfied with my moderate tip of a shilling, and sixteen and six for the hire of the vehicle, departed and left me to the tackling of my biggest task of the day.
I felt as if I would much rather lie down and rest, but it is astonishing what you can do when you must, and finding fresh energy somewhere I soon had the helpless wife and children fairly comfortable, with a bit of fire in a bedroom. While thus engaged I was drawn to the window by a tremendous crash of thunder and flash of lightning, and there, outside one of the opposite houses, was ranged on the pavement nearly the whole of a family's furniture exposed to the full fury of a torrent of rain. Indeed it was pitiful, and my discontent at the heavy task before me was changed into great gratitude when I realised what I had escaped from by only a few minutes.
I went back to my work with a good heart, and before midnight, when dead beat, I crawled into bed and fell at once into a sleep so sound that even the heavenly artillery failed to disturb me, I had reduced my new abode to something like order. I was up again at 5.30, having ever been able, no matter how weary, to rise at any time necessary, and after another hour's work at straightening things out, sallied forth to find someone who would come and help my helpless ones during my absence. This I fortunately succeeded in doing in time, and at 7.30 I was on my way to the office looking forward to a good rest for my muscles all day, even if my brain would certainly be superlatively active.
Now I am quite well aware that in chronicling the above I am laying myself open to the charge of being jejune, trivial, etc., and I know too, that to many men of my own class such details as I have given above will be so familiar that they will wonder why ever I should have written about them. But somehow I have felt that, as in the subjects of my other books, a little plain and simple truth amidst the flood of invention by writers who have merely looked on, might not be out of place, might indeed be of use. For I hold that it is impossible, even for those who are most interested but do not live the life, however keen they may be, to portray faithfully all the day and night doings of the people they write about. They may and do try hard and honestly to fulfil their self-imposed task, but as long as they can retire to their comfortably furnished homes and nicely served meals whenever they like, they will never be able to describe truly, however much they wish to do so.
For a little while the novelty of setting my house in order and the delight of having a garden for the first time in my life prevented me from dwelling upon the obvious disadvantages of the change of abode I had made. But when I came to realise that in order to live at a low rent and have a little house to myself I had to put in nearly four hours a day travelling, I began to wonder whether I had not been foolish after all. This was long before the days of the extension of the District Railway to East Ham, and I could only keep my travelling expenses within possible limits by taking a workman's ticket, not available after 7 A.M., to Fenchurch Street, and walking thence to Victoria. This long journey, during which I was perforce idle, played havoc with my business of picture-framing, yet still I managed to keep my hand in, and indeed improved a little in that I had a small workshop to myself now, and no longer made frames on the kitchen table.
And I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not remember most affectionately the delights of Wanstead Park and Epping Forest. Many and many a pilgrimage I made in the summer with the children packed in a big perambulator and a bag containing all the materials for a homely picnic slung on the handles to those sylvan glades, and here, at no other expense save the muscular effort, enjoyed a delightful holiday, the best perhaps I have ever known, because purely unconventional and costless. I had the satisfaction of feeling too that, in spite of the rapidity with which streets of small houses like the one I was living in were springing up all around me, the grand forest would never be built on any more, would always be available for such poor workers as myself.
Nevertheless I confess I did mightily begrudge the great waste of time involved in my much travelling. In the summer it was not so bad, but in winter I and many more in like case, who for motives of economy got to our respective places of employment long before we could get in, suffered much from lack of shelter from cold and wet. Just one of the many unconsidered evils of living in a vast and over-crowded city. My extra work of picture framing suffered also, not merely because customers in my new neighbourhood were exceedingly scarce, everybody being so poor, but because of the long, long distance I had to fetch materials, especially glass, which in the crowded trains at night was a most ticklish and brittle load. I cannot now realise definitely the sudden rushes I used to make through the heart of the city at the busiest hour of the evening, my struggle with the clambering crowds up the steep stairs in Fenchurch Street Station, and the journey homewards in the close-packed, reeking compartment, dreading every moment lest a lurch of the train should damage my precious burden. It is all like some hideous nightmare, those wet and foggy nights when my lungs seemed fit to burst with coughing, and all my senses warned me to go slow, while my needs spurred me, and many times I had to stop and remember how many were in far more evil case than myself, or I should have indeed fallen by the wayside.
Yet this life too I endured for three years, at the end of which time I was fully convinced that living so far away from my daily work was for me at anyrate a profound mistake. Also I had another child and was in consequence driven harder than ever, was more desirous than ever to have some steady auxiliary to my exiguous income, some means of getting clear of that furniture incubus which kept my nose to the grindstone. Besides all these things I had often in winter, despite my early leaving home, to spend several hours on the way to the city by reasons of floods, to which our neighbourhood then seemed particularly liable, and had been curtly warned by the Powers above me that I would do well to move nearer to my work if I wished to retain it. Which warnings gave me a cold chill at the heart, for although I was in age not much past thirty, I was already beginning to feel old from the strain of living, and I knew how scanty were the chances of getting another such berth as mine should I lose the one I had now got.
But I doubt whether even these powerful incentives to a change would have been sufficient to make me move, but for an event which changed the whole course of my life. For one thing, where was I to go and enjoy better conditions than those under which I now lived? Even apartments were now not to be thought of, for I had three children, and except in such neighbourhoods as I dared not descend to, no one would let apartments to people with a family. This again is one of the factors governing the lives of the workers which those comfortable souls who wail about the declining birth-rate do not think of. God knows it is hard enough for any poor worker in England to maintain a growing family in decency, without being treated worse than a beggar or a criminal in seeking to find lodgment for them which he is ready to pay for. Thousands of men have been driven to pauperism or practical socialism by the accursed system of oppression—no children wanted.
So that every enquiry I made about lodgings nearer my work threw me back to the grim fact that in some respects, I was better off now than any change could make me. And then came the event, the impulse from without, which drove me against my own better judgment into the thorny and difficult ways of the small shopkeeper. My wife received a small legacy, one that had been left contingent upon the death of a woman who enjoyed the income of the bequest for life. She died, and the capital was divided among a very large number of expectant folk, none of whom received, according to their ideas, much more than a tithe of what was really due to them. My wife's share was well under £200, but even that was a fortune to our entirely restricted vision. Of course the first and most important question to be decided was how to dispose of this money to the best advantage so that we might feel the benefit of it? But underlying this there was a feeling upon my part that as it was not mine in any sense my wife should have the disposal of it, so long as she did not insist upon, as I once heard a County Court Registrar pithily remark, frittering it away upon paying my outstanding liabilities. No, I do not exactly mean debts, but in clearing up those burdens which demanded regular instalments of so much a month.
I am glad to say, however, that nothing was farther from her ideas than that, for as she put it, the furniture was all worn out long before it was paid for, being such utter rubbish, and therefore the longer its vendors could legitimately be kept waiting for their ill-gotten gains the better. Alas, to be wise after the event is futile, yet I am now sadly inclined to think that had such a proposal been made by her and accepted by me it would have been better for all of us. At anyrate this book would not have been written, nor, I feel certain, any other of the small library that I have written during the last ten years.
Her suggestion, no, it was more than that, it was a demand, was that this money should be laid out in taking a shop. A double-fronted shop whereof one side should be devoted to art pictorial in the shape of its accessories, engravings, frames, artistic materials, etc., and the other to what is rather pompously called art needlework, and fancy goods, the latter being an enormously elastic term.
To say that I was alarmed would be putting matters much too mildly. I was appalled. I dreaded beyond expression increasing my already heavy liabilities. I doubted with a scepticism of the blackest my ability to run a shop for myself, however well I might be able to do it for another—in fact, I saw nothing in the proposal but disaster. But my wife, confident in her powers as a shopkeeper (having had no experience) and fired with a laudable desire to help in the collection of the family income, insisted, even at the length of declaring that if I would not take a shop she would without my help. And that I saw would be avoiding an imaginary Scylla for the terrors of a real Charybdis. So I yielded, ungracefully, but completely, and thenceforward until the time which shall complete this narrative never did I know a care-free hour.
The first thing was to find the shop, and if I were able in Mr Pett Ridge's delightful manner to detail our experiences in those pilgrimages I doubt not that the recital would make several readable columns. The lies we were told would fill several volumes. The fortunes we were sure to make were so vast that they were unspendable. Every miserable, little, obviously hopeless shop was lauded so that I began to fear a complete obsession, and at last I declared that I would not take any advertised business at all, I would build up a business of our own. Yes, I used those memorable words, and, to my shame be it said, without even the excuse that I believed them myself. Miserable man that I was, I felt certain that this enterprise of ours was foredoomed. I knew, none better, that there was nothing of the Napoleon about me, that I was far too prone to take no for an answer for anything of that kind to be possible.
