It is certainly an unequal world. As I was crossing Piccadilly
Circus yesterday my eye fell on a man at work on the building that is
being pulled down at the corner of Regent Street, next to the
"Criterion."[1] He was standing on a fragment of wall of the
disembowelled building that still jutted out a few yards from the
side of the "Criterion," which rose like a vertical precipice beside
him, without foothold or handhold that a squirrel could cling to. He
was perhaps fifty feet from the ground. The width of the wall was, I
suppose, a foot--just space enough for heel and toe to find
standing-room. He was armed with a pick-axe, and with it he was
cutting away the fragile buttress from underneath his feet. His body
rose and fell with the strokes of the pick-axe. When he had loosened
some portion of the wall, he would stand on one foot and scrape away
the debris with the other. As it fell rattling to the ground a cloud
of dust boiled up, smothering him and partially hiding him from view.
Then he would turn to with the pick again, loosen another portion,
and repeat the operation.
[1] The vacant site is now covered by a new block of buildings.
I stood and watched him with respect bordering on admiration. I
could not help reflecting what a helpless figure I should have cut in
his place and what a short time I should be there. I have been proud
of my modest achievements on the rocks, but here was a man who made
those achievements seem silly, and he did it as unconcernedly as if
he were hoeing potatoes in his garden. Presently he straightened his
back, loosened his shoulders, paused, threw a glance up at the
vertical cliff above him, and another down the vertical cliff below
him, and then resumed.
So I saw him cut away row after row of the brickwork on which he
stood. There was a drop of fifty feet, "straight as a beggar can
spit," back and front of him--not an inch of room for the play of his
feet. Every movement had to be true to the fraction of an inch.
Every piece of brickwork he removed involved a new problem within the
same inexorable limits. The slightest mistake, and he would plunge
down to the rubbish below, and a coroner's jury would say "Accidental
death," and that would be the end of his story. Perhaps there would
be two lines about him at the bottom of a newspaper column, but
nobody would read it, for everybody would be so busy reading how Mr.
Kid Lewis put Mr. Frankie Burns to sleep, and how Abe Mitchell did
the fourth hole in two, and why Hobbs or somebody else was not caught
in the second over.
And this man, rising and falling with the blows of his pick-axe up
there on the fragment of wall, is not doing this perilous job
occasionally. He is doing it every day. All his working life is
spent on some such giddy task as this, swaying to and fro with his
axe between a drop of fifty feet on one side and fifty feet on the
other. He must never forget--for a moment. He must never be
dizzy--for a moment. He must be prepared for any sudden gust of wind
that blows. As I watched him he seemed to assume the proportions of
a great artist. He seemed to become heroic--a figure carrying his
life lightly on that frail ledge of the vertical cliff. I daresay it
had never occurred to him to think of himself in either rôle. Yet
the mere skill of the man was more delicate than the skill of the
rather dull cricketers I saw at Lord's on Saturday. There were
12,000 people standing round hour by hour to watch Lee and Haig pile
up the stupendous total of fifty runs inside two hours. I do not
blame the spectators. I was one of them myself, and very dull I
found it. But nobody bothered to give a glance at the figure swaying
to and fro on the crumbling wall. Yet as a mere exhibition of skill
it was not inferior to the pedestrian play at Lord's or to a skipping
match between Carpentier and Dempsey at £1000 a minute. And
remember, he was not engaged in a sham fight. He had a drop of fifty
feet back and front. Instant death on either side all the time.
But then he was only doing useful work. I wondered what he got for
risking his life every hour of every day. Perhaps as much in a week
or a month as the _Star_ will pay me for writing this article about
him. Perhaps as much in a year as an eminent counsel will pocket for
a day's "refresher." Perhaps as much in a lifetime as Monsieur
Carpentier will take for ten minutes' running exercise with Dempsey
in the ring, winding up with a tap in the stomach, a count-out, a
handshake (and a wink). No; on second thoughts, not half that, not
quarter that.
When I passed through Piccadilly Circus in the evening the man had
gone. So had the fragment of wall on which he stood. You may see
the mark of the place where the wall rose on the side of the
"Criterion." It is the mark of an unknown artist to whom I offer
this tribute of my admiration.