<h2><SPAN name="page108"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>XII.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">But</span> Monday saw another
beginning. Johnny must rise soon after five now, to reach
his work at six; but on this, the first morning, he was awake and
eager at half-past four. Early as he was, his mother was
before him, and as he pulled his new white ducks over his
every-day clothes he could hear her moving below. Nan May
was resolved that the boy should go out to begin the world fed
and warm at least, and as cheerful as might be.</p>
<p>For this one morning Johnny felt nothing of the sleepy
discomfort of any house in pitch dark a little before five.
Two breakfasts were ready for him, one for the present moment
(which he scarce touched, for he was excited), and another in a
basin and a red handkerchief, for use at the workshop, with a new
tin can full of coffee. For the half-hour allowed for
breakfast would scarce suffice for the mere hurrying home and
hurrying back again; and the full hour at midday would give him
bare time for dinner with his mother.</p>
<p>Bessy was infected with the excitement, and stumped downstairs
to honour Johnny’s setting out. He left the <SPAN name="page109"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>shop-door
half an hour too soon, with a boot flung after him. The
darkness of the street seemed more solid at this hour than ever
at midnight, and it almost smothered the faint gas-lights.
Now and again a touch of sleet came down the wind, and a little
dirty, half-melted snow of yesterday made the ways sloppy.
Nobody was about, to view the manly glory of Johnny’s white
ducks, and he was not sorry now that his overcoat largely hid
them, for the wind was cold. And he reflected with
satisfaction that the warming of his coffee on a furnace would
smoke the inglorious newness off the tin can ere he carried it
home in the open day.</p>
<p>The one or two policemen he met regarded him curiously, for
workmen were not yet moving. But the coffee-stall was open
by the swing bridge, and here the wind came over the river with
an added chill. The coffee-stall keeper had no customers,
and on the bridge and in the straight street beyond it nobody was
in sight. Till presently a small figure showed indistinctly
ahead, and crossed the road as though to avoid him. It
moved hurriedly, keeping timidly to the wall, and Johnny saw it
was a girl of something near his own age. He tramped on,
and the girl, once past, seemed to gather courage, turned, and
made a few steps after him. At this he stopped, and she
spoke from a few yards off. She was a decently-dressed and
rather a pretty girl, as he could see by the bad light of the
nearest lamp, <SPAN name="page110"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
110</span>but her face was drawn with alarm, and her eyes were
wet.</p>
<p>“Please have you seen a lady anywhere?” she asked
tremulously. “Ill?”</p>
<p>Johnny had seen no lady, ill or well, and when he said no, the
young girl, with a weak “Thank-you,” hastened on her
way. It was very odd, thought Johnny, as he stared into the
dark where she vanished. Who should lose a
lady—ill—in Blackwall streets at this time of a pitch
dark morning? As he thought, there rose in his mind the
picture of gran’dad, straying and bloody and sick to death,
that night that seemed so far away, though it was but a month or
two since. Maybe the lady had wandered from her bed in some
such plight as that. Johnny was sorry for the girl’s
trouble, and would have liked to turn aside and join in her
search; but this was the hour of great business of his own, and
he went his way about it.</p>
<p>The policemen were knocking at doors now, rousing workmen, who
answered with shouts from within. An old night-watchman,
too, scurrying his hardest (for he had farther to go than the
policemen), banged impatiently at the knockers of the more
conservative and old-fashioned. And as Johnny neared
Maidment and Hurst’s, the streets grew busy with the
earliest workmen—those who lived farthest from their
labour.</p>
<p>Maidment and Hurst’s gate was shut fast; he was <SPAN name="page111"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>far too
soon. He tried the little door that was cut in the great
gate, but that was locked. He wondered if he ought to
knock; and did venture on a faint tap of the knuckles. But
he might as well have tapped the brick wall. Moreover, a
passing apprentice observed the act, and guffawed aloud.
“Try down the airey, mate,” was his advice.</p>
<p>So Johnny stood and waited, keeping the new tin can where the
gaslight over the gate should not betray its unsmoked brightness,
and trying to look as much like an old hand as possible.
But the passing men grinned at each other, jerking their heads
toward him, and Johnny felt that somehow he was known for a
greenhorn. The apprentices, immeasurable weeks ahead of him
in experience, flung ironic advice and congratulation.
