The Master Craftsman

That was how it began. We entered upon this exchange without understanding what was to follow—who ever understands what is to follow? If we were to understand what is to follow, nobody would do anything, because whatever follows is sure to contain the drop of bitterness, or incompleteness, or the unlooked-for evil that goes with everything. We were, in fact, without knowing it, preparing for an exchange. As you shall see, the bargain meant that Robert was to take my place, and I was to take his. But as yet, I say, we suspected nothing of this.

In the morning I presented myself in the guise of a working man; that is to say, I put on a fishing costume of tweeds. Perhaps, as a working man, I ought not to have taken a hansom; but, of course, one is not correct all at once in every detail.

Robert came out of the box he called an office.

‘Humph!’ he said doubtfully, ‘didn’t expect you; thought you’d think better of it.’

‘I have thought better of it—much better of it.’

He considered a little. ‘If you really mean business,’ he said. ‘Of course you can’t learn the thing in twelve months. I was apprenticed for seven years. Still, if you are sharp and handy, and have got the courage to stick at it, you can learn a good bit in that time. Well, and about that—that other proposal.’ He looked round, as if afraid that his men would hear. Why, if anybody knew that he—he, the Master—was going to the West End to learn manners, the laughter and the scorn of it would be inextinguishable.

‘That stands, too,’ I replied.

He laughed and called his foreman, and we had a little serious conversation.

The amateur who stands at a lathe can knock off when he likes; if his fingers get tired he rests; he takes a cigarette; he sits down for a bit; he goes on again when he feels like going on again. The working man, on the other hand, cannot knock off; he must go on; he learns very early the lesson that he must not get tired—or if he does get tired that he must work on all the same; if he gets hot he must go on getting hotter. All this he learns as a boy, and I should think it must take half his apprenticeship to learn it.

‘How do you like it?’ Robert asked grimly an hour afterwards.

I confess that I was enduring acute pains in the right arm, heavy pains in the left arm, dull pains in both legs, and grievous pains in the back; that my brow was like that of the village blacksmith at his best, and that I went on doggedly only because the other fellows, my companions, my brother chips, were going on steadily, as if there was no such thing as bodily suffering.

‘It isn’t quite like a fancy lathe, is it?’

I straightened myself painfully, and laid down the tool.

‘You’ll get tired of it in a day.’

‘I shall not allow myself to get tired of it. Let me learn how to build a boat.’

‘Have your own way. If you do stick to the work, I shall think all the better of you. No one knows how to take you, with your light touch-and-go talk, as if all the world was made to be laughed at.’

‘I now understand that only a very small proportion of the world is permitted to laugh. Henceforth I am as serious as’—I looked round the yard—‘as serious as your workmen.’ They did look serious, perhaps on account of the artistic responsibility of their craft. ‘In plain words, my cousin, don’t let us talk of any lack of seriousness. I am next door to a pauper, and I am going to be a builder of boats—Burnikel boats—like my great-grandfather.’

‘You shall try, then. I will teach you all I can. But sit down a bit; there’s no need to break your back over the job. There’s other things in the trade besides the actual work. This isn’t a bad trade as things go; but no trade is altogether what the parsons call Christian, and that’s what you will have to learn.’

‘Must there be tricks in everything?’

‘Well, money-making means besting your neighbour. Of course you know nothing about the way in which money is made. You think it just grows.’

‘So it does, if you let it alone. It grows luxuriantly. If you spend it, of course it can’t grow.’

‘But you’ve got to make it first. There’s a great fight—a deadly fight—always going on between us all. The masters want to starve the men; the men want to choke the masters; the buyers and the sellers cheat and lie, and coax and wheedle, all the time. You’ll have to join in that struggle, and, mind, it goes on for ever. There never will be any end to this fight; it’s the everlasting struggle for existence. There are five millions in this big place—one million of grown men. All but a mere handful are in the fight. Not that many are of much account.’

‘I believe I can fight as well as most. At all events, I shall try.’

‘Its a kind of fight that you’ve never learned; that’s what I mean, and you won’t like it. First of all, you’ve got to put your pride in your pocket. Do you understand what that means? You’ve got to be civil to men that you’d like to kick. What do you think of that?’

‘That’s nothing at all—common politeness. I am every day civil to men whom I ardently desire to kick.’

‘You think that all you have to do is to make good boats. Man, you’ve got to use your shoulders and to push and shove in order even to keep your connection together. How will you like that?’

‘It’s much the same higher up. No one can escape the common lot. I shall try to push forward. My shoulders, you may observe, are nearly as broad as your own.’

‘Then you’ve got to fight for your prices, to seem yielding, and to fight hard, and to be hail-fellow-well-met with every man that may want to buy a boat; vermin, some of them—vermin and creeping and crawling things. Friendly with them. How will you like that?’

‘One is bound everywhere to politeness with the man of the moment. We all do it.’

‘You’ve got to best your man, or he’ll best you. How will you like that?’

