“What of it? Why, she wanted you to show her over Bermondsey, and she waited here upwards of a hower, chatting away to me like anything.”
“Any other news?”
“Yes,” said Louisa reluctantly, “but nothing of much importance. Letter from Aunt Emma; she’s coming up soon. Oh, and a man called to say there was trouble brewin’ at Willer Walk, and would you see about it as soon as possible.”
“Now,” remarked Erb elatedly, “now you’re talking.”
CHAPTER VI
The particular blend of trouble which Willow Walk was occupied in brewing proved highly attractive to Erb, and one that gave to all the men concerned a taste of the joys that must have come in the French Revolution. A few impetuous young spirits who had been brooding on grievances since the days when they were van boys were responsible. Erb recognised that here was the first opportunity of justifying his appointment. Warned, however, by the example of other organisers within memory, who had sometimes in similar experiments shown a tendency to excess, Erb took care. He wrote letters to the General Manager, letters for which he received a printed form of acknowledgment and no other, he wrote to the Directors, and received a brief reply to the effect that they could not recognise Mr. Herbert Barnes in the matter, and that the grievances of the staff concerned only the staff and themselves; the men were bitterly annoyed at this, but Erb, because he had anticipated the reply, showed no concern. He worked from dawn near to dawn again, sending letters to members of Parliament, going round to the depots of other railways, attending meetings, and in many ways devoting himself to the work of what he called directing public opinion. In point of fact, he had first to create it. For a good fortnight he gave up everything to devote himself to this one object, gave up everything but his lessons in Camberwell. One of the halfpenny evening papers said, amongst other things, “Mr. Herbert Barnes made an impassioned but logical and excellently delivered speech.” Erb knew the deplorable looking man with a silk hat of the early seventies who had reported this, but that did not prevent him from being highly gratified on seeing the words in print; Louisa spent eighteenpence on a well-bound manuscript book, and in it commenced to paste these notices. The point at issue being that the men demanded better payment of overtime, Erb found here a subject that lent itself to oratorical argument; the story of the man who was so seldom at home that one Sunday his little girl asked the other parent, “Mother, who’s this strange man?” never failed to prove effective, and Erb felt justified in leaving out the fact that the carman in question was one accustomed, when his work finished at night, to go straight from the stables to a house in Old Kent Road, where he usually remained until the potman cried “Time! gentlemen, time!”
The men had sent in their ultimatum to the head office, and had held their last meeting. The Directors had remained adamant on the question of receiving Erb as spokesman, and the men, not having an orator of equal power in their ranks, and fearful of being worsted in a private interview, had insisted either that Erb should accompany the deputation or that there should be no deputation at all, but only a strike on the following Monday morning. (The advanced party protested against the idea of giving this formal notice of an unlikely event but Erb insisted and the moderates supported him. “If we can get what we want,” argued the moderates, “by showing a certain amount of what you may call bluff, by all means let us stop at that.”)
It gave Erb a sensation of power to find that not one of these uniformed men in their brass-bound caps was strong-minded enough or sufficiently clear of intellect to carry out any big scheme by himself; they could only keep of one mind by shoring each other up, and he felt that he himself was the one steady, upright person who prevented them all from slipping. He not only kept them together, but he guided them. A suggestion from him on some minor point of detail, and they followed as a ship obeys the helm; if any began a remark with doubting preface of “Ah, but—” the others hushed them down and begged them to have some sense. Erb had made all his plans for the possible stop of work; the other stations and depots were willing to contribute something infinitesimal every week with much the same spirit that they would have paid to see a wrestling match. All the same, Erb showed more confidence than he felt, and when he left the men, declining their invitation to drink success to the movement (clear to them that Fortune was a goddess only to be appeased and gained over by the pouring out of libations of mild and bitter), he took cheerfulness from his face, and walked, his collar up, along Bermondsey New Road to call for his young sister at her workshop. The sellers on the kerb appealed to him in vain, a shrill-voiced little girl thrust groundsel in his face, and he took no notice. Gay bunches of flowers were flourished in front of his eyes, and he waved them aside. If the men went weak at the knees at the last moment it would be deplorable, but it would be an incident for which he could not blame himself; if he himself were to make some blunder in the conduct of the negotiations it would be fatal to his career, and all other secretaries of all other organisations would whisper about it complacently.
“Anxious times, my girl,” said Erb to Louisa. “Anxious times. We’ll have a tram-ride down to Greenwich and back, and blow dull care away.”
“I’ve just finished,” said Louisa in a whisper. “I’ll pop on me hat, Erb, and be with you in ’alf a moment.”