e 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. 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 when a
man who is paid for an hour's 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 an 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. And the workman early
begins on his career of toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in
the past, and his prospect of holidays in the future is both distant and
uncertain. In the circumstance it would require a high degree of virtue
not to snatch alleviations for the moment.

There were many good talkers on the ship; and I believe good talking of
a certain sort is a common accomplishment among working men. Where books
are comparatively scarce, a greater amount of information will be given
and received by word of mouth; and this tends to produce good talkers,
and, what is no less needful for conversation, good listeners. They
could all tell a story with effect. I am sometimes tempted to think that
the less literary class show always better in nar