sixpence a day, and levying a distress on another man's goods would
relieve my distress and that of my family, it can't be expected but
what I'd take the job and go through with it. I never liked it,
God knows; I always looked out for something else, and the moment I
got other work to do, I left it. If there is anything wrong in
being the agent in such matters--not the principal, mind you--I'm
sure the business, to a beginner like I was, at all events, carries
its own punishment along with it. I wished again and again that
the people would only blow me up, or pitch into me--that I wouldn't
have minded, it's all in my way; but it's the being shut up by
yourself in one room for five days, without so much as an old
newspaper to look at, or anything to see out o' the winder but the
roofs and chimneys at the back of the house, or anything to listen
to, but the ticking, perhaps, of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of
the missis, now and then, the low talking of friends in the next
room, who speak in whispers, lest "the man" should overhear them,
or perhaps the occasional opening of the door, as a child peeps in
to look at you, and then runs half-frightened away--it's all this,
that makes you feel sneaking somehow, and ashamed of yourself; and
then, if it's wintertime, they just give you fire enough to make
you think you'd like more, and bring in your grub as if they wished
it 'ud choke you--as I dare say they do, for the matter of that,
most heartily. If they're very civil, they make you up a bed in
the room at night, and if they don't, your master sends one in for
you; but there you are, without being washed or shaved all the
time, shunned by everybody, and spoken to by no one, unless some
one comes in at dinner-time, and asks you whether you want any
more, in a tone as much to say, "I hope you don't," or, in the
evening, to inquire whether you wouldn't rather have a candle,
after you've been sitting in the dark half the night. When I was