Once Harlow had just started painting some rainpipes from the top of a 40-ft ladder when one of several small boys who were playing in the street ran violently against the foot.Harlow was so startled that he dropped his brushes and clutched wildly at the ladder, which turned completely round and slid about six feet along the parapet into the angle of the wall, with Harlow hanging beneath by his hands.The paint pot was hanging by a hook from one of the rungs, and the jerk scattered the brown paint it contained all over Harlow and all over the brickwork of the front of the house.He managed to descend safely by clasping his legs round the sides of the ladder and sliding down.
When Misery came there was a row about what he called carelessness.
And the next day Harlow had to wear his Sunday trousers to work.
On another occasion they were painting the outside of a house called `Gothic Lodge'.At one corner it had a tower surmounted by a spire or steeple, and this steeple terminated with an ornamental wrought-iron pinnacle which had to be painted.The ladder they had was not quite long enough, and besides that, as it had to stand in a sort of a courtyard at the base of the tower, it was impossible to slant it sufficiently: instead of lying along the roof of the steeple, it was sticking up in the air.
When Easton went up to paint the pinnacle he had to stand on almost the very top rung of the ladder, to be exact, the third from the top, and lean over to steady himself by holding on to the pinnacle with his left hand while he used the brush with his right.As it was only about twenty minutes' work there were two men to hold the foot of the ladder.
It was cheaper to do it this way than to rig up a proper scaffold, which would have entailed perhaps two hours' work for two or three men.Of course it was very dangerous, but that did not matter at all, because even if the man fell it would make no difference to the firm -all the men were insured and somehow or other, although they frequently had narrow escapes, they did not often come to grief.
On this occasion, just as Easton was finishing he felt the pinnacle that he was holding on to give way, and he got such a fright that his heart nearly stopped beating.He let go his hold and steadied himself on the ladder as well as he was able, and when he had descended three or four steps - into comparative safety - he remained clinging convulsively to the ladder and feeling so limp that he was unable to go down any further for several minutes.When he arrived at the bottom and the others noticed how white and trembling he was, he told them about the pinnacle being loose, and the `coddy' coming along just then, they told him about it, and suggested that it should be repaired, as otherwise it might fall down and hurt someone: but the `coddy' was afraid that if they reported it they might be blamed for breaking it, and the owner might expect the firm to put it right for nothing, so they decided to say nothing about it.The pinnacle is stilt on the apex of the steeple waiting for a sufficiently strong wind to blow it down on somebody's head.
When the other men heard of Easton's `narrow shave', most of them said that it would have served him bloody well right if he had fallen and broken his neck: he should have refused to go up at all without a proper scaffold.That was what THEY would have done.If Misery or the coddy had ordered any of THEM to go up and paint the pinnacle off that ladder, they would have chucked their tools down and demanded their ha'pence!
That was what they said, but somehow or other it never happened that any of them ever `chucked their tools down' at all, although such dangerous jobs were of very frequent occurrence.
The scamping business was not confined to houses or properties of an inferior class: it was the general rule.Large good-class houses, villas and mansions, the residences of wealthy people, were done in exactly the same way.Generally in such places costly and beautiful materials were spoilt in the using.
There was a large mansion where the interior woodwork - the doors, windows and staircase - had to be finished in white enamel.It was rather an old house and the woodwork needed rubbing down and filling up before being repainted, but of course there was not time for that, so they painted it without properly preparing it and when it was enamelled the rough, uneven surface of the wood looked horrible: but the owner appeared quite satisfied because it was nice and shiny.The dining-room of the same house was papered with a beautiful and expensive plush paper.The ground of this wall-hanging was made to imitate crimson watered silk, and it was covered with a raised pattern in plush of the same colour.The price marked on the back of this paper in the pattern book was eighteen shillings a roll.Slyme was paid sixpence a roll for hanging it: the room took ten rolls, so it cost nine pounds for the paper and five shillings to hang it! To fix such a paper as this properly the walls should first be done with a plain lining paper of the same colour as the ground of the wallpaper itself, because unless the paperhanger `lapps' the joints - which should not be done - they are apt to open a little as the paper dries and to show the white wall underneath - Slyme suggested this lining to Misery, who would not entertain the idea for a moment - they had gone to quite enough expense as it was, stripping the old paper off!
So Slyme went ahead, and as he had to make his wages, he could not spend a great deal of time over it.Some of the joints were `lapped'
and some were butted, and two or three weeks after the owner of the house moved in, as the paper became more dry, the joints began to open and to show the white plaster of the wall, and then Owen had to go there with a small pot of crimson paint and a little brush, and touch out the white line.
While he was doing this he noticed and touched up a number of other faults; places where Slyme - in his haste to get the work done - had slobbered and smeared the face of the paper with fingermarks and paste.
