`If you sends a man into a room to get it ready,' said Crass, `'e makes a meal of it! 'E spends as much time messin' about rubbin' down and stoppin' up as it would take to paint it.But,' he added, with a cunning leer, `give 'em a bit of putty and a little bit of glass-paper, and the paint at the stand, and then 'e gits it in 'is mind as 'e's going in there to paint it! And 'e doesn't mess about much over the preparing of it'.
These and many other suggestions - all sorts of devices for scamping and getting over the work - were schemed out by Crass and the other sub-foremen, who put them into practice and showed them to Misery and Rushton in the hope of currying favour with them and being `kept on'.
And between the lot of them they made life a veritable hell for themselves, and the hands, and everybody else around them.And the mainspring of it all was - the greed and selfishness of one man, who desired to accumulate money! For this was the only object of all the driving and bullying and hatred and cursing and unhappiness - to make money for Rushton, who evidently considered himself a deserving case.
It is sad and discreditable, but nevertheless true, that some of the more selfish of the philanthropists often became weary of well-doing, and lost all enthusiasm in the good cause.At such times they used to say that they were `Bloody well fed up' with the whole business and `Tired of tearing their bloody guts out for the benefit of other people' and every now and then some of these fellows would `chuck up'
work, and go on the booze, sometimes stopping away for two or three days or a week at a time.And then, when it was all over, they came back, very penitent, to ask for another `start', but they generally found that their places had been filled.
If they happened to be good `sloggers' - men who made a practice of `tearing their guts out' when they did work - they were usually forgiven, and after being admonished by Misery, permitted to resume work, with the understanding that if ever it occurred again they would get the `infernal' - which means the final and irrevocable - sack.
There was once a job at a shop that had been a high-class restaurant kept by a renowned Italian chef.It had been known as `MACARONI'S ROYAL ITALIAN CAFE'
Situated on the Grand Parade, it was a favourite resort of the `Elite', who frequented it for afternoon tea and coffee and for little suppers after the theatre.
It had plate-glass windows, resplendent with gilding, marble-topped tables with snow white covers, vases of flowers, and all the other appurtenances of glittering cut glass and silver.The obsequious waiters were in evening dress, the walls were covered with lofty plate-glass mirrors in carved and gilded frames, and at certain hours of the day and night an orchestra consisting of two violins and a harp discoursed selections of classic music.
But of late years the business had not been paying, and finally the proprietor went bankrupt and was sold out.The place was shut up for several months before the shop was let to a firm of dealers in fancy articles, and the other part was transformed into flats.
Rushton had the contract for the work.When the men went there to `do it up' they found the interior of the house in a state of indescribable filth: the ceilings discoloured with smoke and hung with cobwebs, the wallpapers smeared and black with grease, the handrails and the newel posts of the staircase were clammy with filth, and the edges of the doors near the handles were blackened with greasy dirt and finger-marks.The tops of the skirtings, the mouldings of the doors, the sashes of the windows and the corners of the floors were thick with the accumulated dust of years.
In one of the upper rooms which had evidently been used as a nursery or playroom for the children of the renowned chef, the wallpaper for about two feet above the skirting was blackened with grease and ornamented with childish drawings made with burnt sticks and blacklead pencils, the door being covered with similar artistic efforts, to say nothing of some rude attempts at carving, evidently executed with an axe or a hammer.But all this filth was nothing compared with the unspeakable condition of the kitchen and scullery, a detailed description of which would cause the blood of the reader to curdle, and each particular hair of his head to stand on end.
Let it suffice to say that the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the paintwork, the gas-stove, the kitchen range, the dresser and everything else were uniformly absolutely and literally - black.And the black was composed of soot and grease.
In front of the window there was a fixture ?a kind of bench or table, deeply scored with marks of knives like a butcher's block.The sill of the window was about six inches lower than the top of the table, so that between the glass of the lower sash of the window, which had evidently never been raised, and the back of the table, there was a long narrow cavity or trough, about six inches deep, four inches wide and as long as the width of the window, the sill forming the bottom of the cavity.
This trough was filled with all manner of abominations: fragments of fat and decomposed meat, legs of rabbits and fowls, vegetable matter, broken knives and forks, and hair: and the glass of the window was caked with filth of the same description.
This job was the cause of the sacking of the Semi-drunk and another man named Bill Bates, who were sent into the kitchen to clean it down and prepare it for painting and distempering.
They commenced to do it, but it made them feel so ill that they went out and had a pint each, and after that they made another start at it.
