BUT Monday saw another beginning. Johnny must rise soon after five now,
to reach his work at six; but on this, the first morning, he was awake
and eager at half-past four. Early as he was, his mother was before him,
and as he pulled his new white ducks over his every-day clothes he could
hear her moving below. Nan May was resolved that the boy should go out
to begin the world fed and warm at least, and as cheerful as might be.
For this one morning Johnny felt nothing of the sleepy discomfort of any
house in pitch dark a little before five. Two breakfasts were ready for
him, one for the present moment (which he scarce touched, for he was
excited), and another in a basin and a red handkerchief, for use at the
workshop, with a new tin can full of coffee. For the half-hour allowed
for breakfast would scarce suffice for the mere hurrying home and
hurrying back again; and the full hour at midday would give him bare time
for dinner with his mother.
Bessy was infected with the excitement, and stumped downstairs to honour
Johnny's setting out. He left the shop-door half an hour too soon, with
a boot flung after him. The darkness of the street seemed more solid at
this hour than ever at midnight, and it almost smothered the faint
gas-lights. Now and again a touch of sleet came down the wind, and a
little dirty, half-melted snow of yesterday made the ways sloppy. Nobody
was about, to view the manly glory of Johnny's white ducks, and he was
not sorry now that his overcoat largely hid them, for the wind was cold.
And he reflected with satisfaction that the warming of his coffee on a
furnace would smoke the inglorious newness off the tin can ere he carried
it home in the open day.
The one or two policemen he met regarded him curiously, for workmen were
not yet moving. But the coffee-stall was open by the swing bridge, and
here the wind came over the river with an added chill. The coffee-stall
keeper had no customers, and on the bridge and in the straight street
beyond it nobody was in sight. Till presently a small figure showed
indistinctly ahead, and crossed the road as though to avoid him. It
moved hurriedly, keeping timidly to the wall, and Johnny saw it was a
girl of something near his own age. He tramped on, and the girl, once
past, seemed to gather courage, turned, and made a few steps after him.
At this he stopped, and she spoke from a few yards off. She was a
decently-dressed and rather a pretty girl, as he could see by the bad
light of the nearest lamp, but her face was drawn with alarm, and her
eyes were wet.
"Please have you seen a lady anywhere?" she asked tremulously. "Ill?"
Johnny had seen no lady, ill or well, and when he said no, the young
girl, with a weak "Thank-you," hastened on her way. It was very odd,
thought Johnny, as he stared into the dark where she vanished. Who
should lose a lady--ill--in Blackwall streets at this time of a pitch
dark morning? As he thought, there rose in his mind the picture of
gran'dad, straying and bloody and sick to death, that night that seemed
so far away, though it was but a month or two since. Maybe the lady had
wandered from her bed in some such plight as that. Johnny was sorry for
the girl's trouble, and would have liked to turn aside and join in her
search; but this was the hour of great business of his own, and he went
his way about it.
The policemen were knocking at doors now, rousing workmen, who answered
with shouts from within. An old night-watchman, too, scurrying his
hardest (for he had farther to go than the policemen), banged impatiently
at the knockers of the more conservative and old-fashioned. And as
Johnny neared Maidment and Hurst's, the streets grew busy with the
earliest workmen--those who lived farthest from their labour.
Maidment and Hurst's gate was shut fast; he was far too soon. He tried
the little door that was cut in the great gate, but that was locked. He
wondered if he ought to knock; and did venture on a faint tap of the
knuckles. But he might as well have tapped the brick wall. Moreover, a
passing apprentice observed the act, and guffawed aloud. "Try down the
airey, mate," was his advice.
So Johnny stood and waited, keeping the new tin can where the gaslight
over the gate should not betray its unsmoked brightness, and trying to
look as much like an old hand as possible. But the passing men grinned
at each other, jerking their heads toward him, and Johnny felt that
somehow he was known for a greenhorn. The apprentices, immeasurable
weeks ahead of him in experience, flung ironic advice and congratulation.
