Читать книгу Confessions of a Tradesman - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 4

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With the causes of my first plunge into the troubled waters of trade at the early age of nine I have here nothing to do. It must suffice to say that one spring morning, over forty years ago, I entered the emporium of an oil, colour, and Italian warehouseman (to quote from his fascia), in what was then known as Kensal New Town, a neighbourhood that had long been of unsavoury reputation, but was emerging into something like respectability by the aid of sundry long rows of jerry-built, stucco-ornamented houses, the inhabitants of which tried hard to forget the former appellation of their chosen abiding-place, and dated their letters, when they wrote any, from Upper Westbourne Park.

Mingled with the rows of mean streets of private dwellings were a few scattered shops tenanted by brave and daring folk who lived principally upon hope and a little capital. One of these had established himself between a butcher and a baker, and having laid in a stock of the amazingly miscellaneous description which characterises what we in London call, tout court, an "oil shop," awaited local custom. But having no children to assist him, and his wife being fully occupied with household duties, he sought additional help, and I obtained the situation. How vivid and fresh is the recollection of my opening morn! With what awe did I gaze upon the closely packed shop, wondering however mortal mind could tell where everything was stowed; how curiously did I sniff the mingled odours of paint, soap, paraffin, glue, dog-biscuit, size, etc., all combined by the piney scent of the newly chopped wood which was stacked in halfpenny bundles up against the counter.

My employer was a stout, stern, dark man, who appeared to me like the dread arbiter of my fate, and his deep voice sent a thrill of apprehension through me as he gave me my first order, which was to carry home some wood, seven bundles for threepence, to one of the aristocracy of the vicinity. It was a heavy load for my thin arms, but had I been unable to lift it I should have strained myself to injury point in the endeavour to do so, such was my pride in my first commission. I wasted no time on the way, and ran back with the cash, triumphant, panting with exertion, pride, and the consciousness of ability.

Thenceforward I knew no idle moments, for my master was an expert in keeping me at it; he was never at a loss for a job for me, nor, to do him justice, did I ever see him idle himself. In fact, my only respite during the long day, from 7 A.M. till 10 P.M., was when, munching my crusts of bread and dripping, I minded the shop during his meal times, my mouth watering at the savoury smells which assailed my nostrils through all the reek of the shop, from his little parlour.

I have now a curious notion that I was too willing, because I know that I must have made him forget how puny an urchin I was, or he would never have sent me on the errands he did. One of these in the early days of my service with him stands out, salient, against the background of memory. It was in the early days of the Metropolitan Railway, which then ran only from Shepherd's Bush to Moorgate Street. There was a funny little primitive station at Westbourne Park, which was but a mile from our shop, and one day, giving me a few pence for my half-fare, he despatched me to Shoreditch to fetch something, I knew not what, for which he had given me an order in a sealed envelope. Proud as possible, I dashed off, took my ticket at Westbourne Park for the City, and arriving at Moorgate Street, inquired my way to Shoreditch, which I reached without any difficulty. A salesman took my order, looked at me, and said loftily, "Ow yer goin' ter take it?" In reply I only stared dumbly, because I had no idea what "it" was. He shrugged his shoulders and retired, presently bringing forward an iron drum full of treacle, which he plumped before me, saying, "There y' are." I looked at it helplessly for a moment, and then looked at him; but seeing no encouragement in his eye, essayed to lift it, and found that I could just manage to raise it an inch or two from the floor.

"Can't carry it," I said.

"Nothin' to do wi' me," he replied, taking it up—oh, so easily, I thought—and putting it outside on the pavement. I did not need telling what that meant, and so calling my wits to work, I did the best I knew, that is, I turned it over on its side and rolled it! Yes, I rolled it along Shoreditch, up Worship Street, and along Finsbury Pavement, until I came opposite Moorgate Street Station, where I halted, baffled by the width of that great highway. But a kindly costermonger came to my aid, and, finding what the trouble was, uttered many strange words about the behaviour of whoever had sent such a kid on an errand of this kind; then, hoisting the drum on his barrow, he wheeled it across the road and deposited it within the station. Thence I rolled it to the steps and managed to work it down them on to the platform (I am afraid I quite forgot to thank my kind helper), where it was lifted into the van by a sympathetic guard, and we rattled off to Westbourne Park. Arriving there, and being helped again by the tender-hearted guard aforesaid, I rolled my incubus into a dark corner, and fled shopwards, pantingly explaining on arrival that I wanted the "truck." Granted, with gloomy brows, by the boss.

