on's: that was one good thing.

And yet they all knew that this accident might have happened to any one
of them.

Once a couple of men got the sack because a ceiling they distempered
had to be washed off and done again. It was not really the men's fault
at all: it was a ceiling that needed special treatment and they had not
been allowed to do it properly.

But all the same, when they got the sack most of the others laughed and
sneered and were glad. Perhaps because they thought that the fact that
these two unfortunates had been disgraced, increased their own chances
of being 'kept on'. And so it was with nearly everything. With a few
exceptions, they had an immense amount of respect for Rushton and
Hunter, and very little respect or sympathy for each other.

Exactly the same lack of feeling for each other prevailed amongst the
members of all the different trades. Everybody seemed glad if anybody
got into trouble for any reason whatever.

There was a garden gate that had been made at the carpenter's shop: it
was not very well put together, and for the usual reason; the man had
not been allowed the time to do it properly. After it was fixed, one
of his shopmates wrote upon it with lead pencil in big letters: 'This
is good work for a joiner. Order one ton of putty.'

But to hear them talking in the pub of a Saturday afternoon just after
pay-time one would think them the best friends and mates and the most
independent spirits in the world, fellows whom it would be very
dangerous to trifle with, and who would stick up for each other through
thick and thin. All sorts of stories were related of the wonderful
things they had done and said; of jobs they had 'chucked up', and
masters they had 'told off': of pails of whitewash thrown over
offending employers, and of horrible assaults and batteries committed
upon the same. But strange to say, for some reason or other, it seldom
happened that a third party ever witnessed any of these prodigies. It
seemed as if a chivalrous desire to spare the feelings of their victims
had always prevented them from doing or saying anything to them in the
presence of witnesses.

When he had drunk a few pints, Crass was a very good hand at these
stories. Here is one that he told in the bar of the Cricketers on the
Saturday afternoon of the same week that Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk
got the sack. The Cricketers was only a few minutes walk from the shop
and at pay-time a number of t