‘Besting your neighbour may be conducted so as to become an intellectual game.’

‘And you must call it good business, not over-reaching, when you succeed.’

‘My cousin, you fill me with enthusiasm. Let us go on.’

‘Go on, then, and good luck to you!’

Thus was the apprentice placed in the hands of the foreman, and practical instruction was commenced. Like Czar Peter at Deptford, which was just across the river, I began to work with my own hands. Well, I had in me, to begin with, the makings of a good workman: hand and eye, and the command of tools, which go with the good workman.

At half-past twelve we knocked off for dinner. Quite ready I was to knock off. I walked across the street with my cousin and joined in the early dinner, which was served at one. We had, I remember, stalled ox and humming ale, and a ginger pudding.

‘Going to learn how to build a boat, are you?’ said the Captain. ‘Ha! you couldn’t learn a more useful thing nor a prettier thing. A boat’s about the loveliest thing a man can make. Every kind of boat—a man-o’-war’s launch or a little up-river cedar and putty skiff—the loveliest thing it is. And what in the world is there more useful? As for you, sir, a Burnikel, even if he is a nobleman, ought to take to boat-building by nature.’

‘I am taking to it by nature, Captain. I feel as if I have already learned half the business. I shall be Burnikel the Great, or Burnikel the Incomparable, Prince of Boat-builders.’

Robert took his dinner, as he had taken his tea—in silence. It was the custom, I perceived. Isabel carved, at which one marvelled. I observed that she carved well. When she was not carving, she sat at the table, pale and silent, watching Robert, her task-master and her ice-cold lover. She took very little dinner—much less than a girl of her age ought to take. She looked as if she had no other interest in life than just to satisfy her master. As for youth and life and cheerfulness, these things did not appear to exist in the house. Yet Robert was only twenty-six—two years older than myself—and Isabel was not yet twenty-two.

Dinner over, the Captain returned to his own den at the back, whence presently proceeded the smell of tobacco. I believe that he also solaced himself after dinner with a glass of something warm with a slice of lemon in it. Robert, observing that he always went over the way at two, retired into his study. He was one of those unfortunate men who never waste their time. We all know the kind; they use up every odd ten minutes. Robert worked from dinner, which was over about twenty minutes past one, till two every day. Most men waste the hour after dinner. To Robert it meant simply two hundred hours, or about twenty-five days, at eight hours a day, every year. Such industry is too much for the average man. For my own part, I like to think of stealing twenty-five days for pleasure and laziness, rather than of adding twenty-five to the tale of working days—already too many.

Isabel, as soon as the cloth was cleared, spread out her account-books and began to work.

‘Is it good,’ I said, ‘to work directly after dinner?’

‘I do not know. Robert always works after dinner.’ I observed that she had a very sweet voice, soft and musical.

‘Robert is a strong man. You are not a strong man. May I use the privilege of a cousin—you are to be my cousin some time—to point out to you that many things which Robert may do with impunity you must not even attempt to do?’

‘The work has got to be done, and I cannot ask whether this time or that time is best.’

‘Why not play a little after dinner? You play very well.’

‘I never play during working hours. Robert would not like it.’

‘Then——’

‘Please, Sir George, allow me to go on with my work.’

I said no more, but stood at the window and watched her. She had a head of comely shape, and her features were good; but why so sad? why so pale? why so silent?

Presently I went back to more aching shoulders and tired wrists, envying the workmen, who never wanted to straighten their backs, and whose wrists seemed made of iron. That is the way with all manual work. The artist works away with his colours; all day long his hand is in his work—his wonderful work. But his fingers and his wrist never get tired. The navvy goes on digging away, with rounded back and unwearied arms, as if there was no exertion required for his work, and no weight in a shovel full of clay. Our men worked on as if there was no weariness possible with a plane or a hammer. But the amateur leaves off and sits down, and has a whiff of tobacco, and a drink, and a talk for half an hour or so before he goes on again. And this is the real reason why amateur work is never so good as professional work is, that the amateur can leave off when he feels fatigued, while the professional must keep on.

The foreman stood over me. ‘You’re handy with the tools,’ he said.

In fact, he had nothing to teach me in that way. What I had to learn was not the execution of the work, but the design of the work; that first, and the other part—the trading part—afterwards.

I worked like the rest—without a coat and with sleeves turned up; but I deny the apron. In the last century every working man wore an apron, and every serving-man in a shop wore an apron. Now we have left off that badge of trade or servitude. On the whole, I think that I am glad that I never wore an apron. I kept my working clothes in the house, and changed them in the morning and for dinner; and I declare that, as I grew to understand how a boat was built, how her lines were laid down, how her skeleton was put together, how her ribs were clothed, and how she was finished and fitted, a noble enthusiasm—the family enthusiasm—seized upon me, and I felt that true happiness lay not in ambition, which in Robert’s case I regarded with pity; not in wealth, taking my own case as an example; but in the building of boats.