splendid and universal as are the attainments of seamen, it is only the bare truth to say that one of the rarest qualifications to find among them is commercial aptitude. there are, of course, notable exceptions, and in the days when masters and officers of vessels were allowed to add to their income substantially by trade with the natives of the countries which they visited, and were granted a certain amount of space in the hold wherein to store the merchandise they bought, the trading instinct must have been fairly general. indeed there are not wanting cynics at sea to-day, who will tell you that what with the slop-chest, tobacco selling, and the outrageous rates of exchange, many a deep water skipper of a sailing ship could give points to an armenian. and the latter is supposed by sailors to be equal in, let us call it trading power, to five parsees, one of whom again equals five jews.
but i do not think this is fair. it does not follow that a man is a born trader because he can sell necessaries to people who must have them from him or go without, and cannot go without. it only argues lack of conscience on the part of the seller. and to expect, without lack of competition, the same characteristics would, i am afraid, be indicative of a weak mind. at any rate i am quite certain that, speaking generally, a sailor when he comes ashore is helpless in the hands of business people, and that it is a very long while before he is able to think their thoughts and walk in their ways.
so when i first settled down ashore to steady employment in an office at a fixed salary of £2 per week, after fifteen years of irresponsibility as regards domestic affairs, i quickly learned that i was very callow indeed in those matters. my first false step was in buying furniture, wherewith to make a home, on the hire system. it must be remembered that i had a wife and one child, but that i was practically beginning a new life. and i did so by hanging round my neck a burden of debt which i did not get rid of for fifteen years, and then—but i must not anticipate the regular sequence of my story.
the next was to take a house. i had tried apartments several times, but something always went wrong, i was always made to feel that i was only in the house on sufferance, and being an enthusiast for peace, i always moved rather than have a row. but moving as a fairly regular experience is apt to pall upon one. it costs a good deal of money even when you hire the local greengrocer's van and horse at one and sixpence an hour, and it is very hard work, for unless you buckle to and do the lion's share yourself, you find at nightfall that you have just got in, you have parted with the bulk of your savings, and the best part of a heavy night's work is before you, putting up bedsteads and reducing the chaotic heap of your belongings to a condition in which you can find what you want within reasonable distance of the time that you want it.
for this and other reasons which i need not now specify i decided to take a house. i satisfied myself that by letting the floor below and the floor above the one i intended to keep for ourselves at the current rate in the neighbourhood, carefully ascertained beforehand, that i should live rent free or nearly so, and of course in a neighbourhood like that it was unthinkable that i should ever be empty. i mean the house of course. by which process of reasoning i demonstrated that i possessed one of the prime requirements of a tradesman—hope that my venture would be justified by the profit on my outlay.
but, alas, i was not made of the fibre necessary in order to be a successful sub-landlord. by the end of the first year of my tenancy i had come to the conclusion that i was a known mark for all the undesirables in the neighbourhood. if a tenant was clean he was utterly unreasonable, looking upon me as his bond-slave, and his right to do as he liked indefeasible, even though it might be destructive to my peace of mind[pg 64] or rest of body. and his one argument in reply to any remonstrance was, "i pay my rent and can go where i like. and don't you interfere with me."
amiable tenants found excuses for non-payment of rent or were dirty. one i remember brought a sofa into the house the stuffing of which i think must have been mainly bugs. i learned of this by the house becoming infested beyond belief, and seeing hordes of these odoriferous insects coming downstairs. this led to my making enquiries, when the origin or hotbed was found to be the sofa aforesaid. nothing could have been more amiable than the manner in which my mild remonstrances were received or more suave than the manner in which my modest request for a small contribution towards the heavy expense of getting the house cleansed and fumigated was denied.
other lodgers smilingly avowed their inability to pay their rent, and playfully urged me to get it if i could. others fought furious battles overhead, or engaged in gymnastic exercises which brought the ceilings down, or contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with each other (the top and bottom floors), with the avowed object of making us "sit up," in which i may add they were surprisingly successful.
