‘Yes, and you’ll never be able to prevent it, mate!’ shouted Crass.
‘Why can’t we?’
‘Because it can’t be done!’ cried Crass fiercely. ‘It’s impossible!’
‘You’re always sayin’ that everything’s all wrong,’ complained Harlow, ‘but why the ‘ell don’t you tell us ‘ow they’re goin’ to be put right?’
‘It doesn’t seem to me as if any of you really wish to know. I believe that even if it were proved that it could be done, most of you would be sorry and would do all you could to prevent it.’
“E don’t know ‘isself,’ sneered Crass. ‘Accordin’ to ‘im, Tariff Reform ain’t no bloody good – Free Trade ain’t no bloody good, and everybody else is wrong! But when you arst ‘im what ought to be done – ‘e’s flummuxed.’
Crass did not feel very satisfied with the result of this machinery argument, but he consoled himself with the reflection that he would be able to flatten out his opponent on another subject. The cutting from the Obscurer which he had in his pocket would take a bit of answering! When you have a thing in print – in black and white – why there it is, and you can’t get away from it! If it wasn’t all right, a paper like that would never have printed it. However, as it was now nearly half past eight, he resolved to defer this triumph till another occasion. It was too good a thing to be disposed of in a hurry.
After breakfast, when they were working together in the drawing-room, Easton, desiring to do Owen a good turn, thought he would put him on his guard, and repeated to him in a whisper the substance of the conversation he had held with Crass concerning him.
‘Of course, you needn’t mention that I told you, Frank,’ he said, ‘but I thought I ought to let you know: you can take it from me, Crass ain’t no friend of yours.’
‘I’ve known that for a long time, mate,’ replied Owen. ‘Thanks for telling me, all the same.’
‘The bloody rotter’s no friend of mine either, or anyone else’s, for that matter,’ Easton continued, ‘but of course it doesn’t do to fall out with ‘im because you never know what he’d go and say to old ‘Unter.’
‘Yes, one has to remember that.’
‘Of course we all know what’s the matter with ‘im as far as you’re concerned,’ Easton went on. ‘He don’t like ‘avin’ anyone on the firm wot knows more about the work than ‘e does ‘imself – thinks ‘e might git worked out of ‘is job.’
Owen laughed bitterly.
‘He needn’t be afraid of me on that account. I wouldn’t have his job if it were offered to me.’
‘But ‘e don’t think so,’ replied Easton, ‘and that’s why ‘e’s got ‘is knife into you.’
‘I believe that what he said about Hunter is true enough,’ said Owen. ‘Every time he comes here he tries to goad me into doing or saying something that would give him an excuse to tell me to clear out. I might have done it before now if I had not guessed what he was after, and been on my guard.’
Meantime, Crass, in the kitchen, had resumed his seat by the fire with the purpose of finishing his pipe of tobacco. Presently he took out his pocket-book and began to write in it with a piece of black-lead pencil. When the pipe was smoked out he knocked the bowl against the grate to get rid of the ash, and placed the pipe in his waistcoat pocket. Then, having torn out the leaf on which he had been writing. he got up and went into the pantry, where Bert was still struggling with the old whitewash.
‘Ain’t yer nearly finished? I don’t want yer to stop in ‘ere all day, yer know.’
‘I ain’t got much more to do now,’ said the boy. ‘Just this bit under the bottom shelf and then I’m done.’
‘Yes, and a bloody fine mess you’ve made, what I can see of it!’ growled Crass. ‘Look at all this water on the floor!’
Bert looked guiltily at the floor and turned very red.
‘I’ll clean it all up,’ he stammered. ‘As soon as I’ve got this bit of wall done, I’ll wipe all the mess up with the swab.’
Crass now took a pot of paint and some brushes and, having put some more fuel on the fire, began in a leisurely way to paint some of the woodwork in the kitchen. Presently Bert came in.
‘I’ve finished out there,’ he said.
‘About time, too. You’ll ‘ave to look a bit livelier than you do, you know, or me and you will fall out.’
Bert did not answer.
‘Now I’ve got another job for yer. You’re fond of drorin, ain’t yer?’ continued Crass in a jeering tone.
‘Yes, a little,’ replied the boy, shamefacedly.
‘Well,’ said Crass, giving him the leaf he had torn out of the pocket-book, ‘you can go to the yard and git them things and put ‘em on a truck and dror it up ‘ere, and git back as soon as you can. Just look at the paper and see if you understand it before you go. I don’t want you to make no mistakes.’
Bert took the paper and with some difficulty read as follows:
1 pare steppes 8 foot
1/2 galoon Plastor off perish
1 pale off witewosh
12 lbs wite led
1/2 galoon Linsede Hoil
Do. Do. turps
‘I can make it out all right.’
‘You’d better bring the big truck,’ said Crass, ‘because I want you to take the Venetian blinds with you on it when you take it back tonight. They’ve got to be painted at the shop.’
‘All right.’
When the boy had departed Crass took a stroll through the house to see how the others were getting on. Then he returned to the kitchen and proceeded with his work.
Crass was about thirty-eight years of age, rather above middle height and rather stout. He had a considerable quantity of curly black hair and wore a short beard of the same colour. His head was rather large, but low, and flat on the top. When among his cronies he was in the habit of referring to his obesity as the result of good nature and a contented mind. Behind his back other people attributed it to beer, some even going so far as to nickname him the ‘tank’.
There was no work of a noisy kind being done this morning. Both the carpenters and the bricklayers having been taken away, temporarily, to another ‘job’. At the same time there was not absolute silence: occasionally Crass could hear the voices of the other workmen as they spoke to each other, sometimes shouting from one room to another. Now and then Harlow’s voice rang through the house as he sang snatches of music-hall songs or a verse of a Moody and Sankey hymn, and occasionally some of the others joined in the chorus or interrupted the singer with squeals and catcalls. Once or twice Crass was on the point of telling them to make less row: there would be a fine to do if Nimrod came and heard them. Just as he had made up his mind to tell them to stop the noise, it ceased of itself and he heard loud whispers:
‘Look out! Someone’s comin’.’
The house became very