Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches

by George Manville Fenn

But, there, I suppose I don’t understand these sort of things, and like a good many more get talking about what I should hold my tongue on; but somehow or another, whenever I hear the word war, I can’t see regiments of gay soldiers, and bands of music, and prancing horses, but trampled, muddy, and blood-stained fields, with shattered bodies lying about; or dim rooms turned into hospitals, with men lying groaning in their great agony—hopeless, perhaps, of ever rising from the rough pallet where they lie.

But, there, let’s get on to another kind of war—war with the knife—knife and fork, you know—the battle of life for a living; for there’s no mistake about it, there is a regular battle going on for the daily bread, and if a man hasn’t been well drilled to it in his apprenticeship, it’s rather a poor figure he’ll cut in amongst the rest. Ah, you come across some rum fellow soldiers, too, in the course of your life; here’s one chap is asked to do a little extra job, and, as he does it, goes on like our old sexton used down in the country when he put up the Christmas holly in the church. “Ah!” he says to me—“Ah! you see, I don’t get nothing for doing this—only my salary.” Men are so precious frightened of making work scarce. Why, I remember soon after I came up to London going into Saint Paul’s for a gape round, when they were going to fit up the seats for the Charity Children’s Festival; and do what I would I couldn’t help having a hearty laugh to see how the fellows were going it. Perhaps it was a scaffold pole wanted lifting; when about a score of chaps would go crawling up to it, and have a look; then one would touch it with his foot, and then another; then one would stoop down and take hold on it, and give a groan, and then let go again; next another would have his groan over it; then they’d look round, as if they thought being in a grand church a miracle war going to happen, and that the pole would get up of itself and go to its place.

It didn’t though: so at last, groaning and grunting, they managed to get it on their shoulders—the whole score of ’em trying to have a hand in it; but puzzled sometimes how to manage it, for the short ’uns couldn’t hitch their shoulders up high enough to reach, and had to be content with walking under it like honest British workmen as had made up their minds to earn every penny of their money; while the tall chaps carried the pole, and it didn’t seem to hurt them much as they took it to its place and groaned it down again; when they was all so faint that they had to knock off for some beer.

I have heard an old workman say how many bricks he’d lay in a day in his best times, and it was a precious many; and I’ve seen old Johnny Mawley lay ’em too, and he’d have been just the chap to suit some of our London men, who look sour at you if you lay into the work tight. Old Johnny used to build little walls and pigsties down in Lincolnshire, and had his boy, young Johnny, with him. There the old chap would be tapping and pottering about over his work, with no necessity for him to stand still till the mortar set at the bottom, for fear of the building giving way or growing top-heavy—there he’d be, with the work getting well set as he went on; for after getting one brick in its place and the mortar cleared off, he’d drawl out very slowly, as he stood looking at his job—“Johnny, lad, wilt thou bring me another brick?” And Johnny used to bring him another brick; and old Johnny would lay it; and work never got scarce through him.

Men are so precious frightened of interfering with one another. I s’pose it’s all right; but it seems so queer for the plasterer to knock off because a bit of beading wants nailing on or taking off, and the carpenter has to be fetched to do it, when half a dozen taps of the hammer would have set all right. Bricklayer’s setting a stove, and he can’t turn a screw, but must have the smith; whilst the carpenter knocks off because a bit of brick wants chipping out of the wall; and so they go on; and so I go on grumbling at it, and fault-finding. But the most I grumble at is this—the number of public-houses there is about London waiting with their easily-swinging doors to trap men. There’s no occasion to knock; just lean against the door, and open it comes; and there’s the grandly fitted-up place, and a smart barman or barmaid to wait on you, and all so nice, and attractive, and sticky, that there’s no getting away again; so that it seems like one of those catch-’em-alives as the fellows used to sell about the streets—and we poor people the flies.

Nice trade that must be, and paying; to see the glitter and gloss they puts on, and the showy places they build in the most miserable spots—gilt, and paint, and gas, and all in style. And then the boards and notices! “Double brown stout, 3 pence per pot in your own jugs; sparkling champagne ales; Devonshire cider; cordial gin, and compounds; Jamaica rum;” while at one place there was a chap had up in his window “Cwrw o’ Cymru,” which must be an uncommon nice drink, I should think; but I never had any of it, whatever it is. But how one fellow does tempt another into these places, and how the money does go there—money that ought to be taken home; and it isn’t like any other kind of business: say you want a coffee-shop, or a baker’s, you’ll have two or three streets, perhaps, to go down to find one; but there’s always a public at the corner all ready. And, you see, with some men it is like it was with a mate of mine—Fred Brown—easy-going, good-hearted chap.

“Come and have half a pint, Fred,” one’d say to him; and then Fred would shake his head, and be going on, till they began to banter him a bit, when he’d go in and have his half-pint same as lots of us do, and no great harm neither; but then this beer used to make him thirsty for more, and then more, and more, when the end of it used to be that what with treating, and one thing and another, Fred used to go home less seven or eight shillings in his pocket, and all of a stagger, to make his wife miserable, and the little things of children stare to see him look such a brute.

I lost sight of the poor chap for about five years; and then, when we met, I shouldn’t have known him if he hadn’t spoken in a rough, husky voice, while his face looked bloated and pasty.

“Can’t help it, mate,” he’d say. “Can’t eat now, and if it warn’t for the drop o’ drink I couldn’t live.”

Strange words them for a young man of five-and-thirty; but I believe they were true, and he almost lived upon beer and gin. But I thought it couldn’t last long, and living as I did close by him, and often dropping into his miserable room, I knew how matters went with him; and at last he was down and unable to go to work.