"Come along, old chap, no kid, have a parting glass."

"No, I can part without the glass."

At the end of the third week a fellow-workman whispered: "What time are you going home, Will?"

"Same time."

"Let me leave with you, will you?"

"Certainly. Your missus been at you?"

"Yes; the fact is, Will, I stayed drinking down here until I'd blown eight bob last week. It meant my two little girls had to go without their promised pairs of new boots."

"All right, Jim; I'll give you a whistle when it's time to go."

At the end of six weeks the "Railway" was without a customer from that shop.

That work was a stepping-stone to another and a better job at Wandsworth. His new employer urged him to leave Poplar and take a house near the works.