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Ruth could get 'em done cheaper! But I say as no one can't do it and make a living.'

As he walked along, talking, between Crass and Slyme, the old man became very excited.

'But we 'adn't nothing to do to speak of, so my son told 'im we'd do 'em for five bob a set, and 'e said 'e'd let us know, but we ain't 'eard nothing from 'im yet, so I thought I'd try and see 'im to-night.'

'Well, you'll find 'im in there now,' said Slyme, with a peculiar look, and walking faster. 'Good night.'

'I won't take 'em on for no less!' cried the old man as he turned back. 'I've got my livin' to get, and my son's got 'is wife and little 'uns to keep. We can't work for nothing!'

'Certainly not,' said Crass, glad to get away at last. 'Good night, and good luck to you.'

As soon as they were out of hearing they both burst out laughing at the old man's vehemence.

'Seemed quite upset about it,' said Slyme; and they laughed again.

They now left the main road and pursued their way through a number of badly lighted, mean looking streets, and finally turning down a kind of alley, arrived at their destination. On one side of this street was a row of small houses; facing these were a number of buildings of a miscellaneous description—sheds and stables; and beyond these a plot of waste ground on which could be seen, looming weirdly through the dusk, a number of empty carts and waggons with their shafts resting on the ground or reared up into the air. Threading their way carefully through the mud pools of water and rubbish which covered the ground, they arrived at a large gate fastened with a padlock. Applying the key, Crass swung back the gate and they found themselves in a yard filled with building materials and plant: ladders, huge trestles, planks and beams of wood, hand-carts and wheelbarrows, heaps of sand and mortar and innumerable other things that assumed strange fantastic shapes in the semi-darkness. And over all rose a gloomy, indistinct and shapeless mass, the buildings and sheds that comprised Rushton and Company's workshops.

Crass struck a match, and Slyme, stooping down, drew a key from a crevice in the wall near one of the doors, which he unlocked, and they entered. Crass struck another match and lit the gas at a jointed bracket fixed to the wall. This 197