"Hooray! Extry quarter for you, mate!" two or three said; one earnestly
advising him to "chalk it on the gaffer's 'at, so's 'e won't forget."
And still another shouted in tones of extravagant indignation:--"What?
On'y jes' come? They bin a-waitin' for ye ever since the pubs shut!"
At length the timekeeper came, sour and grey, and tugged at a vertical
iron bell-handle which Johnny had not perceived. The bell brought the
night-watchman, with a lantern and a clank of keys, and the timekeeper
stepped through the little door with a growl in acknowledgment. He left
the door ajar, and Johnny, after a moment's hesitation, stepped in after
him.
"Mr. Cottam told me to come this morning, sir," he said, before the
timekeeper had quite disappeared into his box. "My name's May."
The timekeeper turned and growled again, that being his usual manner of
conversation. "Awright," he continued. "You wait there till 'e comes in
then." And it was many months ere Johnny next heard him say so much at
once.
The timekeeper began hanging round metal tickets on a great board studded
with hooks, a ticket to each hook, in numbered order. Presently a man
came in at the door, selected a ticket from the board, and dropped it
through a slot into what seemed to be a big money-box. Then three came
together, and each did the same. Then there came a stream of men and
boys, and the board grew barer of tickets and barer. In the midst came
Mr. Cottam, suddenly appearing within the impossibly small wicket as by a
conjuring trick.
He tramped heavily straight ahead, apparently unconscious of Johnny. But
as he came by he dropped his hand on the boy's shoulder, and, gazing
steadily ahead: "Well, me lad!" he roared, much as though addressing
somebody at a window of the factory across the yard.
"Good-morning, sir," Johnny answered, walking at the foreman's side by
compulsion; for the hand, however friendly, was the heaviest and
strongest he had ever felt.
Mr. Cottam went several yards in silence, still gripping Johnny's
shoulder. Then he spoke again. "Mother all right?" he asked fiercely,
still addressing the window.
"Yes, sir, thank-you."
They walked on, and entered the factory. "This 'ere," said Mr. Cottam,
turning on Johnny at last and glaring at him sternly: "this 'ere's the
big shop. 'Eavy work. There's a big cylinder for the noo Red Star
boat." He led his prisoner through the big shop, this way and that among
the great lathes and planers, lit by gas from the rafters; and up a
staircase to another workshop. "'Ere we are," said Mr. Cottam, releasing
Johnny's shoulder at last. "Y'ain't a fool, are ye? Know what a lathe
is, doncher, an' beltin', an' shaftin'? Awright. Needn't do nothin'
'fore breakfast. Look about an' see things, an' don't get in mischief.
I got me eye on ye."
The foreman left him, and began to walk along the lines of machines; and
the nearest apprentice grinned at Johnny, and winked. Johnny looked
about, as the foreman had advised. This place, where he was to learn to
make engines, and where he was to work day by day till he was twenty-one,
and a man, was a vast room with skylights in the roof: though this latter
circumstance he did not notice till after breakfast, when the gas was
turned off, and daylight penetrated from above. A confusion of heavy
raftering stretched below the roof, carrying belted shafting everywhere;
and every man bent over his machine or his bench, for Cottam was a sharp
gaffer. Johnny watched the leading hand scribing curves on metal along
lines already set out by punctured dots. "Lining off," said the leading
hand, seeing the boy's interest. And then, leaning over to speak,
because of the workshop din: "Centre-dabs," he added, pointing to the
dots. _That_, at least, Johnny resolved not to forget: lining off and
centre-dabs.
For some reason--perhaps the usual reason, perhaps another--three or four
of the men were "losing a quarter" that Monday morning, and some of them
were men with whom young apprentices had been working. Consequently,
Cottam, in addition to his general supervision, had to keep particular
watch on these mentorless lads, and Johnny learned a little from the
gaffer's remarks.
