I
"Have you heard about Tommy Chadwick?" one gossip asked another in
Bursley.
"No."
"He's a tram-conductor now."
This information occasioned surprise, as it was meant to do, the
expression on the faces of both gossips indicating a pleasant curiosity
as to what Tommy Chadwick would be doing next.
Thomas Chadwick was a "character" in the Five Towns, and of a somewhat
unusual sort. "Characters" in the Five Towns are generally either very
grim or very jolly, either exceptionally shrewd or exceptionally simple;
and they nearly always, in their outward aspect, depart from the
conventional. Chadwick was not thus. Aged fifty or so, he was a portly
and ceremonious man with an official gait. He had been a policeman in
his youth, and he never afterwards ceased to look like a policeman in
plain clothes. The authoritative mien of the policeman refused to quit
his face. Yet, beneath that mien, few men (of his size) were less
capable of exerting authority than Chadwick. He was, at bottom, a weak
fellow. He knew it himself, and everybody knew it. He had left the
police force because he considered that the strain was beyond his
strength. He had the constitution of a she-ass, and the calm, terrific
appetite of an elephant; but he maintained that night duty in January
was too much for him. He was then twenty-seven, with a wife and two
small girls. He abandoned the uniform with dignity. He did everything
with dignity. He looked for a situation with dignity, saw his wife and
children go hungry with dignity, and even went short himself with
dignity. He continually got fatter, waxing on misfortune. And--another
curious thing--he could always bring out, when advisable, a shining suit
of dark blue broadcloth, a clean collar and a fancy necktie. He was not
a consistent dandy, but he could be a dandy when he liked.
Of course, he had no trade. The manual skill of a policeman is useless
outside the police force. One cannot sell it in other markets. People
said that Chadwick was a fool to leave the police force. He was; but he
was a sublime and dignified fool in his idle folly. What he wanted was a
position of trust, a position where nothing would be required from him
but a display of portliness, majesty and incorruptibility. Such
positions are not easy to discover. Employers had no particular
objection to portliness, majesty and incorruptibility, but as a rule
they demanded something else into the bargain. Chadwick's first
situation after his defection from the police was that of night watchman
in an earthenware manufactory down by the canal at Shawport. He accepted
it regretfully, and he firmly declined to see the irony of fate in
forcing such a post on a man who conscientiously objected to night duty.
He did not maintain this post long, and his reasons for giving it up
were kept a dark secret. Some said that Chadwick's natural tendency to
sleep at night had been taken amiss by his master.
Thenceforward he went through transformation after transformation,
outvying the legendary chameleon. He was a tobacconist, a park-keeper, a
rent collector, a commission agent, a clerk, another clerk, still
another clerk, a sweetstuff seller, a fried fish merchant, a coal
agent, a book agent, a pawnbroker's assistant, a dog-breeder, a
door-keeper, a board-school keeper, a chapel-keeper, a turnstile man at
football matches, a coachman, a carter, a warehouseman, and a
chucker-out at the Empire Music Hall at Hanbridge. But he was nothing
long. The explanations of his changes were invariably vague, unseizable.
And his dignity remained unimpaired, together with his broadcloth. He
not only had dignity for himself, but enough left over to decorate the
calling which he happened for the moment to be practising. He was
dignified in the sale of rock-balls, and especially so in encounters
with his creditors; and his grandeur when out of a place was a model to
all unemployed.
Further, he was ever a pillar and aid of the powers. He worshipped
order, particularly the old order, and wealth and correctness. He was
ever with the strong against the weak, unless the weak happened to be an
ancient institution, in which case he would support it with all the
valour of his convictions. Needless to say, he was a very active
politician. Perhaps the activity of his politics had something to do
with the frequency of his transformations--for he would always be his
somewhat spectacular self; he would always call his soul his own, and he
would quietly accept a snub from no man.
And now he was a tram-conductor. Things had come to that.
In the old days of the steam trams, where there were only about a score
of tram-conductors and eight miles of line in all the Five Towns, the
profession of tram-conductor had still some individuality in it, and a
conductor was something more than a number. But since the British
Electric Traction Company had invaded the Five Towns, and formed a
subsidiary local company, and constructed dozens of miles of new line,
and electrified everything, and raised prices, and abolished season
tickets, and quickened services, and built hundreds of cars and engaged
hundreds of conductors--since then a tram-conductor had been naught but
an unhuman automaton in a vast machine-like organization. And passengers
no longer had their favourite conductors.
Gossips did not precisely see Thomas Chadwick as an unhuman automaton
for the punching of tickets and the ringing of bells and the ejaculation
of street names. He was never meant by nature to be part of a system.
Gossips hoped for the best. That Chadwick, at his age and with his
girth, had been able, in his extremity, to obtain a conductorship was
proof that he could bring influences to bear in high quarters. Moreover,
he was made conductor of one of two cars that ran on a little branch
line between Bursley and Moorthorne, so that to the village of
Moorthorne he was still somebody, and the chances were just one to two
that persons who travelled by car from or to Moorthorne did so under the
majestic wing of Thomas Chadwick. His manner of starting a car was
unique and stupendous. He might have been signalling "full speed ahead"
from the bridge of an Atlantic liner.