The Great Money Trick
without speaking, he ascended to the next floor and entered the room where Slyme was working.
'You'd better not do this room yet,' said Hunter, 'there's to be a new grate and mantelpiece put in.'
He crossed over to the fireplace and stood looking at it thoughtfully for a few minutes.
'It's not a bad little grate, you know, is it?' he remarked. 'We'll be able to use it somewhere or other.'
'Yes, it's all right,' said Slyme, whose heart was beating like a steam hammer.
'Do for a front room in a cottage,' continued Misery, stooping down to examine it more closely. 'There's nothing broke that I can see.'
He put his hand against the register and vainly tried to push it open.
'H'm, there's something wrong 'ere,' he remarked, pushing harder.
'Most likely a brick or some plaster fallen down,' gasped Slyme, coming to Misery's assistance, 'shall I try to open it?'
'Don't trouble,' replied Nimrod, rising to his feet. 'It's most likely what you say. I'll see that the new grate is sent up after dinner. Bundy can fix it this afternoon and then you can go on papering as soon as you like.'
With this, Misery went out of the room, downstairs and away from the house, and Slyme wiped the sweat from his forehead. Then he knelt down and opening the register he took out the broken rolls of paper and hid them up the chimney of the next room. While he was doing this the sound of Crass's whistle shrilled through the house.
'Thank Gord!' exclaimed Philpot, fervently, as he laid his brushes on the top of his pot and joined in the general rush to the kitchen, the luxurious banqueting hall of the workers.
The floor was unswept and littered with dirt, scraps of paper, bits of plaster, pieces of lead pipe and dried mud; and in the midst stood the steaming bucket of stewed tea and the collection of cracked cups, jam jars and condensed-milk tins. On the upturned pails, planks and dresser drawers sat the men in their shabby ragged clothing, eating their coarse food, cracking their coarser jokes, contented so long as they had plenty of work, something to eat, someone else's cast off clothing to wear, convinced that the good things of life were not for the likes of them, or for their children either.
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