During the day’s work he did not even see George Malpas, being paired, in his new labours, with a youth named Joseph Munn, whose face was disfigured by a hare-lip. These two were set to work at some distance from the rest, clearing the sub-soil from a shelf of rock where a culvert of stone would soon be built to carry storm water from the slopes of Callow. Chance had been kind to Abner in the selection of his companion, for it soon appeared that Joe Munn was a black-country boy who had been born in Dulston, and in his early days had even seen Abner himself playing football for Halesby Swifts. He spoke Abner’s own speech, he knew the streets that were familiar to him, and a common knowledge of distant places is a greater bond between men than a common knowledge of their fellows. As far as actual work was concerned Abner might well have had a more satisfactory partner, for, physically, Munn was a typical product of the black-country at its worst, pale of face and lank of limb. He seemed indeed altogether too puny for the work on which they were engaged, and only a congenital consciousness of being born to labour induced him to accept a state that made demands above his strength. Abner would sometimes watch him as he stood panting with the sweat breaking out in beads along the unhealthy skin of his bossed forehead and matting the wisps of his neutral-coloured hair. In the end their partnership resolved itself into one in which Abner did most of the work when the foreman was not there. And he did not grudge this, for he had strength enough for two and so much vigour that he enjoyed the using of it. Munn would lie down in the sun with his chin in his hands, watching Abner at work, talking of famous cup-ties that he had seen, or of the excitements of Dulston Wakes. ‘I don’t know how you ever come to find yourself on a job like this,’ Abner said one day. ‘It was company I wanted,’ Munn explained. ‘Before I come here I was driving a traction injin down in Gloucestershire . . . what they call the Forest of Dean. That was a place, if you like! The other chaps used to go off into Cinderford and leave me alone with the engine up in those woods. Lonely . . .! I went half balmy, straight I did! Yo’d never guess what it was like. I used to start talking to myself for company like. Ever done that, Abner?’ Abner laughed. Of course he had never done that. ‘So I went up to the foreman and says: “Mister, I can’t stick it.” I couldn’t say no more, I couldn’t . . . trembling like a bloody leaf. “What’s up with you now?” he says. “I wants company,” says I. “What you want is a nursemaid,” says he, and gives me my money on the Saturday. Then I comes along here. Strike, if I wasn’t glad to get away from all those trees! And Gunner Eve, he look after me a bit. He’s a good chap, the Gunner, ain’t he, kid?’