There are interesting degrees of cleanness in workingmen. One sees it at its best, I think, among those of the building trades. The stains of their labor are clean in themselves, and the men partake of the wholesomeness of their employment. The workers at rougher jobs must show the marks of soiling labor, but there is infinite difference between the earth stains of a common laborer and the ingrained, begrimed uncleanness of an unwashed vagrant. Having in the house, however, so many men, and just at the end of the long period of unemployment, it is inevitable, perhaps, that there should be a few of the number whose status as between workingmen and tramps is not clearly defined. And some of the consequences are unpleasant.
It was this that the Irishman had in mind as he looked me over critically and was somewhat slow in welcoming me to the cabin.
The same concern showed itself again when he presently told me that the Englishman and he always made up their berths themselves, instead of leaving them for the regular bed-makers, who might communicate vermin from other bunks. The hint was sufficient, and I hastened to set his mind at rest by assuring him that I heartily endorsed the plan and would follow it faithfully.
The Englishman I did not see until the next morning. Upon getting up to the six o’clock call, I found that he had turned in without waking me. We sprang out of bed at the same moment, and almost at a glance I knew him for the ex-Tommy Atkins that he is. I shall call him Brown. A wooden chest, studded with brass nails and made fast with a heavy padlock, stood near the foot of his berth. On it lay his working clothes, not thrown down in confusion, but neatly folded and lying in the order of dress. He himself was as trim and straight and as clean as a sapling, and when he returned from his wash he fairly sparkled with the afterglow. Back went the sheets with a single movement of his hand the moment that he was dressed, and over went the mattress, and the pillows began rollicking in the shaking which he gave them. In marvellously short time the bed was remade and the sheets turned back over the foot of the bunk to admit of proper airing.
We have been thrown together by reason of the fact that neither of us is proof against the lobby for long in the evening. It is usually dark by the time I have finished supper, and I go first of all to the sitting-room. It is ablaze with light, and the huge stove is going under full head and all the windows are closed and some scores of men are smoking old pipes. I have known nights when such a place would have been a most welcome escape from exposure, but having now a choice it is never long before I leave the lobby for the cabin. Here I generally find Brown seated on the box at the foot of his berth, playing an old fife which is singularly pliant to his touch. Throwing myself in my bunk I have lain there by the hour together listening to his music and watching him as he beat time to the “British Grenadiers” and the “Blue Bells of Scotland,” and to tunes of no end of barrack-room ballads, wondering the while what vision it was of India or of Burmah, perhaps, or of the Soudan, or possibly of the Afghan frontier that brought that look of longing to his eyes.