The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Slyme accosted Bert, the boy, who was engaged in lighting a fire to boil the water to make the tea for breakfast at eight o'clock.
'There's a bloater I want's cooked,' he said.
'All right,' replied Bert, 'Put it over there on the dresser along of Philpot's and mine.'
Slyme took the bloater from his food basket, but as he was about to put it in the place indicated, he observed that his was rather a larger one than either of the other two. This was an important matter. After they were cooked it would not be easy to say which was which; he might possibly be given one of the smaller ones instead of his own. He took out his pocket-knife and cut off the tail of the large bloater.
''Ere it is, then,' he said to Bert, 'I've cut off the tail of mine so as you'll know which it is.'
It was now about twenty minutes past seven and having started all the other men at work, Crass washed his hands under the tap. Then he went into the kitchen and rigged up a seat by taking two of the drawers out of the dresser and placing them on the floor about six feet apart and laying a plank across. This done he sat down in front of the fire which was now burning brightly, and lit his pipe. The boy went into the scullery and began washing up the cups and jars for the men to drink out of.
Bert was a lean undersized boy about fifteen years of age and about four feet nine inches in height. He had light brown hair and hazel eyes, and his clothes were of many colours, being thickly encrusted with paint, the result of the unskilful manner in which he did his work, for he had only been at the trade about a year. Some of the men had nicknamed him 'the walking paint shop,' a title which he accepted good humouredly.
This boy was an orphan. His father had been a railway porter, who had worked very laboriously for twelve or fourteen hours every day for many years, with the usual result: namely, that he and his family lived in a condition of perpetual poverty. Bert, who was their only child and not very robust, had early shown a talent for drawing, so when his father died, a little over a year ago, his mother readily assented when the boy said that he wished to become a decorator. It was a nice light trade, and she thought that a really good painter, such as she was sure he would become, was at least always able to earn a good living. Resolving to give the boy the best chance, she
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