Part 8 (1/2)
I stumbled after Mr. Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase till we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the house.
I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I was to work--perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, sc.r.a.ps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and recklessness that made me shudder. The windows were tight closed to keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed breath ran in streams down the panes, chequering the dreary outlook of chimney-tops and smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men.
”Here, Crossthwaite, take this younker and make a tailor of him. Keep him next you, and p.r.i.c.k him up with your needle if he s.h.i.+rks.”
He disappeared down the trap-door, and mechanically, as if in a dream, I sat down by the man and listened to his instructions, kindly enough bestowed. But I did not remain in peace two minutes. A burst of chatter rose as the foreman vanished, and a tall, bloated, sharp-nosed young man next me bawled in my ear,--
”I say, young'un, fork out the tin and pay your footing at Conscrumption Hospital.”
”What do you mean?”
”Aint he just green?--Down with the stumpy--a tizzy for a pot of half-and-half.”
”I never drink beer.”
”Then never do,” whispered the man at my side; ”as sure as h.e.l.l's h.e.l.l, it's your only chance.”
There was a fierce, deep earnestness in the tone which made me look up at the speaker, but the other instantly chimed in--
”Oh, yer don't, don't yer, my young Father Mathy? then yer'll soon learn it here if yer want to keep yer victuals down.”
”And I have promised to take my wages home to my mother.”
”Oh criminy! hark to that, my coves! here's a chap as is going to take the blunt home to his mammy.”
”T'aint much of it the old'un'll see,” said another. ”Ven yer pockets it at the c.o.c.k and Bottle, my kiddy, yer won't find much of it left o' Sunday mornings.”
”Don't his mother know he's out?” asked another, ”and won't she know it--
”Ven he's sitting in his glory Half-price at the Victory.
”Oh! no, ve never mentions her--her name is never heard. Certainly not, by no means. Why should it?”
”Well, if yer won't stand a pot,” quoth the tall man, ”I will, that's all, and blow temperance. 'A short life and a merry one,' says the tailor--
”The ministers talk a great deal about port, And they makes Cape wine very dear, But blow their hi's if ever they tries To deprive a poor cove of his beer.
”Here, Sam, run to the c.o.c.k and Bottle for a pot of half-and-half to my score.”
A thin, pale lad jumped up and vanished, while my tormentor turned to me:
”I say, young'un, do you know why we're nearer heaven here than our neighbours?”
”I shouldn't have thought so,” answered I with a _navete_ which raised a laugh, and dashed the tall man for a moment.
”Yer don't? then I'll tell yer. A cause we're a top of the house in the first place, and next place yer'll die here six months sooner nor if yer worked in the room below. Aint that logic and science, Orator?” appealing to Crossthwaite.
”Why?” asked I.
”A cause you get all the other floors' stinks up here as well as your own. Concentrated essence of man's flesh, is this here as you're a breathing. Cellar workroom we calls Rheumatic Ward, because of the damp.
Ground-floor's Fever Ward--them as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and them as don't get dysentery gets typhus--your nose'd tell yer why if you opened the back windy. First floor's Ashmy Ward--don't you hear 'um now through the cracks in the boards, a puffing away like a nest of young locomotives? And this here most august and upper-crust c.o.c.kloft is the Conscrumptive Hospital. First you begins to cough, then you proceeds to expectorate--spittoons, as you see, perwided free gracious for nothing--fined a kivarten if you spits on the floor--