“Hooray! Extry quarter for you, mate!” two or
three said; one earnestly advising him to “chalk it on the
gaffer’s ’at, so’s ’e won’t
forget.” And still another shouted in tones of
extravagant indignation:—“What? On’y
jes’ come? They bin a-waitin’ for ye ever since
the pubs shut!”</p>
<p>At length the timekeeper came, sour and grey, and tugged at a
vertical iron bell-handle which Johnny had not perceived.
The bell brought the night-watchman, with a lantern and a clank
of keys, and the timekeeper stepped through the little door with
a growl in <SPAN name="page112"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
112</span>acknowledgment. He left the door ajar, and
Johnny, after a moment’s hesitation, stepped in after
him.</p>
<p>“Mr. Cottam told me to come this morning, sir,” he
said, before the timekeeper had quite disappeared into his
box. “My name’s May.”</p>
<p>The timekeeper turned and growled again, that being his usual
manner of conversation. “Awright,” he
continued. “You wait there till ’e comes in
then.” And it was many months ere Johnny next heard
him say so much at once.</p>
<p>The timekeeper began hanging round metal tickets on a great
board studded with hooks, a ticket to each hook, in numbered
order. Presently a man came in at the door, selected a
ticket from the board, and dropped it through a slot into what
seemed to be a big money-box. Then three came together, and
each did the same. Then there came a stream of men and
boys, and the board grew barer of tickets and barer. In the
midst came Mr. Cottam, suddenly appearing within the impossibly
small wicket as by a conjuring trick.</p>
<p>He tramped heavily straight ahead, apparently unconscious of
Johnny. But as he came by he dropped his hand on the
boy’s shoulder, and, gazing steadily ahead: “Well, me
lad!” he roared, much as though addressing somebody at a
window of the factory across the yard.</p>
<p>“Good-morning, sir,” Johnny answered, walking at
<SPAN name="page113"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>the
foreman’s side by compulsion; for the hand, however
friendly, was the heaviest and strongest he had ever felt.</p>
<p>Mr. Cottam went several yards in silence, still gripping
Johnny’s shoulder. Then he spoke again.
“Mother all right?” he asked fiercely, still
addressing the window.</p>
<p>“Yes, sir, thank-you.”</p>
<p>They walked on, and entered the factory. “This
’ere,” said Mr. Cottam, turning on Johnny at last and
glaring at him sternly: “this ’ere’s the big
shop. ’Eavy work. There’s a big cylinder
for the noo Red Star boat.” He led his prisoner
through the big shop, this way and that among the great lathes
and planers, lit by gas from the rafters; and up a staircase to
another workshop. “’Ere we are,” said Mr.
Cottam, releasing Johnny’s shoulder at last.
“Y’ain’t a fool, are ye? Know what a
lathe is, doncher, an’ beltin’, an’
shaftin’? Awright. Needn’t do
nothin’ ’fore breakfast. Look about an’
see things, an’ don’t get in mischief. I got me
eye on ye.”</p>
<p>The foreman left him, and began to walk along the lines of
machines; and the nearest apprentice grinned at Johnny, and
winked. Johnny looked about, as the foreman had
advised. This place, where he was to learn to make engines,
and where he was to work day by day till he was twenty-one, and a
man, was a vast <SPAN name="page114"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
114</span>room with skylights in the roof: though this latter
circumstance he did not notice till after breakfast, when the gas
was turned off, and daylight penetrated from above. A
confusion of heavy raftering stretched below the roof, carrying
belted shafting everywhere; and every man bent over his machine
or his bench, for Cottam was a sharp gaffer. Johnny watched
the leading hand scribing curves on metal along lines already set
out by punctured dots. “Lining off,” said the
leading hand, seeing the boy’s interest. And then,
leaning over to speak, because of the workshop din:
“Centre-dabs,” he added, pointing to the dots.
