“Not very big: it’s made out of a sugar-box. I made it myself. It’s not quite finished yet, but I shall get it done this week. There’s a band as well, you know. I do that part with this.”
“This” was a large mouth organ which he produced from the inner pocket of his coat.
“Play something now.”
Bert accordingly played, and Frankie sang at the top of his voice a selection of popular songs, including “The Old Bull and Bush”, “Has Anyone seen a German Band?”, “Waiting at the Church” and finally—possibly as a dirge for the individual whose coffin-plate Owen was writing—“Goodbye, Mignonette” and “I wouldn’t leave my little wooden hut for you”.
“You don’t know what’s in that,” said Frankie, referring to a large earthenware bread-pan which Nora had just asked Owen to help her to lift from the floor on to one of the chairs. The vessel in question was covered with a clean white cloth.
“Christmas pudding,” replied Bert, promptly.
“Guessed right first time!” cried Frankie. “We got the things out of the Christmas Club on Saturday. We’ve been paying in ever since last Christmas. We’re going to mix it now, and you can have a stir too if you like, for luck.”
Whilst they were stirring the pudding, Frankie several times requested the others to feel his muscle: he said he felt sure that he would soon be strong enough to go out to work, and he explained to Bert that the extraordinary strength he possessed was to be attributed to the fact that he lived almost exclusively on porridge and milk.
For the rest of the week, Owen continued to work down at the yard with Sawkins, Crass, and Slyme, painting some of the ladders, steps and other plant belonging to the firm. These things had to have two coats of paint and the name Rushton & Co. written on them. As soon as they had got some of them second-coated, Owen went on with the writing, leaving the painting for the others, so as to share the work as fairly as possible. Several times during the week one or other of them was taken away to do some other work; once Crass and Slyme had to go and wash off and whiten a ceiling somewhere, and several times Sawkins was sent out to assist the plumbers.
Every day some of the men who had been “stood off” called at the yard to ask if any other “jobs” had “come in’. From these callers they heard all the news. Old Jack Linden had not succeeded in getting anything to do at the trade since he was discharged from Rushton’s, and it was reported that he was trying to earn a little money by hawking bloaters from house to house. As for Philpot, he said that he had been round to nearly all the firms in the town and none of them had any work to speak of.