Presently I began to feel that this quest of a shop was destined to bring me prematurely to my grave. East, west, north, and south I sought, and now I felt no nearer than at the outset to the object of my search. At last I found what apparently was exactly the thing, a double-fronted shop with a sufficient number of living rooms above, in a business thoroughfare within easy reach of town, and at the fairly reasonable rent of £40 a year. I knew no one who could tell me anything about the character of the neighbourhood, so I had to form my own conclusions as to the prospects of business there. And in any case I was so weary of searching for the apparently unattainable that I was willing to be deceived had anybody tried to persuade me. But that I think was the determining factor. Nobody did try to influence me. The man who owned the shop and carried on the business of a grocer next door did not seem at all anxious to have me for a tenant, in fact he was most reticent and retiring when approached, which may have been genius on his part, although I never saw cause to suspect him of anything of the kind.
At anyrate I persuaded myself that I should never find any better shop than this for my purpose and I closed the bargain by paying handsel, and fixing the date for coming in. Then I had to turn my attention to the fitting up of this shop, for it was absolutely bare, just three match-boarded walls which by the way were covered with some messy alleged varnish which never dried, and the double front as aforesaid. I procured several price-lists from firms whose speciality was the fitting up of shops, and after a prolonged study of them came to the conclusion that to fit up this shop in even the most economical way, according to their specifications, would absorb our entire capital and necessitate our procuring stock entirely on credit. Which was absurd; for we had no credit, at least in my innocence of business I knew of none. Later, I learned to my sorrow that the obtaining of credit was easy in almost an exactly inverse ratio to the difficulty of meeting the bills when they came in.
In this difficulty of fitting the shop, however, as in so many others that I have encountered, I had not the privilege of retreat. I had burned my bridges and had perforce to advance in what at first appeared to be a hopeless task. But I am getting on too fast, for of course, before I could begin shop-fitting it was necessary that I should move in, this operation being in itself, with my limited resources, a sufficiently formidable one. But here again, I met with a powerful coadjutor in the man that used to serve us with vegetables and coals at Upton Park, a burly costermonger who had risen to the dignity of a little shop and a horse and van from the humble beginnings of a hand-barrow. It was his proud boast that he would rather at any time go hungry himself than refuse a poor customer half a hundred of coals or a few pounds of potatoes because she had no money. He and I often had a yarn and had become great friends, so that when I enlisted his aid in moving the long distance from Upton Park to Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, I felt that relief which only comes from implicit reliance upon someone whom you feel is stronger than yourself. I know all about self-help and have been compelled to practice it all my life, but the joy of having a friend, how great and how pleasant it is!
With his powerful aid the moving out was got over with comparative ease, but even so, it was dark before we arrived at our destination, the children being cold, tired, and hungry. And then a difficulty occurred which almost daunted me. I had the key of the shop, but my landlord had bolted up inside so that I could not get in. And when I went to him he offered me my handsel money back, mumbling something about "matters not being satisfactory." What he meant I do not even now know but that was what he said, and there was I in the street with all my belongings, ten miles from the home I had left at 8 A.M. and with three small children. My friend and ally here arose to the occasion. He literally bullied the landlord into letting us in, a thing I could never have done, and presently I found relief from my anxiety in the feverish activity of getting our chattels indoors. I never heard, and so I can never tell, why my landlord desired to evade his bargain regardless of my sufferings, nor, although I even now feel curious, shall I ever know.
Oh, that good fellow, how he did work as if he had just begun his day instead of having been at it since about 4 A.M. He helped me set up the beds, straighten up a living room, lit a fire, fetched some supper from a local pork butcher's, and at last with an earnest enquiry as to whether he couldn't do anything more for me, supposed he'd better be getting towards home as he had to be up at three the next morning. Falteringly I assured him that he had done far more than I could ever have expected and what was I in his debt? he said brusquely, "Oh, I ain't got no time to bother abart that nar. You get strite an' I'll pop over an' see yer in a few dyes. Good night missus, good night guvnor," and he was gone. It was two months before I saw him again, and then only because I sought him out in my first leisure. And he would not take a penny more than ten shillings. I paid him that, but I have never discharged, because I cannot, the heavy debt of gratitude he laid upon me, more especially for the knowledge of how good and kind one poor man can be to another. I have had many such experiences, but each one has been peculiarly fragrant, especially sweet in itself, a standing rebuke to me for once holding a doctrine of the innate depravity of mankind.
As soon as he had gone I realised that I was so tired that I could hardly stand, and so I made haste to put things in readiness for the morning and get to bed. But once there my life-long habit asserted itself, and I had to find a book for a little read before sleep. And to my great content I found Mark Twain's "Innocents at Home," and read for perhaps the hundredth time the touching story of Scotty Briggs and the callow minister. In it I forgot my troubles, my weariness of body and mind and apprehensions for the future, and with a happy sigh I laid the book down, blew out the candle, and went to sleep. Years after, dining with Mark Twain at the Devonshire Club, I told him of the incident and saw his deep tender eyes fill with tears. He silently put out his hand and said "shake." Now can there be any higher reward for a writer than this, that he has been able by his books to make his fellow-creatures forget for a while the burden that has been crushing them, and has lifted them into new hope and energy for the coming unknown day? I think not.
This, the most momentous move of my life, as I think, was made on a Monday in the autumn of about 1890. The year doesn't matter anyhow. I know that it was about sixteen or seventeen years ago, or when I was thirty-three or thirty-four years of age. That Monday I had taken leave from the Office, the day being deducted from my allowed twenty-eight days of summer vacation, as was customary with us. By favour of the authorities we were even allowed to take half days of leave, which prevented us from doing what we believed our happier brethren in the pukka Civil Service could always do, ask to step out after lunch and not come back that day. It also I suppose preserved as much of our self-respect as was possible, for we were thus able to say that we at anyrate did not rob our masters the public of any of our valuable time.
This reserve of time, however, was far too valuable commercially to me to be lightly drawn upon, and so, rising at five the next day, I did as much as possible towards getting straight before eight, when I started to walk to the Office, a little over four miles, but with the prospect of a long day's rest, as far as my body was concerned, in front of me. That week was one of the busiest in my whole life. My office work had to suffer, doubtless, for amid the dancing columns of figures or snaky automatic curves I could always discern the counters, shelves, showcases, etc., of this new daemon, the shop. Moreover, I had to interview wholesale people, dealers in art embroidery, crewels, etc., dealers in fancy goods, dealers in mouldings, etc., and open accounts upon the strength of that little capital, now fast dwindling away.
My education was rapid that week. I heard hundreds of new trade terms, of the existence of articles for sale of which I never before dreamed, of possibilities of profit making that were dazzling, and I remembered them all. But I kept no account of my growing liabilities, loading my memory with everything, and whenever an uneasy feeling persisted in making itself noticed that I was plunging far beyond my resources, I fell back upon the consoling hope that I should soon square everything when the shop was opened. And I had determined to open that shop on the following Saturday. I ordered a couple of thousand hand-bills advising the resident gentry of Slopers Island, as East Dulwich was then sarcastically called, that F. T. Bullen proposed opening the premises at 135 Lordship Lane, S.E., on Saturday next as a high class Emporium for the sale of fancy goods, and all the necessaries for the production of art needlework.
There was also a notice to the effect that Carving, Gilding, and Picture Frame Making, would be executed on the premises with promptness and dispatch, Artists Materials would be kept in stock, Oil Paintings restored, and their Frames Re-gilded, while expert opinion would be given free to would-be Picture Buyers, Amateur Framemakers would be supplied with materials at City Prices, and the Best Window Glass would be cut and sold. Builders supplied at Trade Prices. I need hardly say that I had advice in drawing up this precious circular or I should never have dared aspire to such sublime heights of mendacity—even now—though it is not easy—I blush to think on what a slender possibility of performance I based all those grandiloquent promises.
After all they did little harm. For I hired boys to distribute my bills in the best districts, paying them liberally upon their solemn promises to knock at each door, where there was no letter box, so as to make sure of my bills entering the houses. Next morning walking over Denmark Hill—it had rained somewhat heavily during the night—I saw my bills almost carpeting the sidewalk and roadway, and after my first bitterness of soul at the sad waste had passed off, I accepted the situation as a judgment on me from above for my shameless exaggerations. I never consoled myself by thinking of the specious and spacious lies of the Company promoter, the sufferers from which all contributed to his wealth, out of which he often gave liberally to religious institutions and felt a perfect glow of satisfaction thereat. But for all my experience I was both ignorant and simple, which may serve as a reason for my penitence, but no excuse.
