A number of similar stories were related by several others concerning the doings of different employers they had worked for, but after a time the conversation reverted to the subject that was uppermost in their thoughts—the impending slaughter, and the improbability of being able to obtain another job, considering the large number of men who were already out of employment.
“I can’t make it out, myself,” remarked Easton. “Things seems to get worse every year. There don’t seem to be ’arf the work about that there used to be, and even what there is is messed up anyhow, as if the people who ’as it done can’t afford to pay for it.”
“Yes,” said Harlow; “that’s true enough. Why, just look at the work that’s in one o’ them ’ouses on the Grand Parade. People must ’ave ’ad more money to spend in those days, you know; all those massive curtain cornishes over the drawing- and dining-room winders—gilded solid! Why, nowadays they’d want all the bloody ’ouse done down right through—inside and out, for the money it cost to gild one of them.”
“It seems that nearly everybody is more or less ’ard up nowadays,” said Philpot. “I’m jiggered if I can understand it, but there it is.”
“You should ast Owen to explain it to yer,” remarked Crass with a jeering laugh. “’E knows all about wot’s the cause of poverty, but ’e won’t tell nobody. ’E’s been GOIN’ to tell us wot it is for a long time past, but it don’t seem to come orf.”
Crass had not yet had an opportunity of producing the Obscurer cutting, and he made this remark in the hope of turning the conversation into a channel that would enable him to do so. But Owen did not respond, and went on reading his newspaper.
“We ain’t ’ad no lectures at all lately, ’ave we?” said Harlow in an injured tone. “I think it’s about time Owen explained what the real cause of poverty is. I’m beginning to get anxious about it.”
The others laughed.
When Philpot had finished eating his dinner he went out of the kitchen and presently returned with a small pair of steps, which he opened and placed in a corner of the room, with the back of the steps facing the audience.
“There you are, me son!” he exclaimed to Owen. “There’s a pulpit for yer.”