"Oh, no; ain't nothing like such tools as I've been used to," he says.
"At my last shop everything was first class, and the place beautifully
fitted-up--gas on, new benches, fine joiners' chest o' tools, full of
beading and moulding planes, and stocks, and bits, and everything first
class."
"Well," says the guv'nor, "I don't want to be unreasonable: anything
really necessary for the job you shall have; but of course I can't help
my workshop not being equal to your last; but I 'spose it won't make
much difference if you get your wages reg'lar?"
"Oh, no;" he says; it didn't matter to him; he could work with any
tools, he could; ony he did like to see things a bit to rights, and so
on to that tune; and then my gentleman gets to work.
"Pity you didn't stop where you was so jolly well off," I thinks to
myself; and then I goes on whistling, and priming some shutters as the
guv'nor had made for a new shop front as he had to put in. You see,
'tain't many years since our guv'nor was ony a working man like me, ony
he managed to scrape a few pounds together, and then very pluckily
started for hisself out in one of the new outskirts, where there was a
deal of new building going on by the big London contractors, and a deal
of altering and patching, which used to be done by the little jobbing
men same as our guv'nor. Often and often he's talked to me about it
when working aside me pleasant and sociable as could be; how at times
he'd be all of a shake and tremble for fear of going wrong, not knowing
how to pay his man or two on Saturday, and obliged to be civil as could
be to them, for fear they'd go off and leave him in the lurch over some
job or other. Then people didn't pay up, and he'd have to wait; and
then there was the ironmonger and the timber merchant wouldn't give him
credit, being only a small beginner; and one way and another he led such
a life of it for the first three years as made him wish again and again
as he'd been content to be journeyman and stopped on the reg'lar. But
there; he warn't meant for a journeyman, he was too good a scholar, and
had too much in his brains, and, besides, had got such a stock of that
"will do it" in his head as made him get on. He knowed well enough that
you can't drive a nail up to the head at one blow, or cover a piece of
flatting with one touch of the brush; and so he acted accordingly,
tapping gently at first till he'd got his nail a little way in, and then
letting go at it till it was chock up to the head, reg'lar fixture; and
so on, nail after nail, till he got his house up firm and strong. He
didn't turn master for the sake of walking about with his hands in his
pockets; for, as he said to me often, "In my small way, Sam," he says,
"master's a harder job than journeyman's." And so it was; for, come
tea-time and the men knocked off, I've seen him keep on hard at it, hour
after hour, right up to twelve o'clock; while the chaps as left the shop
would wink at one another, for some men ain't got any respect for a
hard-toiling master: they'll a deal sooner slave for some foul-mouthed
bully who gives them no peace of their lives.
Sometimes, when he's been hard pushed with a job, I've known him ask 'em
to stay and work a bit of overtime, same as he did my gentleman as had
been at such fine shops; but "Oh, no," he says, "couldn't do it,
thanky," and away he goes.
Well, now, that ain't the sort of thing, you know; for one good turn
deserves another; and my gentleman wouldn't have much liked it if he'd
been refused a day when he wanted it. But, there, he was a poor sort;
and one of those fellows as must have everything exact to pattern, and
can't be put out in the least--chaps what runs in one groove all their
lifetime and can't do anything out of it; and then, when they're outer
work, why, they're like so many big babies and quite as helpless. But
he didn't stay long; he was too fine, and talked too much. The guv'nor
soon saw through him, and paid him off; and, according to my experience
in such things, those men as have so much to say, and are so very
particular to let the guv'nor know how particular they are not to waste
a bit of time, generally turn out the most given to miking--skulking,
you know.