The opening day arrived—I had been up nearly all the previous night putting the finishing touches to the appearance of the shop and the arrangement of the stock, and flattered myself that it looked pretty well. My wife, who had an innate genius for art needlework, was in charge of that department, and we had arranged that in the event of orders for picture framing coming in with an overwhelming rush, she was to promise, in case the customers would not accept her assurance that I would do the work as cheaply as possible from the patterns they might select, that I would wait upon them at their residences later on.
Now indeed I began to realise, in spite of what I so often read in the daily papers, something of the optimistic pushfulness of the commercial traveller. The shop had not been open very long when they began to call, and such was their power of persuasion, so eager were they to sell me something, however little, so as to get a foot in as it were, that I often felt grateful that I was away all day. I left concise orders that nothing was to be bought, but on the occasions when I happened to be at home I felt so soft and yielding in the hands of these persistent pushers of their employer's wares that I could not but pity my wife, charged as she was with the duty of saying no to men who refused to recognise such a word as belonging to any language.
They were so polite, so gentlemanly, so pathetic, and so well informed. They seemed able to talk upon any subject, although they all had a marvellous knack of twisting any topic round to the one they were interested in. The luxuriance and fruitfulness of their imaginations, too, always impressed me, and although I always deprecated them wasting their time over so impecunious a tradesman as I was I had a good deal of joy in their company, bright and cheerful as it always was. But I have also to confess that they were dangerous counsellors. Their pleading for small orders, just one line, their utter indifference to the payment, making it so fatally easy to get into debt, I look back upon now with horror. And yet I suppose it is of the essence of business, this hopeful airy outlook upon life. I now see that I might have stocked my shop with the choicest products, might have made it glow again and—but never mind—that comes later. I am not, never was, a strong-minded person; except in certain very restricted directions I am exceedingly prone to take the line of least resistance, but I do feel just a little puffed up with the knowledge that I was so often able to say no and stick to it in spite of all the blandishments of those delightful drummers.
I had been about a year in the shop when I realised that I could no longer expect to do any good whatever with the fancy department. The Islanders had obviously no aspirations in the direction of crewel work, applique or any other form of art embroidery. Or if they had they did not consider that my emporium was the place to satisfy them. So I began to face the possibility of writing off all the expenditure on that side as a loss, and the only question was, whose? For beyond all controversy I was now in debt—how much I would not know, dared not contemplate. But as my picture-framing was still a going concern, and subject to sudden spasmodic accessions of trade, I was always kept on the tenterhooks of expectation—I dare not say hope—that one big order might put things right. In this I was doubtless somewhat encouraged by a sympathetic fellow-clerk, who used to suggest to me the possibility of my getting orders for frames to be exhibited say in all the stations from King's Cross to Aberdeen, and just for fun we often used to speculate upon the profits to be obtained from such a contract. I knew perfectly well that I stood not the slightest chance of getting such a bit of fat as such a contract would be, but I felt that it cost nothing to build a castle or two upon its possibilities, and so I did.
Indeed I wanted some romance in my grey life now, for I was getting hemmed in on every side. The rates kept going up, the gas bills were crushing, sickness was perennial with us owing to the bad drainage of the house, and to make matters very much worse, the structural conditions of the place rendered it barely habitable. The landlord would do nothing, and I could do nothing, towards making the house fit to live in; and in consequence, as he lived next door, our relations, as they say in the newspapers, were strained. I blamed him then, but now I repent that I did so, for he was a poor man also, and he must have often felt that his rent was in the greatest danger. As indeed it was, although I gratefully remember that I did pay him all that he was entitled to, not indeed without some slight coercion, but still I did pay.
There must have been in the minds of those who have read so far, and who have had some practical experience themselves, a dim enquiry, how did this feeble tradesman keep out of the County Court? For to those who have ever been in a like position to mine, the terror of the County Court, the nearest approach to the Cadi under the palm tree that modern jurisprudence can know, has been ever present. It is true that after I became unable to pay my wholesale purveyor's bills as they came in, I was put to great straits in writing, requesting, yes, begging, for time to pay for what I had bought, because I had not yet sold it, nor indeed had I any hope of doing so. These, however, were not the people to sue me in a small debts court. Nor since I never had credit from the neighbouring shopkeepers had I any difficulty with them, poor people, whose only remedy, and that a weak one, with rogues lay in the County Court.
Thus it came about that I only knew the charming little one-story building in the Camberwell New Road, which some delightful writer, I forget who, has characterised as the "Cottage Ornée," by sight, and its inscription, cut into the stucco of its façade, "Lambeth County Court," never gave me a qualm. Every day I passed it either on foot or, when I was well to do, on the twenty-four a shilling tram, which ran from Camberwell Green to Vauxhall Station, and it really never occurred to me that one day I should be all too familiar with the precincts. That day came, however, and in a peculiar manner. I had hinted that I was on none too good terms with my landlord, who lived next door be it remembered, and our closer acquaintance did not at all improve our relations. The fact is, I suppose, that he never understood me, and I am sure I never understood him. He was trying to make a living out of his shop next door and the little property which I rented from him, and resented any attempts I made to compel him to render my premises more habitable. I naturally saw things from my own standpoint, and reprobated him for a soulless despot, who, having secured me as a lessee of his rotten, tumble-down premises, expected me, while paying him a heavy rental, to keep them in repair, which I resented accordingly; and at last matters came to the pitch of my refusing to pay any more rent until that desirable messuage, which I was lessee of, should have its roof repaired and made tenantable, as I put it, for human beings.
He did not see eye to eye with me, and fell back upon the landlord's best friend, a bum-bailiff, called in our vernacular, with every inflection of emphasis that dislike could suggest, "th' bum." A most unenviable occupation, and one requiring a front of brass, as well as a great deal of callous energy. Such men should have no feelings, and usually appear as if they had none, for they are willing for a consideration that all the odium incurred by the landlord should be transferred to them. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule, for some bailiffs are kindly and generous and honest, but I unfortunately came across a bad specimen of the genus indeed. He entered my shop one day, during my absence, and enquired for me, well knowing that I was away at the Office, and gradually wormed his way into the confidence of my wife by representing himself to her as a friend who was deeply interested in my welfare, and anxious to arrange amicably the little difference, as he put it, between my landlord and myself. She was quite won by his manner, and entertained him with tea until my arrival, when she introduced him to me in his assumed character.
I was quite as easily gulled as she was, and after a few minutes amicable conversation, during which he repeatedly professed to be able to smooth matters between my landlord and myself, as it was so undesirable that neighbours such as we were should be on bad terms, I showed him over the house, and pointed out to him its deplorable condition. In this connection I also mentioned my many difficulties, and the impossibility of my undertaking the necessary repairs even if I felt disposed to, which I most emphatically did not. This confidence of mine corroborated what my wife had been telling him, though that I did not then know, and should have made him sorry for the task he had set himself. But presently, to my amazement, he said, quite casually, "Well, about this quarter's rent, don't you think you'd better pay it and save trouble?" I stared at him for a moment, not even then realising that I had been entertaining a wolf in sheep's clothing, and then replied, "I couldn't pay it anyhow before the end of the month" (it was then about the twentieth), "but I shan't pay it until he makes the place fit to live in."
Oh well, he answered coolly, "you know your own business best, I suppose. I've done all I can, and if you won't pay, I must leave a man in possession, that's all. He's waiting outside. There's my card," and with that he displayed to my horror-stricken gaze a piece of pasteboard on which the words, "Broker and Appraiser" stood out apparently in letters of fire. My eyes were opened indeed, but it was too late. I could only promise to do what I could on the morrow, and plead that in the meantime he would keep his man off the premises, in view of the harm in a business sense it would undoubtedly do me. This, after much apparent cogitation and very grudgingly, he consented to do on my solemn promise to have the money there for him, with his fee in addition, the next evening at six o'clock. And then he strode out with the air of a conqueror, all his suavity of demeanour having vanished with the necessity for it.
Eight pounds to be obtained by six o'clock the next day! No credit anywhere, not a bit of portable property pawnable, and pay-day ten days off. Yes, I know what you are thinking, reader, "Is it possible that this man had let his rent fall due without making any provision for it?" To go into explanations would take far too long, and would, besides, not be over profitable, so the easiest way is to say that I had been so foolish and improvident, and whatever other epithet may be chosen, and not for the first time either. But hitherto I had always managed to pay up well within the usual days of grace allowed without having a bailiff presented to me.
