Old Jack went home less happy than ever. He had no notion what to do.
Difficulties of private life were often discussed and argued out in the
workshop, but there he had become too unpopular to ask for anything in
the nature of sympathy or advice. Not only would he lend no money, but
he refused to stand treat on rent days. Also, there was a collection on
behalf of men on strike at another factory, to which he gave nothing;
and he had expressed the strongest disapproval of an extension of that
strike, and his own intention to continue working if it happened. For
what would become of all his plans and his savings if his wages ceased?
Wherefore there was no other man in the shop so unpopular as old Jack,
and in a workshop unpopularity is a bad thing.
He called on a professional rent-receiver and seller-up. This man knew
Mr. Joe Parsons very well. He never had furniture upon which a
profitable distress might be levied. But if he took lodgers, and they
were quiet people, something might be got out of them--if the job were
made worth while. But this was not at all what old Jack wanted.
Soon after it occurred to him to ask advice of the secretary of the
building society. This was a superficial young man, an auctioneer's
clerk until evening, who had no disposition to trouble himself about
matters outside his duties. Still, he went so far as to assure old Jack
that turning out a tenant who meant to stay was not a simple job. If you
didn't mind losing the rent it might be done by watching until the house
was left ungarrisoned, getting in, putting the furniture into the
street, and keeping the tenant out. With this forlorn hope old Jack
began to spend his leisure about Mulberry Street: ineffectually, for
Mrs. Parsons never came out while he was there. Once he saw the man, and
offered to forgive him the rent if he would leave: a proposal which Mr.
Parsons received with ostentatious merriment. At this old Jack's
patience gave out, and he punched his tenant on the ear. Whereat the
latter, suddenly whitening in the face, said something about the police,
and walked away at a good pace.