CHAPTER XXI
THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE
What do you work at? You look ill.
It's me lungs. I make sulphuric acid.
You are a salt-cake man?
Yes.
Is it hard work?
It is damned hard work.
Why do you work at such a slavish trade?
I am married. I have children. Am I to starve and let them?
Why do you lead this life?
I am married. There's a terrible lot of men out of work in St. Helen’s.
What do you call hard work?
My work. You come and heave them three-hundredweight lumps with a fifty-pound bar, in that heat at the furnace door, and try it.
I will not. I am a philosopher.
Oh! Well, thee stick to t'job. Ours is t'vary devil.
I was talking with a very vindictive man. In his opinion, his wife had wronged him and the law had wronged him. The merits and morals of the case are immaterial. The meat of the matter is that she had obtained a separation, and he was compelled to pay ten shillings each week for the support of her and the five children. "But look you," said he to me, "wot'll 'appen to 'er
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