I'm afraid I did not get much sleep that night, which was unusual, for although I did not sleep long I slept soundly as a rule. One fact stood out prominently in my memory, the advertisement of a philanthropist in one of the streets off the Adelphi, who was always prepared to advance to gentlemen in permanent employment, who might be temporarily embarrassed, £5 on their simple note of hand without any bothering security whatever. Prudence whispered, "Don't do it." Necessity growled, "You must." And so next day, during my luncheon hour, I hurried with a thumping heart to the address given in the advertisement. The matter was simplicity itself. The gentleman was a well-fed young Hebrew of quiet manners, who merely asked me a civil question or two and referred to a red book. "All right, Mr Bullen, you can have £5 on your signing this promissory note to pay £5. 10s. this day month." I accepted eagerly, shook hands cordially, and in two minutes was speeding back to the office with this precious fiver in my pocket. The making up of the other £3 was a matter of much more difficulty, and I am not justified in giving details, but I hurried home at five with £7. 19s. 6d. in my pocket, and a feeling of ability to face anybody and anything.
But had I known it, I had just taken a step that cost me afterwards more suffering than I even now care to think of. That simple little fiver, so easily borrowed at 120 per cent. per annum, and parted with directly to pay a debt that ought never to have become a debt! Well, I cannot say that it the was beginning of sorrows, but it certainly was the beginning of a great accession to the sorrows I already had. And I went home as glad as a boy who had just passed his first examination, as pleased as if I had just found five pounds instead of having added some rivets to the chain already round my neck.
The broker was waiting for me when I got home—when I saw him I felt with a chill that he knew all that I had been doing to get his claim settled—and I greeted him manfully, but without effusion, lugging the money out of my pocket and pushing it over towards him. He counted it in silence and gave me a receipt, and then said, as if it was an after-thought, "Oh, a friend of mine asked me to give you this as I should be seeing you." This was a summons to the Lambeth County Court to give reasons why I should not summarily pay an account of £7 odd incurred for attendance and medicine some five months before. What I thought as I gazed at the document I do not know, what I said were the banal words "All right, I'll attend to it." Yes I could attend to it, returnable in a week's time too. My pay of £9. 3s. 4d. never seemed to go very far in the settling of the demands made upon me, but this month it seemed as if it were a mere farce to take it up at all, so little would it do. And then there were the poor rates, the gas account, the water rate, and a few other little things of that kind, to say nothing of the perfectly ridiculous yet nevertheless imperative necessity of obtaining food for six persons.
However, as long as the demands were not made on the spur of the moment, as it were, I felt, like the immortal Micawber, that something might turn up, and so I went stolidly on my way, only carefully noting the date of my enforced appearance at the County Court. My chief difficulty at this troublous time, as it always was afterwards while I was a shopkeeper, was the absence of ready money, even in such small amounts as might suffice to pay the few pence required to pay my fare to and from the office on a wet day. This gave an exquisite relish to the farce of receiving not merely begging circulars, but visits of calling beggars, whether they boldly asked alms, or in a confidential manner requested the loan of a few shillings for a fortnight.
When the day of my appearance at Court arrived, I was punctual in my attendance, having obtained a day's leave from the office, and I must admit, that in spite of the urgency of my own private affair, I found it possible to take a great amount of interest, and find a great deal of amusement in what was going on. I must also confess that I was really appalled at the utter disregard of the value of the oath taken by those appearing as plaintiffs or defendants. It was rare, indeed, to find in any case that the plaintiff did not swear one thing and the defendant the exact opposite. The duty of the Registrar (I had not made the acquaintance of the judge yet) seemed to consist of deciding which was the most likely story out of each pair told him, and acting accordingly. And as I was not called upon till midday, I heard a great deal of this, so much indeed that I felt full of wonder how any man could occupy such a position as that presiding officer did and retain any belief in what anybody said.
At last my case was called, and it was simplicity itself. "Do you owe this money?" queried the Registrar sharply. "Yes, sir," I replied. "Then why don't you pay it?" was the next and most obvious question. "Because I can't," I answered humbly, and was proceeding to explain those reasons, although I could see the gentleman I was addressing was taking no notice of me, when he suddenly stopped me and called upon my creditor (who I may say, was not the doctor, but an agent to whom the doctor paid a percentage for collecting his debts) to give evidence of my means. He stated what he knew very fairly, viz. that I kept a shop and had a permanent situation. Upon which the Registrar ordered me to pay within a fortnight and called the next case. I was, of course, mightily astonished at being so peremptorily silenced, especially as I felt sure that from what I had seen that morning I should have got on much better had I denied the debt altogether. But I was only then commencing my acquaintance with our laws, as affecting debtor and creditor, wherein at every turn a premium is placed upon dishonesty and falsehood, and the honest debtor seldom obtains either justice or mercy. Of that, however, later on.
That first experience of mine at the County Court, apart altogether from my personal interest in it, was a serious revelation to me. I had no idea before how futile were the oath-takings, with what lightness of heart men and women perjured themselves. I do not mean by that any reference to difficulty of expression or treachery of memory, but deliberate lying upon oath, and that too about such trivial matters as a few shillings, or even, as it appeared to me, for the sake of preventing a friend from losing a case. Also I was amazed to see how lightly this matter was regarded by the officials; for I had always looked upon perjury as a crime of such magnitude as to be even spoken of with bated breath. But these officials lived in an atmosphere of perjury, and had I suppose, grown case hardened, at anyrate, they heard it all day long and took no heed as far as I could see. I make no excuse for referring to this matter again, because of what I believe to be its tremendous significance.
Another thing in which I then first became much interested was the ease with which anybody possessed of sufficient impudence and plausibility could accumulate debt, repudiate it or ignore it, or delay paying any part of it until summoned for it, and then quite easily, as it appeared to me, get off by paying a ridiculous sum per month. Here in many cases I failed to see any justice at all. To illustrate my meaning I will quote two typical cases. The first was that of a man who did not appear himself, but sent his young wife, who was rather good-looking, very smartly dressed, and completely equipped with saucy self-confidence and much power of repartee. The debt was £15 for meat supplied from day to day.Small amounts had been paid off the ever-growing bill, but at last the butcher, who was in a very small way of business, feeling that his hopes of ever getting his money were growing so faint as almost to disappear altogether, summoned the debtor for the amount. Undoubtedly he had been very patient, but then if such patience were not common among small traders, however would the poor live?
The debt was not denied, for a wonder, but the lady pleaded, "My 'usban's ben aht o' work fur a good many weeks, an' he aint earnin' more'n fifteen shillin' a week nah, me washup, an' so we cahn't pye this money." "But you have been still running up the bill," said the judge. "Yus me washup," said the lady, "we 'ad ter live, yer see." Upon being appealed to for leniency to the debtor under these sad conditions, the butcher successfully proved that the consumer of his meat had four carts and six horses, and kept four men in constant employment. As to being ill or out of work, these statements were pure embroidery, the whole concern was in flourishing order, and had been for years. The butcher wound up by declaiming indignantly, "An' I gotter find a bloke like that in grub wot I gotter pye my hard-earned brass down on the nail fer, 'im as could buy an' sell me twicet over any dye?" it did seem queer.
But the net result was that the debtor was condemned to pay his debt of £15 and costs off at the rate of five shillings per month, and the lady danced out of the witness box with a moue full of derision at the hapless butcher. Lest this may seem to be an especially chosen incident I here assert that such a case is peculiarly common and typical as is the next case I quote, but the reason for the difference in treatment I leave wiser heads than mine to determine.
A pale, slender man neatly dressed and giving his occupation as that of a clerk, was summoned by a doctor for a debt and costs of £5. 10s. This, by the way, was at another County Court and before a judge. Asked why he did not pay the bill, the defendant pleaded that the amount originally asked was excessive, inasmuch as it was for three visits and two bottles of medicine. He further stated that he was just emerging from a long period of unemployment, and that his wages were now £2 per week.
Without calling upon the doctor the judge thundered at the unfortunate debtor "who are you to assess the value of the doctor's services? Pay the whole amount within a fortnight. That'll do, I won't hear another word. Next case." And the hapless debtor went slowly down and out as much surprised as I was, doubtless, at the strange inequalities of justice. The case was peculiarly noticeable in that the defendant, having moved a long way from the neighbourhood after incurring the debt, had voluntarily returned to the doctor with the first money he had earned to pay his bill, and only refused on account of what he considered its exorbitant amount. I make no comment, I only wonder.
Now came for a time a blessed relief, not that is from any of the major burdens, but from my most pressing necessities. Orders flowed in from all quarters, and I found the utmost difficulty in keeping pace with them. I used to get up at half-past two or three in the morning, and after making myself a cup of tea get to work with such furious energy, that I look back upon it now with utter amazement. Many and many a time I have done what anybody might consider a really good day's work before breakfast-time (I never had any breakfast) or say eight o'clock, when I must needs wash and dress and rush off to my office work where I was due at nine. By the time one o'clock came, I had a decent appetite which I stayed very cheaply, my early experience now standing me in good stead. A half-penny loaf, a pennyworth of cheese, a half-penny beetroot or a penny tomato with a half a pint of mother-in-law (stout and bitter) to wash it down with, used to make me a very good meal at a cost of threepence or fourpence. Or I would, if flush of money, have a quarter of boiled pork and a ha'porth of pease pudding, which with a halfpenny loaf or a ha'porth of potatoes made a sumptuous meal and one that I enjoyed far more than any elaborate banquets I have ever attended since. And the total cost never exceeded sixpence.