i do not say that i never had a desirable or satisfactory tenant, because i had several, but alas, i never had two sets of desirable tenants at the same time. and one of the nicest families i ever let my[pg 65] ground floor to, seven in number, developed scarlet fever and gave me perhaps more anxiety and put me to more expense than all the rest put together. taking them all round though, i can see there was ample copy among them for a book on queer tenants. there were the widow and her two daughters, aged respectively seventeen and fourteen. the latter used to take turn about to beat their mother, and the screams would at once attract a crowd, for it was a populous street. then when i interfered, the whole three would turn upon me, the mother fiercest of all, and threaten me with unheard of penalties for daring to interfere with their menus plaisirs. there was a fine specimen of a british working man, who for six days of the week was a credit to his country; clean, punctual, honest, and hard working. but on saturday night he invariably got partially drunk, and after eleven p.m. amused himself until about 1 a.m. by stamping heavily up and down stairs, along the passage, past my door, out of the front door, slamming it behind him with great violence, immediately re-entering and repeating the performance, and all the time uttering the most bloodthirsty and blasphemous threats against me. me! who never exchanged a word with him, and against whom i could have had no possible ground of complaint, except perhaps that he, being a socialist of the keir hardie or will crooks type, was bound to show his resentment for having to pay me rent.
but i must not multiply instances, though the temptation to do so is very great, but pass on to what must have appeared to the reader to be the inevitable result. i got behind with my rent. worry began to prey upon me, to gnaw my vitals, and make me look almost despairingly around for some means of earning more money. fortunately for me, my landlord was a kind hearted tradesman, who had a splendid business of his own, and who had invested some of the profits in this house which i rented. i paid my rent direct to him, and always met with the most kindly consideration short of letting me off paying altogether, which i could not expect.
unhappily, however, his kindness led to the inevitable result. he became my last resource. creditors who would not wait got paid while he continued to wait. finding that he would take excuses and grant delays which no one else would, i grew to depend upon him, and what was worse, to feel aggrieved because others were not like-minded. it is a vicious circle in which an enormous number of people travel, but i think it will be found that the majority of them are too soft-hearted to insist upon their own dues being paid them promptly, and are always filled with wonder that their creditors are not actuated by the same benevolent sentiments.
meanwhile, if the charge of unbusiness-like and soft-hearted habits could justly have been laid to my charge, extravagance certainly could not. i lived personally poorer than any day labourer, scarcely ever tasting meat except on sunday, and then only the cheapest and coarsest parts of the animal, which my skill in cookery rendered palatable in stews and curries to all of us. i walked to and fro to business—a matter of ten miles—daily, and never spent a penny for anything but absolute necessaries. my sole recreation was in open air meetings for religious purposes, which to me were theatre, circus, and concert all in one. yet i grew steadily poorer, and as to saving, well, the only possible means of doing that was by insuring my life, which i am glad to say i did to the amount of ten shillings a month, the utmost i could spare.
i only mention these few details to show how i was being steadily thrust in the direction of doing something outside my regular office work, something to utilise the time which i felt was being wasted. my long sea-training had made me an early riser, indeed i could get up cheerfully at any time (and can still), and nothing was more irksome to me than lying abed after my body was satisfied with rest. i used to get up at most unearthly hours in the summer and go long walks with a book, and lie and read after i came home at night until i could see no more. yet, thank god, i am writing this in a minute hand at the age of fifty, without spectacles or feeling the need of them.
constantly the thought would intrude itself, "why can't i get something to do during the hours i am free from the office and don't want to sleep?" my fellow-clerks, [pg 68]with but very few exceptions, had outside employment, but this was usually literary, and for that i felt i had neither aptitude nor training. mechanical bent i felt sure i had none, for i could hardly drive a nail or put a screw in without spoiling the head. in short, i felt that i was a drug in the market, a passable seaman perhaps, but i had thrown that employment behind me for ever, and now i was a very mediocre junior clerk, getting on into middle age and being reminded of my deficiencies—which, alas, i knew only too well—every day by my superiors.
since these are confessions, shall i be blamed for saying that i prayed for extra work? well, anyhow i did; prayed as fervently as some people do at certain crises for forgiveness of sin. you all know that i was what is called very religious, that is to say, i lived an exceedingly narrow life, looking upon all amusements as snares of the devil, and consoled myself continually, for the loss of all that my fellows seemed to prize in this world, by the thought of the glories of immortality. happily, i did not condemn all who differed from me in my theological concepts to an eternity of unmentionable agony, because although this was insisted upon as a cardinal item in their belief by the people with whom i associated, my heart or brain or feelings—or my thinking gear—simply would not let me do so. in fact, i felt that such an idea of the god i believed in was blasphemy. and my freely expressed opinions led to my being excommunicated in due form from several bodies of christians with whom i worked.
