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CONFESSIONS OF A TRADESMAN
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
WITH CHRIST AT SEA. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.
A WHALEMAN'S WIFE. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.
THE APOSTLES OF THE SOUTH-EAST. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.
SEA SPRAY. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.
ADVANCE AUSTRALASIA. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.
LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON
CONFESSIONS OF A TRADESMAN
BY
FRANK T. BULLEN
AUTHOR OF
"WITH CHRIST AT SEA," "THE CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT"
ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMVIII
_Printed in 1908_
To THE SMALL TRADESMEN OF LONDON
PREFACE
It is a particular, and not altogether pleasant, feature of literary
work in Britain that should an author make a certain amount of success
with a book on one particular topic, it is thenceforward tacitly
assumed that he must stick to that topic, assaying no other on pain
of being mercilessly taken to task by the critics. Or what is worse,
damned with faint praise. With this knowledge very vividly impressed
upon me, I have hitherto refrained from writing upon a subject with
which I have most intimate and painful acquaintance, and one that
should appeal to a far wider circle of readers than any of my previous
books have done. It is the subject of the small, struggling tradesman
or shop-keeper.
I may, I trust, be permitted to remind my good friends, the public,
to whom I owe so great a debt, that prior to going to sea I was, as
some writers love to say, not entirely unconnected with trade, having
for two or three years been employed with varying degrees of unsuccess
by small tradesmen as an errand boy, etc. In this wise (although I
feel sure that none of my employers would have suspected me of it), I
absorbed some germs of a commercial spirit, did at any rate acquire the
rudiments of trade, although in most irregular and entirely erratic
ways.
During my sea-career, these germs lay entirely dormant, unfruitful;
but they were undoubtedly tenacious of life, as we learn that disease
germs always are; and so, when I forsook the sea upon an offer of a job
ashore, a fitting environment aroused them, and they sprang into active
life. Not of course immediately, a period of incubation was needed.
It was readily forthcoming. At the age of twenty-five, I deliberately
turned my back upon a profession that then offered me nothing better
than mate of a tramp at £6 per month, and accepted a berth in a public
office ashore at £2 per week, having a wife and one child, and no stick
of furniture for a home.
Is it necessary to say that never having known any training in thrift,
having indeed belonged to the least provident of all our notably
improvident workers, I soon found the shoe pinching, soon discovered
that forty shillings a week was devoid of elasticity, especially
when curbed by payments to be made for furniture purchased on the
very unsatisfactory "hire system"? Perhaps not, but in any case it
was this, coupled with the knowledge that all my fellow clerks were
driven by the necessities of their miserable pay into bye-ways of
supplementing their income, that lured me back to trade again. Here let
me digress for a purpose. Many and grave scandals have been unearthed
in the Civil Service, note well, in the higher branches even, but
none I think greater than those where poorly paid clerks toiled to
do the work for which their seniors were paid; said seniors being
meanwhile engaged in amassing fortunes as eminent authorities upon
art, the drama, or sport. But in the office where I was employed no
such scandals were possible, seeing that the pay of the most powerful
clerk therein was less than the annual tailor's bill of some of the
superior Civil Service clerks. And whatever might be the value put upon
our labours by those without, it is at least incontrovertible that we
worked hard, so hard indeed that our superimposed labours after hours
in order to keep the domestic pot boiling were cruel.
Of the manner of my escape from that Stygian lake with all its monotony
and despair of outlook, I have perhaps said more than enough in
print already, and in any case it would here be quite out of place.
But of the time during which I in common with many thousands of my
fellows in London endeavoured to live respectably, and rear a family
by honest toil, I feel free to speak, and if incidentally I can
throw a few side-lights, humorous or pathetic, as the case may be,
upon the strenuous lives led by small London tradesmen, I shall be
proportionately glad.
It only remains that while in the following pages fiction finds no
place, no real names are given for the most obvious reasons.
FRANK T. BULLEN.