"Well, wotjer doin' with that file?" he would ask of one. "You ain't
a-playin' cat's cradle now, me lad! Look 'ere, keep 'er level, like
this! It's a file, it ain't a rockin'-'orse!"
Or he would come behind another who was chipping bye-metal, and using a
hammer with more zeal than skill. He would watch for a moment, and then
break out, "Well, you are fond o' exercise, I must say! Good job you're
strong enough to stand it. _I_ ain't. My constitootion won't allow me
to 'old a 'ammer like this 'ere." This with a burlesque of the lad's
stiff grasp and whole-arm action. "It 'ud knock me up. Bein' a more
delicate sort o' person" (his arm was near as thick as the boy's waist)
"I 'old a 'ammer like this--see!" And he took the shaft end loosely in
his fingers and hammered steadily and firmly from the wrist. Johnny saw
that and remembered.
Again, half an hour later, stopping at the elbow of another apprentice, a
little older than the last: "Come," said the foreman, "that's a noo idea,
that is! Takin' auf the skin from cast iron with a bran' noo file! I
'ope you've patented it. An' I 'ope you won't come an' want another file
in about 'alf an hour, 'cos if you do you won't git it!" Whereat Johnny,
astonished to learn that cast iron had a skin, resolved not to forget
that you shouldn't take it off with a new file, and made a mental note to
ask somebody why.
Presently, as he came by the long fitting-bench, Johnny grew aware of a
fitter, immensely tall and very thin, who grinned and nodded in furtive
recognition. It was, indeed, the next door lodger, who had painted the
cornice. He was very large, Johnny thought, to be so shy; he positively
blushed as he grinned. "You come to this shop?" he asked in his odd
whisper, as he stooped to judge the fit of his work. "I'm beddin' down a
junk ring; p'raps the gaffer'll put you to 'elp me after breakfast."
Bedding down a junk ring sounded advanced and technical, and Johnny felt
taller at the prospect. He would learn what a junk ring was, probably,
when he had to help bed it down. Meanwhile he watched the tall man, as
he brought the metal to an exact face.
"Stop in to breakfast?" the man asked, as he stooped again.
"Yes."
"Some o' the boys 'll try a game with ye, p'raps. Don't mind a little
game, do ye?"
"No."
"Ah, I couldn't stand it when I was a lad. Made me mis'rable. When ye
go in the smiths' shop to git yer breakfast, look about ye, if they're
special kind findin' y' a seat. Up above, f'r instance."
Johnny left the long man, and presently observed that the foreman was not
in the shop. There was an instant slackness perceivable among the
younger and less steady men, for the leading hand had no such authority
as Cottam. One man at a lathe, throwing out his gear examined his work,
and, turning to Johnny, said, "Look 'ere, me lad; I want to true this
'ere bit. Jes' you go an' ask Sam Wilkins--that man up at the end there,
in the serge jacket--jes' you go an' ask 'im for the round square."
Johnny knew the tool called a square, used for testing the truth of
finished work, though he had never seen a round one. Howbeit he went off
with alacrity: but it seemed that Sam Wilkins hadn't the round square.
It was Joe Mills, over in the far corner. So he tried Joe Mills; but he,
it seemed, had just lent it to Bob White, at the biggest shaping-machine
near the other end. Bob White understood perfectly, but thought he had
last seen the round square in the possession of George Walker. Whereas
George Walker was perfectly certain that it had gone downstairs to Bill
Cook in the big shop. Doubting nothing from the uncommonly solemn faces
of Sam and Joe and Bob and George, Johnny set off down the stone stairs,
where he met the ascending gaffer, on his way back from the
pattern-maker's shop.
"'Ullo boy," he said, "where you goin'?"
"Downstairs, sir, for the round square."
Mr. Cottam's eyes grew more prominent, and there were certain sounds, as
of an imprisoned bull-frog, from somewhere deep in his throat. But his
expression relaxed not a shade. Presently he said, "Know what a round
is?"
"Yes sir."
"Know what a square is?"
"Yes sir."