Such meals had a relish all their own, and if business drove me to a cook-shop for the orthodox cut off the joint and two vegetables for sixpence, I never enjoyed it as well, with one exception. A local cook-shop made a speciality of stewed steak, at least that is what they called it, though it was really shin of beef, and it was very good and satisfying, with plenty of thick brown gravy. They only charged fourpence for it, so that with a pennyworth of potatoes and a pennyworth of pudding afterwards I could make a really good meal for sixpence. Here I learned what was of great use to me, a lesson that I now see inculcated on every hand, how small a quantity of food the body really needs to do good work upon, and conversely how much more food than is really necessary the average man or woman does consume. But I cannot take any credit for this learning, for like so many other useful lessons conveyed to us it was compulsory, I had no choice but to learn it. The result has been at any rate that the "pleasures of the table" have never since then meant anything to me, one plain meal in the middle of the day sufficing for all my needs, and keeping me in such health as the results of my overwork will allow me.
Still I should be very sorry to go about endeavouring to force other people to go and do likewise, because I have learned very thoroughly how great a factor is individuality, and how true is the old proverb that one man's meat is another man's poison. And I humbly think that if some of our vociferous propagandists would learn that lesson also it would be much better for the general peace.
There was no especial reason as far as I know for closing that last chapter, and commencing a new one, except that it was getting too long in my opinion. For the story I was telling was incomplete, I having gone off at an unexpected angle on the question of food supplies. However, I will now resume and say that the influx of work I mentioned lasted for a fortnight, during the whole of which time I can aver that, except on Sundays, I was never in bed after 3 a.m. or before 11 p.m., and that I was often so weary on coming home from the city with a load of moulding, that I would sit down on a chair in the shop and be unable to rise for half an hour. But as I would not allow myself to think about the future, or ask myself what was the good of it all, I was not unhappy, and I was able to take a good deal of pride in my work. And by the time the pressure slackened, I had settled that wretched summons, had paid my rates, and a few other immediate liabilities, besides being able to buy a few sorely needed articles of clothing for the family.
There was however no lightening of the old burden of debt, and in fact I realised that nothing short of a miracle would enable me to do that. For if I got all the work I craved for I should surely break down, while the utmost that I could earn would not do much more than pay the heavy current expenses of the shop. Had I been able to employ some help, it might have been better, but I don't know about that. I had to do my own errands—I could not delegate my buying in the city to anybody else, although it did entail such a heavy burden upon me physically. Meanwhile I paid cash for everything I had, though I did not pay anything of the bills already incurred.
In this connection I have an amusing recollection. The moulding merchant with whom I dealt was an elderly German in a large way of business, and I had always heard of him as a kindly old soul, but had never come into personal contact with him. Now, however, I owed him nearly £30, for which I had given a bill, and was constantly renewing it; and, consequently, although I dealt with the firm for all my mouldings, and paid cash, I dreaded meeting one of the principals, and indeed slank in and out of the premises like a thief. One day, however, I ran right into the old gentleman, who looked at me keenly and said, "Ach, Meesder Boollen, aindt id?" I humbly answered, "Yes, sir." "Yes, sir," he rather mockingly replied, "now I haf peen in pizness here in London for more as tirty year, andt I nefer ad a gustomer dot righdt me sooch nice ledders as you. But you tondt send me no money, hein? I likes to read dose ledders, dey vas very goot, but vy tondt you pay some money too, hein?"
I endeavoured to give him such reasons as I had, and he listened carefully, saying when I had done, "Ach so! Vell, you pay ven you can, undt tondt you go puying your mouldings someveres ellas mit your ready money. Ve all haf droubles, undt ve get over 'em. You get over yours somedime I hope, and den you pay your bill. Goodt efening." And he turned and went into his office, while I went on into the moulding shop with a warm feeling of gratitude to the kind old man, and a firm determination that he should not suffer loss through me if I could possibly help it.
Thenceforward I struggled on, sometimes feeling as if the waters which were always about my chin would suddenly submerge me, but compelled to go on. I often compared myself at this time to a man running in front of a train, between two high walls, allowing of no escape to either side, having no choice but to run or be run over. Still I found solace in my books and newspapers, and relieved my mind of some of its cares by taking an intense interest in political matters as well as the open air propaganda of religion.
What I suppose will strike some people with amazement is the fact that starting as an extreme radical, never a Home Ruler, I gradually became utterly disgusted with the radical position. Full of admiration for the socialism of Christ, I grew to detest the socialism that I saw being practised by the noisy party in the vestry, and the doctrines I heard preached by the socialists in the open air simply filled me with dismay. For it was nothing else but the survival of the unfit and incurably idle, the morally degenerate, at the expense of the fit, the hard-working and ever-striving classes, an effort in short not to level up, but to level down, a complete subversion of the golden rule of do to all men as ye would they should do unto you. Get all you can for yourself, and the devil take anybody else. Eat and drink all you can at somebody else's expense, no matter who. Beget as many children as you like, and let somebody else care for them. And so on. Oh! it used to make me very sick and sorry, but I am glad to say that in my preaching of what I felt to be right, I always had a most sympathetic and respectful hearing; and I really do believe that the detestable doctrines of loaferdom and savagery which masquerade as socialism have very little hold upon the ordinary people of our streets.
Another great solace of mine was an occasional chat with my fellow shopkeepers, most of whom, like myself, had a severe struggle to live. It makes me positively ill to hear the blatant cant that is talked about the working man, meaning journeymen and labourers only. The small London suburban shopkeeper toils far harder than any of them, is preyed upon by them to an extent which must be incredible to those who don't know, is taxed almost out of existence to support them in the schemes continually being propounded for their benefit by their representatives on the Borough Councils, and is quoted in radical newspapers as the bitter enemy of the working classes.
I found them a kindly, genial, well-informed class of men, shrewd and keen, as indeed they need be in order to live, and particularly free from the petty vices of public-house loafing, betting, and bad language, which are so peculiarly the characteristics of the "working man." But the hardest hit of them all I think were the small grocers. I knew two or three of them intimately, men whose lives were one long grey grind of labour. Who could not live unless they opened very early in the morning, before the big capitalist shops, such as the Home and Colonial, Lipton's, etc., and kept open late at night for the same reason. Even then they would not have been able to live but for giving credit, which the big combinations do not allow their employees to do. Many hundreds of families would come to the workhouse long before they do, especially in hard winters, but for these small tradesmen giving them credit for the bare necessities of life, and thus tiding them over the pinching time. This system of first aid can hardly be called philanthropy, since those who extend it do it for a living, and yet in the multitudinous life of poor London it is a huge and most important factor. Even the poor itinerant coal merchant, who goes to the wharf and buys his coal by the ton, and then retails it through the streets in small quantities from dawn to dark, may be seen on Saturdays, the hardest day of all, when his selling of coal is done, painfully dragging his weary way from door to door, collecting the payment for the coal he has been vending on credit all the week.
The costermonger, who has a regular pitch and regular customers, competing with the tradesmen to whom he stands opposite in the most unfair way, in that he has no rent, rates, or taxes to pay, will give credit, and generously too, although he may often through a bad week have to pay usurious interest in order to borrow the money to go to market with. In fact all the small traders give credit, for the reasons I have already stated. Of course, in this way much very inferior stuff is got rid of, because it is certain that he who buys on credit retail with either tradesman will have to pay higher prices than for cash, or will have to put up with inferior goods, since it is impossible to scrutinise too closely what you are receiving on credit unless indeed you are of sufficient rank to make a tradesman glad to serve you on any terms.
One great exception to the universal rule of credit is the publican. Because his wares are a luxury, and the indulgence in them in many cases prevents the payment of legitimate claims, money can always be found for him much, to the other shopkeepers' disgust. So far is this system of credit carried out that I have known men get their ha'penny morning and evening paper on credit, and even take their workman's ticket, which their news vendor kept a supply of for the convenience of customers, with the casual remark, "Stony broke this mornin', old man, pay you on Saturday." More fools they to allow it, I hear some folks say, but such poor traders allow a good many things to be done to them rather than get the name of being close-fisted with their customers.