yes, i did pray for some means of earning a little extra money, but at the same time i was acutely conscious of my lack of ability to do anything that employers of overtime men had any use for. anything in the way of manual labour was of course out of the question, while as to canvassing! with shame i confess that i did try one or two of the specious advertisements in the daily papers, which promise so much and perform so little. but i speedily found that at soliciting custom from door to door i should starve. i was too sensitive. so far from realising the ideal of never taking no for an answer, which was always held up to me, a glum look, or a door slammed in my face, was enough to put me off my business for a whole evening. i realised then, as i had never done before, the terrible truth of longfellow's lines, long as they had been graven in my heart—
"who amid their wants and woes,
hear the sound of doors that close,
and of feet that pass them by.
grown familiar with disfavour,
grown familiar with the savour
of the bread by which men die!"
"the legend beautiful."
but i realised also that whatever my sentimental feelings on the matter might be, the need of earning something extra grew not merely none the less, but ever more pressing. yet nothing seemed to present[pg 70] itself, nor were there any of my acquaintances able to throw anything at all in my way. at last a small chance came, a curious little eddy in one of the backwaters of life, and i, ready for anything that i could do, seized it. a friend of mine used to add to his income by selling to his fellow-clerks such small articles of jewellery or fancy goods as he could obtain at wholesale price, taking payment for them weekly or monthly as the case might be. he was also agent for several other concerns such as insurance companies, photographers, etc., and finally finding that he had more on his hands than he was able to do, and attend to his clerical work as well, he decided to give up that part of his outside work that was least profitable and imposed the greatest amount of extra work upon him. this was the fancy goods business.
this he offered to me with his connection both for buying and selling, and full explanation as to profits, etc. he did not certainly go so far as to supply the capital, but he did everything else that he could in order that i might start fair. given a small amount of capital, the business was simple enough. having once obtained the entrée to certain large wholesale firms in houndsditch and its neighbourhood, anything comprised within the enormous range of articles known as "fancy" could be purchased for cash at wholesale prices, even in one twelfth of a dozen, or "one only" as the trade term goes. and often an article from a "clearing line," or goods which have[pg 71] been in stock longer than they ought to have been, and were clamouring to be dispersed, could be purchased for a sum which certainly did not represent the cost of the raw material of the manufacture, to say nothing of the skilled workmanship lavished upon it.
goods were never bought on speculation, my capital would not admit of that; indeed i often borrowed a few shillings for the purpose of buying an ordered article, so that i was almost completely debarred from taking advantage of these "clearing line" opportunities. no, i bought when i had an order say for £1. i delivered the article and accepted three sums of ten shillings each on successive monthly pay days. now, at first blush and remembering that i took no risk, this may seem an exorbitant profit, but i found in practice that it was not so, and that many retail establishments where goods are sold for cash charge quite as much for similar goods as i did. still, i am not apologising, i am merely stating facts.
i did a strictly limited and non-expanding business for many reasons, but principally because although i developed a fine business aptitude as far as the mere buying and selling went, i had no notion of accumulating a little capital—there were so many crying needs to be supplied at home that i could not turn a deaf ear to them when i had a little money made out of office hours like this, and assume that i had not got it at all. also, because i dared not incur any risks, my customers had to be confined to those of my acquaintances whose affairs were almost as well known to me as my own.
but timid and tentative as these little excursions of mine into trade were, they were laden with instruction and interest; yes, and occasionally a fair amount of amusement was obtained also. for instance, most of the wholesale dealers whom i patronised were hebrews, and i, having like all sailors associated jews generally with the distinctively evil types of the ancient race who flourish in sailor towns as tailors and boarding masters, was at first inclined to be very shy and cautious in my dealings with them. before long, however, i made two curious discoveries. one was that the jews whom i now met in business were kindly, straightforward, honest, and hospitable, in fact quite unlike my preconceived notions of jews. the other was perhaps a partial explanation of the former—wherever i went among them i was taken for a jew myself! at first my silly prejudices led me rather to resent this; but i have always felt proud of an open mind, and after considering the matter carefully, i came to the conclusion that the mistake was rather a compliment than otherwise.
