Even
Now, He Said, Anxious As He Was, He Had Never The Time To Take Up A
Book.
In consequence of this, I observed him closely; he was
occupied for four or, at the extreme outside, for
Five hours out of
the twenty-four, and then principally in walking; and the remainder
of the day he passed in born idleness, either eating fruit or
standing with his back against a door. 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.
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