inmates was unexpected. It was that they were always sleeping. In broad
daylight he had seen Thrums men asleep on beds, and he was somewhat
ashamed of them until he heard the excuse. A number of the men from
Thrums were bakers, the first emigrant of this trade having drawn others
after him, and they slept great part of the day to be able to work all
night in a cellar, making nice rolls for rich people. Baker Lumsden, who
became a friend of Tommy, had got his place in the cellar when his
brother died, and the brother had succeeded Matthew Croall when he died.

They die very soon, Tommy learned from Lumsden, generally when they are
eight and thirty. Lumsden was thirty-six, and when he died his nephew
was to get the place. The wages are good.

Then there were several masons, one of whom, like the first baker, had
found work for all the others, and there were men who had drifted into
trades strange to their birthplace, and there was usually one at least
who had come to London to "better himself" and had not done it as yet.
The family Tommy liked best was the Whamonds, and especially he liked
old Petey and young Petey Whamond. They were a large family of women and
men, all of whom earned their living in other streets, except the old
man, who kept house and was a famous knitter of stockings, as probably
his father had been before him. He was a great one, too, at telling what
they would be doing at that moment in Thrums, every corner of which was
as familiar to him as the ins and outs of the family hose. Young Petey
got fourteen shillings a week from a hatter, and one of his duties was
to carry as many as twenty band-boxes at a time through fashionable
streets; it is a matter for elation that dukes and statesmen had often
to take the curb-stone, because young Petey was coming. Nevertheless
young Petey was not satisfied, and never would be (such is the Thrums
nature) until he became a salesman in the shop to which he acted at