MILLFIELD,
MELBOURN.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. ENTERING BUSINESS 1
II. CONTINUED TROUBLE 15
III. FREEDOM AND WANT 30
IV. MY TRADE APPRENTICESHIP FINISHES 46
V. INTO TRADE IN SPITE OF MYSELF 61
VI. DEVELOPMENTS 77
VII. I TAKE A SHOP 93
VIII. GETTING BROKEN IN 109
IX. IN HARNESS 125
X. THE COTTAGE ORNÉE 140
XI. NEARING THE END 155
XII. TOWARDS CAREY STREET 170
XIII. COLLAPSE 186
XIV. RELIEF AT LAST 202
XV. LEGAL EXPERIENCES 218
XVI. THROUGH TO FREEDOM 235
XVII. THE DAY DAWNS 252
XVIII. THE JOY OF SUCCESS 268
XIX. CONCLUSION 284
CHAPTER I
ENTERING BUSINESS
With the causes of my first plunge into the troubled waters of trade at
the early age of nine I have here nothing to do. It must suffice to say
that one spring morning, over forty years ago, I entered the emporium
of an oil, colour, and Italian warehouseman (to quote from his fascia),
in what was then known as Kensal New Town, a neighbourhood that had
long been of unsavoury reputation, but was emerging into something
like respectability by the aid of sundry long rows of jerry-built,
stucco-ornamented houses, the inhabitants of which tried hard to forget
the former appellation of their chosen abiding-place, and dated their
letters, when they wrote any, from Upper Westbourne Park.
Mingled with the rows of mean streets of private dwellings were a few
scattered shops tenanted by brave and daring folk who lived principally
upon hope and a little capital. One of these had established himself
between a butcher and a baker, and having laid in a stock of the
amazingly miscellaneous description which characterises what we in
London call, _tout court_, an "oil shop," awaited local custom. But
having no children to assist him, and his wife being fully occupied
with household duties, he sought additional help, and I obtained the
situation. How vivid and fresh is the recollection of my opening morn!
With what awe did I gaze upon the closely packed shop, wondering
however mortal mind could tell where everything was stowed; how
curiously did I sniff the mingled odours of paint, soap, paraffin,
glue, dog-biscuit, size, etc., all combined by the piney scent of the
newly chopped wood which was stacked in halfpenny bundles up against
the counter.
My employer was a stout, stern, dark man, who appeared to me like
the dread arbiter of my fate, and his deep voice sent a thrill of
apprehension through me as he gave me my first order, which was to
carry home some wood, seven bundles for threepence, to one of the
aristocracy of the vicinity. It was a heavy load for my thin arms,
but had I been unable to lift it I should have strained myself to
injury point in the endeavour to do so, such was my pride in my first
commission. I wasted no time on the way, and ran back with the cash,
triumphant, panting with exertion, pride, and the consciousness of
ability.
Thenceforward I knew no idle moments, for my master was an expert in
keeping me at it; he was never at a loss for a job for me, nor, to do
him justice, did I ever see him idle himself. In fact, my only respite
during the long day, from 7 A.M. till 10 P.M., was when, munching my
crusts of bread and dripping, I minded the shop during his meal times,
my mouth watering at the savoury smells which assailed my nostrils
through all the reek of the shop, from his little parlour.
I have now a curious notion that I was too willing, because I know
that I must have made him forget how puny an urchin I was, or he would
never have sent me on the errands he did. One of these in the early
days of my service with him stands out, salient, against the background
of memory. It was in the early days of the Metropolitan Railway, which
then ran only from Shepherd's Bush to Moorgate Street. There was a
funny little primitive station at Westbourne Park, which was but a mile
from our shop, and one day, giving me a few pence for my half-fare,
he despatched me to Shoreditch to fetch something, I knew not what,
for which he had given me an order in a sealed envelope. Proud as
possible, I dashed off, took my ticket at Westbourne Park for the City,
and arriving at Moorgate Street, inquired my way to Shoreditch, which
I reached without any difficulty. A salesman took my order, looked
at me, and said loftily, "Ow yer goin' ter take it?" In reply I only
stared dumbly, because I had no idea what "it" was. He shrugged his
shoulders and retired, presently bringing forward an iron drum full of
treacle, which he plumped before me, saying, "There y' are." I looked
at it helplessly for a moment, and then looked at him; but seeing no
encouragement in his eye, essayed to lift it, and found that I could
just manage to raise it an inch or two from the floor.
"Can't carry it," I said.
