"That's true enough, but still I say that we could do with fewer foremen, or with an over-looker who should share our work and only have his fair share of the wages. Then, don't you see, I could earn sixpence where I only get fivepence now, and when the job was over, and things came to be totted up, I might get a penny or two more that goes into a man's pocket now who don't do the work. Don't you see this too, Martha, we should have the men steadier, and taking more pains with the work, for they would have an interest in it which they can't have now they are hunted like dogs. I begin to see from reading here about what has been going on in the House of Lords, that we ought to have things altered a bit as well as the tailors and chain-makers. The chap that comes round sometimes to the gates when we are waiting for a job has been telling us the same thing, but I only laughed at him, and so did the rest before. I shall tell 'em to-morrow, though, he's worth listening to; and it might be he could give us a hint how to get things altered."
"Things seem to get worse and worse," said his wife with a sigh. "I had a good bit extra washing to-day, and I thought for sure Mrs. Rutter would give me a penny or two more; but no, she just give me the bare eighteen pence, and I was afraid to say a word for fear she should tell me she could get somebody else to do the work for less money."
"That's just how it is with us poor dockers, and so there seems no help for us at all."
"Don't say that, Daddy," put in Winny quickly. "Who can tell but somebody may inquire into the docker's wages as well as the tailor's."
"If my head don't ache till that happens, it won't trouble me as it has done," said her father.
"It's the rent I'm thinking about," said Mrs. Chaplin, taking the two silver coins out of the corner of the handkerchief where they were tied and looking at them.
One shilling and sixpence was all they possessed in the world, and this was Thursday night. As sure as Monday came, the landlord would arrive at ten o'clock for the rent, and if the three shillings was not ready, they would be served with a notice to quit; and to be turned from this room would mean that they must sink a stage lower in the social scale. They would have to go where rents were less, and their comfort and respectability would be seriously impaired, and no one knew how much this was to Mrs. Chaplin.
That she had seen better days gave her a certain standing with her neighbours that was as precious as a patent of nobility to the wealthy, and to go to a street where this would count for little or nothing in the eyes of its rougher inhabitants, was more than the poor woman could contemplate calmly. She had buoyed herself up with the hope all day that her husband would make something like two shillings, then they could lay this aside and yet have sufficient to get what was necessary for the replenishing of the cupboard.
To her over-anxious mind, it seemed unfeeling that her husband could be interested in anything he might read in the newspaper, and forget the rent that must be provided somehow before next Monday.
That there could be any connection between the two, she quite failed to see in her narrower vision, and thinking over this as she looked at the shilling and sixpence on the table, she at length burst into tears, to Letty's great consternation.