To return for a moment to the work of the small shopkeeper, take for instance the butcher. He must needs go to market, no matter what the weather may be, as early as three or four in the morning; he is hard at work all day fully exposed to the weather, and on Saturday must keep open until one o'clock on Sunday morning. In addition to this in many neighbourhoods it is imperative for him to open again on Sunday for a few hours in order to satisfy the demands of those curious folk who will not do their marketing on Saturday while the "houses" (public understood) are open, and when they close at twelve o'clock are unfit for anything but quarrelling or reeling home to bed. Hence Sunday trading with all its attendant evils and its cruel strain upon the small tradesman.
I must confess, however, that although I sympathised so deeply with all my shopkeeping associates, personally, I did not suffer as they did. For my business being of a non-essential character it did not greatly matter how late I opened my shop or how early I closed it. That I had to carry my materials home from the city was due to the facts of my position being so bad that I could not lay in a stock, and partly because I found it cheaper and more convenient, if more laborious, to buy my moulding as I got orders for frames. Another thing I must say in justice to my customers, and in spite of the reputation of the neighbourhood as impressed upon me when I started in business there—I made practically no bad debts. Perhaps that was partly due to the fact that people do not, in humble walks of life that is, have pictures framed until they have the money ready to pay for the work; and another thing, when I took work home, I always waited for the money, for I always wanted it urgently.
Occasionally, it is true, I had a little difficulty with people who talked grandiloquently of calling round in a day or two, and paying a bill of a few shillings, or of sending a cheque, say, of seven and sixpence, but they were exceedingly seldom. But I had many heart burnings through the vagaries of a certain type of person who would come in and waste hours of my time (and I noticed that these visits usually occurred when I was urgently busy) examining mouldings and getting estimates up to several pounds in value. After which they vanished, and I never saw them again.
Once I was fairly victimised, though fortunately for only a small amount, but I must plead that it took a long time. And as the story is, in my opinion at any rate, exceedingly romantic, I may be pardoned for telling it at length. In the course of business we had made the acquaintance of a French lady, said to be a countess, and through her we became intimate with her son and a lady from Sweden reputed to be his wife. He was a pupil of Schubert, and an exquisite violinist, and as I was always a great lover of music, and he was exceedingly hospitable, we often went to his house, which was close at hand in Melbourne Grove. There we met a truculent individual, black-avised, as the old description runs, speaking a most hideous travesty of English, and withal behaving as if he owned the establishment. His name I never rightly knew, but it was nearly all consonants I remember, and he was introduced to me as a Russian prince who had taken a prominent part in the tragedy of Plevna, and held the rank of Captain in the Preobrajensky Guards. Only a day or two elapsed after my first meeting with this warrior when he appeared in my shop, and endeavoured to tell me a wonderful tale of a diamond necklace worth some thousands of pounds, the property of a French lady of high rank. This splendid article had been pawned for a large sum, and the ticket had nearly run out, but if it were redeemed it could be repledged for a greatly increased sum, and the kindly person who would advance the cash for this transaction would make something like 200 per cent. for his amiability. How I understood all this I do not know but I did, and smiled sardonically at the idea of me being selected for the operation, me! who never had any money except what I was in immediate and pressing need of.
His highness seemed genuinely and pathetically surprised, also somewhat incredulous, when I managed to convey to him the true state of affairs concerning myself. I did not, however, trouble to tell him that I felt absolutely bristling with caution towards him, regarding him as the worst type of the Chevalier d'industrie I had ever heard of. So he went away, but did not cease his visits to me, sometimes flashing a pocketful of gold, sometimes without a sou. At last he made his grand coup. He advertised in the French papers for a valet to attend upon a Russian nobleman, who, as he had much valuable jewellery, would require a deposit of £70 as security against dishonesty. Then he took a house in East Dulwich Grove on a twenty-one year lease, and entered into negotiations with a furnishing company to fit it up. Of course he got his valet and his security, with part of which he paid the first instalment of the purchase of his furniture. Within a week he had sold every item of that furniture, and leaving his hapless valet to starve in the empty house, had departed to the wilds of Soho to lead a gay life as long as the money lasted. For this was his peculiarity, stamping him indubitably as one of the boys so graphically depicted by Mr Ernest Binstead; he would lie, swindle, steal, do anything to obtain money, sell the bed from under his dying mother, let us say, or worse than that if it were possible, and when the money was in his possession he would fling it broadcast with both hands as if he were lord of millions.
He had hardly disappeared before a man came to me who gave me his card, which described him as a diamond merchant. He told me a pitiful story of how the vanished nobleman had victimised him in the matter of a diamond necklace, at which I felt the corners of my mouth relax as I thought "same old song and dance." In consequence of the evil wrought in his accounts by this most untoward transaction, he was under the painful necessity of raising a loan on a bill of sale. His house was fairly well furnished, but—he had no pictures. Now I knew what pictures were to a house and—by the way—what a beautiful lot of engravings I had framed to be sure. (I almost purred.) If I would only lend him a few just to hang on his walls while the money-lender looked around, he would be glad to pay me a pound for the accommodation, and I could have the pictures back the next morning. Of course I wanted a pound very badly, and I didn't see much risk, and the pictures had been in stock so long that I didn't reckon them at more than £2. 10s. anyhow, so I said, "All right, I'll bring them round in an hour's time." He thanked me and left. He had not been gone more than five minutes, when a neighbour who was a baker came in and asked me if that wasn't the tenant of No. — East Dulwich Grove, who had just gone out. I said it was, and gave an outline of the transaction just completed. My neighbour quietly said that they owed him fifty bob for bread, and he meant to have it, and left.
I took the pictures up and hung them. They looked very well, and the family was loud in expressions of admiration. After many assurances that I should have them back the next day, I left, meeting on my way back my baker neighbour. He called on me about two hours later, saying that he'd got his money, but only after kicking up such a row that the respectable Grove was quite scandalised, and even the paupers at the workhouse infirmary opposite were interested. I only smiled, for I thought I understood. When, however, I found an my arrival home next day that my pictures had not been returned, and on calling round at the house found it empty, I realised that in spite of all my confidence in my own astuteness I had been done. Two days later, I saw my pictures exposed for sale in a local pawnshop at a far higher price than I had ever dared to ask for them. I had a chat with the pawnbroker on the subject, and he seemed very much amused. I found it difficult to understand why then, although it is clearer to me now.
I also had a visit once from a certain notorious adventuress, whose alias was, I believe, Mrs Gordon. She made quite a lot of interesting copy for the newspapers about that time, and her picture was published in various journals. But her plan for getting something out of me was not very ingenious, at any rate I easily evaded it, and took considerable credit to myself for my cleverness in doing so.
Taking things all round, however, I was very fortunate in not being victimised to any extent, for there is a large number of ingenious folk going about London whose business it is to entrap unwary tradesmen who deal in goods which may be easily disposed of for a trifle of ready money. Dealers in perishable commodities, such as butchers, bakers, grocers, or green-grocers, are tolerably safe from the attentions of these gentry, but jewellers, furniture dealers, picture dealers, etc., are particularly liable to be preyed upon, as I found, and indeed my poverty was several times my only protection. I could not fall into their traps, because I wanted money on account, which they never had.
Now, strange as it may seem, I really did build up a fairly good reputation in the neighbourhood as a picture-framer of taste and punctuality, but owing to the fact that I could not wait upon customers at all hours, could not, that is, attend to both businesses at once, I was unable to do well. And then there is for suburban picture-framers a distinctly slack season which extends from June until November. Then when people are saving for their holidays, enjoying them or recovering from them, the poor maker of frames may as well close his shop unless he has other strings to his bow. The expenses still go on, rent must be paid, gas bills met, etc., but my takings averaged five shillings a week.
At one of these periods, having received an invitation from a distant relative in the wilds of Wiltshire to spend a fortnight down there at an inclusive cost which was less than I must have spent had I remained at home, I decided to go away. On leaving I pasted a notice on the shutters: "Gone for a much needed holiday, return on the 25th of August.—F. T. Bullen." When I did return, I was greeted by all my shopkeeping neighbours with sardonic surprise, not unmixed with scorn. They all said they never thought to see me again, having fully expected that I had "done a guy," as they inelegantly put it, and several hinted rather plainly that they considered me a fool for ever coming back; which went to show very clearly that they knew as well as I did myself that I was in difficulties. Indeed in a small community such as ours was, it was not possible to conceal one's straits any more than it would be in a little country town. I have no doubt that every one of my neighbours knew how few were the customers that came into my shop as well as they knew what the expenses of the shop were, in fact, as they put it frequently to one another, I kept the shop, the shop didn't keep me.