"Nothin' to do wi' me," he replied, taking it up--oh, so easily, I
thought--and putting it outside on the pavement. I did not need telling
what that meant, and so calling my wits to work, I did the best I knew,
that is, I turned it over on its side and rolled it! Yes, I rolled it
along Shoreditch, up Worship Street, and along Finsbury Pavement, until
I came opposite Moorgate Street Station, where I halted, baffled by the
width of that great highway. But a kindly costermonger came to my aid,
and, finding what the trouble was, uttered many strange words about the
behaviour of whoever had sent such a kid on an errand of this kind;
then, hoisting the drum on his barrow, he wheeled it across the road
and deposited it within the station. Thence I rolled it to the steps
and managed to work it down them on to the platform (I am afraid I
quite forgot to thank my kind helper), where it was lifted into the van
by a sympathetic guard, and we rattled off to Westbourne Park. Arriving
there, and being helped again by the tender-hearted guard aforesaid,
I rolled my incubus into a dark corner, and fled shopwards, pantingly
explaining on arrival that I wanted the "truck." Granted, with gloomy
brows, by the boss.
Now this truck, of which more anon, was one of those curiously shaped
ones used exclusively by wine merchants at that time. It was curved and
hollow, in order to take one barrel. It had a very long push handle,
and no bottom. So you can imagine how difficult was my journey with
that drum upon it, a veritable pilgrimage of pain. Let me pause awhile
to solemnly curse that truck, and the evil chance that harnessed me
to its awkwardness. Nevertheless upon this occasion I did reach my
journey's end in safety, with the drum and its contents intact, only to
be grumbled at because I had been so long!
But before I quit the subject of that truck, I must tell of my
great exploit in connection with it. It was so entirely unhandy and
unsuitable for general purposes, besides being so infernally heavy to
push or pull that it was as much as I could do to handle it when empty.
Yet I was so willing and eager that my employer forgot my pigmy size
and put me to tasks absurdly beyond my strength, simply because he
didn't think. I don't for a moment believe he was deliberately cruel
or callous, and I know that although entirely free to do so, and often
sorely aggravated, he never struck me, nor ever abused me. One day,
however, he sent me on an errand to the older part of Kensal New Town
with a hundredweight of bar soap in a box balanced on that truck. For
some reason, which I forget, but probably hurry, he omitted to lash the
box--it would have been a difficult operation in any case; and so I
started off, trying to push the truck with one hand and hold the box
on with the other, as the truck jolted over the stones--and succeeded
fairly well too, until I came to a quagmire of a road where building
was going on. Still I strove, the truck bumping horribly over the
boulders hidden beneath the mud, until, when abreast of a church, which
was just abuilding, the calamity which had been looming ever since I
left the shop occurred--the box slid off the truck and capsized in the
mud. The bars of soap flew in all directions, disposing themselves
picturesquely as if planted in the slush, and I surveyed the awful
scene in a sort of philosophic calm, feeling indeed that _kismet_ had
conquered me, and not carelessness or inefficiency. It never occurred
to me to blame my employer.
From that stupor or reverie I was aroused by the loud laughter of
the bricklayers on the scaffolding near at hand, and I sprang with
desperate energy to the task of righting the wrong. First, I replaced
the box, then, stripping off my little jacket, I disinterred bar after
bar of the soap. I scraped the thick of the mud off on the side of the
barrow, and then wiping the bars as clean as I could on my jacket, I
replaced them one by one in the box, nor did I lose any. By the time
I had finished, and I had no help, a circumstance which even now I
wonder at--it would have been hard to tell which was muddiest, the
truck, the box, the soap, or myself. But my only object being to get
that box home, I took no heed of such an extrinsic matter as mud; and
when, at last, I pushed off again with my cargo, I felt quite a glow of
legitimate pride, for that I had retrieved my disaster.
How I escaped another before emerging from that bad road I do not
know; but I did, and presently arrived at my destination, overheated,
unrecognisable for mud, but triumphant. I knocked at the door, and
the laundress appeared, a comely figure in spotless print. She gave a
little start back when she saw me, as if she feared I would soil her
eyesight, but I said quickly--
"Please, 'm, I've brought the soap."
She, incredulously, "Oh, 'ave yer! Well, it's abaht time. Bring it in."
I hastened to the barrow, loaded myself with an armful of bars, and
hastened back. But she met me at the door, and glancing at my burden,
put up her hand in protest, crying--
"What the devil d'ye call _that_."
"It's the soap, m'am," replied I meekly.