I ain't much of a workman, you know; being only a sort of odd man on the
place, doing anything--painting or what not; but me and the guv'nor gets
on well together, for I make a point of helping him when he's hard
pushed; and I will say that of him, he's always been as liberal after as
a man could be. Say a job's wanted quick, what's the good of niggling
about one's hours exactly, and running off for fear of doing a stroke
too much. Go at it, I says, and work with the master as if you take an
interest in the job and feel a bit of pride in it. Why, bless your
heart, 'tain't only the three or six-and-thirty shillings a week a man
ought to work for, but the sense of doing things well, so as he can
stand up aside his fellow-man, and look at his work and say, "I did
that, and I ain't ashamed of it." Why, I've known fellows that bowky
about their jobs that they wouldn't own to 'em afterwards. Sashes all
knock-kneed, panelling out of the square, or painters with their paint
all blistering and peeling off. No; 'tain't only for the week's wage a
man ought to work, but for a sense of duty, and so on,
Guv'nor and me gets on very well together, for I was with him in his
worst times, when he used to work in his shirt-sleeves aside me; and
many's the time I've gone into little contract jobs with him, to
calculate the expense, when from being over-anxious to get work he'd
take the jobs a deal too low, and so I used to tell him. But we always
got on together, and I'll tell you how it was I got along with him.
I always could carpenter a bit, but most of my time's been spent as a
painter--'prenticed to it, you know, and spent seven years with a
drunken master to learn 'most nothing, 'cept what I picked up myself.
Well, I couldn't get a job in town, so I was on the look-out round the
outside, when I came to our guv'nor's place, where he was at work with
two men, and him doing about as much as both of 'em. No use to try on
for carpentering, I thinks, so I sets up the painting sign and goes in.
"Well," says the guv'nor, "I can give you a job if you can grain."
Now that was a rum 'un, for I was only a plain painter, and no grainer;
but after three weeks' hard lines, wife and family at home, and work
awful, it did seem tantalising to a willing man to have a week's wages
shown him if he could only do one particular thing. Of course I had
dodged it a bit before, but I wasn't a grainer, and I knowed it well
enough; but I thinks to myself, "Well, this is outside London, where
people ain't so very artis-like in their ideas, and perhaps I can manage
it--so here goes. I can but try, and if I misses, why, it ain't a
hanging matter." So I says, "Well; I wouldn't undertake none of your
superfine walnuts, and bird's-eye maples, and marbles; but if it's a bit
of plain oak I'm your man."
"Well," he says, "that'll do; it's only plain oak; and, if you like, you
can begin priming and going on at once. There's paints and brushes, but
you must find your own graining tools."
At it I goes like a savage, and then I found as there was a week's work
for me before I need touch the graining; for there was priming, and
first and second coats; and so I went on, but thinking precious hard
about the bit of graining I should have to do. "Nothing venture,
nothing gain," I says; and that night I was hard at it after work--ah!
and right up to four o'clock in the morning--trying to put a bit of oak
grain on to a piece of smooth deal. I'd got a brush or two, and some
colour, and a couple of them comb-like things we uses; and there I was,
with the missus trying to keep her eyes open and pretending to sew,
while I painted and streaked, and then smudged it about with a bit of
rag; and I'm blest if I didn't put some grain on that piece of wood as
would have made Mother Nature stare--knots, and twists, and coarse
grain, and shadings as I could have laughed at if I hadn't been so
anxious. You see, the nuisance of it was, it looked so easy when
another man did it: touches over with his colour, streaks it down with
his comb, and then with a rag gives a smudge here and there, and all so
lightly, and there it is done. But I couldn't, though I tried till the
missus nodded, so I was obliged to send her to bed for fear she'd set
her cap afire; and then I goes to the pump and has a reg'lar good
sloosh, and touches my face over with the cold water, when after a good
rub I goes at it again quite fresh.
I can't think now how many times I rubbed the paint off with the dirty
rag, but a good many I know, and the clock had gone three when I was
still at it, with every try seeming to be worse than the last; but still
I kept on till I seemed to hear it strike four in a muffled sort of way,
and then the next thing I heard was the wife calling me, for it was five
o'clock, and I had a long way to walk to get to my work.
