When Crass went back to the paint-shop he found there one of the pillows which had fallen out of the bundle during the struggle.He took it home with him that evening and slept upon it.It was a fine pillow, much fuller and softer and more cosy than the one he had been accustomed to.
A few days afterwards when he was working at the room where the woman died, they gave him some other things that had belonged to her to do away with, and amongst them was a kind of wrap of grey knitted wool.
Crass kept this for himself: it was just the thing to wrap round one's neck when going to work on a cold morning, and he used it for that purpose all through the winter.In addition to the funerals, there was a little other work: sometimes a room or two to be painted and papered and ceilings whitened, and once they had the outside of two small cottages to paint - doors and windows - two coats.All four of them worked at this job and it was finished in two days.And so they went on.
Some weeks Crass earned a pound or eighteen shillings; sometimes a little more, generally less and occasionally nothing at all.
There was a lot of jealousy and ill-feeling amongst them about the work.Slyme and Crass were both aggrieved about Sawkins whenever they were idle, especially if the latter were painting or whitewashing, and their indignation was shared by all the others who were `off'.Harlow swore horribly about it, and they all agreed that it was disgraceful that a bloody labourer should be employed doing what ought to be skilled work for fivepence an hour, while properly qualified men were `walking about'.These other men were also incensed against Slyme and Crass because the latter were given the preference whenever there was a little job to do, and it was darkly insinuated that in order to secure this preference these two were working for sixpence an hour.
There was no love lost between Crass and Slyme either: Crass was furious whenever it happened that Slyme had a few hours' work to do if he himself were idle, and if ever Crass was working while Slyme was `standing still' the latter went about amongst the other unemployed men saying ugly things about Crass, whom he accused of being a `crawler'.Owen also came in for his share of abuse and blame: most of them said that a man like him should stick out for higher wages whether employed on special work or not, and then he would not get any preference.But all the same, whatever they said about each other behind each other's backs, they were all most friendly to each other when they met face to face.
Once or twice Owen did some work - such as graining a door or writing a sign - for one or other of his fellow workmen who had managed to secure a little job `on his own', but putting it all together, the coffin-plates and other work at Rushton's and all, his earnings had not averaged ten shillings a week for the last six weeks.Often they had no coal and sometimes not even a penny to put into the gas meter, and then, having nothing left good enough to pawn, he sometimes obtained a few pence by selling some of his books to second-hand book dealers.However, bad as their condition was, Owen knew that they were better off than the majority of the others, for whenever he went out he was certain to meet numbers of men whom he had worked with at different times, who said - some of them - that they had been idle for ten, twelve, fifteen and in some cases for twenty weeks without having earned a shilling.
Owen used to wonder how they managed to continue to exist.Most of them were wearing other people's cast-off clothes, hats, and boots, which had in some instances been given to their wives by `visiting ladies', or by the people at whose houses their wives went to work, charing.As for food, most of them lived on such credit as they could get, and on the scraps of broken victuals and meat that their wives brought home from the places they worked at.Some of them had grown-up sons and daughters who still lived with them and whose earnings kept their homes together, and the wives of some of them eked out a miserable existence by letting lodgings.
The week before old Linden went into the workhouse Owen earned nothing, and to make matters worse the grocer from whom they usually bought their things suddenly refused to let them have any more credit.
Owen went to see him, and the man said he was very sorry, but he could not let them have anything more without the money; he did not mind waiting a few weeks for what was already owing, but he could not let the amount get any higher; his books were full of bad debts already.
In conclusion, he said that he hoped Owen would not do as so many others had done and take his ready money elsewhere.People came and got credit from him when they were hard up, and afterwards spent their ready money at the Monopole Company's stores on the other side of the street, because their goods were a trifle cheaper, and it was not fair.Owen admitted that it was not fair, but reminded him that they always bought their things at his shop.The grocer, however, was inexorable; he repeated several times that his books were full of bad debts and his own creditors were pressing him.During their conversation the shopkeeper's eyes wandered continually to the big store on the other side of the street; the huge, gilded letters of the name `Monopole Stores' seemed to have an irresistible attraction for him.Once he interrupted himself in the middle of a sentence to point out to Owen a little girl who was just coming out of the Stores with a small parcel in her hand.
`Her father owes me nearly thirty shillings,' he said, `but they spend their ready money there.'
The front of the grocer's shop badly needed repainting, and the name on the fascia, `A.Smallman', was so faded as to be almost indecipherable.It had been Owen's intention to offer to do this work -the cost to go against his account - but the man appeared to be so harassed that Owen refrained from making the suggestion.