Rattle, one of my lads, lost his fingers in a sausage machine, and was awarded £65 damages. I suppose Rattle Senior had never seen a five-pound note in his life. The magnitude of his sudden fortune turned his head. With delightful irresponsibility respecting his son's future, he determined to be a gentleman for once. Throwing up a good situation with the lordliest air, he invited a motley crew, friends and neighbours, to share his luck. Cabs, music-halls, and drink were the three channels through which the sixty-five golden sovereigns, translated into twenty times that number of silver shillings, rushed in a glittering stream. Young Rattle's part in the comedy was to fetch the beer and haul his father to bed. But alas! for the fleeting nature of all mundane joys! A month later the Rattles were crying for food; and when I offered the boy a good situation, he declined it on the ground that his clothes were in pawn.

Directly traceable to the gambling spirit is the dishonesty of the East-ender, which takes the form rather of "picking" than of "stealing." Comparatively few East-enders are big thieves; but still fewer are no thieves at all. Theft of the petty kind is almost universal. Respectable men think it no sin to appropriate odds and ends in the yard, the dock, or the factory. Women and girls will steal their employers' jam and pickles. Boys will take anything they can lay hands on. In our church life this miserable habit used to be painfully obvious. We never held a bazaar or rummage sale without articles of more or less value mysteriously disappearing. The children systematically cut the rings off the kneeling-cushions in church; and on several occasions the various charity boxes were broken open and their contents abstracted.

There are certain minor failings-minor, that is to say, in themselves, but by no means in their resultsabout which a word or two should be said. East-enders have little or no power of tenacity. A thing taken up with burning enthusiasm will be discarded in a month with the most chilling indifference. New workers are apt to be deceived by this semblance of zeal, and to think that the old stagers have lost their grip. But they soon discover their mistake; so much so, indeed, that I make a point of warning my helpers, on their first arrival, against trusting too much to appearances.

Inconstancy of the kind admits of a very simple explanation. In a marked degree the East-ender exhibits the defects of his qualities. His desire to please is so extreme that he rarely means what he says. He will readily make a promise, and as readily break it. He is too courteous to refuse a request, although he may be quite aware of his utter inability to comply with it. He is so amiable as to be untrustworthy; and whereas his confidence in one of his own class is deeply touching, the consciousness of his own untrustworthiness begets in him a strange distrust of all others. For nearly two years after I settled in Millwall I was regarded with obvious suspicion. There seemed to be a perpetual interrogation on my neighbours' lips, "What on earth do you want here?" Discussions as to

why I had come, and what I intended to do, were endless. Prophecies flew back and forth that a few months at the very most would bring about my shame-faced departure. And, indeed, at one time it seemed as though the dogged and obstinate doubt of the people would prove insurmountable. Needless to add, there was no lack of mischief-makers to add fuel to the fire

G

of prejudice. Had it not been for such, the opposition, which took twenty-four months to overcome, might have died down in six. Perhaps! I am not sure.

Inconsistently enough, on the other hand, the Eastender resents any lack of confidence in him. He is positively annoyed if you distrust him. For example, the Millwall 'bus has no conductor; so it is customary for one passenger to collect and pay for all. No Millwaller would think of quarrelling with this tradition. To accept the services of the person in the corner is a matter, not only of policy, but actually of conscience. I once saw a passenger—a stranger, of course-refuse to entrust his penny to a ferocious-looking gentleman of unimpeachable integrity, in a fur cap and a spotted neckcloth; and the unconcealed contempt with which that stranger was regarded by the whole omnibus was a thing to make one shiver.

But enough of fault-finding. I have put down the facts as they occur to me, seeking neither to justify nor to condemn. How far the East-ender is to be held responsible for his actions I hope to discuss later on. Meanwhile, let it be remembered that he is primitive but not innocent, knowing but not educated, civilised but not humane.

CHAPTER IV

VIRTUES

FOREMOST among the virtues of the East-ender is his good-humour. Good-humour is the redeeming point in his character, the salt that sweetens his very impurities, the lever that lifts him from the gutter where he is prone to lie all too complacently. He has many failings, many right-down vices; but through them all, rendering them almost tolerable, runs that rich vein of gold. Man or woman, the East-ender is nothing but a big, rollicking baby. See him on his yearly "beano." See her on her annual outing. The day is begun, continued, and ended in good-humour of the irrepressible kind. An East End Sunday School excursion must be seen to be believed. To temperaments not so richly endowed, the good-humour of all, from the oldest old lady to the latest brand-new baby, almost smacks of the supernatural. And the home-coming! What an outburst of genial welcome from those who had been slogging in the oppressive heat of the factory or the kitchen the livelong day! What an absence of self in the royal demonstration that awaited us! Millwall would be en fête when we arrived, and the whole population in the streets. The long line of

brakes, escorted by a bodyguard of bicyclists gleaming and fantastic, would form a dazzling stream of fire as it swept down the West Ferry Road. In our honour lights would burn at a hundred windows, and fireworks of every hue hiss skyward. In a blaze of white and crimson glory we would draw up at St. Cuthbert's, roaring "Sweetheart May" at the top of our voices, and almost succeeding in drowning the "band" of two in their blaring interpretation of the "Dublin Fusiliers." The East-ender's good-humour exhibits itself as much in

as in

"Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,"

"Nod, and becks, and wreathèd smiles."

That is to say, he is fun-loving as well as amiable. His capacity for fun is enormous; sometimes manifesting itself in sheer waggishness, at other times in the driest of dry banter, again in pungent and even delicate wit. Rarely is his smartness cruel. When it is so, it is jagged rather than keen. It does not cut; it tears. His wit is easy and refreshingly original. Also, which is a great thing, it is without fear.

Our maid Mylie was a wag quite of the first class. "Master's going about like a wet week," was her freeand-easy commentary on my appearance during an attack of the "blues." "He gave me a look like a summons," said she, referring to the facial contortions of the baker when she denounced his bread as half-baked. "Don't hang your clothes on the floor," she remarked, as the immaculate overcoat of a visitor slid off the halltable where he had placed it.

The children used to worry Mylie considerably. She