He has to do the tapping and keep up an industrious
bustle on the housetop during the absence of the slaters. When he
taps for only one or two the thing is child's-play, but when he has
to represent a whole troop, it is then that he earns his money in the
sweat of his brow. Then must he bound from spot to spot,
reduplicate, triplicate, sexduplicate his single personality, and
swell and hasten his blows., until he produce a perfect illusion for
the ear, and you would swear that a crowd of emulous masons were
continuing merrily to roof the house. It must be a strange sight
from an upper window.
I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I was astonished at the
stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, were
all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty
where a man who is paid for an bones work gives half an hour's
consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to
watch for the police during a burglary, and call himself a honest
man. It is not sufficiently recognised that our race detests to
work. If I thought that I should have to work every day of my life
as hard as I am working now, I should be tempted to give up the
struggle.
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