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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
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1117
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stripped and repapered, and two coats of paint inside and outside the house. New drains were to be put in, and all broken windows and locks and broken plaster repaired. A number of men - usually about half as many as there should have been - would be sent to do the work, and one man was put in charge of the `job'. These sub-foremen or `coddies' knew that if they `made their jobs pay' they would be put in charge of others and be kept on in preference to other men as long as the firm had any work; so they helped Misery to scheme and scamp the work and watched and drove the men under their charge; and these latter poor wretches, knowing that their only chance of retaining their employment was to `tear into it', tore into it like so many maniacs. Instead of cleaning any parts of the woodwork that were greasy or very dirty, they brushed them over with a coat of spirit varnish before painting to make sure that the paint would dry: places where the plaster of the walls was damaged were repaired with what was humorously called `garden cement' - which
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