Now this truck, of which more anon, was one of those curiously shaped ones used exclusively by wine merchants at that time. It was curved and hollow, in order to take one barrel. It had a very long push handle, and no bottom. So you can imagine how difficult was my journey with that drum upon it, a veritable pilgrimage of pain. Let me pause awhile to solemnly curse that truck, and the evil chance that harnessed me to its awkwardness. Nevertheless upon this occasion I did reach my journey's end in safety, with the drum and its contents intact, only to be grumbled at because I had been so long!

But before I quit the subject of that truck, I must tell of my great exploit in connection with it. It was so entirely unhandy and unsuitable for general purposes, besides being so infernally heavy to push or pull that it was as much as I could do to handle it when empty. Yet I was so willing and eager that my employer forgot my pigmy size and put me to tasks absurdly beyond my strength, simply because he didn't think. I don't for a moment believe he was deliberately cruel or callous, and I know that although entirely free to do so, and often sorely aggravated, he never struck me, nor ever abused me. One day, however, he sent me on an errand to the older part of Kensal New Town with a hundredweight of bar soap in a box balanced on that truck. For some reason, which I forget, but probably hurry, he omitted to lash the box—it would have been a difficult operation in any case; and so I started off, trying to push the truck with one hand and hold the box on with the other, as the truck jolted over the stones—and succeeded fairly well too, until I came to a quagmire of a road where building was going on. Still I strove, the truck bumping horribly over the boulders hidden beneath the mud, until, when abreast of a church, which was just abuilding, the calamity which had been looming ever since I left the shop occurred—the box slid off the truck and capsized in the mud. The bars of soap flew in all directions, disposing themselves picturesquely as if planted in the slush, and I surveyed the awful scene in a sort of philosophic calm, feeling indeed that kismet had conquered me, and not carelessness or inefficiency. It never occurred to me to blame my employer.

From that stupor or reverie I was aroused by the loud laughter of the bricklayers on the scaffolding near at hand, and I sprang with desperate energy to the task of righting the wrong. First, I replaced the box, then, stripping off my little jacket, I disinterred bar after bar of the soap. I scraped the thick of the mud off on the side of the barrow, and then wiping the bars as clean as I could on my jacket, I replaced them one by one in the box, nor did I lose any. By the time I had finished, and I had no help, a circumstance which even now I wonder at—it would have been hard to tell which was muddiest, the truck, the box, the soap, or myself. But my only object being to get that box home, I took no heed of such an extrinsic matter as mud; and when, at last, I pushed off again with my cargo, I felt quite a glow of legitimate pride, for that I had retrieved my disaster.

How I escaped another before emerging from that bad road I do not know; but I did, and presently arrived at my destination, overheated, unrecognisable for mud, but triumphant. I knocked at the door, and the laundress appeared, a comely figure in spotless print. She gave a little start back when she saw me, as if she feared I would soil her eyesight, but I said quickly—

"Please, 'm, I've brought the soap."

She, incredulously, "Oh, 'ave yer! Well, it's abaht time. Bring it in."

I hastened to the barrow, loaded myself with an armful of bars, and hastened back. But she met me at the door, and glancing at my burden, put up her hand in protest, crying—

"What the devil d'ye call that."

"It's the soap, m'am," replied I meekly.

"Don't you dare bring none o' that muck in 'ere, young man," said she grimly.