Yes, everything seemed to trend downwards towards a place of the depth of which I had no conception. Every fresh run of orders at the rare intervals when they did arrive, only seemed to stave off the evil day which would surely come, and it is not putting the matter one whit too strongly to say that I had lost all hope of ever doing any good for myself and family. Neither did I see how I was going to get rid of what had come to be a perfectly diabolical burden, the shop. Despite all my efforts I got deeper and deeper into debt, and among other things the crushing load of the rates, then going up by leaps and bounds, owing to the socialistic tendency of the local authorities, made me feel peculiarly bitter; especially when I saw the troops of able-bodied men slouching about the workhouse recreation grounds.
A keen sense of humour is one of my richest blessings, one that I prize more than I can tell, but never before have I felt so keenly the great desirability of being able to express myself humorously in writing. For this narrative of mine, drab in all its essentials, tends ever to more gloom. There were touches of humour in my life, for I know that I often had a hearty laugh, but I remember too that this healthful exercise was usually after I had gone to bed, and was reading one of my favourite books for perhaps the twentieth time. But I am bound to say that any relief to the gloom of my daily life except on Sundays, the delights of which I have spoken before, was almost entirely wanting. I could, I dare say, introduce a few humorous touches occasionally, for which the reader would be duly grateful, but it would be at the expense of truth, and anyhow it would be of a saturnine character if it were drawn from my experience of every day life.
Take, for instance, a scene which I witnessed on Saturday night late, outside the East Dulwich Hotel, at the corner of Goose Green. It had been raining for a long time, and the streets were in an exceedingly bad state. Just there, however, some attempt had been made earlier in the day to sweep them, and in consequence the kennel on both sides was full of liquid mud, had become in fact a creek of mud a yard wide and several inches deep. I was taking some pictures home during a slight break in the weather, and rounding this corner I saw two men, both of whom were drunk, amicably endeavouring to take one another home. They staggered about a good deal, getting nearer and nearer the kerb, until one of them slipped down, and the other, endeavouring to raise him, rolled over on the top of him. Locked in a close embrace, and making no sound, they rolled into the kennel; while I, the solitary spectator, helpless by reason of my burden, became doubly so because of a perfect agony of laughter. Like hippopotami they wallowed in the viscid stream, and at last emerged on the farther side, as Mrs Gamp would say, a marks of mud, but still horizontal. They rolled right across the road, which was fairly wide, and into the creek of mud on the other side where, with their heads on the kerb, they rested from their arduous journey apparently full of peace. A policeman and a little knot of spectators had by this time arrived, and much discussion, punctuated with shouts of laughter, went on as to what should be done with and for them. What was done eventually I do not know, for I had to fulfil my errand, aching all over with my paroxysms of laughter. Yet as the boys say when they are the victims, "I don't see anything to laugh at."
This digression is of malice aforethought, because I cannot help feeling that readers will say "I wish Bullen wouldn't so persistently sue for our sympathy. Surely he must have had some good times." And that is the worst of the simple annals of the poor; they are deeply interesting of course to the protagonists, but are apt to become wearisome in the recital, because, as the Irishman said of his wife, they are all worse and no better. However I went on, doggedly, hopelessly, not because I was a brave man struggling with adversity, but because as far as my limited intelligence went I couldn't do anything else. Several people, one of whom most generously helped me over a tremendously difficult stile, suggested bankruptcy as being the obvious way out of all my troubles, but that I felt was impossible. True, I was a bankrupt de facto but not de jure, and I believed that if I did become a bankrupt in law, I should lose my last hope of earning a living, my job at the office. So I ruled that suggestion out as impracticable, for supposing I did lose my job, it was no figure of speech to call it my last hope. I was rapidly nearing forty, my own profession was irrevocably closed to me even if the state of my health would have allowed me to take it up again, and as for my other employment, with thousands of abler, younger men clamouring for it, what possible prospect had I? and I had a wife and five young children! I will not say that I was absolutely friendless, but the two or three faithful friends I had were powerless to help me except in a desperate emergency, and at a great personal sacrifice then. As a dear friend said to me the other day, while we were discussing the condition of a mutual friend who had become the victim of a most serious misfortune absolutely without fault of his own: "There is nothing more heart-breaking than to have a friend who is what the Spaniards call gastados, used up, no more good in this pushing world. You can't keep him, you can't ask anybody else to keep him, and in spite of yourself, with the best will in the world, you get tired of his incessant appeals for help, however piteous and sincere."
Is that not so? and all the more sad when it is the result of misfortune and not of indolence or vice. However I did not allow myself to think, for fear I should lose my power of sleep, which I knew would be fatal. I dared not open my letters, the postman's knock sent a clutching pang through the pit of my stomach, and if it had not been for my Sundays, with their entire switch off from the terrors of every day life, I feel sure I should have gone mad. It was at this juncture that I began to write. Leaning over the counter in the empty shop I covered page after page with neat clerkly script, an exercise I always loved, narrating my early experiences at sea. It was a delightful relief, and as such I enjoyed it, but if I ever had any wild dreams about publishing what I was writing they did not last, for when I had written about forty thousand words I put the MS. away and forgot all about it. Finally I threw it in the dustbin, which was a pity, for I daresay it was quite as good as anything I have ever done in the same way since.
Meanwhile matters plodded towards that destined end which I felt was inevitable, but would not realise. I got into more difficulties with my landlord. The state of the house was simply disgraceful, and he would do nothing. Then all of us got sore throats, and the doctor said bluntly, "It's of no use my attending you unless you have these drains seen to; they are a grave danger to anybody's health who comes into your shop!" Thus admonished I again approached my landlord, who sent a man to put two dabs of mortar upon the soil-pipe at the back of the house. Then in despair I wrote to the vestry, and very promptly their surveyor appeared. He condemned not merely my drains, but those of the whole row of houses in which my house stood. And then there was a pretty fine how d'ye do, I can tell you. My premises were all ripped up at the back to get at the drains, which of course were under the foundations, and when everything was in a state of chaos the operations mysteriously ceased. Rats invaded the house and devoured our small stock of provisions, until I took to hanging them up as we used to do on board ship. I wrote piteous letters to the vestry, imploring them for mercy's sake to finish the job, but they took no notice and kept on doing so.
Then I made a bold stroke. I wrote to the Local Government Board, placing the whole facts before them. Talk about red tape and bureaucracy! Never have I dreamed of such celerity. Within forty-eight hours the work was completed, and I received from Whitehall a copy of an indignant letter from the vestry denouncing my complaint, as the work in question was done. I never before realised how efficient a public department might be in the proper hands. Those drains of mine had been open for three weeks, and there had been absolutely no response to my repeated applications to have the work done, when I took the step I have detailed.
This little affair cost my landlord (so he said) £25, a large sum for a man in his position, and this did not improve our relations, as might be supposed. But I hardly thought he would go to the length he did. It is customary for such tenants as I was to take a few days' grace for payment of the quarter's rent, which varies from one week to six according to the disposition of the landlord, and the circumstances of the tenant. Naturally I took as long as I could, and as long as I paid within a month was usually considered a good payer. With this landlord, however, I had to be very careful, especially after his last feat. Still I was not prepared to find, as I did on coming home on the evening of quarter day, three bailiffs in my humble abode. One was an emissary of the landlord's, whose rent was only due at twelve that day; one was for the inhabited house-duty, a trifling matter of a pound, including landlord's property tax; and one was from some other creditor whose claim I had overlooked. The total amount with costs of all their claims amounted to a little less than £20.
I confess that unable as I generally was to extract any fun out of my troubles, this time was an exception. As I was introduced to each of my uninvited guests in turn, and heard their claims, I was suddenly seized with the humour of the situation, and laughed until I was fain to hold on to the counter, or I should have fallen down. My wife stood at the door of the shop parlour looking most anxiously at me, for she thought, as she afterwards told me, that my brain had given way at last, while the three bums looked at me, and at one another in an undecided irresolute fashion, which only made me laugh all the more. However, I gradually recovered, and then said, "Well, gentlemen, I am sorry for you if you have decided to remain here, for I can neither feed you nor give you a shake-down. So you'll have but a poor time of it. I can't possibly get any money until to-morrow, and I am doubtful if I can get much then. However, that's not the point. Do the best you can. I've got some work to get on with," and I mounted to my workshop and started.
Before many minutes two of them decided to go home for the night, having delegated their authority to the third, who as soon as their backs were turned came up to me and said, that if I could give him a couple of shillings he would go too, he didn't want to put me to any trouble. I told him candidly I should have been glad to comply with his request, but as all the money I had was sixpence, I must forego the pleasure. He sighed, and then after exacting a promise that I would let him in next morning, departed also, leaving me free to get on with my work. He had not been gone many minutes when I heard my chum Bob's musical whistle below, and immediately he came bounding up, having heard the news across at the library of my having a house full of bums. He could only sympathise, but rejoiced to find me in such good spirits, was surprised also, but not more so than myself. He left a couple of shillings, with the desire that I would make one of my famous curries against the time he closed the library, when we would have supper together.