"Don't you dare bring none o' that muck in 'ere, young man," said she
grimly.
Then I pleaded that a little scraping would make it all right, and used
other feeble arguments, to all of which she presented a stony front,
when suddenly our conference was interrupted by the appearance of my
employer, who, with profuse apologies, wheeled away the soap, leaving
me to follow, but apparently caring not whether I did. I felt terribly
guilty as I followed him back, and never dreamed of blaming him for
the catastrophe. I have often wondered since whether he blamed himself.
Be that as it may, I remember he said no word as we twain unloaded the
sombre cargo and scraped each bar with utter care, making the scrapings
into a ball. It was a long job, for customers kept coming in for
pennyworths of soap, and halfpenny bundles of wood, and farthingsworths
of blacking, at which trivial interruptions he still evinced no
irritability, but when at last all was finished he weighed the ball of
scrapings and found it equivalent to three bars and a half of soap.
These he added to the pile of cleansed bars, repacked them, and started
me off again, warning me, however, to go a long way round in order to
avoid the road where I had come to grief; and on Saturday night he
stopped the value of that soap out of my week's wages, which left me
2s., for I was then receiving 4s. per week.
As I lived with a laundress, I was able to make a bargain for the ball
of soap-scrapings, so managed to scrape through, though not without
difficulty and many cursory remarks upon my behaviour. Now, as if
my troubles were not sufficient, the baker's and butcher's boys on
either side conceived a dislike to me, and lost no opportunity of
making my life a burden, especially when, during spells of leisure in
the evenings, I watched the store of pails, crockery, etc., arranged
outside the shop. Many and harsh were the tricks they played on me,
until I discovered that they both smoked, and thenceforward I purchased
immunity from persecution with handfuls of shag tobacco, purloined from
the back of the counter while the boss was inside at his meals, not
recking of the risk I ran, in view of present ease.
My experiences altogether were of an exceedingly varied character in
this business, and I must often have made my employer feel that life
was hardly worth living when my blunders were frequent and painful;
yet, on the whole, I feel that he had his full money's worth out of
me--especially on Saturday nights, when the shop would be full, mostly
of urchins carrying all sorts of utensils and yelling "pint er penny
oy-el," in twenty different keys all at once, while almost everybody
watched an opportunity to steal a bundle of wood or some other trifling
article. Once, indeed, a purblind old woman put a bundle of wood in her
basket abstractedly, not noticing that it had a piece of thin string
fast to it, and methinks I can now see her amazed face as on nearing
the door the string grew tight and jerked her plunder out of the basket
along with some other small parcels. But my governor was equal to the
occasion. He said calmly--
"I don't think I took for that bundle, m'am, and you somehow got hold
of the wrong one," quietly putting it back and handing her another,
which she took, and forked out the halfpenny.
But after about four months matters reached a climax. I was sent
hurriedly to Paddington one night for a box of tallow candles of about
ten pounds' weight, with urgent orders to hurry, as the stock was out.
I did hurry. On the way back, running down Brindley street with the
box on my head, I stumbled, and the box flew off into the road with
a crash. It did not break, so I snatched it up and ran off again.
Arriving at the shop all breathless, I found three customers waiting to
be served with candles. The boss seized the box, burst it open, and,
lo! there was not a whole candle within! He glared at me, but refrained
from expressing any opinion. Apologising to his customers, he dismissed
them candleless. Then turning to me, he said, with an effort, "You'll
go on Saturday. And take those candles for your week's wages. I've had
enough of _you_." And probably he had.
Incidentally, I may mention that the laundress with whom I lived, and
for whom I worked when out of a job, resented intensely my bringing
home those candles in lieu of four shillings, and I suffered many
things until the last of those mutilated lumps of tallow and cotton had
been disposed of.
I spent about a month of misery working in the laundry at night, and
by day looking for a job, until I obtained a situation at a boot-shop
in Archer Street, Notting Hill, as errand-boy, my wages being 3s. 6d.
per week and my tea. Here my opportunities for blundering were fewer,
the business being so much more simple. My duties were to run errands,
dust the shop, and keep the floor clean. I was really much better off
than before, though the hours were very long, till ten every night but
Saturday, and then till midnight; for my work was not heavy, and the
good meal I got every evening was a great help. But I confess sadly
that, all my earnings going for my lodgings, I devised a dishonest
plan for getting a little pocket-money. When taking home the repairs,
I would add threepence or sixpence to the price, and when my scheme
panned out all right, as it often did, I pocketed the difference. But
of course I was soon discovered, and literally kicked out by my irate
employer, who stigmatised me as a young thief, and spoke of prison and
the policeman, whom I dreaded far more.
