Bill scratched the back of his head, protruded his under lip, and reflected.
"I say, Arvie, what did yer father die of?"
"Heart disease. He dropped down dead at his work."
Long, low, intense whistle from Bill. He wrinkled his forehead and stared up at the beams as if he expected to see something unusual there.
After a while he said, very impressively: "So did mine."
The coincidence hadn't done striking him yet; he wrestled with it for nearly a minute longer. Then he said:
"I suppose yer mother goes out washin'?"
"Yes."
"'N' cleans offices?"
"Yes."
"So does mine. Any brothers 'n' sisters?"
"Two -- one brother 'n' one sister."
Bill looked relieved -- for some reason.
"I got nine," he said. "Yours younger'n you?"
"Yes."
"Lot of bother with the landlord?"
"Yes, a good lot."
"Had any bailiffs in yet?"
"Yes, two."
They compared notes a while longer, and tailed off into a silence which lasted three minutes and grew awkward towards the end.
Bill fidgeted about on the bench, reached round for a chip, but recollected himself. Then he cocked his eye at the roof once more and whistled, twirling a shaving round his fingers the while.
At last he tore the shaving in two, jerked it impatiently from him, and said abruptly:
"Look here, Arvie! I'm sorry I knocked over yer barrer yesterday."
"Thank you."
This knocked Bill out the first round. He rubbed round uneasily on the bench, fidgeted with the vise, drummed his fingers, whistled, and finally thrust his hands in his pockets and dropped on his feet.
"Look here, Arvie!" he said in low, hurried tones. "Keep close to me goin' out to-night, 'n' if any of the other chaps touches yer or says anything to yer I'll hit 'em!"
Then he swung himself round the corner of a carriage "body" and was gone.
. . . . .
Arvie was late out of the shop that evening. His boss was a sub-contractor for the coach-painting, and always tried to find twenty minutes' work for his boys just about five or ten minutes before the bell rang.
He employed boys because they were cheap and he had a lot of rough work, and they could get under floors and "bogies" with their pots and brushes, and do all the "priming" and paint the trucks. His name was Collins, and the boys were called "Collins' Babies". It was a joke in the shop that he had a "weaning" contract. The boys were all "over fourteen", of course, because of the Education Act. Some were nine or ten -- wages from five shillings to ten shillings. It didn't matter to Grinder Brothers so long as the contracts were completed and the dividends paid.
Collins preached in the park every Sunday. But this has nothing to do with the story.
When Arvie came out it was beginning to rain and the hands had all gone except Bill, who stood with his back to a verandah-post, spitting with very fair success at the ragged toe of one boot. He looked up, nodded carelessly at Arvie, and then made a dive for a passing lorry, on the end of which he disappeared round the next corner, unsuspected by the driver, who sat in front with his pipe in his mouth and a bag over his shoulders.
Arvie started home with his heart and mind pretty full, and a stronger, stranger aversion to ever going back to the shop again. This new, unexpected, and unsought-for friendship embarrassed the poor lonely child.
It wasn't welcome.
But he never went back. He got wet going home, and that night he was a dying child. He had been ill all the time, and Collins was one "baby" short next day.
