Things were not very busy just then, and on the following Saturday two of the hands were “stood off”. The stranger was one of them, and nearly everybody was very pleased. At mealtimes the story of the broken window was repeatedly told amid jeering laughter. It really seemed as if a certain amount of indignation was felt that a stranger—especially such an inferior person as this chap who did not know how to use a lamp—should have had the cheek to try to earn his living at all! One thing was very certain—they said, gleefully—he would never get another job at Rushton’s: that was one good thing.
And yet they all knew that this accident might have happened to any one of them.
Once a couple of men got the sack because a ceiling they distempered had to be washed off and done again. It was not really the men’s fault at all: it was a ceiling that needed special treatment and they had not been allowed to do it properly.
But all the same, when they got the sack most of the others laughed and sneered and were glad. Perhaps because they thought that the fact that these two unfortunates had been disgraced, increased their own chances of being “kept on”. And so it was with nearly everything. With a few exceptions, they had an immense amount of respect for Rushton and Hunter, and very little respect or sympathy for each other.
Exactly the same lack of feeling for each other prevailed amongst the members of all the different trades. Everybody seemed glad if anybody got into trouble for any reason whatever.
There was a garden gate that had been made at the carpenter’s shop: it was not very well put together, and for the usual reason; the man had not been allowed the time to do it properly. After it was fixed, one of his shopmates wrote upon it with lead pencil in big letters: “This is good work for a joiner. Order one ton of putty.”
But to hear them talking in the pub of a Saturday afternoon just after pay-time one would think them the best friends and mates and the most independent spirits in the world, fellows whom it would be very dangerous to trifle with, and who would stick up for each other through thick and thin. All sorts of stories were related of the wonderful things they had done and said; of jobs they had “chucked up”, and masters they had “told off”: of pails of whitewash thrown over offending employers, and of horrible assaults and batteries committed upon the same. But strange to say, for some reason or other, it seldom happened that a third party ever witnessed any of these prodigies. It seemed as if a chivalrous desire to spare the feelings of their victims had always prevented them from doing or saying anything to them in the presence of witnesses.
When he had drunk a few pints, Crass was a very good hand at these stories. Here is one that he told in the bar of the Cricketers on the Saturday afternoon of the same week that Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk got the sack. The Cricketers was only a few minutes walk from the shop and at pay-time a number of the men used to go in there to take a drink before going home.
“Last Thursday night about five o’clock, ’Unter comes inter the paint-shop an’ ses to me, ‘I wants a pail o’ wash made up tonight, Crass,’ ’e ses, ‘ready for fust thing in the mornin’,’ ’e ses. ‘Oh,’ I ses, lookin’ ’im straight in the bloody eye, ‘Oh, yer do, do yer?’—just like that. ‘Yes,’ ’e ses. ‘Well, you can bloody well make it yerself!’ I ses, ‘’cos I ain’t agoin’ to,’ I ses—just like that. ‘Wot the ’ell do yer mean,’ I ses, ‘by comin’ ’ere at this time o’ night with a order like that?’ I ses. You’d a larfed,” continued Crass, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after taking another drink out of his glass, and looking round to note the effect of the story, “you’d a larfed if you’d bin there. ’E was fairly flabbergasted! And wen I said that to ’im I see ’is jaw drop! An’ then ’e started apoligizing and said as ’e ’adn’t meant no offence, but I told ’im bloody straight not to come no more of it. ‘You bring the horder at a reasonable time,’ I ses—just like that—‘and I’ll attend to it,’ I ses, ‘but not otherwise,’ I ses.”
As he concluded this story, Crass drained his glass and gazed round upon the audience, who were full of admiration. They looked at each other and at Crass and nodded their heads approvingly. Yes, undoubtedly, that was the proper way to deal with such bounders as Nimrod; take up a strong attitude, an’ let ’em see as you’ll stand no nonsense!