“Come on, Saturday!” shouted Philpot, just after seven o’clock one Monday morning as they were getting ready to commence work.
It was still dark outside, but the scullery was dimly illuminated by the flickering light of two candles which Crass had lighted and stuck on the shelf over the fireplace in order to enable him to see to serve out the different lots of paints and brushes to the men.
“Yes, it do seem a ’ell of a long week, don’t it?” remarked Harlow as he hung his overcoat on a nail and proceeded to put on his apron and blouse. “I’ve ’ad bloody near enough of it already.”
“Wish to Christ it was breakfast-time,” growled the more easily satisfied Easton.
Extraordinary as it may appear, none of them took any pride in their work: they did not “love” it. They had no conception of that lofty ideal of “work for work’s sake”, which is so popular with the people who do nothing. On the contrary, when the workers arrived in the morning they wished it was breakfast-time. When they resumed work after breakfast they wished it was dinner-time. After dinner they wished it was one o’clock on Saturday.
So they went on, day after day, year after year, wishing their time was over and, without realizing it, really wishing that they were dead.
How extraordinary this must appear to those idealists who believe in “work for work’s sake”, but who themselves do nothing but devour or use and enjoy or waste the things that are produced by the labour of those others who are not themselves permitted to enjoy a fair share of the good things they help to create?
Crass poured several lots of colour into several pots.
“Harlow,” he said, “you and Sawkins, when he comes, can go up and do the top bedrooms out with this colour. You’ll find a couple of candles up there. It’s only goin’ to ’ave one coat, so see that you make it cover all right, and just look after Sawkins a bit so as ’e doesn’t make a bloody mess of it. You do the doors and windows, and let ’im do the cupboards and skirtings.”
“That’s a bit of all right, I must say,” Harlow said, addressing the company generally. “We’ve got to teach a b—r like ’im so as ’e can do us out of a job presently by working under price.”