Confessions of a Tradesman

by Frank Thomas Bullen

My only object in writing the penultimate sentence is to clear myself of any suspicion of false hypocritical pretence. I have the greatest horror and detestation of posing as one who, by sheer force of will and decision of character, has conquered circumstances, lived instead of died, and although wrecked apparently beyond salvage has reconstructed something navigable and sailed away from a far more profitable voyage. For I know that these things depend upon the quality of the fibre of which a man is wrought and for which he can take no credit. It is this which often keeps a man at work when, had he been living in more prosperous conditions, he would have been in bed with grave doctors and nurses around him, and hourly bulletins as to his temperature, etc., being issued. I remember during the first influenza epidemic the case of a carter for one of the great carrying companies in London who, it being a busy season, had been on duty twenty hours. He drove into the yard in the small hours of the morning, dropped the reins on his horse's back, but did not descend from his dickey. As he gave no reply to repeated hailing by his mates below, one mounted to him and found him stiff in death. It came out at the inquest that on leaving home twenty hours before he had told his wife that he felt very bad, one moment shivering and the next burning, and all his limbs one big ache, but the fibre of the man insisted upon going on. Fear of losing his job, of being short in his scanty week's earnings had spurred him, but the frame gave out under the great strain put upon it by the spirit.

You may call it heroism if you will, but if it has any of that sublime quality I am sure it is unconscious, innate, and not to be referred to any conceived and determined desire to overcome obstacles apparently insurmountable. Of course it is far more admirable, more worthy of respect than is the conduct of the weakling who wilts under the first blast of adversity, who must always be bolstered up and pushed along the way that he ought to go, and never does anything for himself that he can get others to do for him—a born loafer, in fact, for whom there really is no room in a work-a-day world, but who, alas! thrives bodily upon the labours of others, and is often treated with far more consideration than those who are steadily labouring on.

It was about this time that I unconsciously dropped upon a new form of activity entirely aloof from the tradesman line. I was a worker in a humble little mission whereof none of the members earned more than £2 a week, and some only half that sum. I had joined it in my desire to get away from the cabals and jealousies of the ordinary church or chapel where two-thirds of the good that might be done is wasted upon most unchristian friction between members. I had got thoroughly disgusted with them all as far as my experience had gone, and I felt that my only hope of remaining associated with a body of Christians was to get as low down as possible, where nobody could put on side or ape the patron.

Now it was our custom in our little hall during the winter months to give, whenever we could raise sufficient funds, a free tea to the poor neglected children of the neighbourhood, of whom there were a sad number. It always meant a lot of work collecting the few shillings necessary, but that work was never grudged by any of us, and we always felt sufficiently rewarded at the sight of the poor kiddies stuffing themselves. How cheaply we did it to be sure. Tea never cost us more than one shilling a pound, condensed milk, threepence halfpenny a pound tin; good cake, from the philanthropic firm of Peek Frean, we got for fourpence, and sometimes threepence a pound; and other matters, including margarine, on a like scale. Oh, it was a feast! and there was always a hungry crowd of grown-ups outside at the close who were grateful for the carefully saved fragments.

Well! it came to pass that at this particular time I speak of the winter promised to be exceptionally severe, and we could not raise funds for our free teas. So, in a moment of inspiration, I suggested that if we could raise sufficient funds to have some lantern slides made from pictures which I would get, and take the Peckham Public Hall, I would give a lecture on the South Sea Whaling industry, of which I had never forgotten a detail. All the brethren entered into the proposal con amore, but I doubt if it would ever have matured but for a recent convert, a young clerk in a big manufacturing house, who drew out his savings and financed the affair.

That difficulty over, we went ahead full speed and pestered everybody we knew to buy tickets, getting a guinea by the way from Sir John Blundell Maple, who probably thought it was worth that to shelve us when we applied to him for his patronage of the show. The great night arrived, and we had secured a popular local preacher to take the chair. His organist had promised to play an accompaniment for two sacred songs which I was to sing, and best of all, four hundred tickets were sold. Our popular preacher, however, very nearly ruined us, for, after introducing me in a very graceful speech, he said to my shame and indignation, "Will brother so-and-so lead us in prayer," naming a long-winded old donkey who would ramble you on for an indefinite length of time in a babblement that was anything but prayer, even if such a prologue was at all indicated on such an occasion.

I verily believe that I lost a pint of sweat while that old idiot maundered on. I felt in every nerve the impatience and disgust of the mixed audience, and at last, in despair, I actually prayed myself that the Lord would stop his wretched twaddle, for it was nothing else. Apparently my prayer was answered, almost immediately, for he had a violent paroxysm of coughing which enabled us to go ahead. Of course I was not at all nervous, my long training in the open air prevented that, and equally of course (I suppose) the strangeness of the subject held the suburban folk enthralled. However that may have been, I know that presently seeing my last slides appearing and fearing that I was cutting the matter too short, I asked a friend of mine in front (in a stage whisper) the time. "Ten o'clock, Tom," he promptly replied, in a voice audible all over the hall. My, but there was nearly a panic. Some wise person turned the lights up, and in about two minutes nearly everybody had gone.

You see, divers of them came from far, and our Peckham communications in those days were none of the best. A few faithful local ones remained till the bitter end however, and my superintendent, who was a chimney-sweep, said in broken accents from the platform, swabbing his eyes meanwhile, "I never knoo we 'ad sich a bruvver!" And what more in the way of commendation and honest praise could the heart of man desire than that? Only this, that the net profits of the lecture, after all expenses were paid, were £14 all but a shilling or two, a far greater sum than we had ever had before to spend upon free teas for poor children.

Then, at the instigation of a lantern fiend, I beg the dear chap's pardon, a lantern enthusiast, who offered his services and his truly exquisite set of slides free, I gave a series of four lectures on the life of Christ in the little hall itself. A blind performer on the organ flutina, who knew nearly all the classic hymns by heart, was easily secured at the economical figure of half a crown per evening, and I interspersed my remarks with all the old favourite hymns, that now are indeed caviare to the general, sung solo. Such an entertainment as I then gave, which of course would be impossible to me now, would, I am sure, bring me in twenty guineas a night. For I could sing and I could talk, the pictures and the music were alike excellent but—. The total net produce was about fifteen shillings for four nights! There, it's the first bit of brag I've given utterance to in the course of these chapters, and this is its fitting anti-climax.

But if I did not receive much for my services as far as money went, either for myself or the cause, I did gain invaluable experience in addressing indoor audiences. I was already thoroughly at home with any crowd in the open air, but I found that it was a totally different matter to speak inside a building, even to the method of producing the voice and sustaining it without obvious effect or real fatigue for a couple of hours if need arose. And as I had previously discovered in the open air that straining the voice ranting or raving was not only indicative of insincerity but precluded intelligibility as well, so, in a renewed and more definite sense, I found it here, and I am beyond measure grateful for that experience. For I hate to hear a speaker, on whatever subject, yell or shout at his audience as if he had a personal quarrel with every one of them, just as much as I hate mannerisms of any kind on the platform, regarding them all as a sort of showing off that is only worthy of a pampered child.