I pass over the weary time of waiting for another job, when indeed I
worked far harder than while in a place, and come to my next billet,
which was at a trunk-maker's in the Edgware Road. Whether my employer
was the owner of the business or not I never knew, but, as I remember
him, he was more like a soulless automaton than a man. He employed
no one but me in the huge shop, and only one man in the workshop
below, who was principally at work making, that is covering, ladies'
dress-baskets. Every morning at eight, after hoisting the revolving
shutters with a winch handle, I toiled, with occasional assistance
from the governor, in building up a huge pile of trunks, bags, boxes,
etc., outside the shop, a pile which was made more imposing by a great,
black, box-like thing, about ten feet long by three feet square, which
he used to help me lug in and out.
He lived in a little den in one corner of the shop, and made his meals
of tea (which he made over the gas-flame by which he wrote) and bread
and butter, which I fetched for him, a twopenny coburg, and two ounces
of fourteenpenny Dorset at a time. Never once did he speak a kind or
considerate word to me, or even offer me a crust of his bread--no, he
used to save and soak them and eat them himself; at which I wondered
and grumbled secretly, for I felt that he could well afford to leave me
a few scraps, as I was always hungry. But 'twas not i' the bond.
I had very little to do here in the way of errand-running, but I had no
idle moments, and when not occupied in the almost interminable job of
dusting the stock and cleaning out the shop, I could always find work
below, making paste and lining the cheap boxes we made for servants.
And here I was quite happy, for the journeyman was a genial soul and
beguiled the time with jokes and snatches of song, often too giving
me a portion of his frugal dinner or a halfpenny, which I promptly
invested in "broken stale" at the baker's hard by, where I purchased
the governor's coburgs.
But it was a dull, hard, monotonous life, and only for the fact that I
occasionally got hold of a copy of the "Boys of England," "The Young
Briton," or the "Sons of Britannia," among the waste-paper we used for
linings, and lost myself in the realms of romance with "Caradoc the
Briton," "Alone in the Pirate's Lair," or the "Young Centurion," there
would have been hardly a gleam of sunshine in my young life. Those
blessed stories supplied the place of pleasant companions and of kind
words, and were in a great measure educational--at any rate, they were
all the schooling in one sense that I had.
I had been at this slow business several months, when one day my
employer, without thinking, I am sure, of what he was doing, sent me to
Hoxton to fetch a full-sized leather portmanteau from one of the small
workers who make such things at home. Of course he gave me no money
for travelling, my time at four shillings a week was not valuable, and
off I set. Arriving at my journey's end, and stating my errand, the
man handed the article to me, that is he put it outside his door, and
left me to deal with it as best I could. Now, it was so large that I
could almost have got into it, and it was correspondingly heavy. But
I was six miles from home, and had to do something; so, as I could
not lift it, I started to drag it along the pavement through a light,
drizzling rain. Coming to an oil-shop, I went in and begged a yard of
clothesline, which I rove through the handle, and, incredible as it may
appear, I actually _towed_ that portmanteau home. I was nearly four
hours doing that six miles, and reached the shop late in the evening,
dead beat, but triumphant.
It was a short-lived triumph, though, for that spruce portmanteau
looked as if it had been subjected to years of the hardest wear, and
was besides almost covered with mud. My employer gave one glance at it,
uttered a sort of whoop, and sat down trembling. I stood facing him,
wondering what would happen. Suddenly he rose and uttered his nightly
formula, "Close the establishment."
As soon as that heavy task was done, he placed two shillings in my hand
(it was Wednesday night), and said, "If ever you come near this shop
again, and I catch you, I'll break every bone in your skin." I said,
"Good night, sir," and fled, pleased to think I had escaped so easily.
And thus abruptly ended my acquaintance with the trunk-maker's art.
Hitherto, it must be confessed, I had made no great hit at commerce,
not even having been able to obtain a character. But I suppose I was an
unconscious opportunist, for I wasted little energy in vain regrets,
but cast about for a new opening after each phase of experience.