As soon as I could get my head off the table, and pull myself together,
the first thing I did was to look at my graining; and some how or other
it didn't look so very much amiss; but still it warn't anything like
what it ought to be, as I knowed well enough. All that day I was
thinking it over, and best part of that dinner-hour I stopped in the
shop trying it on again.
Just as I was going to smudge a piece over, and finish my bit of bread
and meat, not feeling at all satisfied, I gives a jump, for some one
behind me says,--
"Very neat, indeed. Bit of old oak, I suppose. You'd better do them
shutters that style of grain."
Well, do you know, if I didn't look at the guv'nor--for him it was--to
see whether he warn't a joking me; but, bless you, no; he was as serious
as a judge: so feeling all the while like a great humbug, as I was, I
says, "Werry well, sir," finished my dinner, and then got to work again.
It turned out as I expected, just a whole week before I had to begin
graining; and what with about an hour a day, and four more every night,
I got on pretty well, especially after giving a chap two pots of ale to
put me up to a wrinkle or two; and now I sometimes pass by that very bit
of graining, and though of course I could do it a deal better now, I
don't feel so very much ashamed of it.
But along of my guv'nor. What a fight that man did have surely; and how
well I used to know when he was running short on Saturdays: he'd look
ten years older those times; and over and over again I've felt ashamed
to take the money; but one couldn't do without it, you know, on account
of the little ones and wife. Last of all, though, we got to understand
one another--the guv'nor and me; and this was how it was: he'd been
worse nor usual, and was terribly hard-up, for he'd been buying wood and
paying for it; for though he could have plenty of credit now as he don't
want it, in those days not a bit of stuff could he get without putting
the money down. Well, having next to no capital, this bothered him
terribly; and after paying two men on Saturday, I felt pretty sure as he
was run close, and stood hanging about in the shop, not knowing whether
to go in to the house or be off home; and at last I did go home and told
the wife about it, and she said we could hold out two or three weeks
very well, if I thought the guv'nor would pay by-and-by. But I soon
settled that, for I knew my man, and so I set down quietly to my tea,
and was sticking a bit of bread-and-butter in one little open beak and a
bit in another, when there comes a knock at the door, and I turned red
all over, for I felt it was the guv'nor; and so it was, and he'd brought
my wages, when, as he stood in my bit of a kitchen holding out the
three-and-thirty shillings, I couldn't for the life of me help looking
at where his watch-chain hung, and it warn't there.
I meant to do it neatly, and without hurting his feelings, for him and
his wife had been very kind to us when we had the sickness in the house;
but, you see, it warn't a bit of graining, and I regularly muffed the
job when I told him to let it stand for two or three weeks, as we could
do till then. Next moment he had hold of my hand, shaking it heartily,
and then next after that he broke down in a humbled, mortified sort of a
way; and when the wife hurried the children up the staircase, out of
sight, poor chap! he sat down, laid his head on his hand, and groaned.
"Cheer up," I says, "it'll be all right soon."
"Right! yes," he says, jumping up. "But it ain't that," he says; "it's
meeting a friend where I didn't expect one;" and then he was gone.
I was sitting at breakfast next morning (Sunday) when the garden gate
rattles, and there was the guv'nor coming in such a hurry. Never stops
to knock, but in he comes and shakes hands hearty; and then, without
speaking, stuffs a letter into my hand. "Head it," he says, "last post,
last night," and I did; but what I took most notice of was a long strip
of paper with "197 pounds 10 shillings 6 pence" written on it, just
under the name of one of the London bankers.
Yes, we had a pleasant dinner, a comfortable cup of tea, and a cosy
supper with the guv'nor that day; and uncommon good friends we've been
ever since. I do all sorts at the shop, so that there's always a job,
and though people say "Jack of all trades--master of none," I think a
man might follow French suit and know two trades and master them both,
so as when work falls one way he has a chance the other. Poor folks
often get hunted by the wolf Poverty, and it would not be amiss to take
a lesson from the burrowing animals, and have two holes--to get out of
one when t'other happened to be stopped.