Twelve o’clock came at last, and Crass’s whistle had scarcely ceased to sound before they all assembled in the kitchen before the roaring fire. Sweater had sent in two tons of coal and had given orders that fires were to be lit every day in nearly every room to make the house habitable by Christmas.
“I wonder if it’s true as the firm’s got another job to do for old Sweater?” remarked Harlow as he was toasting a bloater on the end of the pointed stick.
“True? No!” said the man on the pail scornfully. “It’s all bogy. You know that empty ’ouse as they said Sweater ’ad bought—the one that Rushton and Nimrod was seen lookin’ at?”
“Yes,” replied Harlow. The other men listened with evident interest. “Well, they wasn’t pricing it up after all! The landlord of that ’ouse is abroad, and there was some plants in the garden as Rushton thought ’e’d like, and ’e was tellin’ Misery which ones ’e wanted. And afterwards old Pontius Pilate came up with Ned Dawson and a truck. They made two or three journeys and took bloody near everything in the garden as was worth takin’. What didn’t go to Rushton’s place went to ’Unter’s.”
The disappointment of their hopes for another job was almost forgotten in their interest in this story.
“Who told you about it?” said Harlow.
“Ned Dawson ’imself. It’s right enough what I say. Ask ’im.”
Ned Dawson, usually called “Bundy’s mate”, had been away from the house for a few days down at the yard doing odd jobs, and had only come back to the “Cave” that morning. On being appealed to, he corroborated Dick Wantley’s statement.
“They’ll be gettin’ theirselves into trouble if they ain’t careful,” remarked Easton.
“Oh, no they won’t, Rushton’s too artful for that. It seems the agent is a pal of ’is, and they worked it between ’em.”