His wife showed no sympathy for his troubles—and of course there are vexations and disappointments (such as those of the Spring Handicaps) which are inseparable from fashionable life—but rather aggravated them with hole-and-corner snivelling, and ridiculous attempts at persuading him to a mean and inglorious way of life. She even hinted vulgar suspicion of his west-end friends, and suggested that he should associate with a long fool called Hicks, living next door—a common working man. For a long time—many months in fact—he bore it with what patience he might, retaliating only in such terms as seemed necessary to close her mouth, and to convince her of his contempt for her low habit of mind, and indeed, for herself; and when at last it grew plain that personal punching was what was needed, he was so considerate as not to punch her about the face, where marks would advertise the state of his domestic affairs; careful, also, to operate not other than quietly, when they were alone, on the same grounds of decency. And he knew that she would tell nobody, for at least she had self-respect enough for that.
Of these things Johnny knew nothing, and Bessy only a little. Both were glad that their stepfather was so much from home, and though Johnny’s sentiment toward him was a mere sullen contempt, the lad made no parade of the fact,—rather aimed indeed at keeping things quiet for his mother’s sake. But Bessy fretted in secret.
XXIII.
Johnny’s months went uneventfully. At Maidment and Hurst’s he applied himself zealously to his trade—the more because home was a dull place now—and he was as smart a lad as any in the shop of his age, or perhaps of a few months older. He could turn back an eyelid, too, and whip away an iron filing, or a speck of emery grit, with such address and certainty as might astonish a surgeon. The operation was one that every engineer’s apprentice grew apt at, and exceptional dexterity like Johnny’s was a matter of pride, a distinction zealously striven for, an accomplishment to exercise at every opportunity. Johnny felt that he had passed with honours on the memorable day when Cottam, the gaffer, roared to him from the other end of the shop to come and attend to his eye, afflicted with a sharp grain of brass. “No—not you,” quoth Mr. Cottam, in answer to instant offers of help from those hard by. “This ’ere’ll stick like a nail in a barn door. Where’s young May? D’y’ear? Where’s young Jack May?”
Much of his practical knowledge Johnny owed to Long Hicks. That recluse, whose sole friend hitherto had been his accordion, now declared for a second hobby, which was to turn Johnny into the best workman at Maidment and Hurst’s before his time was out. “You’ve got all the chances,” said Long Hicks. “You’re servin’ yer time on small work—alwis best for trainin’ a first-rate man. I’m reckoned a good fitter, but I served time mostly on big work, or I’d ’a’ bin better.”
He recommended Johnny to qualify as a marine engineer when his apprenticeship was over, even if he intended to live a shore life. “You get yer c’tificates, an’ then you’re all right,” he would say. “An’ the better c’tificates you get the better you’ll do, afloat or ashore. So as soon as your time’s out, off you go an’ serve your year at sea as fourth or fifth of a good boat, if you can get the job. The rest’ll be easy as winkin’ to a quick young chap like you. You can draw nice an’ neat—I can put a thing down acc’rate enough, but I can’t draw it neat—and what with one thing an’ another I b’lieve you could pass your second now. I ought to ’a’ done it, p’raps, but I lose me ’ed at anythin’ like a ’xamination. An’ I never ’ad over-much schoolin’. Them compound multiplications ’ud ’ave me over ev’ry time. I s’pose you don’t think nothin’ of a compound multiplication?”
Johnny admitted that he had gone a long way beyond that rule of arithmetic.
“Yus,” Hicks answered. “I’ve got beyond it, too, teachin’ meself. I know ’ow to do ’em well enough. But Lord! what a strain they are! Tons, ’undredweights, quarters, pounds, ounces, an’ grains, an’ multiply ’em by five ’undred an’ twenty-seven thousan’ six ’undred an’ eighty-three. There ain’t no end to a job like that, an’ yer brain on the stretch all the time, ’cos a tick out’ll make it about a million tons wrong in the end. It ’ud send me foamin’ mad, at a ’xamination an’ all, with a chap waitin’ for the sum! Phew!” And Long Hicks’s forehead went clammy at the fancy.
“But there,” he proceeded, “you’re all right. You’ll knock auf your second’s examination easy as marbles; an’ then you’ll do yer chief’s ’an extry chief’s all in one, an’ then you’ll do the Board o’ Trade, an’ be a guarantee chief or anythin’ ye like! You will, by George!” and the lank man gazed in Johnny’s face (Johnny was sitting on Hicks’s bed) with much respect and admiration, being fully persuaded, in the enthusiasm of the moment, that the lad had already as good as achieved the triumphs he prophesied.
But there was work to do, and Johnny did it. Mechanical drawing, when its novelty had worn off, was less delightful than the fancy-free draughtsmanship he had practised as a schoolboy, and it had an arid twang of decimals and vulgar fractions. Still, for a time there was a charm in the gradual unfolding of the inner principles of his work, and in the disclosure, piece by piece, of the cunning complication that stood ministrant on the main simplicity of a great steam engine; till the beauty of the thing in its completeness came in sight, with something of surprise in it. Though this, too, grew a commonplace as familiarity cheapened it, and then his work was work merely. And so it went till half the time of his apprenticeship was over, and he was eighteen, and a sinewy young fellow.