CHAPTER XIX
The Oblong
During the following week the work at 'The Cave' progressed rapidly towards completion, although the hours of daylight were now so few that the men worked only from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m., and had their breakfast before they came. This made forty hours a week, so that those who were paid sevenpence an hour earned £1 3s. 4d, those who got sixpence-halfpenny drew £1 1s. 8d, those whose wages were fivepence an hour were paid the princely sum of 16s. 8d. for their week's hard labour, and those whose rate was fourpence halfpenny 'picked up' 15s.
And yet there are people who say that Drink is the cause of poverty.
By Tuesday night all the inside work was finished with the exception of the kitchen and scullery. The painting of the kitchen had been delayed owing to the non-arrival of the new cooking range, and the scullery was still used as the paint shop. The outside work was also progressing rapidly, for though, according to the specification, all the outside woodwork was supposed to have three coats, and the guttering, rain pipes and other ironwork, two coats, Crass and Hunter had arranged to make two coats do for most of the windows and woodwork, and all the ironwork had one coat only. The windows were painted in two colours, the sashes dark green and the frames white. All the rest—gables, doors, railings, guttering, etc.—was dark green; and all the dark green paint was made with boiled linseed oil and varnish, no turpentine being allowed.
'This is some bloody fine stuff to 'ave to use, ain't it?' remarked Harlow to Philpot on Wednesday morning. 'It's more like a lot of treacle than anything else.'
'Yes; and it won't arf blister next summer when it gets a bit of sun on it,' replied Philpot with a grin.
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