<i>That</i>, at least, Johnny resolved not to forget: lining off
and centre-dabs.</p>
<p>For some reason—perhaps the usual reason, perhaps
another—three or four of the men were “losing a
quarter” that Monday morning, and some of them were men
with whom young apprentices had been working. Consequently,
Cottam, in addition to his general supervision, had to keep
particular watch on these mentorless lads, and Johnny learned a
little from the gaffer’s remarks.</p>
<p>“Well, wotjer doin’ with that file?” he
would ask of one. “You ain’t a-playin’
cat’s cradle now, me lad! Look ’ere, keep
’er level, like this! It’s a file, it
ain’t a rockin’-’orse!”</p>
<p>Or he would come behind another who was chipping <SPAN name="page115"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>bye-metal,
and using a hammer with more zeal than skill. He would
watch for a moment, and then break out, “Well, you are fond
o’ exercise, I must say! Good job you’re strong
enough to stand it. <i>I</i> ain’t. My
constitootion won’t allow me to ’old a ’ammer
like this ’ere.” This with a burlesque of the
lad’s stiff grasp and whole-arm action. “It
’ud knock me up. Bein’ a more delicate sort
o’ person” (his arm was near as thick as the
boy’s waist) “I ’old a ’ammer like
this—see!” And he took the shaft end loosely in
his fingers and hammered steadily and firmly from the
wrist. Johnny saw that and remembered.</p>
<p>Again, half an hour later, stopping at the elbow of another
apprentice, a little older than the last: “Come,”
said the foreman, “that’s a noo idea, that is!
Takin’ auf the skin from cast iron with a bran’ noo
file! I ’ope you’ve patented it.
An’ I ’ope you won’t come an’ want
another file in about ’alf an hour, ’cos if you do
you won’t git it!” Whereat Johnny, astonished
to learn that cast iron had a skin, resolved not to forget that
you shouldn’t take it off with a new file, and made a
mental note to ask somebody why.</p>
<p>Presently, as he came by the long fitting-bench, Johnny grew
aware of a fitter, immensely tall and very thin, who grinned and
nodded in furtive recognition. It was, indeed, the next
door lodger, who had painted the cornice. He was very
large, Johnny thought, to be so <SPAN name="page116"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>shy; he positively blushed as he
grinned. “You come to this shop?” he asked in
his odd whisper, as he stooped to judge the fit of his
work. “I’m beddin’ down a junk ring;
p’raps the gaffer’ll put you to ’elp me after
breakfast.”</p>
<p>Bedding down a junk ring sounded advanced and technical, and
Johnny felt taller at the prospect. He would learn what a
junk ring was, probably, when he had to help bed it down.
Meanwhile he watched the tall man, as he brought the metal to an
exact face.</p>
<p>“Stop in to breakfast?” the man asked, as he
stooped again.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Some o’ the boys ’ll try a game with ye,
p’raps. Don’t mind a little game, do
ye?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Ah, I couldn’t stand it when I was a lad.
Made me mis’rable. When ye go in the smiths’
shop to git yer breakfast, look about ye, if they’re
special kind findin’ y’ a seat. Up above,
f’r instance.”</p>
<p>Johnny left the long man, and presently observed that the
foreman was not in the shop. There was an instant slackness
perceivable among the younger and less steady men, for the
leading hand had no such authority as Cottam. One man at a
lathe, throwing out his gear examined his work, and, turning to
Johnny, said, “Look <SPAN name="page117"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>’ere, me lad; I want to true
this ’ere bit. Jes’ you go an’ ask Sam
Wilkins—that man up at the end there, in the serge
jacket—jes’ you go an’ ask ’im for the
round square.”</p>
<p>Johnny knew the tool called a square, used for testing the
truth of finished work, though he had never seen a round
one. Howbeit he went off with alacrity: but it seemed that
Sam Wilkins hadn’t the round square. It was Joe
Mills, over in the far corner. So he tried Joe Mills; but
he, it seemed, had just lent it to Bob White, at the biggest
shaping-machine near the other end. Bob White understood
perfectly, but thought he had last seen the round square in the
possession of George Walker. Whereas George Walker was
perfectly certain that it had gone downstairs to Bill Cook in the
big shop. Doubting nothing from the uncommonly solemn faces
of Sam and Joe and Bob and George, Johnny set off down the stone
stairs, where he met the ascending gaffer, on his way back from
the pattern-maker’s shop.</p>
<p>“’Ullo boy,” he said, “where you
goin’?”</p>
<p>“Downstairs, sir, for the round square.”</p>
<p>Mr. Cottam’s eyes grew more prominent, and there were
certain sounds, as of an imprisoned bull-frog, from somewhere
deep in his throat. But his expression relaxed not a
shade. Presently he said, “Know what a round
is?”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page118"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