I readily agreed and hurried up with my job in order to get at my cookery, for indeed these little chance meals which I was in the habit of preparing, when there were funds, were exceedingly pleasant to me, to my family, and to Bob, who was a frequent sharer of them. I am afraid they bore a strong family likeness to the celebrated symposia indulged in by Mr Micawber and his family with David Copperfield as only guest, but I can honestly say that I never pawned or sold any household goods to procure them, as the immortal Micawber did. At any rate on this particular occasion I know that, thanks to Bob's two shillings, we had a gorgeous supper of curried skirt and kidney, with potatoes and rice; the scent of which, as Bob said when coming in at 10.30, was enough to make a dead man sit up and ask for some.
His genial company and the good meal sufficed to keep the black shadow away long enough for me to get to sleep, but as soon as I awakened in the morning it was beside me with all its terrors. In my emergency I bethought me of a certain money-lender who, upon a previous application to him, had informed me that he would willingly lend me £20 if I found a good surety, and would take repayment at the rate of £2 per month for twelve months. I did not accept then, because I could not bring myself to ask anyone whom I knew to do anything I would not do myself, viz., become surety for another. But now I was desperate, and I remembered an acquaintance who, though his salary was good, was for some reason or another chronically hard up. He, I felt sure, would be my surety if I could spare him a little of the loan. Utterly immoral, even dishonest and without excuse, of course, and I am going to offer none—I only set down the facts.
Upon broaching the matter to him, I found him not only willing but eager, for he himself was in urgent need of £3, and I could spare him that out of £25, the amount I proposed borrowing. So at lunch-time we sallied forth, finding our, what shall I call him, banker? in, and ready to oblige. Indeed it was fatally easy, and I was absurdly grateful, quite forgetting for the time the other gentleman in the Adelphi to whom I had to pay £1 every month as interest on a loan of £10. I handed over the £3 to my friend in need, and at five o'clock hurried home to find my three visitors ranged along the counter in the shop. In a lordly manner I paid them off, took their receipts, and we parted on the best of terms.
My amiability to the agent, however, did not extend to my landlord. I felt his behaviour to me very, very villainous, especially remembering the wretched state of the premises for which I paid him rent under his solemn agreement to keep them in habitable repair. The rain came through the roof so copiously, that I had to keep tubs up in the top rooms to prevent the whole house from becoming swamped. The ceilings were falling down, and the huge cistern supported upon brick piers in the kitchen was leaking to such an extent that it threatened daily to collapse and flood us out. So I resolved, as this was the last quarter of my three years' agreement, to remove before quarter day, and to refuse to pay him any rent, as a set off against the condition of the premises he had compelled me to live in so long.
A shop nearly opposite had become vacant by reason of fire which had gutted the whole house, but it had been restored to its original condition, or something resembling it, and I took it. I did not blazon my intention abroad, believing that my few regular customers would easily find me, but I passed the word around among my acquaintances, and I make no doubt at all that my present landlord knew of my intentions perfectly. But he was powerless to prevent me going. Indeed, I believe that the privilege of leaving the house you hold before quarter day without fear of distraint for rent is about the only one possessed by the poor tenant, who is otherwise entirely at the mercy of his landlord. However, my landlord made no sign, while as the time approached I made all preparations for flitting. At night, after closing time, my chum Bob, to whom all violent exercises were a joy, used to come over and assist me in the transference of my goods from one house to the other, until we were fairly well fixed in the new abode, with the exception of our absolute necessaries, such as bedding, cooking utensils, etc.
On the last night, that is the 20th of the month, we worked like beavers, getting bedsteads across and put up so that the family might move in and be comfortable. Fortunately it was fine, for we had left the heaviest things, the piano and two counters, until the last. We got the two counters over without much difficulty, and then at nearly 1 a.m. we tackled the piano. We wheeled it out and along the pavement until it was opposite the new home, then lifting it into the roadway we tried to wheel it across, on its own castors of course. But it was heavy going, and in the middle of the road we stopped for breath and to wipe our brows. Suddenly a light beamed across us, and a gruff voice said, "Now then, what's this ere little game?" We both looked up, and there stood a huge policeman, who had come up all silently in his rubber-soled boots, and was shedding the light of his bull's eye on the scene. For some idiotic reason or another, I burst into yells of laughter, Bob joined in, and the policeman followed suit. Just three idiots I suppose. But it was a quaint scene at one in the morning, in the middle of Lordship Lane.
As soon as we could speak, we explained the situation to him; and he, bless him for a good fellow, saw it in the right light, pulled off his heavy coat, and lent a hearty hand, so that the piano was installed in the new premises in a very short time. Fortunately we had a little liquid refreshment to offer him, which he accepted in a becoming spirit, and then said, "Well, boys, I must get around before my sergeant turns up—he won't understand who I am with my coat off." And so with hearty good wishes all round we parted.
I had a busy week following, for of necessity I had to do everything that needed doing to the shop with my own hands, save what Bob did in the precious hours of his leisure after ten, which he so willingly devoted to my service. And I managed to spend a sovereign for the fascia, which was done by a man who was so drunk that he could not stand on the solid earth, but balanced himself upon a precarious plank stretched between two high trestles in front of the shop, and splashed in the letters in magnificent style. I did not watch him, for I fully expected to see him dashed to death upon the pavement at any moment; but when on his coming for his money I went out and surveyed his handiwork, I paid him without a word, for indeed there was absolutely no fault to find.
But I had hardly settled in this new shop than my troubles with regard to the building commenced, and threatened to surpass my experiences across the road. Hardly a piece of furniture could be moved upstairs without bringing some of the ceilings down, and such easily scamped places as pantries and cupboards were de-ceiled en bloc. The first really serious matter, however, which showed me that I had in no way bettered my position arose through the frost. I cannot fix the year properly, but it was when the frost set in some time at the end of January, and lasted until nearly June. I saw with a certain complacency my neighbours carrying water into their homes from standpipes in the streets, while my supply was intact and working well. And then with dramatic suddenness the supply-pipe from the main which ran underneath the pavement into my house burst asunder, and the water welled up through the flagstones, making a glare of ice all over the footway, which was a great danger to the passers-by.
I was immediately summoned by the Water Company on the one hand, and by the vestry on the other, to make this breakage good. With cheerful confidence I turned these demands over to my landlord, never doubting in the first place that it was his duty to repair this damage, and in the next that he would instantly perform that duty. It was a heavy blow to me when I received a curt note from him to the effect that it was no business of his, and that I could do what I chose in the matter. As if I had any choice. And so I had to call in labourers and plumbers to the tune of nearly £3, which outlay moreover did not result in my water-supply being resumed. But the shock I then received was a lasting one, for I realised that these new premises of mine bade fair to become worse than the old ones. They had been renovated after the fire by contract in the flimsiest and most casual way, and scarcely a day passed but some new defect discovered itself, until I really was afraid that the building would collapse about my ears.
Meanwhile my old landlord lost no time in putting the law's machinery in motion against me. He summoned me for two quarters' rent, one being in lieu of notice and a trifle of £10 for dilapidations caused to his premises by my neglect. Strong in my belief that I was legally justified in leaving uninhabitable premises as I did, I determined to fight, and in due time I appeared before Judge Emden at the Cottage Ornée. Of course I conducted my own case, and equally of course my creditor employed a solicitor. But I lost nothing by that, for I found his honour most kind and impartial. Only when I exhibited my defence explaining the condition of the premises, and asking the Judge whether I was compelled to remain in a house which was in so parlous a state, he replied in words which I can never forget: "You are not compelled to remain in such a house, you may leave before the expiration of your term, but you must pay the rent—that is the law."
Then, of course, I could only express my sorrow at having built upon so insecure a foundation, and explaining my circumstances asked for time to pay. The judge asked me what offer I could make, and I immediately said that it was impossible for me to promise more than a pound a month, which indeed it was, for at this time nearly all my office pay was eaten up by these monthly payments, and my means of living were intensely precarious. But the solicitor to the landlord in a white heat of indignation put on for the purpose, pictured me as rolling in wealth, enjoying a bloated official salary, and having a fine business in addition, so that it was the barest justice that I should be ordered to pay forthwith.
To my great joy the judge replied with sternness that he believed I had made an exceedingly fair and honest offer under the circumstances, and that if my offer were not accepted immediately he should exercise his own discretion as to what terms he should consider reasonable, and it was quite possible that he would make no order at all. This was sufficient for my opponent, one pound a month was accepted, and, as they say in the House of Lords, the matter then dropped.