I have known men do hard literary work all
morning, and then undergo quite as much physical fatigue by way of
relief as satisfied this powerful frontiersman for the day. He, at
least, like all the educated class, did so much homage to industry as
to persuade himself he was industrious. But the average mechanic
recognises his idleness with effrontery; he has even, as I am told,
organised it.
I give the story as it was told me, and it was told me for a fact. A
man fell from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought
into hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade,
and replied that he was a TAPPER. No one had ever heard of such a
thing before; the officials were filled with curiosity; they besought
an explanation. It appeared that when a party of slaters were
engaged upon a roof, they would now and then be taken with a fancy
for the public-house. Now a seamstress, for example, might slip away
from her work and no one be the wiser; but if these fellows
adjourned, the tapping of the mallets would cease, and thus the
neighbourhood be advertised of their defection. Hence the career of
the tapper.
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