118</span>“Yes sir.”</p>
<p>“Know what a square is?”</p>
<p>“Yes sir.”</p>
<p>“S’pose somebody wanted a round square drored on
paper, what ’ud ye do?”</p>
<p>There was another internal croak, and somehow Johnny felt
emboldened. “I think,” he said, with some sly
hesitation, “I think I’d tell ’em to do it
themselves.”</p>
<p>Mr. Cottam croaked again, louder, and this time with a heave
of the chest. “Awright,” he said,
“that’s good enough. Better say somethink like
that to them as sent ye. That’s a very old
’ave, that is.”</p>
<p>He resumed his heavy progress up the stairs, turning Johnny
round by the shoulder, and sending him in front. There were
furtive grins in the shop, and one lad asked “Got
it?” in a voice cautiously subdued. But just then the
bell rang for breakfast.</p>
<p>Most of the men and several of the boys made their best pace
for the gate. These either lived near, or got their
breakfasts at coffee-shops, and their half-hour began and ended
in haste. The few others, more leisurely, stayed to gather
their cans and handkerchiefs—some to wipe their hands on
cotton waste, that curious tangled stuff by which alone Johnny
remembered his father. As for him, he waited to do what the
rest did, for he saw that his friend, the long man, had gone out
with the patrons of coffee-shops. The boys took their cans
and <SPAN name="page119"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
119</span>clattered down to the smiths’ shop, Johnny well
in the rear, for he was desirous of judging from a safe distance,
what form the “little game” might take, that the long
man had warned him of, in case it came soon. But a wayward
fate preserved him from booby-traps that morning.</p>
<p>In the first place, he had come in a cap, and so forfended one
ordeal. For it was the etiquette of the shop among
apprentices that any bowler hat brought in on the head of a new
lad must be pinned to the wall with the tangs of many files;
since a bowler hat, ere a lad had four years at least of service,
was a pretension, a vainglory, and an outrage. Next, his
lagging saved his new ducks. The first lads down had
prepared the customary trap, which consisted of a seat of honour
in the best place near the fire; a seat doctored with a pool of
oil, and situated exactly beneath a rafter on which stood a can
of water taken from a lathe; a string depending from the can,
with its lower end fastened behind the seat. So that the
victim accepting the accommodation would receive a large oily
embellishment on his new white ducks, and, by the impact of his
back against the string, induce a copious christening of himself
and his entire outfit. But it chanced that an elderly
journeyman from the big shop—old Ben Cutts—appeared
on the scene early, wiping his spectacles on his jacket lining as
he came. He knew nothing of a <SPAN name="page120"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>fresh ’prentice, saw nothing
but a convenient and warm seat, and hastened to seize it.</p>
<p>The lads were taken by surprise. “No—not
there!” shouted one a few yards away.</p>
<p>“Fust come fust served, me lad,” chuckled old Ben
Cutts, as he dropped on the fatal spot. “’Ere I
am, an’ ’ere I—”</p>
<p>With that the can fell, and Johnny at the door was astonished
to observe a grey-headed workman, with a pair of spectacles in
his hand and a vast oily patch on his white overalls, dripping
and dancing and swearing, and smacking wildly at the heads of the
boys about him, without hitting any.</p>
<p>There were no more tricks that breakfast-time. For when
at length old Ben subsided to his meal, he put a little pile of
wedges by his side, to fling at the first boy of whose behaviour
he might disapprove. And as his spectacles were now on his
nose, and his aim, thus aided, was known to be no bad one, and as
the wedges, furthermore, were both hard and heavy, breakfasts
were eaten with all the decorum possible in a smiths’
shop.</p>
<p>Johnny’s new can was satisfactorily blackened, and his
breakfast was well disposed of. Such youths as tried him
with verbal chaff he answered as well as he might, though he had
as yet little of the Cockney boy’s readiness. And at
last the bell rang again, and the breakfasters went back to
work.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page121"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Mr.
Cottam, casting his glance about the shop in search of the
simplest possible job for Johnny to begin on, with a steady man
at hand to watch him, stopped as his gaze reached Long Hicks, and
sent Johnny to help him with his bolts. And so Johnny found
the tall man’s surmise verified, and the tall man himself
received him with another grin a little less shy. He set
him to running down bolts and nuts, showing him how to fix the
bolt in a vice and work the nut on it with a spanner.
Johnny fell to the task enthusiastically, and so the morning
went.</p>
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