At first Mr Rushton demanded ten pounds as a premium, the boy to be bound for five years, no wages the first year, two shillings a week the second, and a rise of one shilling every year for the remainder of the term.

Afterwards, as a special favour--a matter of charity, in fact, as she was a very poor woman--he agreed to accept five pounds.
This sum represented the thrifty savings of years, but the poor woman parted with it willingly in order that the boy should become a skilled workman.

So Bert was apprenticed--bound for five years--to Rushton & Co.
For the first few months his life had been spent in the paint-shop at the yard, a place that was something between a cellar and a stable.
There, surrounded by the poisonous pigments and materials of the trade, the youthful artisan worked, generally alone, cleaning the dirty paint-pots brought in by the workmen from finished 'jobs' outside, and occasionally mixing paint according to the instructions of Mr Hunter, or one of the sub-foremen.
Sometimes he was sent out to carry materials to the places where the men were working--heavy loads of paint or white lead--sometimes pails of whitewash that his slender arms had been too feeble to carry more than a few yards at a time.
Often his fragile, childish figure was seen staggering manfully along, bending beneath the weight of a pair of steps or a heavy plank.
He could manage a good many parcels at once: some in each hand and some tied together with string and slung over his shoulders.

Occasionally, however, there were more than he could carry; then they were put into a handcart which he pushed or dragged after him to the distant jobs.
That first winter the boy's days were chiefly spent in the damp, evil-smelling, stone-flagged paint-shop, without even a fire to warm the clammy atmosphere.
But in all this he had seen no hardship.

With the unconsciousness of boyhood, he worked hard and cheerfully.