erials and plant, ladders, huge tressels, planks and beams of wood,
hand-carts, and wheelbarrows, heaps of sand and mortar and innumerable
other things that assumed strange fantastic shapes in the
semi-darkness. Crates and packing cases, lengths of iron guttering and
rain-pipes, old door-frames and other woodwork that had been taken from
buildings where alterations had been made. And over all these things,
a gloomy, indistinct and shapeless mass, rose the buildings and sheds
that comprised Rushton & Co.'s workshop.

Crass struck a match, and Slyme, stooping down, drew a key from a
crevice in the wall near one of the doors, which he unlocked, and they
entered. Crass struck another match and lit the gas at the jointed
bracket fixed to the wall. This was the paint-shop. At one end was a
fireplace without a grate but with an iron bar fixed across the
blackened chimney for the purpose of suspending pails or pots over the
fire, which was usually made of wood on the hearthstone. All round the
walls of the shop--which had once been whitewashed, but were now
covered with smears of paint of every colour where the men had 'rubbed
out' their brushes--were rows of shelves with kegs of paint upon them.
In front of the window was a long bench covered with an untidy litter
of dirty paint-pots, including several earthenware mixing vessels or
mortars, the sides of these being thickly coated with dried paint.
Scattered about the stone floor were a number of dirty pails, either
empty or containing stale whitewash; and standing on a sort of low
platform or shelf at one end of the shop were four large round tanks
fitted with taps and labelled 'Boiled Oil', 'Turps', 'Linseed Oil',
'Turps Substitute'. The lower parts of the walls were discoloured with
moisture. The atmosphere was cold and damp and foul with the sickening
odours of the poisonous materials.

It was in this place that Bert--the apprentice--spent most of his time,
cleaning out pots and pails, during slack periods when there were no
jobs going on outside.

In the middle of the shop, under a two-armed gas pendant, was another
table or bench, also thickly coated with old, dried paint, and by the
side of this were two large stands on which were hanging up to dry some
of the lathes of the venetian blinds belonging to 'The Cave', which
Crass and Slyme were painting--piecework--in their spare time. The
remainder of the lathes were leaning against the walls or piled in
stacks o