now, as far as i know or can ascertain, the records of the old dorset family from which i am descended contain no reference to any admixture of jewish blood, and so although i am a firm believer in transmitted physical and mental characteristics, i am compelled to believe that this hebraic cast of features is either accidental or is a throw back to some remote ancestor. be that as it may, i reaped a very definite benefit from my jewish physiognomy, in that i had never any difficulty in getting my tiny orders filled at any jewish wholesale house, and if one firm could not supply me i was at once passed on to another who could. here also i may pause for a moment to point out, that during my recent visit to australia and new zealand, i was always sought after and made much of by the jewish community, which is very highly respected and powerful in those distant colonies. and when i laughingly used to disclaim any tribal connection they invariably assured me that it really did not matter, because even if i was a true goy or gentile, i had so many traits in common with the best of israel that i might well be accepted as one of the sephardim.
well, this digression is merely to show how, in those feeble attempts at trade, i was curiously helped and interested in this strange by-way. but undoubtedly had i been a true son of israel i should have become a successful merchant, for i had every encouragement to launch out except capital—and i now think that even that essential might have been forthcoming had i chosen to seek it. i did not, but contented myself with endeavouring to fill such small orders for bags, workboxes, christening sets, clocks, cheap watches and chains, etc., as came my way, gaining in the process[pg 74] a great amount of insight into the workings of business of a certain kind.
one curious discovery i made which was of great service to me on several occasions. (i hope the term "great" will be understood as relative to my small affairs, in which shillings loomed as important as hundreds of pounds to some people, and where a penny tram or bus ride often meant a considerable shortage in a meal.) of course i was not very long ashore before i became familiar with the working of the poor man's bank, the much abused pawnbroker. many a time in dire distress through sickness or some other sudden strain i have blessed the means whereby a temporary loan could be effected without straining the resources of a friend, or risking a rebuff from some one i thought friendly. it is commonly supposed among people comfortably off that only drunkards and shiftless people support pawnbrokers. ah, well, a great many other suppositions of a similar kind are made by those who do not know, but i can assure them that were it not for the pawnbroker pauperism would be much greater than it is.
i go farther and declare that it preserves the borrower's self-respect, in that he need not cringe to those who may be temporarily better off than he is, as long as he has any portable property that a pawnbroker will look at, while the possession of such articles proves that he has had foresight and been thrifty when it was possible for him to be so. better means might doubtless be devised for the assistance of the temporarily embarrassed worker without robbing him of his self-respect, but until they are, it is cruel as well as foolish to slander the pawnbroker.
and now for the curious discovery. on one occasion i had purchased a watch and chain for a customer, and had borrowed some money to make up what i lacked of the price of the articles. my customer had a misfortune which prevented him from keeping his bargain, and in consequence i was left with the goods on my hands, and no means of repaying the loan. in my extremity i turned to a pawnbroker of my acquaintance and asked him to lend me as much as he could upon the watch and chain. he asked me if i was likely to redeem them, and i frankly answered no. thereupon he lent me within a couple of shillings of the price i had paid for them, and as i soon afterwards sold the ticket for five shillings, i made a small profit on the transaction.
but this side line i could not feel was legitimate trade, and so, although i was several times driven to avail myself of this knowledge to meet a sudden emergency, i never attempted to use it except when compelled. another thing, i was never tempted, as i have known traders to be, to pawn goods which, being unpaid for, were really not my own. this was because i had no credit from anyone except from the landlord and the furnishing company, and i found that burden heavy enough in all conscience. but i have known a woman working for a wholesale mantle house, and employing a dozen other women, to make up goods and pawn them to pay her workers, take a portion of the order in and get more material out, and so on in a vicious circle, with what wear and tear of mental and moral fibre no one could possibly guess. no wonder the lunacy rate rises.
and yet when you come to think of it, there is only a quantitative, not a qualitative difference between that poor hunger-bitten woman making ulsters at sixpence each, and some of our motor-driving fur-coated manipulators of stocks and shares who pawn one lot of somebody else's shares to buy a lot for a third party, and pledge the latest purchase to redeem or contango or bedevil something else. yes, there is one great difference, the stock-dealer neither goes hungry nor cold, nor runs much risk of "doing time," because he happens to be caught with ten shillings short at delivery time.
