"Why, the guv'nor wants a cooper."
So instead of dropping off at Poplar, Crooks accompanied the carman to the works, and he who had tramped the country and London so long in search of a job was at last driven triumphantly to work in a conveyance, "like a Lord Mayor or a judge," as he afterwards described it.
On the first pay day, glad at heart, he was about to start for home. The men stopped him.
"We always go to 'The Railway Tavern' on Saturdays. A decent chap keeps the 'Railway.' Come and join us."
"Not me."
"Won't the missus let you?"
"No, she won't."
Throughout the next week he was mercilessly "chipped" in the workshop and referred to as the man whose missus was waiting for him at the other end. At the close of the next week he was asked after pay-time—
"Did the missus meet you last week?"
"Yes, and she'll meet me this week too."