kled his forehead and
stared up at the beams as if he expected to see something unusual there.
After a while he said, very impressively: "So did mine."

The coincidence hadn't done striking him yet; he wrestled with it for
nearly a minute longer. Then he said:

"I suppose yer mother goes out washin'?"

"Yes."

"'N' cleans offices?"

"Yes."

"So does mine. Any brothers 'n' sisters?"

"Two--one brother 'n' one sister."

Bill looked relieved--for some reason.

"I got nine," he said. "Yours younger'n you?"

"Yes."

"Lot of bother with the landlord?"

"Yes, a good lot."

"Had any bailiffs in yet?"

"Yes, two."

They compared notes a while longer, and tailed off into a silence which
lasted three minutes and grew awkward towards the end.

Bill fidgeted about on the bench, reached round for a chip, but
recollected himself. Then he cocked his eye at the roof once more and
whistled, twirling a shaving round his fingers the while. At last
he tore the shaving in two, jerked it impatiently from him, and said
abruptly:

"Look here, Arvie! I'm sorry I knocked over yer barrer yesterday."

"Thank you."

This knocked Bill out the first round. He rubbed round uneasily on
the bench, fidgeted with the vise, drummed his fingers, whistled, and
finally thrust his hands in his pockets and dropped on his feet.

"Look here, Arvie!" he said in low, hurried tones. "Keep close to me
goin' out to-night, 'n' if any of the other chaps touches yer or says
anything to yer I'll hit 'em!"

Then he swung himself round the corner of a carriage "body" and was
gone.

. . . . .

Arvie was late out of the shop that evening. His boss was a
sub-contractor for the coach-painting, and always tried to find twenty
minutes' work for his boys just about five or ten minutes before the
bell rang. He employed boys because they were cheap and he had a lot of
rough work, and they could get under floors and "bogies" with their pots
and brushes, and do all the "priming" and paint the trucks. His name was
Collins, and the boys were called "Collins' Babies". It was a joke
in the shop that he had a "weaning" contract. The boys were all "over
fourteen", of course, because of the Education Act. Some were nine or
ten--wages from five shillings to ten shillings. It didn't matter
to Grinder Brothers so long as the contracts were completed and the
dividends paid. Collins preached in the park every Sunday. But this has
nothing to do with the