Then I pleaded that a little scraping would make it all right, and used other feeble arguments, to all of which she presented a stony front, when suddenly our conference was interrupted by the appearance of my employer, who, with profuse apologies, wheeled away the soap, leaving me to follow, but apparently caring not whether I did. I felt terribly guilty as I followed him back, and never dreamed of blaming him for the catastrophe. I have often wondered since whether he blamed himself.

Be that as it may, I remember he said no word as we twain unloaded the sombre cargo and scraped each bar with utter care, making the scrapings into a ball. It was a long job, for customers kept coming in for pennyworths of soap, and halfpenny bundles of wood, and farthingsworths of blacking, at which trivial interruptions he still evinced no irritability, but when at last all was finished he weighed the ball of scrapings and found it equivalent to three bars and a half of soap. These he added to the pile of cleansed bars, repacked them, and started me off again, warning me, however, to go a long way round in order to avoid the road where I had come to grief; and on Saturday night he stopped the value of that soap out of my week's wages, which left me 2s., for I was then receiving 4s. per week.

As I lived with a laundress, I was able to make a bargain for the ball of soap-scrapings, so managed to scrape through, though not without difficulty and many cursory remarks upon my behaviour. Now, as if my troubles were not sufficient, the baker's and butcher's boys on either side conceived a dislike to me, and lost no opportunity of making my life a burden, especially when, during spells of leisure in the evenings, I watched the store of pails, crockery, etc., arranged outside the shop. Many and harsh were the tricks they played on me, until I discovered that they both smoked, and thenceforward I purchased immunity from persecution with handfuls of shag tobacco, purloined from the back of the counter while the boss was inside at his meals, not recking of the risk I ran, in view of present ease.

My experiences altogether were of an exceedingly varied character in this business, and I must often have made my employer feel that life was hardly worth living when my blunders were frequent and painful; yet, on the whole, I feel that he had his full money's worth out of me—especially on Saturday nights, when the shop would be full, mostly of urchins carrying all sorts of utensils and yelling "pint er penny oy-el," in twenty different keys all at once, while almost everybody watched an opportunity to steal a bundle of wood or some other trifling article. Once, indeed, a purblind old woman put a bundle of wood in her basket abstractedly, not noticing that it had a piece of thin string fast to it, and methinks I can now see her amazed face as on nearing the door the string grew tight and jerked her plunder out of the basket along with some other small parcels. But my governor was equal to the occasion. He said calmly—

"I don't think I took for that bundle, m'am, and you somehow got hold of the wrong one," quietly putting it back and handing her another, which she took, and forked out the halfpenny.

But after about four months matters reached a climax. I was sent hurriedly to Paddington one night for a box of tallow candles of about ten pounds' weight, with urgent orders to hurry, as the stock was out. I did hurry. On the way back, running down Brindley street with the box on my head, I stumbled, and the box flew off into the road with a crash. It did not break, so I snatched it up and ran off again. Arriving at the shop all breathless, I found three customers waiting to be served with candles. The boss seized the box, burst it open, and, lo! there was not a whole candle within! He glared at me, but refrained from expressing any opinion. Apologising to his customers, he dismissed them candleless. Then turning to me, he said, with an effort, "You'll go on Saturday. And take those candles for your week's wages. I've had enough of you." And probably he had.

Incidentally, I may mention that the laundress with whom I lived, and for whom I worked when out of a job, resented intensely my bringing home those candles in lieu of four shillings, and I suffered many things until the last of those mutilated lumps of tallow and cotton had been disposed of.

I spent about a month of misery working in the laundry at night, and by day looking for a job, until I obtained a situation at a boot-shop in Archer Street, Notting Hill, as errand-boy, my wages being 3s. 6d. per week and my tea. Here my opportunities for blundering were fewer, the business being so much more simple. My duties were to run errands, dust the shop, and keep the floor clean. I was really much better off than before, though the hours were very long, till ten every night but Saturday, and then till midnight; for my work was not heavy, and the good meal I got every evening was a great help. But I confess sadly that, all my earnings going for my lodgings, I devised a dishonest plan for getting a little pocket-money. When taking home the repairs, I would add threepence or sixpence to the price, and when my scheme panned out all right, as it often did, I pocketed the difference. But of course I was soon discovered, and literally kicked out by my irate employer, who stigmatised me as a young thief, and spoke of prison and the policeman, whom I dreaded far more.