"S'pose somebody wanted a round square drored on paper, what 'ud ye do?"
There was another internal croak, and somehow Johnny felt emboldened. "I
think," he said, with some sly hesitation, "I think I'd tell 'em to do it
themselves."
Mr. Cottam croaked again, louder, and this time with a heave of the
chest. "Awright," he said, "that's good enough. Better say somethink
like that to them as sent ye. That's a very old 'ave, that is."
He resumed his heavy progress up the stairs, turning Johnny round by the
shoulder, and sending him in front. There were furtive grins in the
shop, and one lad asked "Got it?" in a voice cautiously subdued. But
just then the bell rang for breakfast.
Most of the men and several of the boys made their best pace for the
gate. These either lived near, or got their breakfasts at coffee-shops,
and their half-hour began and ended in haste. The few others, more
leisurely, stayed to gather their cans and handkerchiefs--some to wipe
their hands on cotton waste, that curious tangled stuff by which alone
Johnny remembered his father. As for him, he waited to do what the rest
did, for he saw that his friend, the long man, had gone out with the
patrons of coffee-shops. The boys took their cans and clattered down to
the smiths' shop, Johnny well in the rear, for he was desirous of judging
from a safe distance, what form the "little game" might take, that the
long man had warned him of, in case it came soon. But a wayward fate
preserved him from booby-traps that morning.
In the first place, he had come in a cap, and so forfended one ordeal.
For it was the etiquette of the shop among apprentices that any bowler
hat brought in on the head of a new lad must be pinned to the wall with
the tangs of many files; since a bowler hat, ere a lad had four years at
least of service, was a pretension, a vainglory, and an outrage. Next,
his lagging saved his new ducks. The first lads down had prepared the
customary trap, which consisted of a seat of honour in the best place
near the fire; a seat doctored with a pool of oil, and situated exactly
beneath a rafter on which stood a can of water taken from a lathe; a
string depending from the can, with its lower end fastened behind the
seat. So that the victim accepting the accommodation would receive a
large oily embellishment on his new white ducks, and, by the impact of
his back against the string, induce a copious christening of himself and
his entire outfit. But it chanced that an elderly journeyman from the
big shop--old Ben Cutts--appeared on the scene early, wiping his
spectacles on his jacket lining as he came. He knew nothing of a fresh
'prentice, saw nothing but a convenient and warm seat, and hastened to
seize it.
The lads were taken by surprise. "No--not there!" shouted one a few
yards away.
"Fust come fust served, me lad," chuckled old Ben Cutts, as he dropped on
the fatal spot. "'Ere I am, an' 'ere I--"
With that the can fell, and Johnny at the door was astonished to observe
a grey-headed workman, with a pair of spectacles in his hand and a vast
oily patch on his white overalls, dripping and dancing and swearing, and
smacking wildly at the heads of the boys about him, without hitting any.
There were no more tricks that breakfast-time. For when at length old
Ben subsided to his meal, he put a little pile of wedges by his side, to
fling at the first boy of whose behaviour he might disapprove. And as
his spectacles were now on his nose, and his aim, thus aided, was known
to be no bad one, and as the wedges, furthermore, were both hard and
heavy, breakfasts were eaten with all the decorum possible in a smiths'
shop.
Johnny's new can was satisfactorily blackened, and his breakfast was well
disposed of. Such youths as tried him with verbal chaff he answered as
well as he might, though he had as yet little of the Cockney boy's
readiness. And at last the bell rang again, and the breakfasters went
back to work.
Mr. Cottam, casting his glance about the shop in search of the simplest
possible job for Johnny to begin on, with a steady man at hand to watch
him, stopped as his gaze reached Long Hicks, and sent Johnny to help him
with his bolts. And so Johnny found the tall man's surmise verified, and
the tall man himself received him with another grin a little less shy.
He set him to running down bolts and nuts, showing him how to fix the
bolt in a vice and work the nut on it with a spanner. Johnny fell to the
task enthusiastically, and so the morning went.