I pass over the weary time of waiting for another job, when indeed I worked far harder than while in a place, and come to my next billet, which was at a trunk-maker's in the Edgware Road. Whether my employer was the owner of the business or not I never knew, but, as I remember him, he was more like a soulless automaton than a man. He employed no one but me in the huge shop, and only one man in the workshop below, who was principally at work making, that is covering, ladies' dress-baskets. Every morning at eight, after hoisting the revolving shutters with a winch handle, I toiled, with occasional assistance from the governor, in building up a huge pile of trunks, bags, boxes, etc., outside the shop, a pile which was made more imposing by a great, black, box-like thing, about ten feet long by three feet square, which he used to help me lug in and out.

He lived in a little den in one corner of the shop, and made his meals of tea (which he made over the gas-flame by which he wrote) and bread and butter, which I fetched for him, a twopenny coburg, and two ounces of fourteenpenny Dorset at a time. Never once did he speak a kind or considerate word to me, or even offer me a crust of his bread—no, he used to save and soak them and eat them himself; at which I wondered and grumbled secretly, for I felt that he could well afford to leave me a few scraps, as I was always hungry. But 'twas not i' the bond.

I had very little to do here in the way of errand-running, but I had no idle moments, and when not occupied in the almost interminable job of dusting the stock and cleaning out the shop, I could always find work below, making paste and lining the cheap boxes we made for servants. And here I was quite happy, for the journeyman was a genial soul and beguiled the time with jokes and snatches of song, often too giving me a portion of his frugal dinner or a halfpenny, which I promptly invested in "broken stale" at the baker's hard by, where I purchased the governor's coburgs.

But it was a dull, hard, monotonous life, and only for the fact that I occasionally got hold of a copy of the "Boys of England," "The Young Briton," or the "Sons of Britannia," among the waste-paper we used for linings, and lost myself in the realms of romance with "Caradoc the Briton," "Alone in the Pirate's Lair," or the "Young Centurion," there would have been hardly a gleam of sunshine in my young life. Those blessed stories supplied the place of pleasant companions and of kind words, and were in a great measure educational—at any rate, they were all the schooling in one sense that I had.

I had been at this slow business several months, when one day my employer, without thinking, I am sure, of what he was doing, sent me to Hoxton to fetch a full-sized leather portmanteau from one of the small workers who make such things at home. Of course he gave me no money for travelling, my time at four shillings a week was not valuable, and off I set. Arriving at my journey's end, and stating my errand, the man handed the article to me, that is he put it outside his door, and left me to deal with it as best I could. Now, it was so large that I could almost have got into it, and it was correspondingly heavy. But I was six miles from home, and had to do something; so, as I could not lift it, I started to drag it along the pavement through a light, drizzling rain. Coming to an oil-shop, I went in and begged a yard of clothesline, which I rove through the handle, and, incredible as it may appear, I actually towed that portmanteau home. I was nearly four hours doing that six miles, and reached the shop late in the evening, dead beat, but triumphant.

It was a short-lived triumph, though, for that spruce portmanteau looked as if it had been subjected to years of the hardest wear, and was besides almost covered with mud. My employer gave one glance at it, uttered a sort of whoop, and sat down trembling. I stood facing him, wondering what would happen. Suddenly he rose and uttered his nightly formula, "Close the establishment."

As soon as that heavy task was done, he placed two shillings in my hand (it was Wednesday night), and said, "If ever you come near this shop again, and I catch you, I'll break every bone in your skin." I said, "Good night, sir," and fled, pleased to think I had escaped so easily. And thus abruptly ended my acquaintance with the trunk-maker's art. Hitherto, it must be confessed, I had made no great hit at commerce, not even having been able to obtain a character. But I suppose I was an unconscious opportunist, for I wasted little energy in vain regrets, but cast about for a new opening after each phase of experience.